Religious Sects and Classes of People.

Some of the influential groups or parties of the people mentioned in the Gospels were

the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the publicans, and the

Samaritans. Besides these, there were the Essenes and other similar groups, who are not

mentioned in the Bible, but who are thought by some Bible scholars to have been influential

among the people during New Testament times.

The Priests. At the beginning of the history of Israel as a nation Aaron, the brother of

Moses, of the tribe of Levi, was named high priest, and his sons were named priests with

him. After that the priesthood and the high priesthood were hereditary in the family of Aaron.

There came to be so many priests, that in the days of David they were grouped into twentyfour

courses (I Chron. 23:1-10). A priest without special favor might serve in the temple only

a few times in his life, and many who were of the priestly family never had an opportunity to

serve. Apart from their function in the temple, there was doubtless an honor and dignity

attached to priestly lineage. In Old Testament times one consecrated as high priest would

normally serve for life but during the Intertestamental Period the foreign powers exercising

rule began to claim the prerogative of appointing the high priest — of course confining the

appointments to members of the priestly families. During the Maccabean epoch the high

priest had significant political power; and after the Romans seized the country the high priest

continued to exercise great influence, being ex-officio president of the Sanhedrin. Conse-

quently the Roman rulers took to themselves the authority to appoint and to remove high

priests. A high priest might (and many did) lose favor with a Roman ruler so that he would be

displaced by another after serving only a short time.

Mention is frequently made in the Gospels of chief priests who were members of the

Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was comprised of the high priest at the time, any person who had

previously occupied that office, and probably also the heads of the twenty-four courses of

priests.

The Scribes. The scribes as a class probably first appeared during the Babylonian

Exile (Ezra 7:6). At first they were professional writers who made copies of the law for those

who desired them. Since they would naturally soon know more about the law than anyone

else they came in time to be teachers of the law and its interpreters. From among their number

came the lawyers and the professional rabbis. The most learned among them were doctors

of the law. The tradition of elders which was so highly regarded by the Pharisees was composed

largely if not altogether of the interpretations of the law which the learned scribes had

made.

The Pharisees. This group was doubtless the most influential of the religious sects of

the time of Jesus. The roots of some of their practices may be seen in the reforms and the

prayers of Nehemiah (Neh. 13:14), but they had their beginning as a group with the struggles

against the paganizing Greeks in the days of Mattathias and Judas Maccabaeus. At first they

were called Chasidim (Separatists) because of their determination to keep themselves (and

the nation as much as possible) from contaminating foreign influences. During the time of

Jesus their distinguishing characteristic was the great emphasis they put on keeping the law.

By their selfish credit-seeking conformity to legal requirements they sought to bring God

under obligation to themselves. They regarded the interpretations by the scribes (the tradition

of the elders) as equally authoritative with the written Law itself. They looked on themselves

as righteous (and sometimes were so regarded by their fellows) and were highly critical of

others. Those who disregarded their rules and standards were called sinners. They believed in

the existence of angels, in life after death, and in a future resurrection of the unjust and the

just. In general, they were the conservative element of Judaism.

The Sadducees. The Sadducees were opposed to the Pharisees. For the most part,

they were priests who were willing to compromise their Jewish principles for favors from the

foreign rulers. Probably they began to appear as a separate class during the closing years of

the Greek period. They took their name from Zadok, the priest who was faithful to David and

Solomon when Abiather, the other priest, fell away to Adonijah (I Kings 1:32-34). Their

distinguishing doctrines and characteristics were: they denied the existence of angels, the

immortality of the soul, and any idea of a future resurrection. They rejected the “tradition of

the elders” and the so-called oral law, accepting as authoritative only the written Old Testament.

They were severe in their judgment, and were not very popular with the common

people.

The Publicans. When the Romans conquered Judaea and made it a part of the

Empire, they imposed Roman taxes on the people. The publicans were Jews who collected

those taxes for the Romans. Ordinarily, tax collecting was a lucrative employment, because

the collectors paid a stipulated amount to the Romans and took from the people what they

saw fit, or what they could. But the publicans were hated by the people generally because

they were collecting the taxes for the foreign conquerors, and they frequently extorted from

the people more than was due, and consequently were rich. Of course, the publicans did not

pretend to keep the Jewish law with any degree of exactness, and they were usually classed

with the sinners. Jesus was called a friend of the publicans because He was willing to receive

those that came to Him, and to accept the hospitality of those who invited Him into their

homes; but of course He did not condone their extortion.

The Samaritans were a mixed race. They were descended from those Israelites of the

northern kingdom who were left in the country when northern Israel was taken captive by the

Assyrians, and of the foreigners that came to live around the city of Samaria. They worshipped

Yahweh, but in their worship they mingled many heathen ideas. During the Persian

epoch they built a temple on Mt. Gerazim, in which their priests officiated for about 275

years. This temple was destroyed by John Hyrcanus (121 B.C.) and was never rebuilt; but the

Samaritans continued to worship on and around Mt. Gerazim. The Jews despised them

because of the impurity of their race and because of the readiness with which they made

religious compromises with the Greeks and other foreigners. They are still in existence today,

but their number has dwindled to a few hundred. They possess a very ancient manuscript of

the books of Moses, which is of great value in the study of the Old Testament.

The Essenes. Josephus, the historian, and Philo, the philosopher, tell in their writings

of a Jewish sect known as Essenes, who lived during the first century. These people are not

mentioned in the Bible. Some of them lived in groups or quarters to themselves in many of

the cities and villages of the land, but those about whom most has been written lived like

monastics, withdrawn from the world on the west shore of the Dead Sea, supposedly near the

town of Engedi. In some matters the teachings of these people resembled those of the Pharisees,

but they renounced worldly wealth and followed a rigid schedule of holy living. They

did not practice animal sacrifices but sent other gifts to the temple in Jerusalem. The greater

part of them renounced marriage and all activities for pleasure. New members were put

through three years of rigorous trial during which at intervals certain secret knowledge was

imparted to them. In fact, in some respects, they resembled a secret order.

Interest in this group has been revived by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in

1947 and later, which has brought to light a similar group that lived at Qumran, a considerable

distance north of Engedi but also near the Dead Sea. Some scholars maintain that these

were the Essenes, and that Qumran was their place of residence rather than Engedi. But the

customs and teachings of that group differ considerably from those related by Josephus and

Philo. Some scholars have held that John the Baptist came under the influence of these

groups. But evidence for such a view is far from convincing — indeed, to me, some of the

conclusions suggested seem to be arbitrary and unrelated to the evidence offered.