Apologetics Course… Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Zealots, Essenes, The Jewish Sects

By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM

Part 15

In our days of unbridled ecumenism, when togetherness and being “nice” to everyone are more important than truth and orthodoxy, many Catholics take exception to the affirmation that the Jewish people lost their election, and that the Old Covenant has been replaced by the New, to the point of celebrating Jewish holidays and affirming that they do not need to convert to Jesus Christ.
“God’s plans are unchangeable,” they say. “God’s choice is there to stay; who are we to say otherwise,” they say; “The Jews are God’s Chosen People, and this is a fact,” they say.
They forget that God is Lord, and has established a New Covenant in the Blood of His Son. Because either Jesus was the Messias, or He was not. He cannot be for us and not be for the Jews.
Their own sacred history, recorded as it is in the books of the Old Testament, testifies to the fact that God has taken the choice from one and given it to another, because of the one’s infidelity. Cain was the firstborn, but because of Abel’s murder, he was banished and Seth inherited the mission. Esau was the firstborn, but Jacob received the blessing. Saul was the first king of Israel, but David was the one who reigned in God’s name.
Likewise, the Jewish religion was God’s firstborn, but the Catholic Church, founded by Jesus Christ, is God’s Kingdom on earth.
Even in Jesus’ time, there was no unity among the Jews. They did not have a Magisterium, as we have in the Church, a point of reference for doctrinal and moral definitions, but were divided into several sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Zealots, Essenes, Herodians, and, of course, the down-to-earth publicans, who were not a sect properly so-called — they couldn’t be bothered about titles — but were practical-minded Jews who worked for the Romans as tax collectors.
The Herodians were those opportunistic Jews who supported Herod’s claim to the throne of Judah. They were — naturally enough — despised by everyone because Herod was not a Jew, let alone of David’s family. He was an aristocrat from the Medes, and put there by the Romans as a puppet king.
Herodians were morally corrupt, not many in numbers, and were the adulators of the corrupt king who had St. John Baptist murdered and who had the nerve to ask Jesus to make a “little miracle” for him to see, as if our Lord were a street magician. Jesus did not even address a single word to him, but remained silent all the time in his presence. He put into practice His own exhortation at the Sermon of the Mount, when He said, “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not cast your pearls before swine” (Matt. 7:6).
In the parable of the wicked workers of the vineyard, Jesus compared them to the Jews of His time, and prophesied: “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (Matt. 21:43). And it happened, as even the Prophet Malachi had prophesied that a day would come when acceptable sacrifices would be offered to God everywhere in the world by the Gentiles, not the Jews:
“For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1:11).
That was the prophecy about the daily celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as the Early Christians interpreted it. And so do we interpret it.
It is important to know the religious atmosphere of Jesus’ time, so that we may better understand whom He was up against in Judaism. Beginning with the Pharisees, there were those who claimed to be the faithful ones, the “separated ones,” who supposedly followed every minor aspect of the Law of Moses — plus the teachings of their rabbis, making life nearly impossible for the common folks. They added commandment on top of commandment, on every subject matter you could imagine, but they did not observe them themselves!
That is why Jesus publicly called them “hypocrites,” and told the people to follow their instructions, because they did have authority from the “Chair of Moses,” but should not imitate them (Matt. 23:1).
They had placed their rabbinical “oral traditions” on the same level — if not above sometimes — the very Natural Law and the Law of Moses, and Jesus denounced their misguided teachings, since they undermined the very Law they were supposed to observe (Matt. 15:19). They honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him.

Liberation Theology

The Sadducees were a sect of practical-minded aristocratic Jews who held authority over the Temple, opposed the Pharisees’ policies, and held heretical views, such as they did not believe in the existence of angels, in the resurrection, in the immortality of the soul, and life after death. They conveniently accepted only the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, and zeroed their attention on the material wealth they were able to secure from the Temple and their friendship with the authorities.
They were not idolaters; they did not worship the golden calf, but only the gold of the calf. . . . The famous scribes, whom Jesus also publicly condemned (“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” [Matt. 23]) were teachers of the Law, and were divided between following Pharisees and Sadducees, depending on their preferences. Something like the precursors of sola Scriptura, who interpreted the law as they saw fit.
The Zealots were the precursors of liberation theology, who wanted to use fire and sword to expel the Romans from the Holy Land and establish the Kingdom of God by force. Some sources mention St. Simon the Apostle as one of them. The Zealots were the ones responsible for the last war of the Jews, when they opposed the Roman domination and suffered their greatest and final defeat, when Titus’ armies destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem in AD 70.
There were also the Essenes, not mentioned in the Bible, a kind of strict monastic sect, very organized and disciplined. It appears that St. John the Baptist lived with them in the desert prior to his public mission.
The common folks, by and large, were guided by the Pharisees, but they feared their severe procedures and found their traditions difficult to observe.
It is interesting to note that in today’s crisis of faith in the Church, one can find strong similarities with the authoritarian Pharisees, the doctrinally selective Sadducees, the pro-liberation theology zealots, and the adaptable scribes. History repeats itself.
Next article: Jesus’ greatest miracle: His Resurrection.

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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www. RaymonddeSouza.com.)