four grades;[350] and so far are the junior members inferior to the
seniors, that the latter, if but touched by the former, bathe
themselves, as though they had been polluted by contact with an alien.
They live to a great age—most of them to upwards of a century—in
consequence, I imagine, of the simplicity of, and their moderation in,
their diet.[351] They make light of danger, and conquer pain by their
resolute will; death, if it come with honour, they consider better than
immortality. The war with the Romans tried their souls through and
through by every variety of test. Racked and twisted, burnt and broken,
and made to pass through every instrument of torture, to induce them to
blaspheme their lawgiver or to eat some forbidden thing, they refused to
yield to either demand, nor ever once did they cringe to their
tormentors or shed a tear. Smiling in their agonies, and with gentle
derision of the ministers of their tortures, they cheerfully resigned
their souls, confident that they would receive them back again.
Their Belief in the Immortality of the Soul
For it is a fixed belief of theirs that bodies are corruptible, and the
matter of which they are made has no permanence, but that souls continue
for ever immortal. Emanating from the finest ether, these souls become
entangled, as it were, in the prison-house of the body, to which they
are dragged down by some magical[352] spell; but when once they are
released from the bonds of the flesh, then, as though liberated from a
long servitude, they rejoice and are borne aloft. For the good souls—and
here they are of the same mind as the sons of Greece—they maintain that
there is reserved a habitation beyond the ocean, in a place which is not
oppressed by rain or snow or heat, but is refreshed by the ever-gentle
breath of the west wind coming in from ocean; while to the base they
allot a murky and tempestuous dungeon, big with never-ending
punishments.
The Greeks, I imagine, had the same conception when they set apart the
Islands of the Blessed for their brave men, whom they call heroes and
demigods, and the Region of the Impious for the souls of the wicked down
in Hades, where, as their mythologists tell, certain persons are
undergoing punishment, such as Sisyphus, Tantalus, Ixion, and
Tityus.[353] Their aim was first to establish the premiss that souls are
immortal, and secondly to promote virtue and to deter from vice; for the
good are made better in their lifetime by the hope of being rewarded
even after death, and the impetuous passions of the wicked are
restrained by fear and the expectation that, even though they escape
detection while alive, they will undergo never-ending punishment after
their decease.
Through these theological views of theirs concerning the soul the
Essenes irresistibly attract all who have once tasted their philosophy.
Essene Prophets
There are some among them who profess to foretell the future, being
versed from their early years in holy books, various[354] forms of
purification and apophthegms of prophets; and seldom, if ever, do they
err in their predictions.[355]
Essene Schismatics who Allow Marriage
There is yet another order of Essenes, who, while at one with the rest
in their mode of life, customs and regulations, differ from them in
their views on marriage. They think that those who decline to marry cut
off the chief function of life—that of transmitting it—and furthermore
that, were all to adopt the same view, the whole race would very quickly
die out. They give their wives, however, a three years’ probation, and
only marry them after they have thrice undergone purification, in proof
of fecundity. They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy, thus
showing that their motive in marrying is not self-indulgence but the
procreation of children. In the bath the women wear a dress, the men a
loin-cloth. Such are the usages of this order.
The Pharisees and Sadducees
Of the two first-named schools, the Pharisees have the reputation of
being the most accurate expositors of the laws, and owe to this[356]
their position as the leading sect. They attribute everything to Fate
and God; yet they admit that to act rightly or otherwise rests for the
most part with men, though in each action Fate is an auxiliary.[357]
Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good
alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer
eternal punishment.
The Sadducees, the second of the orders, do away with Fate altogether,
and remove God beyond, not merely the commission, but the very sight, of
evil. They maintain that good and evil lie open to men’s choice and that
it rests with every man’s will whether he embraces the one or the other.
As for the permanence of the soul, penalties in the underworld[358] and
rewards, they will have none of them.
The Pharisees are affectionate to each other, and cultivate harmonious
relations with the community. The Sadducees, even to one another, are
rather boorish in their behaviour, and in their intercourse with their
fellows are as harsh as with aliens.
Such is what I have to say on the Jewish philosophical schools.—_B.J._
II. 8. 2-14 (119-166).
Footnote 329:
Or “solemnity” or “sanctity.”
