THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Sects, Jewish - Seven Sacraments by James Strong & John McClintock To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the AGES Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: MAKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. AGES Software Rio, WI USA Version 1.0 © 2000 2 Sects, Jewish (Ancient) These were of two kinds, arising from the fact that the differences of opinion, sentiment, and conduct were sometimes of a theosophical and sometimes of a practical character; but, among the ancient Jews, so close was the connection of Church and State that all theological or philosophical views necessarily affected the civil and social relations. I. Religious. — 1. The Pharisees. — These were the orthodox party, and our Lord testifies to the general correctness of their creed (<402203>Matthew 22:3). It was chiefly in liturgical and ceremonial particulars that their excessive regard for traditional observances was betrayed. In this regard the Rabbinical Jews of modern times are their acknowledged successors. SEE RABBINISM. In external deportment they were scrupulously exact; but, their motive being a love of popularity and a pride of self righteousness, they were sternly rebuked by our Lord as arch hypocrites and ecclesiastical tyrants. SEE PHARISEE. 2. The Sadducees. — These were next in importance, and of even more aristocratic influence, but they were the rationalists of their day (<442308>Acts 23:8). They are represented by inimical writers as the originals of the modern Karaites (q.v.). SEE SADDUCEE. 3. The Essenes. — These were rather a class of ascetics or Jewish hermits, who are not mentioned in the New Test., and are chiefly known from the description of Josephus, who at one time belonged to their fraternity. SEE ESSENES. II. Political. — 1. The Zealots. — These are mentioned in the New Test. and by Josephus as the violent party who contended for native rights and independence from all foreign influence. They had their type in the Chasidim of earlier and later times. SEE ASSIDAEAN. They largely contributed to the final collision of the Jews with the Romans. SEE ZELOTES. 2. The Herodians. — These appear, from the slight notices of them (<400216>Matthew 2:16, etc.), to have been the temporizing party, who favored Graeco-Roman innovations. They had their originals in the apostates under Antiochus Epiphanes (<271135>Daniel 11:35). SEE HERODIAN. 3 On the subject generally, see, in addition to the works cited under the articles on each of the above, Serarii, Drusii et Scaligeri Opusc. de Trib. Judoeorum Sectis (Delph. 1703); separately, Drusius, De Hassidoeis (Franek. 1603); De Sectis Judaicis (Arnh. 1619); Serarius, De Tribus Sectis, etc. (Franek. 1603; Mainz, 1604); Scaliger, De Tribus Jud. Hoeresibus (Franek. 1605; Arnh. 1619); Lund, De Sectis Judoerum (Upsal. 1700); Geiger, Sadducäer und Pharisäer (Bresl. 1863); Die Ebioniter des Alten Testaments, in the Monatsschr. für Gesch. und Wiss. des Judenthums, Jan. 1869; Meth. Quar. Rev. Jan. 1868, p. 128. Sects, Jewish (Modern) In the 17th century existed the sect of the Sabbathaites, so called after Sabbathai-Zebi (q.v.), whose apostasy to Islamism, and death in 1676, did not diminish the number of his followers, but rather increased it; and as there is no calculating the obstinacy of human credulity, his followers gave out that he had been transported to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah. Notwithstanding the constant and active opposition of the Jewish priesthood, the sect spread in all quarters, and numbered among its members men like Mose Chayim Luzzatto (q.v.). “Sabbathaism,” says Milman, “still exists as a sect of Judaism, though, probably, among most of its believers, rather supported by that corporate spirit which holds the followers of a political or religious faction together than by any distinct and definite articles of belief.” But, in the middle of the last century, an extraordinary adventurer named Jacob Frank (q.v.) organized a sect out of the wrecks of the Sabbathaic party, of which we will speak now, although in the order of time an earlier sect, that of the Chasidim, ought to be mentioned. The sect which Frank organized assumed the name of Soharites or Cabalists, also of Frankists. As to the creed of this sect, it leaned towards Christianity rather than Islamism. It rejected the Talmud, but insisted on a hidden sense in the Scriptures. It admitted the Trinity and the incarnation of the Deity, but preserved an artful ambiguity as to the person in whom the Deity was incarnate, whether Jesus Christ or Sabbathai-Zebi. With the death of Frank the whole movement seems to have abated. Of greater significance is the sect of the Hassidim, or Chasidim (q.v.), or New Saints, or Pietists. The founder of this sect was Rabbi Israel ben-Eliezer Baal-Shem, also called Besht, f8ç8[b, from the initials of byf µç l[b As the tenets of these. 