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Pharisaism popularized the practice of midrash or biblical commentary. The so-called sacred texts had been re-copied and revised without scruple as a function of on-going polemics, read in public, explained, glossed, corrected by the evolution of mindsets, brought up to date, nay, suppressed, like the Book of Tobias. A whole literature — targum, midrash, mishna, Talmud — was thus forged in the fires of the assemblies and the necessity of extracting from these texts a moral rule applicable to the community, or to the entirety of the believers.

The Pauline current, which Marcion would impose around 140 [C.E.] so as to counter the Judeo-Christian communities that claimed Peter and John for themselves, took a large part of its doctrine from Pharisian doctrines: notably, the beyond where the dead would be individually resuscitated after a Last Judgment that would divide all into the blessed, raised up to a celestial Eden, and the damned, hurled [down] into Gehenna; the existence of angels, agents and interceders of Divine Grace; the end of the world, in which a Messiah, sent by God, annihilates the terrestrial kingdoms, so as to substitute the Kingdom of God for them; and the imminence of the times in which the power of the Savior will be revealed.

Like the Essenes, the Pharisians practiced the Holy Communion or eucharistic banquet, but they defended a more personal religion, less austere, better accorded with human weakness. Although attached to sacrifices and to the fussy rigors of the observances, they showed themselves much more accommodating, calling forth the reproach of laxity from the Essenes, who themselves refused the sacrifices of the Temple, so as to substitute for them the sacrifice of existence and the maceration of the body.

The Pharisians showed themselves to be ardent proselytizers but, unlike the Essenes, Nazarenes and Elchasaite Christians mentioned in a letter from Pliny the Younger to Tarjan, they were rather inclined to discourage neophytes. Another paradox: like the Christian Jews in the Epistle attributed to Barnabas (90? 100? 110?), they did not raise objections to circumcision, the Sabbath, the rites of purification or prohibited foods.

Placing the accent on an active solidarity, the Pharisians made the synagogues places of mutual assistance and encounter. They developed in them in a kind of social security, providing assistance to the poor, the elderly, widows and the sick. The Judeo-Christian, then de-Judaized Churches reclaimed for their own accounts the charitable politics of the Pharisians, betting on them so as to implant themselves more easily in the working-class [populaire] milieux.

The Zealot Movement

The Zealots constituted less a sect, properly speaking, than a front for a nationalist guerrilla war that re-grouped (in a communal hatred for the Roman occupation) diverse religious tendencies in Palestine and across the Diaspora.

The king from 37 to 4 [B.C.E.], Herod did not fail to re-build the Temple, appease religious scruples and be assured of the favor of the Sadducean and Pharisian parties. Nevertheless, an agitation that no doubt issued from the Essene and Baptist milieux (Dositheans and Nazarenes) ravaged the State.

Speaking of the revolt of Juda of Gamala, Flavius Joseph mentions a bandit by the name of Ezechias: “There was also a certain Juda, son of Ezechias, the redoutable head of the brigands who had only been taken by Herod with the greatest of difficulties.”[38]

Juda of Gamala or Galilee was the leader of the revolt in the year 6. The crucification of his father, Ezechias, took place around 30 [B.C.E.].

The endemic state of the revolt became worse after the death of Herod in 4 [B.C.E.]. “Troubles exploded from all sides of the country [...] A slave of the deceased king assumed the diadem and, traveling the region with the brigands whom he had assembled, burned the royal palace at Jericho, among many of the luxurious residences.”[39] A shephard, Athrongee, also assumed the diadem and traveled the countryside, killing Romans and the King’s people. Then, the Roman General Varus was sent with two legions and four regiments of cavalrymen.

In 6, the census organized by Quirinus, the papal legatee of Syria, gave the signal for a general insurrection that was conducted for religious reasons, because “only God can take account of his people” (which is how the census is mentioned by David in the Book of Samuel 2, 24), but was stirred up everywhere by the miserable lot of the excluded classes. The insurrection was led by Juda of Gamala, to whom Flavius returns several times:

Then, a Galilean by the name of Juda pushed his compatriots to revolt by reproaching them for agreeing to pay taxes to the Romans and for supporting mortal masters, beyond God ...[40]

There was also a certain Juda, son of Ezechias, the redoutable leader of the brigands, who had only been taken by Herod with the greatest of difficulties. This Juda united around Sepphoris, in Galilee, a troop of desperate people who made an incursion against the Royal Palace. Being in possession of all the weapons that they found there, he equipped those who surrounded him and carried off all of the riches that he had collected. He terrorized the neighboring areas with raids and pillaging, aiming to take a great fortune and even the honors of royalty, because he hoped to attain this dignity, not by the practice of virtue, but by the excess of his injustice... [41]

But a certain Juda the Gaulonite from the city of Gamala joined with a Pharisian named Saddok, and participated in the sedition. They claimed that this Census provided nothing less than complete servitude, and they called upon the people to reclaim their liberty. They said, if it should happen that they succeeded, this would be to the benefit of the fortune they’d already acquired, and if they were frustrated by the goods that remained for them to take, at least they would obtain the honor and glory of having shown the grandeur of the soul. Moreover, God preferred the success of their projects; so, in love with great things, they spared no expense in realizing it...

