" This was the brother of Berenice, Ptolemy Euergetes,
or the Benefactor, who came out of Egypt, overran Syria, and killed the
murderess, carrying home much spoil and many of the Egyptian gods, which
had been taken from the temples there in the time of Cambyses. Ptolemy
Euergetes himself came to Jerusalem, and attended a sacrifice in the
Temple; but Greek learning was doing the Jews no good, and some began
to reason like the heathen philosophers. A man named Joseph taught that
people ought to be holy for the love of goodness, and not for the sake
of a reward after death; and his follower, Zadok, or Sadoc, went still
farther, saying that there was no promise of any reward. His disciples,
who were called Sadducees, declared that the soul was not separate from
the body, but died with it; that there were no angels, nor spirits,
and that only the five books of Moses were the real Word of God, thus
casting aside all the prophecies. Such Jews as abhorred this falling
away, kept themselves apart, and were called Pharisees, from a word
meaning separate; and these grew the more strict in the observance of
all that had come down to them from their fathers, adding to it much
that had gradually been put into the explanations and interpretations of
the Law which were read on the Sabbath in the Synagogue.
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