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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
VOL. IX
Pages 665 and 666 - Pharisees
The (unverified) text of the full article in the on-line Jewish Encyclopedia is found here.
 Dilling Exhibit 264 Begins |
[page 665] in the future shall be accordingly” (“Ant.” xviii. 1, §3). This corresponds with the “two ways of the Jewish teaching” (Ab. R. N. xxv.; see DIDACHE). But it was not the immortality of the soul which the Pharisees believed in, as Josephus puts it, but the resurrection of the body as expressed in the liturgy (see RESURRECTION), and this formed part of their Messianic hope (see ESCHATOLOGY).
In contradistinction to the Sadducees, who were satisfied with the political life committed to their own power as the ruling dynasty, the Pharisees represented the views and hopes of the people. The same was the case with regard to the belief in angels and demons. As Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus indicate, the upper classes adhered for a long time to the Biblical view concerning the soul and the hereafter, caring little for the ANGELOLOGY and DEMONOLOGY of the Pharisees. These used them, with the help of the MA’ASEH BERESHIT and MA’ASEH MERKABAH, not only to amplify the Biblical account, but to remove from the Bible anthropomorphisms and similarly obnoxious verbiage concerning the Deity by referring them to angelic and intermediary powers (for instance, Gen. 1.26), and thereby to gradually sublimate and spiritualize the conception of God.
The Pharisees are furthermore described by Josephus as extremely virtuous and sober, and as despising luxuries; and Ab. R. N. v. affirms that they led a life of privation. The
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Nothing could have been more loathsome to the genuine Pharisee than HYPOCRISY. “Whatever good man does he should do it for the glory of God” Sb. ii. 13: Ber. 17a). Nicodemus is blamed for having given of his wealth to the poor in an ostentatious manner (Ket. 66b). An evil action may be justified where the motive is a good one (Ber. 63a). Still, the very air of sanctity surrounding the life of the Pharisees often led to abuses. Alexander Annaeus warned his wife not against the Pharisees, his declared enemies, but against “the chameleon — or Hyena — like hypocrites who act like Zimri and claim the reward of Phinehas” (Sotah 22b).
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The Charge of Hypocracy. |
It is
such types of Pharisees that Jesus had in view when hurling his scathing words
of condemnation against the Pharisees, whom be denounced as “hypocrites,”
calling them “offspring of vipers” (‘hyenas”; see ZEBU’IM);
“whited sepulchers which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of
dead men’s bones”; “blind guides,”
“which stain out the gnat and swallow the camel” (Matt. vi. 2—5, 16;
xii. 34; xv. 14; xxiii. 24, 27, Greek). He himself tells his disciples
to do as the Scribes and “Pharisees who sit on Moses’ seat [see ALMEMAR] bid them do”; but he blames them for not
acting in the right spirit, for wearing large phylacteries and zizit, and for
pretentiousness in many other things (ib. xxiii 2—7). Exactly so are
hypocrites censured in the Midrash (Pes. R. xxii. [ed. Friedmann, p. 111);
wearing tefillin and zizit, they harbor evil intentions in .their breasts.
Otherwise the Pharisees appear as friends of Jesus (Luke vii. 37, xiii. 31) and
of the early Christians (Acts v. 38, xxiii. 9; “Ant.” xx. 9, Sec. 1).
Only in regard to intercourse with the unclean and “unwashed” multitude, with the ‘am ha-arez, the publican, and the sinner, did Jesus differ widely from the Pharisees (Mark ii. 16; Luke v.30, vii. 39. xi. 38, xv. 2, xix. 7). In regard to the main doctrine he fully agreed with them, as the old version (Mark xii. 28—34) still has it. Owing, however, to the hostile attitude taken toward the Pharisaic schools by Pauline Christianity, especially in the time of the emperor Hadrian, “Pharisees” was inserted in the Gospels wherever the high priests and Sadducees or Herodians were originally mentioned as the persecutors of Jesus (see NEW TESTAMENT), and a false impression, which still prevails in Christian circles and among all Christian writers, was created concerning the Pharisees.
It is difficult to state at what time the Pharisees, as a party, arose. Josephus first mentions them in [page 666] connection with Jonathan, the successor of Judas Maccabeus (“Ant.” xiii. 5, §9). Under John Hyrcanus (135—105) they appear as a powerful party opposing the Sadducean proclivities of the king, who had formerly been a disciple of theirs, though the story as told by Josephus is unhistorical
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History of the Pharisees. |
Amidst the bitter struggle which ensued, the Pharisees appeared before Pompey asking him to interfere and restore the old priesthood while abolishing the royalty of the Hasmoneans altogether (“Ant.” xiv. 8, §2). The defilement of the Temple by Pompey was regarded by the Pharisees as a divine punishment of Sadducean misrule (Psalms of Solomon, i., ii., viii. 12—19). After the national independence had been lost, the Pharisees gained in influence while the star of the Sadducees waned. Herod found his chief opponents among the hatter, and so he put the leaders of the Sanhedrin to death while endeavoring by a milder treatment to win the favor of the leaders of the Pharisees, who, though they refused to take the oath of allegiance, were otherwise friendly to him (“Ant.” xiv. 9, §4: xv. 1, §1; 10, §4; l1, §5—6). Only when he provoked their indignation by his heathen proclivities did the Pharisees become his enemies and fall victims (4 B.C.) to his bloodthirstiness (“Ant.” xvii. 2. §4; 6, §§2—4). But the family of Boethus, whom Herod had raised to the high-priesthood, revived the spirit of the Sadducees, and thenceforth the Pharisees again had them as antagonists; still, they no longer possessed their former power, as the people always sided with the Pharisees (“Ant.” xviii. 1. §4). In King Agrippa (41—44) the Pharisees had a supporter and friend, and with the destruction of the Temple the Sadducees disappeared altogether, leaving the regulation of all Jewish affairs in the hands of the Pharisees.
Henceforth Jewish life was regulated by the teachings of the Pharisees; the whole history of Judaism was reconstructed from the Pharisaic point of view, and a new aspect was given to the Sanhedrin of the past. A new chain of tradition supplanted the older, priestly tradition (Abot i. 1). Pharisaism shaped the character of Judaism and the life and thought of the Jew for all the future. True, it gave the Jewish religion a legalistic tendency and made “separatism” its chief characteristic; yet only thus were the pure monotheistic faith, the ethical ideal, and the intellectual and spiritual character of the Jew preserved in time midst of the downfall of the old world and the deluge of barbarism which swept over the medieval world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.
Elbogen. Die
Religionsanschauung der Pharisaer. Berlin1904; Geiger, Urschrift. Breslau 1857; Idem. Sadduceier und
Pharisaer, in Jud. Zeit. 1863; Schurer, Gesch. 3d ed.. ii. 380-419 (where list at the whole literature
is given); Welibausen, Die Pharisaer und Sadducaer, Gottlngen, 1874.
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