© 2006 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
The Pharisees, whose name meant “the separated ones” (parûs) or “the holy ones” (qadôs), were the most prominent religious group in Jesus’ time. They were called this because they claimed to be the “remnant chosen by God” for salvation, the true messianic community that on the day of judgment would be the first to be saved. They were not exactly composed of people from the upper stratum, but included all social categories, including mostly uneducated people. However, their relationship with the scribes was very close. All the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin were scribes, and although there could be non-Pharisees, it was not common. That is why Pharisee and scribe were words that in Jesus’ time almost came to mean the same thing.
The Pharisees were grouped in Pharisaic communities (habûrôt), which had a very closed tendency. One could not be a Pharisee if one did not belong to a habûrôt. In Jerusalem alone, at the time of Jesus, there were several of these communities. They had within themselves many public interest goals and charitable works. They were a very important part of Pharisaic thinking, whose basic pillars were: purity, the prescriptions of the law, and good charitable works.
The Pharisee communities in Jerusalem had specific rules for the admission of members, which shows their character as private communities. Before admission there was a probationary period of one month or one year, during which the candidate had to give proof of his ability to observe the ritual prescriptions. After the probationary period was over, the candidate promised to observe the community regulations on purity and tithing; in ancient times this promise was made before a scribe, a member of the community. From then on the Pharisee was a member (haber) of an association (habûrah).
These associations had their leaders and their meetings, which were apparently linked to a common meal, especially on Friday afternoon, at the beginning of the Sabbath. It seems that the Pharisee associations sometimes intervened in public, to offer condolences or on the occasion of joyful events. They had their own internal justice; among other things, they could decide on the expulsion of a member.
Although this was the largest religious group, it was rather small. Its number would have been around 6,000 to 7,000 throughout Palestine.
Because of the confusion that often existed about the concepts of scribe and Pharisee, one was equated with the other, but there are clear differences. Not all scribes are Pharisees. The leaders and influential members of the Pharisee communities were scribes. (Nicodemus was a scribe and a Pharisee, as were the famous Hillel and Gamaliel.) There were also scribes who defended Pharisaic positions without belonging to any habûrah, but they were much fewer than those who did not belong to the Pharisees.
The majority of the members of the habûrôt were not scribes. There were a large number of priests who were Pharisees. There were also members of the clergy who, although not trained as scribes, were Pharisees. The members of the clergy in particular tended to comply with the Pharisaic requirements regarding purity with great scrupulousness. The priests took a large part in the Pharisaic movement, which is explained by the fact that this movement had its focus in the Temple; it attempted to elevate the prescriptions regarding purity that Scripture required the priests to consume the portion reserved for them to the status of a general rule, valid also for non-priests. But these scribes, priests and Levites were only the leading part of the Pharisees. The lay people who joined the Pharisaic communities and undertook to observe the Pharisaic prescriptions regarding tithes and purity were by far the most numerous.
The innumerable prescriptions concerning commercial relations between Pharisees and non-Pharisees give a better insight into the circles that formed the great mass of the Pharisees: merchants, artisans and peasants were part of the habûrah. In short, the Pharisaic communities were composed mainly of small commoners, people of the town without scribal training, serious men and ready to consecrate themselves. But very often they were harsh and proud towards the great mass, the “people of the country” ('ammê ha-'ares), who did not observe the religious prescriptions of the Pharisee scribes as they did; with regard to these people, the Pharisees considered themselves to be the true Israel.
As for the organization of the habûrah, it must be said that they had extraordinary similarities with that of the Essenes, since it is not in vain that both movements were formed at the same time (the Maccabean revolution). Hence the same admission methods as those of the Essenes were used for the Pharisaic communities: an inspecting scribe (archonte for the Pharisees and mabaqqer for the Essenes) was in charge of examining the candidate. The inspector made him aware of the secret legal provisions of the community. The candidate took an oath of entry, was entered into the list of members and passed a two-year trial, at the end of which he was considered a full member. Serious offences were punished with temporary or permanent exclusion.
