The Fourth Philosophy (Zealots and Sicarii)
A tradition no longer extant within Judaism. The disagreements in the sources are shown rather than settled.
The Fourth Philosophy (Zealots and Sicarii) is recorded within Judaism and is no longer extant. Also written Fourth Philosophy, Zealots, Kanna'im, Sicarii.
Origin
Founder named in the sources: Judas the Galilean (named by Josephus as founder of the Fourth Philosophy). No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. NULL: Josephus names a fourth philosophy only in Antiquities 18, attributing it to Judas the Galilean and characterising it by an overriding passion for liberty; he treats it as an aberrant accretion rather than part of legitimate Judaism. Zealots as a named group appear in his account of the revolt, described as Galilean Jews who came to Jerusalem during the war of 66–70 CE and overthrew the priestly aristocracy.
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Citation
English
The language and the date you read it belong in the citation: this corpus is multilingual and articles are revised after publication.
John Shaqi. “The Fourth Philosophy (Zealots and Sicarii).” English version. 11 August 2026. https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-the-fourth-philosophy-zealots-and-sicarii.
@misc{johnshaqi-sect-the-fourth-philosophy-zealots-and-sicarii-en,
author = {John Shaqi},
title = {The Fourth Philosophy (Zealots and Sicarii)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {English version},
url = {https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-the-fourth-philosophy-zealots-and-sicarii},
note = {Accessed n.d.}
}The word count is counted from this edition. The minute estimate uses 238 words a minute, the silent reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Brysbaert (2019). The Urdu, Hindi and Roman Urdu editions carry a word count and no estimate, because no comparable rate has been published for those scripts.