Page "Pharisees" Paragraph 5

The first surviving historical mention of the Pharisees is from the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus ( 37 – 100 CE ), in a description of the " four schools of thought ," or " four sects ," into which the Jews were divided in the 1st century CE ; the other schools were the Essenes, who were generally apolitical and who may have emerged as a sect of dissident priests who rejected either the Seleucid-appointed or the Hasmonean high priests as illegitimate ; the Sadducees, who were the main antagonists of the Pharisees ; and the " fourth philosophy " possibly associated with the anti-Roman revolutionary groups such as the Sicarii and the Zealots.

Other sects emerged at this time, such as the Early Christians in Jerusalem and the Therapeutae in Egypt.