the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Dictionaries
Hasidaeans
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or HASIDÆANS (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] Assideans; Heb. chasîdîm , ‘the Pious’). A group of religionists in Judæa ( 1Ma 2:42 ) to be distinguished from the priestly party who had come under the influence of Hellenism. The Hasidæans were devoted to the Law, and refused to compromise in any way with the Hellenizing policy enforced by Antiochus iv. They furnished the martyrs of the persecution under that monarch. Strictly speaking, they were not a political party, and probably lived in the smaller Jewish towns, as well as in Jerusalem. They joined with Mattathias in his revolt against the Syrians, but were not interested in the political outcome of the struggle, except as it gave them the right to worship Jehovah according to the Torah. After Judas had cleansed the Temple, they separated themselves from the Hasmonæan or Maccabæan party, and united with them only temporarily, when they found that under Alcimus the Temple worship was again threatened. Their defection from Judas was largely the cause of his downfall.
Although their precise relation to the Scribal movement cannot be stated, because of lack of data, it is clear that the Hasidæans must have included all the orthodox scribes and were devotees to the growing Oral Law. They were thus the forerunners of the Pharisees and probably of the Essenes, which latter party, although differing from them in rejecting animal sacrifice, probably preserved their name. Both the Pharisees and the Essenes represented a further development of views and practices which the Hasidæans embodied in germ.
Shailer Mathews.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Hasidaeans'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/h/hasidaeans.html. 1909.
