The Zealots
A.D. 64-66. A fourth school was founded by Judas the Galilæan.[1] While they agree in all other respects with the Pharisees, its disciples have an ineradicable[2] passion for liberty, and take God for their only leader and lord. In their determination to call no man lord, they make light of enduring death in all manner of forms, and of penalties inflicted on their kinsmen and friends. Since, however, most of my readers have witnessed their unflinching endurance under such tortures, I need not dwell further upon it. My fear is not that anything which I might say of them will be thought incredible, but, on the contrary, that the narrative may fail to do justice to the fortitude with which they meet the agony of pain. It was the madness of this party which was the beginning of the afflictions of our nation, when Gessius Florus, the governor, by wanton abuse of his authority, drove them in desperation into revolt from Rome.[3]
Such are the various schools of Jewish philosophy.—Ant. XVIII. 1. 2-6 (11-25). 135-105 B.C. (56) Why John Hyrcanus went over from the Pharisees to the Sadducees
John Hyrcanus I was the son and successor, in the offices of high
priest and prince, of Simon the Maccabee.
These successes of Hyrcanus, however, aroused the
envy of the Jews. His bitterest enemies were the
Pharisees, one of the Jewish sects, as we have already
stated, whose influence with the populace is such that a
word from them against king or high priest meets with
instant belief.