The Pharisees were concerned with the strict interpretation and observance of the Torah, being at their most radical in applying the precepts in the greatest possible detail. In fact, they held the traditional interpretation of the Torah, the halakah or oral tradition, in as much or even more esteem than the written Torah itself. “It is more guilty to teach against the teachings of the scribes than against the Torah itself,” they said.
They believed in the immortality of the soul and in the existence of a life after death, where the righteous are resurrected in a new material body and the wicked suffer eternal punishment. The resurrection would take place at the end of time, when the messianic kingdom would be established. The performance of good works was, therefore, essential for them to guarantee salvation in the future world. This aspect of the resurrection distanced them from their bitter adversaries, the Sadducees, who denied this doctrine. In the same way, the Pharisees admitted the existence of angels and demons, while the Sadducees did not.
The doctrine of divine providence and destiny also separated the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees believed that good works, destiny and God are necessary for man’s salvation. They held that the first origin of everything is destiny and the will of God, although they admit some importance to the works of man. However, the Sadducees absolutely deny destiny and claim that God gives man free will to decide between good and evil, so that it is human works that cause a favorable or unfortunate destiny.
They considered it essential to separate themselves from and have no contact with people who, acting rashly, contracted ritual impurity due to countless prescriptions derived from the Torah. They tried to associate and live with Pharisees with the same principles, closed in their own communities, avoiding the common people as much as possible. The haber did not enter the houses of the common people, am ha-ares, nor did they accept them as guests, especially because of the impurity (filth) that the clothes of the commoners could harbor.
The origin of this group is in the division that occurred during the Maccabean period. Its name perhaps comes from the fact that they considered themselves the legitimate descendants of Zadok, and therefore with the possibility of occupying the leading positions.
This Sadducee group included, apart from the leading priestly families, the main patrician families of Jerusalem and the lay nobility of the Jewish countryside, whose representatives, together with the priestly aristocracy, formed part of the high council, the Sanhedrin. But this does not mean that all the priests were Sadducees, since there were also a good number of priests who were Pharisees or who simply did not belong to either faction. Basically, the Sadducee priests were the priests belonging to the most distinguished families and constituents of the institutions of power.
The Sadducees occupied a prominent place in Jewish history in the period between the Hasmoneans and the Jewish War. During this period, Judaism was radically transformed by Hellenistic and Babylonian religious influences. The Sadducees’ group was a group of liberal and conservative tendencies: liberal in terms of accepting Hellenistic ways of life, and conservative in terms of preserving the religious status of the temple state founded on law.
The Sadducees were an organized group. Their number of followers was small. They had a tradition (halakah) based on the interpretation of Scripture, a tradition that members were required to follow in their conduct of life. Membership in the Sadducee group, like that of the Pharisees, was limited. Not everyone could belong.
In contrast to the Pharisees, some of their beliefs have already been seen above: they denied life after death, the existence of angels and demons, and providence or destiny, doctrines imported from other religions and which hardly appeared in Jewish writings. Sadducee theology adhered strictly to the text of the Torah or Pentateuch (the law), particularly with regard to the prescriptions relating to worship and the priesthood; it was, therefore, in open opposition to the Pharisees and their oral halakah, which declared the oral prescriptions on purity relating to priests to be obligatory, even for pious lay circles. The Sadducees had recorded this theology in a fully elaborated halakah based on exegesis. They adopted a critical stance towards the acceptance of popular customs in worship, encouraged by the Pharisees, and advocated the sanctification of the Sabbath as opposed to these customs when the day’s festivity fell on a Saturday.
Regarding the issue of purity, they accepted only the prescriptions that emanated directly from the Torah, so their customs were more relaxed, except for the chief priests who were in charge of the celebration of worship, whose scrupulousness in matters of impurity was even greater than that of the Pharisees.
They also rejected the prophetic claims of the circles of the Hasideans and the Essenes. Above all, they condemned the development of apocalypticism and the eschatological ideas linked to it. For them, salvation consisted in the earthly act of purification and becoming part of the people of Israel. For this reason, they never accepted foreign domination, although they were very clever in establishing suitable commercial ties with them.
