Sadduceeism

plural Sadduceeisms · alternative Sadducism

1. uncountableusuallyThe practices, beliefs, or characteristics of the Sadducees.
2. archaicuncountableusuallyPerceived skepticism regarding the supernatural or divine, especially angels, resurrection and witches; moderate atheism.

   The doctrine, then, which is populary known as “annihilationism,”—which denies the immortality of the soul, and teaches that it perishes at death with the body, is in its main features SADDUCEEISM.

   1860, Israel Perkins Warren, Sadduceeism: A Refutation of the Doctrine of the Final Annihilation of the Wicked, page 4

   1 more example

   That though Philosophical Discourses to justifie the common belief about Witches, are nothing at all to them, or those of their measure; yet they are too seasonable and necessary for our Age, in which Atheism is begun in Sadducism; And those that dare not bluntly say, There is NO GOD, content themselves (for a fair step and Introduction) to deny there are SPIRITS or WITCHES.

   1681, Joseph Glanvill, “Preface”, in Saducismus Triumphatus, page ii