PHARISEES, a famous, sect amongst the Jews, who distinguished themselves by their zeal for the traditions of the elders, which they derived from the same fountain with the written word itself; pretending that both were delivered to Moses from Mount Sinai, and were therefore of equal authority. From their rigorous observance of these traditions, they looked upon themselves as more holy than other men; and therefore separated themselves from those whom they thought sinners or profane, so as not to eat or to drink with them. Hence, from the Hebrew word pharic i which signifies to separate, they received the name of Pharisees or Separatists.

This sect was one of the most ancient and considerable amongst the Jews; but its origin is not very well known. However, it was in great repute in the time of our Saviour, and must have had its origin at the same time with the traditions; in fact, they grew together, until at length they had so far gained ground that the traditional law swallowed up the written, and those who were the propagators of it included the bulk of the Jewish nation.

The extraordinary pretences of the Pharisees to righteousness drew after them the common people, who held them in the highest esteem and veneration. Our Saviour, however, frequently charges them with hypocrisy, and with making the law of God of no effect through their traditions.^[1. Matth, ix. 2, XV. 1-6, xxiii. 13-23; and Luke, xi. 39-52. ] Several of these traditions are particularly mentioned in the gospel; but they had a vast number more, which may be seen in the Talmud, the grand object of which is to explain and enforce those which this sect required to be believed and observed.

The Pharisees, contrary to the opinion of the Sadducees, held a resurrection of the dead, and the existence of angels and spirits. But, according to Josephus, this resurrection of theirs was no more than a Pythagorean resurrection, that is, of the soul only, by its transmigration into another body, and being born anew with it; and from this they excluded all who were notoriously wicked, being of opinion that the souls of such persons were consigned to a state of everlasting wo. As to lesser crimes, they held that these were punished in the bodies which the souls of those who committed them were next sent into.

Josephus, however, either mistook the faith of his countrymen, or, which is equally probable, wilfully misrepresented it, in order to render their opinions more respected by the Roman philosophers, whom he appears on every occasion to have been desirous to please. The Pharisees had many pagan notions respecting the soul; but Bishop Bull, in his Harmonia Apostolica, has clearly proved that they held a resurrection of the body, and supposed a certain bone to remain uncorrupted in order to furnish the matter out of which the resurrection of the body was to be effected. They did not, however, believe that all mankind were to be raised from the dead. A resurrection was the privilege of the children of Abraham alone, who were all to rise on Mount Zion; their incorruptible bones, wherever they might be buried, being carried to that mountain below the surface of the earth. The state of future felicity, in which the Pharisees believed, was in fact exceedingly gross. They * imagined, that men in the next world, as well as in the present, were to eat and drink, and enjoy the pleasures of Jove, each being reunited to his former wife. Hence the Sadducee, who believed in no resurrection, and supposed that our Saviour taught it as a Pharisee, shrewdly urged [7:17:341]the difficulty of disposing of the woman who had in this world been the wife of seven husbands. Had the resurrection of Christianity been of the Pharisaical kind, this difficulty would have been insurmountable; and accordingly we find the people, and even some of the Pharisees themselves, struck with the manner in which our Saviour removed it.

This sect appears to have had some confused notions, derived probably from the Chaldaeans and Persians, respecting the pre-existence of souls; and hence it was that Christ’s disciples asked him, concerning the blind man, “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind ?” And when the disciples told Christ, that some said he was Elias, Jeremias, or one of the prophets, the meaning of this can only be, that they thought he had come into the world with the soul of Elias, Jeremias, or some other of the old prophets, transmigrated into him. Like the Essenes, the Pharisees held absolute predestination, and like the Sadducees, free-will; but how they reconciled these incompatible doctrines is nowhere sufficiently explained. The sect of the Pharisees was not extinguished by the ruin of the Jewish commonwealth. The greater part of the modern Jews are still of this sect, and as much devoted to traditions or the oral law as their ancestors ever were.