The Sadducees, according to Wikipedia, were “a socio-religious sect or group of Jews who were active in Judea during the Second Temple period, starting from the second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees are often compared to other contemporaneous sects, including the Pharisees and the Essenes”. The Sadducees’ headquarters was Jerusalem and the group was founded in 167 BC.

In the Biblical book of Acts, we find that there was a conflict between the Sadducees and the apostles. The Sadducees practiced and taught the Mosaic law while the apostles were teaching people about the new ways of Christianity. The apostles even reformed the Mosaic law. This made the Sadducees and even the priests very angry and thought of the apostles as a threat to their society, and even their teachings.

The Sadducees tried everything in their power to prevent Christianity from being spread to people, so they went as far as to even threaten, capture, imprison, and even kill the apostles. Some of these were the martyr of St. Stephen, the imprisonment and killing of the disciples,  and much more. This shows just how desperate they were to get rid of Christianity and the people who taught it. The apostles took this as a serious threat, but they kept on preaching about Christianity. As it says in 1 Corinthians 16:13, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” Another verse that tells us to stand firm is 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”. These verses tells to stand firm even when people want to “cut us down”. That is exactly what these apostles were doing. They were holding fast in the truth even when people wanted to stop them, or “cut them down”.

Because of the complete nature of the message the apostles preached, the Sadducees could not just take this issue in council. Because the Sadducees believed in the Mosaic law, they did not want any changes. They just were not open to the idea. However, the apostles preached about the One that the officials crucified, Jesus Christ.

The Sadducees did everything that they could. The threated the apostles, they killed some, they put some in prison, but nothing worked. The apostles kept on preaching. As I said in an earlier paragraph, the apostles stood firm even when the Sadducees wanted to “cut them down”. They continued to preach the word of God. They continued to preform great healings and miracles, even when the Sadducees were trying to stop them, even if they had to kill the apostles to do it. The weird thing is that the Sadducees were the only ones persecuting the Christians.

The Sadducees would not give up the Mosaic law and turn over to Christianity because they were not open to it. They believed that the people who taught Christianity were contradicting the ancient tradition that they believed in.