[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, II, 8:10b, c, 11b] They are also long-lived, insomuch that most of them live over a hundred years because of the simplicity of their diet and as a result of their regular course of life. They despise the miseries of life and are above pain because of their noble thoughts. And as for death, if it come with glory, they regard it as better than immortality. They think also, like the Greeks, that the good have their habitation beyond the ocean in a region that is never oppressed by storms of rain or of snow, or with heat, and that this place is refreshed by the gentle breath of the west wind that is continually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to the bad a dark and cold den which is never free from unceasing punishment. [Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, II, 8:12] There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come by reading the holy books, by using several different forms of purifications and by being constantly familiar with discourses of the prophets; and it is only seldom that they fail in their predictions. I. Influences that Gave Rise to the Jewish Parties. The Maccabean period witnessed the birth of the great parties that henceforth distinguished Judaism. They represented the crystallizing of the different currents of thought that were traceable in the Greek period and even earlier. These diverse points of view were in part the result of that democratic spirit which has always characterized Israel's life. In the striking antithesis between the idealists and the legalists and the practical men of affairs it is also possible to detect the potent influence which the prophets had exerted upon the thought of their nation. In the Greek period the Chronicler and certain of the psalmists, with their intense devotion to the temple and its services to the practical exclusion of all other interests, were the forerunners of the later Pharisees. Ben Sira, with his hearty appreciation of the good things of life, with his devotion to the scriptures of his race, with his evident failure to accept the new doctrine of individual immortality, and with his great admiration for the high priests, was an earlier type of the better class of Sadducees. The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes developed these parties. As has already been noted, the Hasideans who followed Judas in the struggle to restore the law and the temple service were the immediate predecessors of the early Pharisees. The word "Pharisees" means separatists, and is used first in the days of Jonathan (Jos. _Ant_. III 5:9) In the same connection Josephus refers to the Sadducees. The name of this second party is probably derived, not from the Hebrew word sadik, meaning righteous, but from Zadok (later written Sadok or Sadduk), who was placed by Solomon in charge of the Jerusalem temple. It was thus the designation of the aristocratic, high-priestly party. In the Persian and Greek periods the high priests had ruled the Judean state without opposition.