Antigonus Sochæus

, a Jew who was born at Socho, on the borders of Judea, about three hundred years before Christ, was president of the sanhedrim at Jerusalem, and teacher of the law in the principal divinity school of that city. Having often, in his lectures, inculcated to his scholars that they ought not to serve God in a servile manner, but only out of filial love and fear, two of his scholars, Sadoc and Baithus, thence inferred, that there were no rewards at all after this life, and therefore | separating from the school of their master, they thought there was no resurrection nor future state, neither angel nor spirit: hence arose the sect of the Sadducees. They seem to agree in general with the Epicureans, differing, however, in this: that though they denied a future state, yet they allowed the power of God to create the world, which the followers of Epicurus denied. It is said also, that they rejected the scriptures, except the Pentateuch; denied predestination; and taught, that God had made man absolute master of all his actions, without assistance in what is good, or restraint from evil. ¹