Footnote 330:
Or “of the affairs of the community.”
Footnote 331:
Text doubtful.
Footnote 332:
Lit. “with fear.”
Footnote 333:
Lit. “towards the deity.”
Footnote 334:
Most MSS “his breakfast.”
Footnote 335:
Other MSS “sustenance.”
Footnote 336:
Or “when they ask an alms.”
Footnote 337:
Or “display”; lit. “just stewards” or “dispensers.”
Footnote 338:
Or “leaders in.”
Footnote 339:
MSS “the person who.”
Footnote 340:
Or “roots that act as charms.”
Footnote 341:
_i. e._ probably, charms or amulets.
Footnote 342:
On this paragraph see Lightfoot, _Colossians_, 8 p. 89 f. note.
Lightfoot, connecting the passage with _Ant._ VIII. 2. 5, § (6) above,
regards the “writings” as Solomonian books and the Essenes as
primarily dealers in charms, rather than physicians.
Footnote 343:
The inconsistency of this with the attitude of the sect towards
swearing as recorded in a previous paragraph is remarkable.
Footnote 344:
Lit. “the Divinity.”
Footnote 345:
Cf. Rom. xiii. 1.
Footnote 346:
Or “detected in.”
Footnote 347:
Usual meaning “a hoe”; Lightfoot tr. “spade.”
Footnote 348:
See p. 152 above.
Footnote 349:
_i. e._ the sun-god, to whom they pray (see above and cf. Lightfoot,
_Col._, p. 85 note 2).
Footnote 350:
As Lightfoot (_Col._ 363, note) points out, the passage must be read
in connexion with the account of the admission to the order (above). A
comparison shows that the two year period there mentioned comprises
“the period spent in the second and third grades, each extending over
a year. After passing through these three stages in three successive
years, he enters upon the fourth and highest grade, thus becoming a
perfect member.”
Footnote 351:
Or, perhaps, “the simplicity of their mode of life and their regular
habits.”
Footnote 352:
φυσικός here apparently used of the occult laws of nature (v.
Liddell-Scott Lex.).
Footnote 353:
Lit. “the Sisyphuses,” etc.
Footnote 354:
Or “superior,” “special.”
Footnote 355:
For these Essene fortune-tellers, see Lightfoot, _Col._ 89, note 1
(“We may conjecture that with the Essenes this acquisition was
connected with magic or astrology. At all events it is not treated as
a direct inspiration”), and the instance of Menahem, § (59), below.
Footnote 356:
Meaning a little uncertain.
Footnote 357:
_i. e._ “co-operates.”
Footnote 358:
Gr. “Hades.”
(55) Another Account of the Three Sects—and a Fourth
This account, which follows the story of Quirinius and the revolt of
Judas, § (24), seems to be taken from the special source on which
Josephus draws largely in the last books of the _Antiquities_. The
style is difficult, and the text in places uncertain.
Among the hereditary institutions of the Jews, dating from quite ancient
times, were the three schools of philosophy: the school of the Essenes,
that of the Sadducees, and, thirdly, that of the Pharisees so called.
Although I[359] have spoken about them in the second book of the _Jewish
War_,[360] I will briefly touch on them here.
The Pharisees
The Pharisees practise simplicity of life, and give way to no
self-indulgence. They take as their guiding motive certain traditional
principles which their school[361] has tested and approved, and consider
it a matter of the first importance to observe the doctrines which it
has deliberately dictated. They show respect and deference to those who
have gone before them, nor have they the effrontery to dispute any
proposition which they have introduced.[362] While maintaining that all
events are the work of Fate, they do not deprive man of free-will in his
actions, since (as they hold) it has pleased God that the decision
should rest[363] both with Fate’s council-chamber and with the human
will whether a man takes the side of virtue or of vice. They believe
that souls have immortal power, and that beneath the earth punishments
and awards await those who, during life, have made a practice of vice or
virtue: to the former is assigned everlasting imprisonment, the latter
are granted facilities to live again.[364] By these doctrines they have
gained a very great influence over the masses, and all religious
ceremonies in the matter of prayers[365] and the offering of sacrifices
are performed according to their directions. Such high testimony do the
cities bear to their character, regarding them, both in their manner of
life and in their utterances, as patterns of perfection.
