These outrages were perpetrated principally by the Sadducees,[8.5] that is to say by the upper clergy, who surrounded the temple, and derived thence immense profits.[8.6] It does not seem that the Pharisees displayed towards the sect the animosity they showed to Jesus. The new believers were people pious and strict in their manner of life, not a little like the Pharisees themselves. The rage which the latter felt against the Founder sprang from the superiority of Jesus--a superiority which He took no pains to disguise. His delicate sarcasms, His intellect, the charm there was about Him, His hatred to hypocrites, had enkindled a savage ire. The apostles, on the contrary, were destitute of wit; they never employed irony. The Pharisees were at certain moments favorable to them; many Pharisees even became Christians.[8.7] The terrible anathemas of Jesus against Pharisaism had not yet been written, and tradition of the words of the Master was neither general nor uniform.[8.8] These first Christians were, moreover, people so inoffensive, that many persons of the Jewish aristocracy, without exactly forming part of the sect, were well disposed towards them. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had known Jesus, remained, no doubt, linked in bonds of brotherhood with the Church. The most celebrated Jewish Doctor of the times, Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder, grandson of Hillel, a man of broad and very tolerant ideas, gave his opinion, it is said, in the Sanhedrim in favor of the freedom of Gospel preaching.[8.9] The author of _The Acts_ puts into his mouth some excellent reasoning, which ought to be the rule of conduct for Governments whenever they find themselves confronted with novelties in the intellectual or moral order. "If this work is frivolous, leave it alone, it will fall of itself; if it is serious, how dare you resist the work of God? In any case you will not succeed in stopping it." Gamaliel was but little heeded. Liberal minds in the midst of opposing fanaticisms have no chance of success.