John Henry Arthur Hart

“ Later Sadducees, who actually bore the name, resisted this and all the characteristics of the Pharisees and continued to flatter the predominant foreigner—Greek or Roman—by imitating him with less reckless bravado than the first Hellenizers and with growing assurance. They were men of the world, and men of this world, and, so far as they still professed and practised Judaism, they preferred to repudiate the additions for which they felt no need, but which had entered into the faith of their fathers. ”

“ The Sadducees do away with Destiny altogether and set God beyond the possibility of punishing or supervising men. They assert that man is free to choose good or evil since both are set before him, and that he receives good or evil according to his choice. ”

“ In contrast with the mutual friendliness and loyalty of the Pharisees, their behaviour towards one another is lacking in courtes, and when they mix with their fellow-countrymen, they are as offhanded as if their fellows were aliens. ”

“ John Hyrcanus I., high priest of the Jews from 135 to 105 B.C., was the youngest son of Simon Maccabaeus. In 137 B.C. he, along with his brother Judas, commanded the force which repelled the invasion of Judaea led by Cendebeus, the general of Antiochus VII. Sidetes. ”

“ In 129 he accompanied Antiochus as a vassal prince on his ill-fated Parthian expedition; returning, however, to Judaea before winter, he escaped the final disaster. By the judicious mission of an embassy to Rome he now obtained confirmation of the alliance which his father had previously made with the growing western power; at the same time he availed himself of the weakened state of the Syrian monarchy under Demetrius II. to overrun Samaria, and also to invade Idumaea, which he completely subdued, compelling its inhabitants to receive circumcision and accept the Jewish faith. ”

“ They were also concerned to insist upon the strict observance of the Law, so far as it was compatible with the exigencies of ordinary life, and to train disciples who should set a proper example to the mass of the people. ”

“ But even in the Talmud the reign of Alexandra is described in apocalyptic language such as is commonly applied to the future age, and if allowance be made for the symbolism proper to revelations it is clear that essentially the scribe and the seer have the same purpose and even the same doctrines. ”

“ John Hyrcanus II., high priest from 78 to 40 B.C., was the eldest son of Alexander Jannaeus by his wife Alexandra, and was thus a grandson of the preceding. When his father died in 78, he was by his mother forthwith appointed high priest, and on her death in 69 he claimed the succession to the supreme civil authority also ”