Their limitation to the Torah and their rejection of reformist tendencies led them to accept only an earthly view of man. They also rejected the Greek theory of the soul and the Persian hope of resurrection. For them there was no afterlife. “It is not in the law,” they said to justify their position. Nevertheless, they saw man as free in his actions and responsible for his acts, which should be governed by the law. Hence they passed severe sentences on offenders, which they applied according to their own penal code. The Pharisees, because of their constant oral reinterpretation of the written law, tried to adapt and soften the sentences. There was a Sadducean court of chief priests, and they passed sentences according to their own law. There were scribes who were Sadducees, although few.
The Essenes (eseos or Essenoi) were a religious sect formed following the split with the Hasideans in the Maccabean period. Their number fluctuated around 4,000, scattered throughout Judea and Galilee. They lived in rural communities, avoiding cities and following a way of life that had already been taught to the Greeks by Pythagoras. Certainly, these curious men had much in common with the Pythagoreans: they were organized in communes, shared land and property, and practiced virtues such as abstinence, modesty, self-discipline, discretion, and strict spiritual and physical purity.
They were a strictly organized group. There were registers with the registration of each member, which were kept in an order valid also for the meetings: priests, Levites, Israelites and proselytes. There are prescriptions that regulate exactly the admission to the community. Only adults could be admitted into the number of those inspected, and the minimum age to enter the congregation was 20 years.
Before entering the Order, the candidate had to undergo a year of probation outside the Order, during which he was to live faithfully to the law, and then a two-year novitiate. During the first year, the novice’s seriousness of purpose was tested and he was instructed in the precepts of the community. During this time he lived, so to speak, on the threshold, according to the rules of the community. He kept his property and could not yet take part in the plenary assemblies or the sacred meals of the community. After this period, if he was deemed worthy of the community, his property passed into the administration of the community, but he was still kept apart from the common property. His abilities and his work already belonged to the community. When the novice was accepted, which took place on the feast of the renewal of the Covenant, he took a solemn oath.
The organization of the community was in accordance with the division of the Jewish camp and army into thousands, hundreds, and tens according to hierarchical criteria. There were four classes. In this organization the priests and Levites played a special role, but there were also ministries for the laity. The order was governed by a commission of twelve lay members and three priests. Each had his own rank and position, which was determined according to his age, knowledge, and efficiency. Among themselves they observed strict composure and rendered complete obedience to their superiors. Any violation against these and against the precepts was severely punished. The community council had judicial powers over its members, and there was a penal law that enumerated what was considered a violation among the members.
They attached great importance to ritual purity, washings and ritual baths, much more than the Pharisees. Baptism was an obligatory rite every year. There were very important ritual purifications, such as the one before meals. For all these rituals, the monasteries had cisterns, baths and water pipes to supply the necessary water.
They had a great community spirit. They all ate together, they had all their property in common, and any profits they obtained became part of the community’s money deposit, which was administered equally among the members. They lived in total austerity and poverty. They always wore the same clothes and shoes, they had no luxuries of any kind, and everything was regulated with the utmost sobriety.
As for their customs, they did not keep slaves with them, they never took oaths except on the day of their admission, they refused to be anointed with oil, they bathed in cold water before each meal and after contracting any impurity, they relieved themselves in secluded places which they then covered so as not to contaminate the dwelling. They did not prohibit marriage but they usually lived celibately.
As regards government, an inspector (mabaqqer), aged over 30 and under 50, was in charge of each camp. It was a scribe who taught the exact meaning of the law, since great importance was given to the knowledge of the scriptures, and to whom one had to go to report any faults committed.
The Essenes call themselves “the converted of Israel,” “the converted of the desert,” or “the men of God’s counsel.” They consider themselves the true remnant of the loyal people of Israel, “the few” who would be saved by God at the end of time.
