Judas the Galilean and the Sects

Now Quirinius, a Roman senator who had passed through the other magistracies until he became consul, and a man of great standing in other respects as well, came at this time into Syria with a few others. He had been sent by Caesar to be judge of that nation and to take a census of their property. Coponius, a man of equestrian rank, was sent along with him to have supreme authority over the Jews. Quirinius also came himself into Judea, which had now been added to the province of Syria, to take a census of their property and to sell off Archelaus’s estate. At first the Jews took the report of a registration very badly; yet they gave up any further resistance to it, persuaded by Joazar, the son of Boethus, who was high priest. So, won over by Joazar’s words, they gave an account of their property without any dispute. Yet there was a certain Judas, a Gaulonite from a city called Gamala, who took with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, and threw himself into stirring them up to revolt. Both of them said that this census was nothing better than the beginning of slavery, and urged the nation to claim its freedom, telling them that if they succeeded, they would have laid the foundation of their prosperity, with their property secure; and if they failed to win that good, they would still gain honor and glory for their greatness of spirit. They also said that the Deity would eagerly help them to success only by working along with their own plans, and all the more if they set their hearts on great things and did not shrink from the labor these required. So people received what they said with pleasure, and this bold attempt grew to a great height. Every kind of misfortune sprang from these men, and the nation was infected with this teaching to an incredible degree. One violent war after another came upon us, and we lost the friends who used to lighten our troubles. There were also very great robberies and murders of our leading men. This was done on the pretext of the public good, but in reality in the hope of gain for themselves. From this arose uprisings, and from them murders, which sometimes fell on their own people (through the madness of these men toward one another and toward themselves, in their craving not to be outdone by their rivals) and sometimes on their enemies. A famine also came upon us that went to the last extreme of shamelessness, and cities were captured and razed; and at last the uprising rose so high that the very temple of God was burned down by the enemy’s fire. So it is that innovation and change in the customs of our fathers weigh heavily toward the ruin of those who join in them. For Judas and Sadduc, who stirred up a fourth philosophical sect among us and had a great many followers in it, filled our state with turmoil at the time, and laid the foundations of our later miseries by this system of philosophy, which we had not known before. I will say a little about it, all the more because the infection that spread from it among the young, who were zealous for it, brought the nation to destruction. [a]

From very ancient times the Jews had three philosophical sects of their own: the sect of the Essenes, the sect of the Sadducees, and, the third body of opinion, that of those called Pharisees. Although I have already spoken of these sects in the second book of the Jewish War, I will touch on them a little now. [h] The Pharisees live simply and despise luxury in food. They follow the lead of what their teaching has judged good and handed down to them, and they think it worth fighting for to keep what it has chosen to prescribe. They also show respect to those who are older, and are not so bold as to contradict them in anything they have introduced. And while they hold that all things are done by fate, they do not take away from people the freedom to act as they see fit; for their idea is that it has pleased God to make a blending, by which what he wills is done, and yet in such a way that the human will can act virtuously or wickedly. They also believe that souls have an immortal power in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as people have lived virtuously or wickedly in this life: the wicked are to be held in an everlasting prison, but the virtuous will have power to revive and live again. Because of these teachings they are very persuasive with the mass of the people, and whatever is done about divine worship, prayers and sacrifices is performed according to their direction. So the cities bear great witness to them for their thoroughly virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives and in their speech. [i] But the teaching of the Sadducees is this: that souls die with the bodies. Nor do they observe anything besides what the law commands them; for they think it a mark of virtue to dispute with the teachers of philosophy they frequent. This teaching is accepted by only a few, yet by men of the highest rank. But they can do almost nothing on their own; for when they become officials, as they are sometimes compelled to be against their will, they give themselves over to the ideas of the Pharisees, because otherwise the people would not put up with them. The teaching of the Essenes is this: that all things are best left to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and hold that the rewards of righteousness are to be striven for earnestly. When they send their offerings to the temple, they perform their sacrifices with a different set of purifications that they hold to; and for this reason they are barred from the common court of the temple and offer their sacrifices by themselves. Otherwise they are the best of men in their way of life, and they devote themselves entirely to farming. One thing in them deserves admiration above all others who lay claim to virtue, because it has never been found among any Greeks or barbarians, not even for a short time, while among them it has been practiced from of old without hindrance: they hold their property in common, and a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than one who has nothing at all. There are more than four thousand men who live this way. They neither marry wives nor seek to own slaves, thinking that slaves lead men to injustice and wives give occasion for quarrels; but living by themselves, they serve one another. They elect good men to receive their income and whatever the land produces, and priests to prepare their bread and their food. Their way of life differs in nothing from, and most closely resembles, that of the Dacians who are called Polistae. [j] Of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the founder. These men agree with the ideas of the Pharisees in everything else, but they have an unbreakable attachment to freedom, for they hold God alone to be their Leader and Master. They think little of undergoing the most unusual kinds of death, and the punishment of their relatives and friends, if only they need not call any man master. And since this unshakable resolve of theirs is well known to a great many, I will say nothing more about it. Nor am I afraid that anything I have said of them will be disbelieved; rather I fear that what I have said falls short of the resolve they show when they undergo pain. It was in the time of Gessius Florus, who was our procurator, that the nation began to go mad with this disease; by his abuse of his authority he drove the Jews wild with it and made them revolt from the Romans. These, then, are the sects of Jewish philosophy. [n]