(printed p. 4 — Book I)
Flavius Josephus quite often teaches that there are three sects of the Jews: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. For in book 2, chapter c. 12, he says: “There are three kinds of men among the Jews who philosophize. The adherents of one kind are Pharisees, those of another are Sadducees. The third, which is thought to practice a more solemn way of life, are called Essenes.”
(printed p. 5)
Or, as Rufinus preferred to translate it: “The third, which is also held to be more approved, the Essenes cultivate.” At the beginning of his Life, the same Josephus says: “There are three sects among us: the first of the Pharisees, the second of the Sadducees, and the third of the Essenes.” So also in Antiquities 13.9, 15.13, and 18.2.
Hence Saint Jerome himself says in book 2 against Jovinian: “Josephus, in the second book of the history of the Jewish captivity, in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, and in the two books Against Apion, describes three doctrines of the Jews: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.”
The same triad of these sects is handed down by older writers: Theophylact on Acts 22, who says, “Among the Jews there were three sects in general: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes”; Oecumenius on the same place, who says, “There were three sects among the Jews in general, namely Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes”; Photius in the Bibliotheca; and, before all these, Saint Chrysostom in homily 44 on the Acts of the Apostles. Among more recent writers, and specifically among Catholics, the same is found in Tostatus Abulensis on Matthew 3, question 63, and on Matthew 23, question 12; in Caelius Rhodiginus, book 5, chapter 9; and in others. Among heretics it is found in Philip Melanchthon, book 2 of the Chronicle, and in Illyricus on Acts 4, to omit others for the present.
[margin: Josephus, Jewish War, book 2, ch. 7.]
(printed p. 6)