The Sadducees
The Sadducees hold that the soul perishes with the body. They make no
pretence of observing any rules whatever except the laws; indeed, they
count it meritorious to dispute with the doctors of their school. Their
tenets have but few adherents; but these are persons of the highest
reputation. They have hardly any effect on practical life; for whenever
any of their number accept office, they, reluctantly indeed, but of
necessity, become converts to the Pharisaic creed, because otherwise
they would not be tolerated by the masses.
The Essenes
The characteristic of the Essene creed is that all things are left in
God’s hands. They hold that souls are immortal, and that the
rewards[366] of righteousness are a prize worth a battle. Although they
send dedicatory offerings to the Temple, their rites of purification
when sacrificing are peculiar; they are consequently excluded from the
precincts of the national shrine[367] and offer their sacrifices apart.
In other ways they are most estimable men, whose whole energy is devoted
to agriculture. In this particular they deserve more admiration than all
professedly virtuous persons, because a habit which has never prevailed,
even for a while, in any nation, whether Greek or barbarian, has been
with them a long-established and uninterrupted custom. Their goods are
in common, and the rich man enjoys no more of his possessions than he
who owns nothing at all; this rule is followed by a body of men
numbering over four thousand. Marriage and slavery they abjure, the
latter as tending to promote injustice, the former as giving occasion
for discord; they live by themselves and minister to each other’s needs.
They elect good men to act as receivers of their revenues and of the
produce of the soil, and priests as bakers and cooks. Their manner of
life bears the closest resemblance in all points to that of the Dacian
tribe known as the Polistæ.[368]
The Zealots
A fourth school was founded by Judas the Galilæan.[369] While they agree
in all other respects with the Pharisees, its disciples have an
ineradicable[370] passion for liberty, and take God for their only
leader and lord. In their determination to call no man lord, they make
light of enduring death in all manner of forms, and of penalties
inflicted on their kinsmen and friends. Since, however, most of my
readers have witnessed their unflinching endurance under such tortures,
I need not dwell further upon it. My fear is not that anything which I
might say of them will be thought incredible, but, on the contrary, that
the narrative may fail to do justice to the fortitude with which they
meet the agony of pain. It was the madness of this party which was the
beginning of the afflictions of our nation, when [Sidenote: A.D. 64-66.]
Gessius Florus, the governor, by wanton abuse of his authority, drove
them in desperation into revolt from Rome.[371]
Such are the various schools of Jewish philosophy.—_Ant._ XVIII. 1. 2-6
(11-25).
Footnote 359:
Gr. “we.”
Footnote 360:
§ (54).
Footnote 361:
ὁ λόγος. Whiston, “follow the guidance of _reason_”; but ὁ λ. must, it
seems, have the same meaning as in the corresponding opening sentences
in the paragraphs on Sadducees and Essenes, (?) “doctrine” or
“tenets.”
Footnote 362:
Text doubtful.
Footnote 363:
Another reading (κρᾶσιν for κρίσιν), “that there should be a blend
between....”
Footnote 364:
Cf. § (43), p. 124.
Footnote 365:
Or “vows.”
Footnote 366:
Lit. “revenue.”
Footnote 367:
Lit. “the common precincts.” Whiston, “the common court of the
Temple.”
Footnote 368:
πολισταῖς (_i.e._ “Founders” or “Colonisers”), Scaliger’s emendation
of the MS reading πλείστοις; cf. the allusion in Strabo 296 to a
Thracian tribe who live without wives and are called Founders
(κτίσται).
Footnote 369:
Cf. § (24).
Footnote 370:
Perhaps, with a slight transposition of letters, “invincible”
(Bekker).
Footnote 371:
Cf. § (39).
(56) Why John Hyrcanus went over from the Pharisees to the Sadducees
[Sidenote: 135-105 B.C.]
John Hyrcanus I was the son and successor, in the offices of high
priest and prince, of Simon the Maccabee.
These successes of Hyrcanus, however, aroused the envy of the Jews. His
bitterest enemies were the Pharisees, one of the Jewish sects, as we
have already stated, whose influence with the populace is such that a
word from them against king or high priest meets with instant belief.
