Pharisaism, Its Aim and Its Method

by R. Travers Herford

What gradually resulted was, not a division between the upper classes and the lower, as if all the former went over to Hellenism while all the latter remained faithful to Judaism, but a decline towards Hellenism, on the part of a minority in which all classes were represented. Probably the number of those who went entirely over to Hellenism was only small, compared with the whole Jewish population. But there were many whose hold upon Judaism was more or less weakened; and there were only a few who remained unflinching in their loyalty to the ancestral faith. That this was really the case, is shown by the fact that a special name was applied to those who thus rigidly adhered to the principles and maintained to the fullest extent the practices of Judaism as the religion of Torah. If they had been the majority of the nation they would not have needed or received any special name. These faithful few were the Ḥasidim, the Assideans of the Books of Maccabees. Thus Hellenists and Ḥasidim represented the Extreme Left and the Extreme Right of the Jewish nation, with moderates of various shades in between. The name Ḥasid, which is a common word in Hebrew, indicates a type rather than a party.[1] The use of the word in the Psalms, where most of the instances of its occurrence in the Old Testament are found, does not warrant us, other reasons apart, in assuming that there is a special reference in those passages to the men who became conspicuous under Judas Maccabæus.

The rebellion against Antiochus Epiphanes was, of course, in the main a religious revolt, and, as such, it had the support of all in the nation except the avowed Hellenists. But there was this difference in the motive of the insurgents, that Mattathias and his sons, who started the rebellion, were fighting for political freedom as well as for their religion. The Ḥasidim only fought for their religion. It was dire necessity which turned them from passive resisters into active fighters. They joined Mattathias and his companions because only by fighting could the Torah now be defended, for whose sake hitherto they had been willing to suffer and die. Mattathias rebelled because the royal power was being used to undermine the national religion, and he wished to throw off the royal power. He would not have been content with permission to practise his religion undisturbed. He was as staunch, though not as strict, an adherent of the religion of Torah as any of the Ḥasidim; but he would have the Jews free to serve God, independent of any permission from a foreign ruler.

In the earlier stages of the war the political and the religious motives were too closely blended to be distinguished. But it is to be noted that the Ḥasidim were the first to desire peace (1 Macc. vii. 13). And later on, when the Maccabean princes reaped the fruits of the war in successful sovereignty, they were regarded with increasing ill-will by those to whom the religion of Torah was of supreme importance.

I cannot, of course, attempt to follow in detail the history of the Jewish people under the Maccabean princes. But the significance of the rebellion for my present purpose can be very soon explained.

The result upon the Jewish people generally was to renew its hold upon the religion of Torah. Hellenism for a time was greatly weakened. There was now at the head of the Jewish state a Jewish prince, able to hold his own against foreign powers. The religion of Torah was, nominally at least, the religion of all Jews, from the palace to the cottage; and it should be observed that the special name of the Ḥasidim dropped out of use.

But gradually a divergence appeared, not wholly unlike that which had led to the rebellion. The princes of the Maccabean house naturally looked for their supporters in the great families to whom belonged the chief positions of rank and wealth, especially those connected with the Temple. The religion of Torah was mixed up with politics to a degree which displeased those who did not belong to the governing class. There was, therefore, again a movement towards a stricter interpretation of the Torah and a more thorough-going obedience to its requirements, on the part of a minority on the one side, to correspond with the movement towards what might be called "worldliness" on the part of a minority on the other side. These two extremes had names by which they were distinguished. Those who formed the governing class, the great families and the chief priests, were the Sadducees. Those who maintained the full strictness of the religion of Torah were the Pharisees. They were virtually the Ḥasidim over again, under another name. They were in a minority, when compared with the whole nation; but the sympathy of the people in general was with them as against the Sadducees.

The particular reason why they were called Pharisees (Pherūshim, separated), was that they formed themselves into separate societies pledged to observe certain rules in the matter of meat, drink, clothing, etc., according as these were clean or unclean, allowed or forbidden. They thereby "separated" themselves from such as were less strict, or who at least did not take their pledge as a guarantee of strictness. But it is clear that there was practically nothing new in what the Pharisees did or in the religion they held, except the mere fact of association in pledged companies. The religion which they thus set themselves to realise in its full extent was essentially the religion of Torah as Ezra had moulded it. Successive generations of Sopherim had worked out into fuller detail the implicit contents of the Torah, as changing circumstances called for further interpretation of the original precepts. But there was no breach of continuity between Ezra and the Pharisees, either in principle or even in the means by which that principle was worked out. For there were in every generation the teachers and expounders of the Torah, as there were always those who depended on the guidance of such teachers. The name of the Men of the Great Synagogue had passed out of use, as it was believed that the institution itself came to an end. But the Rabbinical tradition recorded the names of those who successively handed on the teaching in which the meaning of the Torah was unfolded, and its application to new conditions indicated. The line of this descent is through the Pharisees and not through the Sadducees. Not because the Sadducees did not care about the religion of Torah; but because the Pharisees, strange as it may sound, kept the religion of Torah as a living principle, capable of being adapted and needing to be adapted to fresh developments of religious life, while the Sadducees held to the letter of the original scripture, and refused innovations. The practical bearing of this appears in the fact that the Sadducees kept in their own hands, as long as they could, not merely the governing authority, but the judicial power in criminal cases. And the hostility between Pharisees and Sadducees was expressed in a long struggle for the mastery. The Pharisees never obtained permanently the political mastery. But they did gain, for some of their representatives, a place in the Sanhedrin, the great assembly of the leading men of the nation. And, what was more, they did obtain a control over the Temple, to this extent that the ritual there was performed according to the requirements of the Pharisees, the Sadducean priests consenting to this as the condition on which they held their office. It is stated in the Mishnah (Joma iii. 5) that representatives of the Beth-Din, i.e. Pharisees, administered an oath to the High Priest on the day of atonement, saying to him: "'Sir, High Priest, we are the delegates of the Beth-Din, and thou art our delegate and the delegate of the Beth-Din, and we adjure thee, by Him whose name dwells on this house, that thou wilt not alter a thing of all that we have said to thee,' and he departs, weeping, and they depart, weeping." A singular touch, expressive, as it would seem, of mutual distrust.

The Pharisees also succeeded at last in wresting from the Sadducees the power of judicial decision in criminal cases; and the ancient calendar, known as Megillath Taanith, marks the 14th Tammuz (July) as a festival, because on that day the Sadducean penal code was abolished. This same calendar, which is a Pharisaic document, contains several other anti-Sadducean references.

The Pharisees, then, represent that element in the Jewish nation which was most zealous for the religion of Torah, and most thorough-going in the application of its principles. So long as the Sadducees existed, the name Pharisee also remained.