Jesus, Pharisees, Sadducees & Essenes
The Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes were all Jewish schools or sects with their own ideology concerning religion. Of the three, the Essenes were closest to the ideology and values of Jesus because they believed in love of God, love of virtue and love of one’s fellow man. The other two, the Pharisees and Sadducees, were denounced by Jesus among his followers. In The Gospel of St. Matthew Jesus warns “Take heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Tynan 42). Later he must further explain that he did not warn his followers with regard to the bread of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but of their ideology “Why perceive ye not then, that I spake not unto you of bread, when I said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Then understood they, how that he bade no them beware of the leaven of bread: but of the doctrine of the Pharisees, and of the Sadducees” (Tynan 42).
The Pharisees were a Jewish sect or school that resisted all Greek or other foreign influences which they viewed as a threat to the religious views of their fathers. All religious and state matters were based on their interpretation and standard set by Divine Law. They paid little attention to aristocratic or priestly meddling if it differed from Divine Law. Their religious views were an ethical, spiritual form of Judaism and would eventually become the dominant ideology of the Jewish religion. Yet, when Jesus is denouncing the Pharisees he is speaking of the hypocritical Pharisees, because there were divisions among them. In fact, the God-loving division of the Pharisees appear to be somewhat sympathetic to Jesus in the New Testament, even if they were not sympathetic towards his ideology. In The Gospel of St. Luke it is written that “the Pharisees and scribes despised the counsel of God against themselves, and were not baptized of him” (Tynan 102).
The Pharisee...