cheenc03a.pdf

SADDUCEES
stood by the Jews, and certainly they were not credited
with it by their opponents. Such a claim was far more
likely to be made by the Pharisees.
2. From the pelronal name Zadok (pi,?), This is
not much more satisfactory than the other, for it does
not account for the well-attested double d in laddzikirn
(D,~I~X). and berider there is no direct proof of a connection
with Zadok. Three persons of that name have
been suggested: (a) a certain Zadol;, otherwise unknown,
who ir raid to have been with a certain
Boethor, a disciple of Antigonus of Socho ; (b) an
unknown founder of the aristocratic party; (r) Zadok
the oriert in the time of David and Solomon.
o. For the first (di%ipIe of Antigonus) we have ooly
the authority of the Abath di R. NBrhBn, a late compilation,
probably of the ninth century, which carrier
no weight with regard to historical events earlier by lorn
years. It is likely that thir reprerents a Talmudic
tradition, since the Boethurianr are rometimr~ confused
with, and (even in the Tr~flIa) put for the Sadducees.
The story is, in the common Rabbinic manner, due
solely to a desire to account for the supposed origin of
Sadduceirm from the well-known dictum of Antigonus
(Pir8z Adr~h, l3) that we should serve ~ o without d
expectation of reward, which is then raid to have been
perverted by his disciples to mean that there will be no
retribution -after de?ih. Apart from the unhistorical
nature of the story, however, the saying refers quite as
much to rewards in this life as to the future, and, in
any case, accounts only for one side of Sadduceism.
6. The second Zadok (a perion assumed to account
for the name), although supported by Kuenen, may he
dipmissed as purely hypothetical.
c. The least unlikely is the third (Zadok the priest,
temp. David and Solomon). Ezekiel certainly insists
strongly on the 'sons of Zadok' (pi,: as the only
legitimate holders of the priestly office: but his prophecies
were uttered in circumstances wholly different
from those in whjch the Sadducean and Pharisaic
parties became distinguished. In Ezekiel's time Israel
appean ro have been stmk in idolatry, and he depicts
an ideal state of things which for the most part was
never realised. A great gulf is fined between his
time and that of Ezra. Modern Tudairm. a svrtem ,
quite distinct from anything pre-exilic, may be said
to have begun with Ezra, and the people never again
fell into idolatry. The breach of continuity is so
definite that what might be true or desirable in the sixth
century n.c. forms no argument for what was the fact
in the third century. It murt be remembered too that
Ezekiel war himself a priest. A much stronger argument
might be derived from the Hebrew text of Ecclus.
51 r2 [9] (ed. Schechter), 'Give thanks to him who
chose the sons of Zvdok for priest,' if the passage is
genuine, as it probably is. However, there is evidence
that tbas view did not prevail exclusively, for jn I Ch. 24
the sons of lthamar share in the priesthood, and in
later times the priests are designated by the wider term.
'sons of Aaron.' The form of the name is not the
only difficulty : it doer not appear that the Sadducees
ever claimed to be, or were regarded as, sons of Zadok.
Whilst they chiefly belonged to the priestly or aristocratic
caste, that party was in its essence political, and the
name, which denotes a certain set of doctrines, or rather
the negation ofthem, seems to have been applied to them
as a term of reproach by their opponents. That ir to
ray, it was used as a theological, not a political term.
referring not to the origin of a particular family, party,
or caste, but to the special form of supposed heterodoxy
which happened to be characteristic of that party, so
that a man might have been described as a Sadducee
on account of his views, although not neeersarily being
a member of the party-a case which, however, was
unlikely to occur.
3. A third explanation of the name may perhaps be
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hazarded, though with great diffidence. In modem
Persian the word zindi8 is used in the
explanatfO1l, anothsr sense of Manichzan, or, in a general
renre, for infidel. one who does not
believe in theresurrection or in the omniootrnce of God.
It has been adopted in Arabic (rmdip=,'plur aonddc?
and aunodi8a"") with the meaning of infidel, and also
in Armenian (cp Eznik [sth cent.] against heresies.
chap. 2 on the erron of Zoroastrianism]. Mas'i~di (loth
cent.) rays that the name arose in the time of Manes to
denote his teaching. and explains that it is derived from
the Zend, or explanation, of the Averta. The original
Avesta was the truly sacred hook, and a person who
followed only the commentary war called a Zindik, as
one who rejected the word of God to follow worldly
tradition, irreligious. But the term cannot have
originated in thr time of Maner (yd cent. A.D.), for
the 7~nd 'commentary.' whatever view be taken of its
dale, was by then already becoming unintelligible. It
must be much earlier and have acquired the general
sense of infidel very soon. MaindI, indeed, himself
implies that ,&j was used long before in thir sense,
and makes Zoroaster the author not only of the Averta,
but of the Zend and P-nd (super-commentary), parts
of which he says were destroyed by Alexander the
Great.1 Makrizl(~gth cent.), who borrows largely from
Maiildi, eonfurer the Zanadikah with the Samaritans
and Sadducees, and says that they deny the existence
of angels, the resurrection, and the prophets after
Moses, whence it has been suggested that Zan&dikah
is a eormption of Zaddilkim. The reverse may, however,
be the c-. It is quite possible that the Persian
word war used about 200 B.C. in the sense of ' Zoroartrim.
and if so, it might well be applied by opponents
to a party in Judza who sympathised with foreign
ideas, and rejected beliefs which were beginning to be
regarded as distinctively Jewish. It would thus have
been ured at first in a contemptuous sense, and later,
when the original meaning war forgotten, was, in the
well-known Jewish manner, transformed in such a way
as to bear the interpretation of, sons of Zadok ' (pnr'n)
with u suggestion of 'righteous' (u*i).ys). This would
explain the dagherh (for suppressed j) with pathah, and
the 1 for r It may be mentioned, though perhaps ar a
mere coincidence, that eonddi$a is ured for Sadducees
in Arabic translations of the NT. That they did not
hold Zoroastrian views is no objection to this explanation.
In later Jewish literature Epikurus (onlp5r) ir
used for a freethinker, without any idea of his holding
the viewe of Epicurur (see E~rcun~n~s), and in connected,
by a popular etymology, with the root ?ps. In
fact, after the real meaning of the name has been forgotten,
Epikurus becomes in the Talnlud doctrinally
almost the exact representative of the earlier term
Sadducee, the errors chieRy condemned in the 'sect'
being their denial of the resurrection and the rejection
of the oral law. It is very probahle that Sadducee
never had any more definite sense than this.
The beginning of the party naturally can not be
traced. In its political sspect it must have existed
History of actually or potentially ever since there
was a Jewish state, if the view taken
below is correct. Doctrinally too, if
it ir in essence the opposite of the Pharisaic derelopment,
its origin goes back to the first beginnings of a
law which had to be interpreted. The uncertainty of
the evidence and its pucity prevent our assigning any
definite date for the first (Pharisaic) amplification of the
Torah. We may, however, feel sure that the Law-book
of Ezra enlarged the existing documents sufficiently to
meet all the requirements of the time. It murt have
1 The question of the origin of the Zoroastrian writings is
ertremc1y difficult and very little is certain except that the
~ath~. are the
see zoaorrrara~~s~.
a The meaning of 'infidel' would then be due to the later
influence of Chriitianlry and Irl=m.
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