The Pharisees (An Essay)
The Pharisees
by
Varo Borja
In this essay I will attempt, in as brief a manner as possible, to define what a Pharisee was, how they came about, and the impact, or legacy they left from the time of Christ until today.
The word “Pharisee” comes from the Hebrew word, Chasidim or “pious ones”. The Pharisees, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, came into being somewhere in the middle of the 3rd century B.C., or right around the time of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epihphanes. Being born in revolt, the Pharisees were no strangers to a type of militaristic doctrine. The Pharisees, as apart from the chief priests, were stringent upholders of the law, written or oral. Many of their “laws” were codified in the Book of Jubilees; an apocryphal book of the Hebrew Bible. During the Seleucid implementation of the pagan rites in the sacred Temple in Jerusalem, the Pharisees were some of the most outspoken opponents to this policy. Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid monarch, had tried to implement a violent process of Hellenization in the region of Judaea. He was supported by the Sadducees (the temple cult that welcomed everything Hellenistic, including philosophy and the building of gymnasia), but resisted bitterly by the Pharisees. Some Pharisees even suffered martyrdom for their convictions. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, some Pharisees were so devout that they let themselves be slaughtered on the Sabbath rather than lift a finger to defend themselves (any type of physical activity was expressly forbidden on the Sabbath).
Christ’s dealings with the Pharisees in the early 1st century A.D. angered this sect to no end and was one of the direct causes of His death. In a quote from the Gospel of Matthew, Christ said "The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten in the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them. And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes. And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues. And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi" (Matt., xxiii, 1-8). Christ made several more scathing rebukes of the Pharisees (as well as the scribes and the Sadducees), calling them a nest of vipers and warning the multitude to “Beware of the leaven of the scribes and the Pharisees”. Extremely conservative as a rule, and haughty in their knowledge of the scriptures and their own “righteousness”, the Pharisees were confounded and deeply embarrassed by the Son of Jesse who called himself the Messiah, and the “Son of David”. Claims like these were reserved for what the Pharisees considered to be the savior of Israel from the Romans. The Pharisees, in their evolutionary process, had become deeply nationalistic and involved intrinsically in the politics of Palestine (Judaea), and sought a temporal solution to the woes of the Jewish nation. They firmly expected the wrath of God to deliver them from the Roman legions and restore the rule of their land to those most worthy to rule it: themselves. However, as opposed to the Zealots (a sect bent on armed rebellion against Rome; Simon Zealotas the disciple of Christ was one of these), the Pharisees had no taste for armed revolt. They much preferred for the hand of God to do it for them. Perhaps this is one reason why Jesus made statements like the quote above, and didn’t add, “beware of the leaven of the Zealots also”.
After the death of Jesus a new trend in the religio-political situation in Palestine came into being, with the Pharisees at the forefront. To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia, “After the conflicts with Rome (A.D. 66-135) Pharisaism became practically synonymous with Judaism. The great Machabean wars had defined Pharisaism: another even more terrible conflict gave it a final ascendancy. The result of both wars was to create from the second century onward, in the bosom of a tenacious race, the type of Judaism known to the western world.” Where the Sadducees had failed, the Pharisees succeeded. The Sadducees had been a totally exclusive class (or caste) of priests, with limited numbers and high (material) standards of entry. The Pharisees had always held the respect of the people for their seeming purity and unquestionable devotion to the law and the prophets, and welcomed any adherents to their doctrine. Also, the Pharisees had been inherently nationalistic in their ideals, and this appealed to the majority of the non-Christian, non-pagan population of Palestine. The Pharisees had always placed the spiritual before the material (in theory), and their belief in a resurrection and the eternal nature of the soul (as contrasted with the Sadducees who believed in neither) appealed strongly to a people who saw themselves in present bondage and gave them something to look forward to in the afterlife.
In conclusion, it would be important to note that some of the most prominent men in the New Testament were Pharisees. Nicodemus (John 3:1), Gamaliel (Acts 5:34), and Paul (Acts 26:5, Phil. 3:5) all were Pharisees, and not in least ashamed of it. Paul stated, according to the Zondervan Bible Pictorial Dictionary, “I am, in the matter of the Law, ‘a Pharisee’ (Phil. 3:5), he did not think of himself as a hypocrite but claims the highest degree of faithfulness to the Law. In similar manner, church leaders might say, ‘We are Pharisees’”. To quote this source again, “Much of modern scholarship, however, has cast the Pharisees in too favorable a light; when one reads our Lord’s heated denunciation of Pharisaism in Matthew, chapter 23, where He specifically lists their sins, one has not only a true but a dark picture of Pharisaism as it was at the time of Christ” (Zondervan Bible Pictorial Dictionary pg. 648). This statement, when compared with the present state of affairs in the modern nation of Israel, is all too true. Almost daily Palestinian men, women, and children are blown to bits or machine gunned down in the name of Jewish nationalism. The seeds for this type of conflict are very old, and the ancient sect of the Pharisees is very near the taproot.
Bibliography
The Zondervan Bible Pictorial Dictionary. Merril C. Tenney, Editor in Chief. Grand Rapids Michigan, 1963.
The Catholic Encyclopedia. Found at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11789b.htm.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible (Revised Version. Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger. New York, Oxford University Press, 1971.
Brainyquotes.com. Found at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ariel_sharon.html