Their doctrine and their vision of themselves are based on the core of their teachings: everything that happens in the world is foreseen by God. They maintain an eschatological vision of the times. The time when God would reestablish Israel as a light for the nations was near. They believed in the coming of the Messiah and of Elijah. They specialize in doctrines about angels and spirits. The doctrine about the spirit of truth or light and that of injustice or darkness, which reminds us of the Gospel of John, is their work. They also believe that man receives the spirit of God at birth, which after being purified from his stains in this life is renewed by the Holy Spirit of God, converting man into a son of truth and light, and by a third spirit, into a son of heaven equal to the angels. In their doctrine, the biblical figure of Melchizedek, the priest who belonged to the priestly lineage, becomes important.
The Essene communities (yahad) maintain a different Covenant with God than the common Jewish people. It is a Covenant within the community. That is why their most important annual celebration is the feast of the renewal of the Covenant, a feast that was not celebrated in the same way and with the same meaning by the common Jewish people of Jesus’ time. That is why they also have a different calendar, solar and not lunar, and the Essene Jewish festivals always coincided on the same days of the week. With all this they showed their character of opposition to the authorities of the temple of Jerusalem, and their closed and rigid character in the face of popular custom.
This is a Jewish sect with characteristics very similar to the Essenes, so much so that researchers even wonder if they were not the same sect or a variant of the same. Although they must have had communities everywhere, they were especially numerous in Egypt, especially in the vicinity of Lake Mareotis near Alexandria. They lived in a community, but men and women were separated in different areas. Upon entering the order they abandoned their possessions and during the time they remained there they did not do any paid work or occupation, as they dedicated themselves fully to the contemplative life.
The communities were presided over by the oldest member or priest. The hierarchy was based only on the number of years of stay in the order. They lived celibately the entire time they remained there. They also took vows of poverty, having only one dress for summer and another for summer, eating frugally, abstaining from meat and wine, and fasting frequently.
Their regular day consisted of morning prayer facing the sun, a day of Scripture study and prayer, a communal meal in the evening, and a prayer at sunset facing the east. On Saturday the president would conduct worship and deliver a sermon. Their most important festival, like that of the Essenes, was the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost. On this day they ate their sacred food, leavened bread seasoned with salt and hyssop, exceeding in their degree of abstinence even the Jewish priests, who at least on this day did drink wine. Then they sang hymns until nightfall.
The Nazarites were a small brotherhood of men and women consecrated to God. They were held in great respect because they were the only ones allowed access to the holy of holies in the temple, together with the high priest.
They lived in small communities where everything was held in common. To join the order, one had to take a lifelong vow: abstain from all alcoholic beverages and from any fruit of the vine, even if it was not fermented; they had to let their hair grow freely; they did not approach places where the dead had been, nor touch any dead person or anything that had been in contact with a dead person. At that time, it was considered that these three things caused an impurity that prevented one from being completely pure in the presence of God.
The vow could also be for a period of time, at the end of which they would purify themselves for seven days (Num 6:9; Acts 21:27), cut off their hair and burn it, and partake of certain offerings, including unleavened bread and oil. When the vow was fulfilled, they could once again drink wine and eat grapes. Women often took the vow voluntarily for the purpose of making a special request to God, or to dedicate themselves to some special purpose. There are biblical examples of the vow being for life (Judg 13:5). A vow was often made in thanksgiving to God; its purpose was not to replace weakness of character in the sense that someone needed the vow to be aligned with God’s way.
Incidentally, we must not confuse the words Nazirite and Nazarene. The word Nazirite comes from the root nazir, meaning “separated” or “separated from,” while Nazarene denotes a resident of Nazareth. Confusing the words, some have argued that Jesus Christ was under a Nazirite vow, and use that reasoning to argue that this was why he had long hair. But Jesus was not a Nazirite because he drank wine (Mt 11:18-19) and on at least one occasion touched a dead body (Lk 8:51-54). And so, he could not have had long hair (1 Cor 11:14). The apostle Paul took a Nazirite vow, not cutting his hair until he completed the vow (Acts 18:18). And he later shared the purification rites of four others who completed Nazirite vows (Acts 21:23-27).
