It may not be improper to obferve, that the Mohammedans are distinguished into two fects, in some measure analogous to the rabbinists" and Karraites among the Jews; namely, the Sonnites and the Shiites. The Sonnites are fo called, because they acknowledge the authority of the Sonna, or collection of traditions concerning the fayings and actions of their prophet, which is a kind of fupplement to the Koran, directing the obfervance of feveral things there omitted, and in name as well as defign anfwering to the Mishna of the Jews.

The Shiites, which name properly fignifies fectaries or adherents in general, but is peculiarly applied to the fect of Ali, reject the Sonna as apocryphal and fabulous. These acknowledge Ali, the fon-in-law of Mohammed, for his true and lawful fucceffor, and even prefer him to Mohammed himself. The Turks are Sonnites; the Perfians Shiites. These two mohammedan fects have as great an antipathy to one another, as any two fects either of Jews or Chriftians. So greatly is Spinoza mistaken, in preferring the order of the mohammedan church to that of the Roman, because no fchifms have arifen in the former fince its birth*.

Vid. Spinoz. Opera pofthuma, p. 613, and Sale's preliminary difcourfe to his tranflation of the Koran. Sect, viii. p. 175, 178. London, 1734.

CHAP

TH

CHA P. X.

Of the PHARISEES.

HE Pharifees derived their name not, as Name fome have fuppofed, from w pharash, expofuit, because they were in the highest reputation for expounding the law; for it appears by the rabbies, there were women Pharifees, to whom that office did not appertain but either, as Godwin apprehends, from w pirresh, in the conjugation pihel; or from D pharas, devifit, partitus eft, which is fometimes written with a, Sin (a). D pherufhim, in the

פרושים

פרישיא pherifhin, or פרישין hebrew dialect; or

pherifhe, according to the Chaldee, fignifies perfons who were feparated from others; which name therefore was affumed by the Pharifees, not because they held feparate affemblies for divine worship, but because they pretended to a more than ordinary fanctity and ftrictnefs in religion. Thus in the Acts of the apostles the Pharifees are faid to be "angibisaтn aigeois," the most exact fect of the jewish religion (b): agreeable to the account Jofephus gives, that this fect was thought " ευσεβέσερον είναι των αλλων Ff3

(a) See Mic. jii. 3. Lam. iv. 4.

to

(b) Acts xxvi. 5.

When

пр

B. I. to be more pious and devout than others, and to interpret the law with greater accuracy. In another place he faith, they valued themselves in their exactnefs in the law, and on their skill in the interpretation of it; and feemed to excel all others in the knowledge and obfervation of the customs of their fathers +.

It is very uncertain when this fect first sprung sprungup; but there is no doubt, its date, as well as that of all other religious fects among the Jews, ought to be fixed later than the death of Malachi, when the spirit of prophecy ceased from Ifrael. We read, indeed, of perfons much of the fame fpirit and temper with the Pharifees in Ifaiah; who faid " ftand by thyself, come not near me; for I am holier than thou (a)." But this only fhows, there were proud hypocrites before the fect of the Pharifees arofe.

I know not upon what authority Godwin makes Antigonus Socheus to be the founder of this fect three hundred years before Chrift. Dr. Lightfoot thinks, that pharifaifm rose up gradually, and was long before it came to the maturity of a fect; but when that was, he does not pretend to determine . It appears by Jufephus, that in the time of John Hyrcanus, the high-prieft, and prince of the Afmonean line, about an hundred and eight years before Christ, the fect was not only formed, but made a confiderable figure. Infomuch that this prince thought it for his intereft to endeayour to ingratiate himself with the Pharifees, and

Jofeph. de bello judaic. lib. 1. cap. v. §. 2. p. 63. Haverc. See also lib. ii. cap. viii. §. 14. p. 166. + Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. ii. 5. 4. p. 830. & in vitâ fuâ, 5.38. p. 18. (a) Ifai. Ixv. 5. Hora hebr. in Matt. iii. 7.

and gain them to his party. For this end he invited the heads of them to an entertainment, and having regaled them, paid them the complement to defire, that if they faw any thing in his administration unacceptable to God, or unjust or injurious to men, they would admonish him of it, and give him their advice and inftructions, how it might be reformed and amended. Whereupon one Eleazar, a four Pharifee, told him, "that if he would approve himself a just man, he must quit the priesthood, and content himself with the civil government." Upon that he was highly provoked, and went over to the Sadducees*. To what a height of popularity and power this fect was grown about eighty years before Chrift, appears from another paffage in Jofephust: When king Alexander Janneus lay on his death-bed, and his wife Alexandra was exceedingly troubled at the ill ftate in which he found fhe and her children would be left, on account of the haEred which he knew the Pharifees bore to her husband and his family; he advised her by al means to carefs the Pharifees, fince that would be the way to fecure her the affection of the bulk of the nation; for there were no fuch friends where they loved, and no fuch enemies where they hated, and whether they spoke true or falfe, good or evil of any perfon, they would be alike believed by the common people. With this view he injoined her, after his death to commit his body to their difpofal; and at the fame time to affure them, that fhe would ever refign Ff 4 herself

*

663.

Jofeph. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. x. §. 5, 6. p. 662.

+ Ubi fupra, cap. xv. §. 5. & cap. xvi. §. 1. p. 675,

herself to their authority and direction: Do this, faid he, and you will not only gain me an honourable funeral, but yourfelf and your children a fecure fettlement in the government. And fo it accordingly happened; his funeral was more fumptuous than any of his predeceffors, and his queen was firmly established in the fupreme adminiftration of the nation.

-According to Bafnage one Ariftobulus, an alexandrian Jew, and a peripatetic philofopher, who flourished about 125 years before Chrift and wrote fome commentaries on the fcripture in the allegorical way, was the author of thofe traditions, by an adherence to which chiefly the Pharifees were diftinguished from other jewifh fects*. But it is by no means probable, fuch an heap of traditions fhould fpring up at once; but rather gradually, and fo according to Lightfoot + did the fect of the Pharisees itfelf, till at length it became the most confider

able of all.

Their distinguishing dogmata may be all, in This tench a manner, referred to their holding the traditions of the elders; which they not only fet upon an equal footing with the written law, but in many cafes explained the former by the latter, quite contrary to its true intent and meaning. And thus "they made the commandment of God of none effect by their traditions (a)." They pretended to derive these from the fame fountain with the written word itfelf; for they fay, that when Mofes waited upon God forty days in the mount, he received from him a double law; one in writing, the other

Bafnage's hiftory of the Jews, book i. chap ix. §. 2.

110. London, 1708.

+ Lightfoot, horæ hebr. ́

Matt. iii. 7. §. iii.

(a) Matt. xv. 6.