Hyrcanus had been their disciple and was greatly beloved by them. Having
on one occasion invited them to a banquet and hospitably entertained
them, and seeing them in high good humour, he began to say to them that
they knew how anxious he was to live righteously, and how in all his
actions he strove to please God and them (for the Pharisees are a school
of philosophers); but he besought them, if ever they saw him erring and
deviating from the right way, to bring him back into it and correct him.
His guests declaring that there was no virtue which he lacked, he was
pleased with their commendation.
But one of them, named Eleazar, an ill-natured man who delighted in
faction, remarked, “As you have asked us to tell you the truth and
desire to be righteous, renounce the high priesthood and be content to
be ruler of the people.” And when Hyrcanus enquired of him the reason
why he should lay down the office of high priest, he replied, “Because
we are informed by the elders that your mother was a captive in the
reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.”[372] The story was false, and Hyrcanus
was exasperated with the man, and all the Pharisees were greatly
indignant.
A certain Jonathan,[373] however, an intimate friend of Hyrcanus and a
follower of the sect of the Sadducees (whose doctrines are the reverse
of those of the Pharisees), asserted that Eleazar’s slanderous words had
the unanimous approval of the whole body of Pharisees, and that this
would be manifest if he asked them what punishment he deserved for what
he had said. Hyrcanus, accordingly, asked the Pharisees what penalty
they thought appropriate, expecting to prove[374] by the measure of the
sentence which they pronounced that the libel had not received their
approval. They replied, “Stripes and imprisonment.” The taunt did not
seem to merit capital punishment; the more so as the Pharisees are
naturally lenient in the matter of penalties. Hyrcanus was greatly
incensed at this answer, supposing that the man’s abusive language had
met with their approbation. His exasperation was increased in particular
by Jonathan, who so worked upon him as to induce him to desert the
Pharisees and join the Sadducean party; he also persuaded him to abolish
the practices which the Pharisees had ordained for the people, and to
punish any who observed them. To this cause he and his sons owed their
unpopularity with the multitude.
Of this more hereafter. Here I would merely explain that the Pharisees
had delivered to the people certain customary practices, handed down by
their forefathers and not recorded in the laws of Moses, and for that
reason rejected by the Sadducees, who maintain that only what is written
(in Scripture) should be held binding, and that customs based on
ancestral traditions should not be observed. On these matters the two
parties had great debates and differences. The Sadducees are influential
only with the wealthy and have no following among the populace; the
Pharisees have the masses on their side. But of these two sects and of
the Essenes I have given a precise account in the second book of my
_Jewish (War)_.[375]—_Ant._ XIII. 10. 5 f. (288-298).
Footnote 372:
Cf. § (63), p. 175.
Footnote 373:
Another reading “John.”
Footnote 374:
Or, according to another reading, “to be convinced.”
Footnote 375:
See § (54).
(57) "Conciliate the Pharisees"—Alexander’s dying advice to Alexandra
Alexander Jannæus (of the Hasmonæan dynasty; reigned 104-78 B.C.),
on his last campaign, lies dying during the siege of Ragaba, near
Gerasa on the east of Jordan.
[Sidenote: 78 B.C.]
The Queen, seeing him to be near his end and now past hope of recovery,
wept and lamented for her impending desolation and poured out her grief
for herself and her children. “To whom are you thus leaving me,” so she
spoke to him, “and our children who need others to help them, knowing as
you do the ill-will which the nation bears you?”
Alexander advised her, if she wished to secure both the throne and their
children, to comply with his suggestions. She was to conceal his death
from the soldiers until she had taken the town.[376] She was then to
enter Jerusalem in triumph after her victory and to concede a measure of
authority to the Pharisees; for they would commend her for the honour
paid them and dispose the nation in her favour. The Pharisees, he told
her, had great influence with the Jews (and could use it) to the injury
of any who hated them, or to the advantage of those who were on friendly
terms with them; above all they had the confidence of the common people
in any harsh criticism which they might pronounce on others, even though
prompted by mere malice; the offence which he himself had given to the
nation arose from his insulting the Pharisees. “Do you accordingly,” he
said, “when you reach Jerusalem, send for such of them as are
factious,[377] display my dead body, and with absolute sincerity allow
them to use me as they will, whether they prefer to do despite to my
corpse by refusing it burial in revenge for all they have suffered from
me, or to gratify their anger by any other form of outrage to it.
