(printed p. 144 — Book II)
Two ways can be considered: one by which the founder of this sect separated himself from the Jews; the other by which he departed from Dositheus, who has already been named. The first way is narrated by Rabbi Abraham in the often cited book as follows:
Alexander came into the land of Israel. When Sanballat the Horonite and the other leaders of the Cuthaeans, or Samaritans, heard of his arrival, they approached him and asked him to allow the priests of their family and their relatives to build another sacred temple on Garizim, and likewise to allow all those who had married foreign wives and did not wish to dismiss them to remain. When the king assented to this petition, they built the temple. Then the people of Israel was split into two parts. One followed Simeon the Just and Antigonus his disciple and his assembly, according to what they had received by tradition from Ezra; the other followed Sanballat and his sons-in-law. And so they offered holocausts and sacrifices outside the temple of the Lord, and established decrees and judgments as their heart dictated. In this shrine Manasses, son of Joshua son of Josedec, performed the priestly office. Sadoc was chief with his colleague Baietos. This was the beginning of the heresy. For Sadoc and Baietos separated themselves from their teacher Antigonus and defected to the shrine of Mount Garizim. There they were chief men.
Rabbi Nathan, in his commentary on the book Pirke Aboth, reports the same manner as follows:
[margin: Two ways in which the Sadducean heresy arose; first way.]
(printed p. 145)
Sadoc’s teacher Antigonus, named above, was accustomed to use that maxim in frequent conversations and to impress it upon his disciples. It is found in chapter 1 of Pirke Aboth, and I reviewed it above in the last chapter on the Pharisees: “Do not be like servants who serve some master on the condition that they receive a reward from him.”
For Antigonus meant, and this is otherwise most true, that God is to be loved for his own sake, even if he should give no reward to his worshipers, and that he is to be honored with every worship and obedience. But the wicked disciple corrupted this most beautiful and excellent opinion of his teacher, as if Antigonus had said and taught that no reward would ever be paid by God either for good deeds or for evil deeds. Thus he began to form and construct a new sect; and abandoning the Catholics, he fled to the Samaritans and to Dositheus himself, who was depicted a little earlier.
In what manner he also defected from Dositheus will be understood if I first recall his doctrines.