Luke 20:27

27-40. Discomfiture of the Sadducees.

27. certain of the Sadducees Matthew 3:7. On the Sadducees see the Excursus on Jewish Sects. They were undeterred by the discomfiture of the Pharisees and Herodians, and perhaps their plot had been so arranged as coincidently to humiliate our Lord, if they could, by a difficult question, and so to shake His credit with the people. Some have supposed that the memorable incident of the Woman taken in Adultery (John 8:1-11) also took place on this day; in which case there would have been three temptations of Christ, one political, one doctrinal, and one speculative.But that incident rose spontaneously, whereas these had been pre-arranged.

which deny that there is any resurrection Jos. Antt.xviii. 1, § 4; B. J.ii. 8, § 14. They refused to see any proof of it in the Books of Moses; and to the Prophets and the other books (the Ketubhimor Hagiographa) they only attached a subordinate importance. Their question was inspired less by deadly hatred than by supercilious scorn. Wealthy and powerful, they only professed to despise Jesus, up to this time, as a -Prophet of Nazareth," though now they became His mainmurderers. They are not so much as mentioned by St John, and very slightly by St Mark and St Luke, nor did Christ utter against them the same denunciations as against the Pharisees, who were His daily opponents. All the leading families of high priests at this period were Sadducees, and except where it comes into direct collisionwith religion Epicurean worldliness is more tolerant than interested fanaticism.