A sect of the Jews of high priestly origin that first came into prominence by their opposition to the Pharisees, being the party in power when Pharisaism arose in protestation against their policy as tending to the secularisation of the Jewish faith, or the prostitution of it to mere secular ends. They represented the Tory or Conservative party among the Jews, as the Pharisees did the High Church party among us. The antagonism which thus arose on political grounds gradually extended to religious matters. In regard to religion they were the old orthodox party, and acknowledged the obligation of only the written law, and refused to accept tradition at the hands of the Scribes. They denied the immortality of the soul, the separate existence of spirits, and this they did on strictly Old Testament grounds, but this not from any real respect for the authority of Scripture, only as in accord with the main article of their creed, which attached importance only to what bears upon this present life, and which in modern times goes under the name of secularism. They were at bottom a purely political party, and they went out of sight and disappeared from Jewish history with the fall of the Jewish State, only the Pharisaic party surviving in witness of what Judaism is.
The Nuttall Encyclopædia: Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge[1] is a late 19th-century encyclopedia, edited by Rev. James Wood, first published in London in 1900 by Frederick Warne & Co Ltd.
WikipediaEditions were recorded for 1920, 1930, 1938 and 1956 and was still being sold in 1966. Editors included G. Elgie Christ and A. L. Hayden for 1930, Lawrence Hawkins Dawson for 1938 and C. M. Prior for 1956.[2]
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