Promise them, moreover, that you will take no action in the exercise of
your royal authority without consulting them. If you thus address them,
_I_ shall obtain a more splendid funeral from them than I should have
had from you—for with the power to misuse my dead body they will lack
the will—and _you_ will be secure in your rule.” With this advice to his
wife, he died, having reigned seven and twenty years and lived one and
fifty.[378]
Alexandra took the fortress and, in accordance with her husband’s
suggestions, had a colloquy with the Pharisees, leaving the disposal of
the corpse and of the affairs of the kingdom entirely in their hands,
and so pacified their anger against Alexander and won their good-will
and friendship for herself. The Pharisees then went and harangued the
multitude, rehearsing Alexander’s achievements, and telling them that
they had lost a righteous king; and by their encomiums elicited from the
people such lamentation and dejection on his behalf that they gave him a
more splendid funeral than to any of the kings that had been before him.
Alexander left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, but he bequeathed the
kingdom to Alexandra. Of the sons, Hyrcanus was a weak administrator and
preferred a quiet life; the younger, Aristobulus, was a man of action
and courage. Their mother was beloved of the multitude because she
appeared to take her husband’s errors to heart.
Hyrcanus she appointed high priest, because he was the elder, but still
more on account of his temperamental inaction. She allowed the Pharisees
complete freedom, and ordered the people to obey their behests. She also
reinstated the customs which the Pharisees had introduced in accordance
with ancestral tradition and her father-in-law, Hyrcanus, had
abrogated.[379] She was thus nominally Queen, but the real power was in
the hands of the Pharisees.—_Ant._ XIII. 15. 5-16. 2 (399-409)
Footnote 376:
Ragaba.
Footnote 377:
Conj. Niese; MSS “send for their soldiers.”
Footnote 378:
Another reading, “fifty years save one.”
Footnote 379:
Cf. § (56).
(58) How the Pharisees rose to Power under Queen Alexandra
A supplement to the final paragraph in the preceding section.
[Sidenote: 78-69 B.C.]
Beside Alexandra, and growing as she grew,[380] arose the Pharisees, a
body of Jews with the reputation of excelling the rest of their nation
in the observances of religion, and as exact exponents of the laws. To
them, being herself devoutly religious, she listened with too great
deference; while they, gradually taking advantage of an ingenuous woman,
became at length the real administrators of the state, at liberty to
banish and to recall, to loose and to bind, whom they would. In short,
the enjoyments of royal authority were theirs; its expenses and burthens
fell to Alexandra. She proved, however, to be a wonderful administrator
of large affairs of state, and, by continual additions to her levies,
doubled her (home) army, besides collecting a considerable body of
foreign troops; so that she not only strengthened her own nation, but
became a formidable foe to foreign potentates. Thus she ruled the
nation, and the Pharisees ruled her.—_B.J._ I. 5. 2 (110-112).
Footnote 380:
Reading αὐτῆς; lit. “grew up beside into her power” (like suckers
round a tree). With the reading αὐτῇ, “Beside A. there rose to
power....”
(59) Herod the Great exempts Pharisees and Essenes from the Oath of
Allegiance. The Essene Prophet Menahem
[Sidenote: _c._ 37 B.C.]
Most of Herod’s subjects, either from obsequiousness or fear, yielded to
his demands;[381] those who showed a bolder front and took offence at
the compulsory order, he found one means or other of putting out of the
way. He endeavoured to persuade Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas and most
of their disciples to take the oath with the rest; but they refused, and
the respect in which Pollio was held secured them from sharing the
penalty of the other objectors.
Exemption from this order was further extended to the Essæans,[382] as
we call one of our sects, who resemble in their manner of life the
Grecian school of Pythagoras. Elsewhere I shall give a more detailed
account of them;[383] here the reason may be told why Herod held them in
such honour and esteem as possessed of supernatural powers. The
narrative, while illustrating the high opinion which this class enjoyed,
will not be out of place in an historical work.