(printed p. 122 — Book II)
Maldonatus said on Matthew 5, and had already said on chapter 2, that the Pharisees arose not long before the times of Christ the Lord.
[margin: Opinions, 1.]
(printed p. 123)
Saint Jerome also plainly affirms this in Isaiah chapter 8, but neither defines the exact time. Drusius, folio 32, says: “There are those who have handed down to memory that the wise men, that is, the חכמים, chacamim, were so called until Alexander Jannaeus, and that while he reigned they first began to be called Pharisees. I remember reading this in a certain Hebrew book which is commonly called the Compendium of Josephus.” Adrichomius, in his Jerusalem, traced their beginning from the time of Jason the false high priest.
But because Maldonatus wished to praise both Josephuses as witnesses for his opinion, it will be necessary to understand that opinion from both in such a way that they already existed in the time of the Maccabees, as I showed above; that is, more than 150 years before the birth of Christ the Lord, during the years in which Jonathan, the most brave brother of the most brave Judas Maccabaeus, gained power among the Jews. For it was shown earlier, against John Drusius, from that same passage of Josephus, that in this man’s time the three Jewish sects existed, although Drusius piles up other passages which nevertheless do not prove this one point. From book 13, chapter 9, I say, came Genebrard’s statement in Chronology, book 2: “Under Jonathan, the order of the Pharisees; likewise the sect of the Sadducees.”
Yet I would think the rise of the Pharisees, though I shall speak of the others below in their own place, somewhat earlier still. First, Josephus does not say that those heresies were then born, but speaks of them as already existing and flourishing:
[margin: Opinions, 2-5. Above, book 1, chapter 3. The most probable view.]
(printed p. 124)
“Around this time,” that is, Jonathan’s, “there were three Jewish heresies.” Second, that the Pharisees are older than the Sadducees will be clear below from the author of the latter and from their secession from the former. But at that time of Jonathan the Sadducees existed.
Third, from the history it is plain that in the time of John Hyrcanus the number and authority of the Pharisees was already very great; hence that controversy of Drusius, concerning which above and again below. Therefore that sect must already have stood for several more years than those which passed between Jonathan and that Hyrcanus. These years are twenty-four. For in so short a time could so new and so remarkable a sect conveniently have gathered so great a multitude and authority?
Fourth, the times of Jonathan and of the Simon who followed him were almost always very full of tumults and wars. In such conditions it is much if institutions already existing are preserved; new ones are not instituted. Finally, from the very author of the Pharisees, to whom I now hasten, this matter too will receive support.