For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection,.... Of the dead, being ignorant of the Scriptures, and the power of God; see Mt 22:23.neither angel nor spirit; the Ethiopic version reads, "nor Holy Spirit": but the sense seems to be, that they did not believe any such species of beings as angels, nor indeed any spirits whatever, which were immaterial or immortal; for as for the spirit or soul of man, they took that to be only the temperament of the body, and that it died with it, and did not exist in any separate state after this life: for so Josephus says, that they deny the permanence of the soul, and rewards and punishments in the invisible state.
And, according to the Talmudic writers, they denied that there was any other world than this:but the Pharisees confess both; the resurrection of the dead, and that there are spirits, both angels and the souls of men, which are immortal.
Josephus, in the place before referred to, says, that they hold that every soul is incorruptible or immortal; and that they held the resurrection of the dead, is manifest from the Talmud , and other writings of theirs; the Syriac version renders it, "the Pharisees confess all these things"; to which agree the Arabic and Ethiopic versions.
De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 10. sect. 19. T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 54. 1. & Gloss. in ib. & Pirke Abot R. Nathan, c. 5. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 90.