[131] Epiphan. l. 1. cap. 14.
[132] ἀπὸ αἱρεσιάρχου Σαδὼκ ὀνομάζεται. Theophylact.
This Sadoc lived under Antigonus Sochæus, who succeeded Simeon the Just. He was Antigonus his scholar, and by him brought up in the Doctrine of the Pharisees, but afterwards fell from him, and broacht the heresie of the Sadduces; which heresie, because it had much affinity with that which the Heretique Dositheus taught, hence are the Sadduces said to[133] be a branch or skirt of the Dositheans, though in truth Dositheus lived not till[134] after Christ; and although these two heresies did agree in many things; yet in a main point they differed.[135] Dositheus believed the Resurrection, the Sadduces denyed it; and by consequence the Dositheans believed all other points necessarily flowing from this.
[133] Epiph. hæres. 14. It. Tertul. de præscript. c. 5.
[134] Origen. contra Celsum. l. 2.
[135] Epiph. hæres. 13.
The occasion of this heresie was this.[136] When Antigonus taught, that we must not serve God as servants serve their Masters, for hope of reward, his scholars Sadoc and Baithus understood him, as if he had utterly denied all future rewards or recompence attending a godly life, and thence framed their heresie, denying the resurrection, the world to come, Angels, Spirits, &c.
[136] Aboth. cap. 1.
Their Dogmata, Canons, or Constitutions, were, 1. They rejected[137] the Prophets, & all other Scripture save only the five books of Moses. Therefore our Saviour when he would confute their errour, concerning the resurrection of the dead, he proves it not out of the Prophets, but out of Exod. 3. 6. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, Mat. 22. 32.
[137] Joseph. Antiq. lib. 13. c. 18.