The admission ceremonies took place in the headquarters of each district. These ceremonies were to be completed with a series of offerings and sacrifices in the temple of Jerusalem.
These vows were very solemn and conferred a very high distinction on those who adopted them. Samson and Samuel were two illustrious Nazirites. Anyone who was not faithful to his vows was expelled from the order. If he committed any fault, he was obliged to purify himself and offer sacrifices for compensation.
The colonies where they met were authentic centers of learning. They were men who studied the scriptures in depth, led a very monastic rural life, almost in the style of the Essenes, and earned their living from the fruits of the fields and livestock and from the gifts that the rich Jews frequently gave to the order. At the head of each colony there was a director. In many aspects of their organization the Essenes copied these simple brotherhoods or communities.
They were very few in number. The little more than five colonies that there were meant about 300 Nazirites (Bereshit Rabba 91:3).
The law of the Nazirite is described in Numbers 6.
They are not true monastic communities, because they do not contemplate separation from the world, celibacy and a common rule.
They have existed since the time of Samuel (1 Sam 10:5-6; 10:10-13; 19:20-24), reached their maximum splendor in the time of Elijah (1 Kings 18:4; 18:13; 18:19-20; 20:35) and lasted until the time of the prophet Amos (Am 7:14), to disappear in exile (Zech 7:3; Neh 6:10-14).
They were independent and itinerant communities. They revolved around a prophet considered as “Father”. They lived poorly from their own work or from public charity (2 Kings 4:8; 4:38-44; 6:1-7). Continence could exist but was not obligatory (2 Kings 4:1).
They were linked to sanctuaries such as Naioth near Ramah (1 Sam 19:18-24), Bethel (1 Sam 10:3-6), Jericho (2 Kings 2:3), and Mount Carmel (2 Kings 2:25). With David they settled in Jerusalem, becoming a body of Levite-prophets. Its members were from the lower classes of society.
The history of Israel between the Maccabean uprising and the war against the Romans is full of resistance movements. The Zealots are precisely that, a resistance group against the invaders. Their founder is believed to be a certain Judas the Galilean, and their origins lie in the census and subsequent tax collection that took place, the first around the time of Jesus’ birth, and the second in his adolescence.
Their resistance was not based solely on armed actions, but they also promulgated a series of subversive doctrines, never before proclaimed, which soon gave its members a coherent nature of principles and unity. The movement started in Galilee, although the greatest agitation over the payment of taxes took place in Judea and then spread northwards.
In the beginning, the Pharisaic forces played an important role; it seems that it was mainly the disciples of Rabbi Sammay who swelled the ranks of the Zealots, while the Hillelites, who finally rose to dominance in the rabbinate after the war, adopted a negative attitude towards this movement, although they were unable to impose themselves on the Sammayites for the time being. The proximity to the thought of the Essenes is also very evident. They hold very similar views on prophetic questions, and on eschatology and wars of judgment. It is quite possible that many of the Essenes became Zealots over time.
The name Zealots speaks of their zeal for God and of their fiery passion in discussing matters of final judgment and eschatological wars. To the Romans, they were nothing more than thieves, highwaymen, or whole bands of bandits. They did not want to pay much attention to them until they were finally forced to do so in the Jewish uprising. The designation Sicarii, on the other hand, does not seem to include all the Zealots, but only a particularly active group of them; the name was derived from the small daggers (sica) they carried hidden under their cloaks and with which they murdered their adversaries, often in the midst of the crowd. They seem to have concentrated mainly in Judea and Jerusalem. They are the last to remain as a resistance at the fort of Masada.