4 Saints, who still exist. in Poland, Galicia, etc., are given in the article CHASIDIM, we can only refer to it. (B.P.) Secular Clergy Parish priests and all who were charged with the cure of souls were named clerici seculares, so called as living according to the manners of the time (seculum). They were so called in contradistinction to regular clergy (q.v.), who belonged to the monastic orders or religious congregations. Secular Court, Delivering Up To The a punishment peculiar to delinquent clergymen. The ancient law comprises it under the name of curioe tradi, and gave to it a different meaning from that which modern use and practice has put upon it. Among the modern canonists it signifies delivering a clergyman up to the secular judge after degradation, to be punished for some great crime with death, or such capital punishment as the Church had no power to inflict. In the old law the curia has a larger sense, not only to denote the judge’s court, but the corporation of any city. In this there were some servile offices; and when a clergyman was degraded for any offense and reduced to the quality of layman, he was obliged to serve the curia, or secular corporation of the city, and that, many times, only in some mean office and servile condition. This was looked upon as being a slave to an earthly power, and precluded him from ever regaining his clerical dignity again, for no curiale was allowed to enter the ecclesiastical state. Besides this, there was another way of delivering over delinquent clergymen to the secular courts, which was when they had committed crimes such as were properly of civil cognizance; for clergymen were considered in a double capacity — as ministers of the Church and as members of the commonwealth. See Bingham, Antiq. of the Christ. Church, p. 1033. Secular Power SEE SECULAR COURT. Secular Sermons in Roman Catholic terminology, are discourses preached at the centennial jubilee of any religious or benevolent institution, association, etc. Their purpose is to review the history and work of the agency in question, or to rehearse the displays of divine grace manifested in and through its life. The 5 scope of such sermons will consequently be determined in each case by the character of the solemnities of which they form a part. An appropriate treatment of the theme selected will include the presentation of noteworthy features belonging to the subject, or the discussion of some religious topic which may be deduced from or illustrated by the occasion in which the celebration takes its rise, followed by direct application of the theme, and concluding with a prayer or doxology or a suitable exhortation. The style and mode of delivery should be solemn. When the celebration is on account of a nonreligious subject, the nature of religious discourse requires that it be discussed in its religious or moral bearings. Secularism an atheistical movement which prevailed in England during the sixth decade of the present century to an extent that gained it many followers and excited much attention. Its leading apostle was George J. Holyoake, a friend to Robert Owen and his socialistic views. Holyoake and several like minded associates founded a journal named The Reasoner, in 1846, which speedily became the recognized organ of the modern school of English freethinkers. Its governing principle was atheism, though Holyoake and his friends preferred to designate the tendency they represented as non-theism, inasmuch as they simply refrained from inquiring whether a Deity exist or not. The term Secularism was subsequently applied to the entire movement, whose professed aim was proclaimed to be “to live and die for, the world, and to work for the welfare of men in this world.” The ethics of the party — was comprehended in the phrase “present human improvement by present human means,” its law had regard simply to the natural, utilitarian, and artistic aspects of life; its object was merely scientific culture and a suitable provision for the things of this life. The leading, and, indeed, the only principle of the morality of this movement is utility and the movement itself may be characterized as a thoroughly consistent utilitarianism, and also as an “atheistical ethics built upon the ruins of religion,” since no supernatural element is permitted to exercise any influence whatever over the actions of these worldly moralists. The dogmatics of Secularism, if the term may be applied to a systematic negation of all positive doctrines, is analogous to its ethics in character. It denies that any competent knowledge concerning the existence of God is possessed by the world: matter, though self existent and eternal, is not God, since it lacks the constituent factors of personality — self 6 consciousness and freewill.