The Pharisees and Sadducees of our time
by Roberto de Mattei
Criticism of the "Pharisees" is often found in the
words of Pope Francis. In numerous speeches 2013-2015 he has spoken on the
"disease of the Pharisees" (September 7, 2013), "accusing Jesus
of not honoring the Sabbath day" (April 1, 2014), from the "temptation
of self-sufficiency and clericalism,
that codifying of faith in rules and instructions, like the scribes, the
Pharisees and the lawyers of the time of Jesus" (September 19, 2014).
During Angelus of 30 August 2015, he said: "As then for
the Pharisees there is also for us the danger that we order, or worse:
to consider ourselves better than the other based solely on the fact that we
keep the rules, the customs, even if we
do not love our neighbor, are hard of heart, proud and arrogant. "On
November 8, 2015, he compared the
attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees and their "exclusion", to
Jesus, who was based in "inclusion." The reference to the Pharisees
is equally evident in the speech in which the Pope concluded last October
24 for the XIV. Ordinary Synod on the
Family. Who else are the "closed heart, who often hide behind even the
teachings of the Church or behind good
intentions to sit in the chair of Moses
and - sometimes condescendingly and with superficiality - to address the difficult cases and the injured
Families," if not "the
Pharisees, who made religion to an infinite chain of commandments (June 26,
2014)?" Pharisees seem to be anyone who defend with stubborn pride, the
existence of absolute and incontrovertible commandments, laws, rules of the
Church.
Who Were the Pharisees Really?
Who were the Pharisees really? When Jesus began his teaching
years, the Jewish world was divided into different currents, about which we are
told from the Gospels, among historians, like Flavius Josephus (3 -100 AD.) in
his works "Antiquities of the Jews" and "History of the Jewish
War ". The main sects were those of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
The Pharisees were concerned with the details of the religious rules, but had
lost the spirit of truth. They were arrogant men who forged the prophecies
about the Messiah and interpreted the divine law according to their opinions. The Sadducees
taught even more serious mistakes. They doubted the immortality of the soul and
rejected the majority of the Holy Scriptures. Both were fighting for power in
the Sanhedrin, who, when Jesus was condemned, was led by the Sadducees.
The Sadducees are even mentioned by Mark and Matthew three
times, while the Pharisees occur repeatedly in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. Chapter 23 of St. Matthew in particular, is
an open accusation against them: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! Your tithe mint, anise and cumin, and left the weightier matters of
the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness. One must do the one thing without
neglecting the others."
The St. Thomas Aquinas, Augustine and Bonaventure about the
Pharisees
St. Thomas Aquinas explains in his commentary on this
passage of Matthew that the Pharisees were not condemned by the Lord because
they paid a tithe, "but only because they valued the lower more than the spiritual commandments. But [deliver the
tithe] in practice he seems to praise it, saying: 'These things shall be done'
(Haec oportuit facere) according to the law, as Chrisostomos adds (Summa
Theologica, II-IIae, q 87,. a. 2 ad 3).
St. Augustine said, referring to the Pharisees, of which St.
Luke writes (18:10 to 14), that he has not been convicted of his works, but
because he has boasted of his alleged sanctity (Epistola 121,1,3). St. Augustine explains the same in his letter
to Casulanus that the Pharisee was not condemned because he fasted (Luke
18,11ff), but "because he was inflamed in pride over the publicans"
(Epistola 36,4,7). Because it is "fruitless for a man to fast twice during
the week as the Pharisees, on the other hand, yet it is an exercise of religion
in a believer who is humble or one who is a faithfully humble man when Scripture does not say that the
Pharisees had been condemned, but rather that the tax collector was
justified." (Epistola 36,4,7).
The most concise definition of the Pharisees is found from
St. Bonaventure: "Pharisaeus significat illos qui propter opera exteriora
se reputant bonos; et ideo non habent lacrymas compunctionis" (De S. Mary
Magdalene Sermo I, in: Opera omnia, Ad Claras Aquas, Florence 2001 Vol IX, col
556b..). "A Pharisees is described as one who thinks of themselves good
because of their outer works and
therefore has no tears of penitence."
Pharisees were Proud Conservatives, the Sadducees
Unbelieving Liberals
Jesus condemned the Pharisees because he knew their hearts:
they were sinners, but considered themselves holy. The Lord wanted to teach his
disciples that the external fulfillment of good works is not enough. That which
is a good act is not only so in its own property, but the intention.
Nevertheless, if it is true that good works are not enough, if good intentions
are lacking, as it is also true that the good intentions are not enough, if
good works are missing. Gamaliel, Nicodemus,
Joseph of Arimathea (Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1), and even St. Paul (Acts
23.6) who belonged to the party of the Pharisees, were better than that of the
Sadducees, precisely because they, despite their hypocrisy, acclaimed the laws,
while the Sadducees, from whose ranks the high priests Annas and Caiaphas came
(Jewish Antiquities 18.35.95), also disregarded this.
The Pharisees were proud conservatives, the Sadducees
unbelieving liberals. But both unified rejection of the divine mission of Jesus
(Mt 3.7 to 10).
Who are the Pharisees and the Sadducees of our time? We can
give an answer to this with quiet certainty. There are those who have tried
before, during and after the Synod and will try to change the practice of the
Church and through the practice of their teaching, on the family and marriage.
Pharisees and Sadducees rejected the divine teachings of
Jesus
Jesus proclaimed the indissolubility of marriage as God had
thought from the beginning, and she founded this on the restoration of the
natural law, from which the Jews had removed, and strengthened them by the
raising of marriage to a Sacrament. Pharisees and Sadducees rejected this
doctrine by denying the divine Word of Jesus and introducing their own opinion.
They appealed disingenuously to the law of Moses, as the innovators of our time
invoked an alleged tradition of the early centuries, by falsifying the history
and doctrine of the Church.
For this reason, a brave bishop and defender of the true
faith, Monsignor Athanasius Schneider, speaks of a "neo-Mosaic
practice". "The new disciples of Moses and the new Pharisees in the
two most recent Synodal Assemblies (2014 and 2015) have veiled their practical
denial of the indissolubility of marriage and their occasionally lifting the
Sixth Commandment under the guise of charity, by expressions like 'way of distinction,' 'accompaniment',
'orientation by the bishop ', 'dialogue with the priest', 'internal forum', 'a
more complete integration into the life of the Church' which are used to
eliminate the accountability [in the law] of cohabitation in cases of irregular
connections as much as possible (see. Relatio finalis, no. 84-86). "
The Pharisees and Sadducees of Today
The Sadducees are the innovators who openly claim to
overcome the doctrine and practice of the Church. The Pharisees are those who,
although they confess the indissolubility of marriage with their mouths, still hypocritical deny it by their deeds, by proposing a
"from-a-case-by-case" - transgression of the moral law.
The real disciples of Jesus Christ belong to neither the
Party of neo-Pharisees nor the party of neo-Sadducees, both modernist, but
follow the school of St. John the Baptist, who preached in the spiritual desert
of his time. The Baptist was, when he denounced the Pharisees and Sadducees as
a "generation of vipers" (Mt 3,7) and admonished Herod Antipas for
his adultery, not hard-hearted, but moved by love for God and for souls.
Hypocrites and Hardhearted were the advisers of Herod Antipas, who wanted to
bring his sinful and unrepentant loose life in harmony with the teaching of
Scripture. Herod had John the Baptist
executed to bring the voice of truth to silence, but the voice of the
forerunner is still audible 20 centuries
later. Whoever defends sound doctrine publicly, does not follow the example of
the Pharisees and Sadducees, but the example of St. John the Baptist and Our
Lord.
