Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Jewish Sects.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter LIV.—Jewish
Sects.
“For when the rising of Christ was at hand
for the abolition of sacrifices, and for the bestowal of the grace of
baptism, the enemy, understanding from the predictions that the time
was at hand, wrought various schisms among the people, that, if haply
it might be possible to abolish the former sin,583
the latter fault might be incorrigible. The first schism,
therefore, was that of those who were called Sadducees, which took
their rise almost in the time of John. These, as more righteous
than others, began to separate themselves from the assembly of the
people, and to deny the resurrection of the dead,584
and to assert that by an argument of
infidelity, saying that it was unworthy that God should be worshipped,
as it were, under the promise of a reward. The first author of
this opinion was Dositheus;585
| 585 [Comp. book ii.
8–11 and Homily II. 24. The writer here confuses the later
Dositheus with an earlier teacher, whose disciple Zadok was the founder
of the sect of the Sadduccees.—R.] | the second was
Simon. Another schism is that of the Samaritans; for
they deny the resurrection of
the dead, and assert that God is not to be worshipped in Jerusalem, but
on Mount Gerizim. They indeed rightly, from the predictions of
Moses, expect the one true Prophet; but by the wickedness of Dositheus
they were hindered from believing that Jesus is He whom they were
expecting. The scribes also, and Pharisees, are led away into
another schism; but these, being baptized by John, and holding the word
of truth received from the tradition of Moses as the key of the kingdom
of heaven, have hid it from the hearing of the people.586
Yea, some even of the disciples of
John, who seemed to be great ones, have separated themselves from the
people, and proclaimed their own master as the Christ. But all
these schisms have been prepared, that by means of them the faith of
Christ and baptism might be hindered.”
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
