Caraites

CARAITES, a sort of Sect among the Jews. This name comes from the Hebrew, Caraï, or Caraim¹, which signifies persons consummate in the study of Scripture, and adhering closely to the Text and Letter of Scripture. This is the distinguishing mark of the Caraïtes. They are opposite to the Rabbinists in this particularly, that whereas the Rabbinists admit of all the Traditions of the Ancients, the Caraïtes strictly keep to the Text and Letter of the Scriptures, and do not easily receive what others would pass upon them for Traditions, till they have first carefully examined them, and are well assured, that they are really transmitted from the Ancients, and contain nothing contrary to the Text and Spirit of Scripture².

The Caraïtes are said to glory in a descent from Esdras, and to prove the Succession of their Churches by an exact Catalogue of all those persons, who have either taught, or contended against Caraïsm. There are some who boast of a still greater Antiquity ; Antiquity; for they who live at present in Poland and Lithuania, pretend to be descended from the ten Tribes, which were led into Captivity by Salmanesèr. The Rabbinists, who always run counter to the Caraïtes, inform us, that the Sect of the Caraïtes was in being at Jerusalem in the time of Alexander the Great; that Jaddus, who was Principal of the Rabbinists performed a miracle in the presence of this Prince, which Ananus and Crescanatus the Chief of the Caraïtes could not do. All this deserves not to be any way regarded. It is believed³, with more probability, that the Caraïtes did not appear till about the eighth Age, or at least that their Sect was then restored by Ananus, when the Talmudists endeavoured to authorize their Traditions, and rank them with the most sacred truths and practices of Religion. At that time there was a good number of the Jews, who were zealous for the Law, that opposed this attempt, and were therefore called Caraïtes, as people adhering only to the Text of Scripture.

The Rabbinists charge the Caraïtes⁴ with the generality of those Errors, that are maintained by the Sadducees; as the denying the Immortality of the Soul, and the Existence of Spirits. But the Caraïtes reject these accusations, and shew the purity of their Faith, and their particular sense of these Articles. There are some very good Caraïte Authors, who may be consulted with advantage, by enquirers into the true meaning of the Scripture; but few of them are printed; for the most part they are in manuscript, and lye concealed in great Libraries. They expect the Messiah, whom with the rest of the Jews, they look upon as a temporal King; they forbid all computation of the years wherein he is to appear. They reject all those books, which are not in the old Canon of the Jews, and require an implicit faith in the Holy Scripture, without permitting to examine, whether any article of the Law be true or false. They have neither Phylacteries, nor Parchments upon the doors of their houses, nor those Frontlets, which the Jews wear upon their fore-heads. They call the rest of the Jews, bridled Asses, when they see them thus in their Synagogues with Parchments on their forehead; the passages, wherein these Phylacteries are mentioned, and which are understood literally by other Jews, they explain figuratively. There are Caraïtes not only at Constantinople, in Syria, Palestine, and beyond the Euphrates; but in Poland also and Lithuania.

Wolfius in his account of the Caraïtes⁵, describes likewise their Original, Progress and Fall, from the Memoirs of Mordecai one of this Sect. Alexander Jannæus King of the Jews having put to death all the Doctors of the Law, and almost all the learned Men of the Nation, occasioned the Schism which divided the Jews. Simeon the Son of Setah, and the Queen’s Brother, having been rescued by his Sister from the King’s fury, fled into Egypt, where he imagined the system of pretended Traditions. At his return to Jerusalem he spread abroad his Visions, and interpreted the Law after his mode, making his boasts of being entrusted with those particular notices of things, which God communicated to Moses. He had many Disciples and Opposers: the latter of these asserted, that all which God spake to Moses was written. This division produced two Sects, that of the Caraïtes, who adhered only to the Text, and that of the Traditionists, who supported the Traditions. Hillel distinguished himself among the latter, and Judah the Son of Sabbaï among the former.

Wolfius places the Scribes and Sadducees mentioned in the Gospel among the Caraïtes; but the Traditionists otherwise called Rabbinists or Pharisees, were the strongest and had the advantage of the Caraïtes. They had sunk intirely in the eighth Century, had they not been supported by some of their Sect, and in particular by Rabbi Anan. In the ninth Century Rabbi Solomon, the Son of Jeruchamı, imitated the zeal of Anan, and attacked Saadias Gaon. The following Ages were not less fortunate to the Caraïtes, and produced several celebrated Writers. Their Sect has become something weaker ever since the fourteenth Century.

Trigland, who printed a Treatise at Delph in 1703. concerning the Caraïtes, explains the original of them in a manner something different from Wolfius. In some short time after the Death of the Prophets, the Jews were divided concerning works of Supererogation; some maintaining that they were necessary, according to the Traditions; others adhering to what is written in the Law; these last gave birth to the Sect of Caraïtes, who value themselves upon their descent from the Prophets Haggai, Zachary, Malachi, and Esdras. One of their principal Authors⁶ says, that after much search he had discovered, that in the time of John Hircanus and Alexander his Son King of the Jews, Rabbi Judah the Son of Thaddai, set up in opposition to Rabbi Simeon the Son of Setach, who endeavoured to introduce a new Law; this Judah therefore is one of the first Authors of the Caraïtes. The Mishnah makes mention of this Sect where it speaks of the Tephilims; which shews their Antiquity.

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