The decisive factor for them was the doctrine with which they justified and waged their struggle. Its central point was their interpretation of the First Commandment. In their view, the Kingdom of God in Israel was incompatible with any kind of domination. This fundamental dogma was the basis of their revolutionary drive. For centuries Israel had lived under foreign domination and had served its God under it, accepting it either as something God permitted or as a punishment. The Zealots broke with this, and from this break arose their zeal for the exclusive monarchy of God and their willingness to endure persecution if necessary, as well as to sacrifice money, property or life for their creed. Their readiness to suffer and their strength in martyrdom aroused the admiration of their enemies. Through martyrdom they proclaimed their zeal for God and atoned for Israel’s sins. The conversion among them took the serious form of refusing to obey earthly powers and obeying only the law of God. The impact of this doctrine was all the greater because it sprang from the very core of Jewish beliefs: in Jesus’ time the first commandment was cited together with the Shema Israel, and the rabbis did not consider any prayer valid in which God’s name of king was missing. (If not, remember the third phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, as the Jewish prayer of Jesus.)
Judas formulated this decisive part of his doctrine in view of the census ordered by Octavian Augustus. The Romans upheld the legal principle that, with the conquest of a country, its lands became the property of the Roman State, the usufruct of which was left to the natives. On this principle they based their tax demands. But this axiom clashed with the Israelite belief that the holy land had been given to Israel as an inalienable inheritance by God. Obedience to God’s commandment therefore prohibited the Zealots from complying with the Roman legal principle and as such they interpreted participation in the census. The irritation produced in the people by the high amount of taxes and the harshness of their collection contributed to the acceptance of the Zealot thesis. Regarding the census, the Zealots said: “Taxation brings with it nothing but obvious slavery” and, therefore, they exhorted all the people to protect their freedom. The war was triggered precisely by the elimination of the tax farmers by the Zealots.
The unique monarchy of God, as preached by Jude, was closely intertwined with Israel’s freedom and its hostility to Rome. How strongly the notion of freedom broke through among the Zealots. Their notion of freedom was conditioned by eschatological considerations. Freedom was understood as the end-time redemption, for which all pious Israelites prayed daily. Whereas the Pharisees hoped that it would be realized by a miraculous intervention of God, the Zealots were convinced that belief in God’s exclusive kingdom implied that Israel would make it a reality and that God would respond to the heroism of its action with signs and miracles to make the work of liberation successful.
The Zealots’ efforts to make their belief in the exclusive reign of God a reality took many forms. They abhorred images in all their forms, whether images of men, especially rulers, or images of animals, which were mostly symbolic in meaning. The emerging emperor cult decisively encouraged opposition to Rome; images of the emperor were the most scandalous. Lynchings became the norm against impurities and profanations committed in the temple area. The vengeance of the Zealots also fell upon Israelites who married non-Jewish women. People were forced to be circumcised; if not, they were killed without any consideration. Prophets and false Messiahs accompanied the Zealots on their way: it was a prophetic preaching that caused a massacre by Pilate.
Their social position was revolutionary. They were against the rich, and they won the friendship of the poor, the small peasants and landowners, while the large landowners allied themselves with the Romans. The social situation became increasingly worse. The poor resented this, the small peasants feared for their land. They had to take out loans and mortgage their estates, until they fell into the hands of the large landowners and their tenants, and from these to the Romans. For this reason the Zealots did not stop committing acts of violence against the Romans and their friends.
In the midst of this hectic world, it is not surprising that Jesus was mistaken for a supposed Messiah of the kind that proliferated at the time, that he was crucified between two Zealots, and that the Sanhedrin even accused him of provoking riots to gain the enmity of the Romans. Without a doubt, Jesus often had to endure comparisons with the Zealots, and not only that, but also the contrary accusations of being on the side of the Romans. In such a turbulent time, it was not easy not to live under suspicion, whether one was on one side or the other.
They were a political party that also proposed the expulsion of Roman power from Palestinian lands, but in this case by implanting the Herodian royalty. They were a small group of relatives and supporters of the royal family of Herod; its members, Jews by birth, were pagans at heart. However, this reason did not make them despised by the people because they had the Sadducees as allies. Since they lived in a privileged position, they were rich and also skeptical. For this reason they did not believe in the considerations of the Zealots, who were supported by the Pharisees and were both zealous defenders of the law. It could be said that the Herodians represented the political party of the rich, while the Zealots that of the poor. Their number, however, was always much more limited than that of the Zealots.
