Sadducees
SADDUCEES (săd'yū-sēz, Gr. Saddoukaioi). One of the religious parties that existed among the Jews in the days of Christ and the early church, but exercised comparatively little influence among the people. They resisted the truth of the gospel. Their origin is uncertain, but it is to be sought in the period in Jewish history between the restoration of the Jews to their own land (536 b.c.) and the Christian era. No evidence of Sadduceeism is to be found in Israel before the Captivity.
The origin of the name of the sect is obscure. The root of the word means “to be righteous,” and the word has sometimes been taken to be an adjective (“the righteous ones”); but since the Sadducees were not particularly distinguished for their righteousness, it is unlikely that they got their name from this word. Probably the name is derived from someone named Zadok. The best-known Zadok in history was the Davidic high priest (2Sam.8.17), from whom succeeding high priests claimed to descend. He himself was descended from Aaron through the line of Eleazar (1Chr.24.3) and was instrumental in the return of the ark (2Sam.15.24-2Sam.15.29). The prophet Ezekiel, in his description of the restored temple, says that because the sons of Zadok remained loyal to the Lord when the Israelites went astray, they would be ministers in the new sanctuary (Ezek.40.46; Ezek.44.15). Some scholars hold that the Sadducees trace their origin to this Zadok. Others, however, think that the name comes from another Zadok, a disciple of Antigonus of Socho (c. 250 b.c.), who taught that obedience to God should be absolutely disinterested, without expectation of future reward. This view goes back to an apocryphal legend in the Abot-de-Rabbi Nathan (c. a.d. 1000). There is also the possibility that the name may be derived from some Zadok unknown to us.
The chief authorities for our knowledge of this sect are the Jewish historian Josephus, the NT, and the Talmud. Josephus lays great stress on the aristocratic nature of the Sadducees. He says, “They only gain the well-to-do; they have not the people on their side.” They were the political party of the Jewish aristocratic priesthood from the time of the Maccabees to the final fall of the Jewish state. The Sadducees were priests, but not all priests were Sadducees. Josephus, for example, was a priest and a Pharisee. The likelihood is that the priestly party only gradually crystallized into the sect of the Sadducees. From the time of the Exile, the priesthood in general constituted the nobility of the Jewish people, and the high priest became an increasingly powerful figure. The priestly aristocracy became leaders in the Hellenizing movement that began with Alexander the Great. Because of their sympathy with the policy of Antiochus Epiphanes, they took no part in the Maccabean struggle, which was supported mainly by the Pharisees, a group of religious enthusiasts who opposed what they regarded as the religious deterioration of the Jewish nation. The high priesthood and the throne were united in a single person when, c. 143 b.c., Simon was recognized as both high priest and ruler of the Jews. This centralization of power led to a number of forms of reaction, especially from the Pharisees. Probably not theological at first, the Sadducees became so in order to defend their policies against the attacks of the Pharisees. Under the Romans they become the party favorable to the government. As aristocrats they were naturally very conservative and were more interested in maintaining the political status quo than in the religious purity of the nation. Since they were satisfied with the present, they did not look forward to a future messianic age. Not popular with the people, they nevertheless sometimes found it necessary to adopt the pharisaic policy in order to win the popular support.