Here were born seditions and political assassinations, sometimes of enemies, sometimes fellow citizens, immolated by the passion that animated them to fight one against the other and to never cede to their adversaries; the famine pushed them to the most shameless extremities; the seizure and destruction of cities, up to the last revolt in which even the Temple of God was surrendered to the fire of the enemy. The change in and upset of the national institutions had so much influence that those who attained them were lost, such as Juda of Gamala and Saddok, who introduced and aroused among us a fourth philosophical sect and surrounded themselves with many adherents, and immediately filled the country with troubles and planted the roots of the evil that would much later rage in it, and this thanks to this unknown philosophy of which I have wanted to speak a little, principally because it was the youth’s interest in this sect that was the ruin of the country.

The fourth philosophical sect had Juda the Galilean as its author. His sectarians in general accorded themselves with the doctrine of the Pharisians, but they also have an invincible love of liberty, because they judge that God is the only chief and the only master. The most extraordinary forms of death, the torture of parents and friends leave them indifferent, provided that they do not call any man by the name of master. As many people have witnessed the unshakable firmness with which they submit to all of these evils, I can say no more, because I fear, not that one doubts what I have said about this subject, but on the contrary that my words do not give too weak of an idea of the scorn with which they accept and support sorrow. This madness began to rage in our people under the government of Gessius Florus, who by the excess of his violence will cause them to revolt against the Romans. Such are the philosophical sects that exist among the Jews... [42]

Flavius Joseph’s text calls for several remarks. The movement of the Zealots or “zealous servants of the law of Moses” was not born under the government of Gessius Florus, that is to say, in 65; it took place in the form of Juda of Gamala, called the Galilean, just like the Messiah Jesus, who also wanted to become King of the Jews, of whose existence [Flavius] Joseph is ignorant.

The name of the Pharisian, Sadoq, which Flavius Joseph (himself a Pharisian) held in mediocre esteem, evokes the idea of justice, which was shared by the Essenes’ Master of Justice and the Judeo-Christians’ Jacob/John. Finally, the regrouping of diverse religious tendencies that the historian calls the “fourth sect” — does it not suggest the idea of a religious syncretism in which each combatant, not recognizing any authority other than that of God, is the brother of and model for Adonai, Kyrios, the Savior?

In 45, Caspius Fadus — named the governor of Judea by Emperor Claude — had to face an insurrection led by the Messiah Theudas (aka Juda or Thomas), who was followed by a great many poor people. In the manner of Elie and Elisee in Hebraic mythology, he promised his troops they would take Jerusalem and cross the Jordan without getting their feet wet. By promising to lead his flock into the promised land, he repeated the gesture of Joshua. Fadus suppressed the revolt. Theudas was decapitated, his partisans massacred.

Between 46 and 48, Tiberias Alexander, who succeeded Fadus, ordained the crucification of the two sons of Juda of Gamala: Simeon (Simon) and his brother Jacob (John).

Under Agrippa III, around 49, new clashes broke out between Jews and Zealots. Battles were fought beside the Temple. In 66, Cesaria was the theater of battle between Jews and Greeks. Two years later, an incident brought fire to the powder. Eleazar, son of the great priest Anania and leader of the Temple’s guards, killed the third son or the grandson of Juda of Galilee, Menachem, one of the leaders of the Zealot movement (his name means “Paraclete” [in Greek] and “Comforter” [in Latin]). The general war against Rome and for the independence of Israel were proclaimed in a great confusion, because Jews from rival factions killed each other in Jerusalem. It would last up to 70 [C.E.].

Flavius Joseph, who had been governor of Galilee, said with full knowledge of the causes of the Vespasian campaign:

After the taking of Jopata, all of the Galileans who had escaped from the arms of the Romans surrendered to them. The rebels then occupied everywhere, except for Gischala and Mount Itabyrios (Thabor). They also occupied Gamala, the city of the Taricheans, situated above the lake, where the kingdom of Agrippa ended, and their neighbors were Sogone and Seleucie and Lake Semechonitis. The lake’s width is sixty verstes and extends to the market town called Daphne, which is completely beautiful and has access to sources of water originating in the Little Jordan, flowing under the Temple of the Golden Cow (one of the golden cows of Jeroboam: I Kings 12, 29), before reaching the Great Jordan. By deputizing these places and giving them his faith, Agrippa has pacified them.

But Gamala did not submit, counting on its solidity, because the soil was rocky and the town stood straight up on a buttress, as [a head] on a neck and shoulders, and thus had the appearance of a camel. Thus it was called Gamal, but the people of the country did not call it by its real name, Kamil (the Galilean pronounciation of Gamal) because they detested this animal (in Greek, Kamelos).

On its flank and in front, there were depthless precipices; behind, it was not very fortified, but the inhabitants had reinforced it with a deep ditch. As far as dwellings, they had been built extremely closely together at the center, and there were shafts bored through, all the way to the end of the city.

As strong as the place was, Flavius Joseph had it fortified even more by constructing solid ramparts and establishing conduits and tunnels, so that one could also circulate under the ground.[43]

Situated to the east of Lake Toberiade (Genesareth), Gamala — despite its privileged situation — fell into the hands of Titus, son of Vespasian, at the cost of difficult fighting.

In August 70, the Roman Decima Legio[44] seized Jerusalem, sacked it and ruined the Temple. The Zealots’ desperate resistance was sustained until the fall of Masada, their last fortress, in 73.

In the first half of the Second Century, the revolt broke out again under the leadership of the Messiah Bar Kochba. Hadrian crushed him in 135, reducing the Jewish nation and state to inexistence for nineteen centuries.