Jesus, during his life, as can be seen from the gospels, had to face them in some situation.
The Samaritans were a mixed Jewish-pagan people who lived in a small territory between Judea and Galilee, called Samaria. The attitude of the Jews towards their non-Jewish neighbours was one of total contempt.
This feeling of enmity between Jews and Samaritans arose in the following way: About 700 years before our era, Sargon, king of Assyria, in crushing a revolt in central Palestine, carried off into captivity more than 25,000 Jews from the northern kingdom of Israel and settled in their place an almost equal number of descendants of the Cuthites, Serphavites, and Amatites. Later, Ashurbanipal sent still other groups of settlers to Samaria. The religious enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans dated from the return of the former from the Babylonian captivity; on this occasion, the Samaritans actively sought to prevent the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Later they offended the Jews because they offered aid to Alexander’s armies. In return for their friendship, Alexander gave the Samaritans permission to build a temple on Mount Gerizim, where they worshipped Yahweh and their tribal gods and offered sacrifices, all very much in the manner of the temple services at Jerusalem. They continued to practise this worship until the time of the Maccabees, when John Hyrcanus, about 129, destroyed their temple on Mount Gerizim. There was perhaps a slight improvement in the situation towards the end of the first century B.C.E. Herod married a Samaritan woman, trying to unite the two peoples; but twelve years after Herod’s death, under the procurator Coponius (6-9 A.D.), when Jesus was alive, tempers were again aroused at a Passover festival by an act of revenge by the Samaritans in retaliation for another of the Jews, in desecrating the temple by spreading human bones in the porticoes. This very serious desecration, which probably resulted in the disruption of the party, provided new nourishment for the old friendship. From this moment on, the hostility between the two groups became implacable.
When the Jews of Galilee went to Jerusalem, especially on feast days, they certainly had the custom, in Jesus’ time, of going around Samaria, although sometimes it was unavoidable to go through it, because the detour made the journey much longer. There were always incidents, and even bloody encounters. Tempers were very tense on both sides. As we move away from the time of Jesus, the situation calmed down and relations between the two peoples improved considerably.
It is not surprising, then, that Jesus should come as a surprise when he passes through Samaria to preach there, or when, on one of his journeys among the Samaritans, he is despised in a village and refused to be welcomed. These cases were common at that time.
The Samaritans hated the Jews to death, and the latter called the Samaritans Cutheites, and the word Samaritan was a grave insult in the mouth of a Jew.
The Samaritans attached great importance to the fact that they were descended from the Jewish patriarchs. This claim was denied to them: they were Cutheans, descendants of Medo-Persian settlers who were foreign to the people. They were also denied any blood ties with Judaism, and vice versa on the part of the Samaritans. The fact that they recognized the Mosaic law and observed its prescriptions scrupulously did not in any way change their exclusion from the community of Israel, since they were suspected of idolatrous worship because of their veneration of Gerizim as a sacred mountain.
This judgment on the Samaritans had a consequence: they were considered pagans from a cultic and ritual point of view. For them, following the event at Passover, the doors of the temple were closed. For this reason, marriage between the two peoples was not possible, and they were even considered impure from birth and as causing impurity, which prohibited contact with them.
However, the reality was often very different. Many Jews lived without problems among Samaritans, and vice versa. It is in this context that Jesus’ famous parable must be understood: he held up before the eyes of his compatriots a Samaritan as a model, humiliating for them, of gratitude and love for one’s neighbour that triumphs over nationalist hatred with such ancient roots.
Joachim Jeremiah, Jerusalén en tiempos de Jesús (Jerusalem in the time of Jesus), Ediciones Cristiandad, 1977.
Emil Schürer, Historia del pueblo judío en tiempos de Jesús (History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus), Ediciones Cristiandad, 1985.