in the ecclesiastical history of the Jews, a religious sect among that people, whereof there are still some subsisting in Poland, Russia, Constantinople, Cairo, and other places of the Levant; whose distinguishing tenet and practice it is, to adhere closely to the words and letter of the scripture, exclusive of allegories, traditions, and the like.

Leo of Modena, a rabbin of Venice, observes, that of all the heresies among that people, before the destruction of the temple, there is none now left but that of the Caraim, a name derived from Micra, which signifies the pure text of the bible; because of their keeping to the Pentateuch, observing it to the letter, and rejecting all interpretations, paraphrases, and constitutions of the rabbins. Aben Ezra, and some other rabbins, treat the Caraites as Sadducees; but Leo de Juda calls them, more accurately, Sadducees reformed; because they believe the immortality of the soul, paradise, hell, resurrection, &c. which the ancient Sadducees denied. He adds, however, that they were doubtless originally real Sadducees, and sprung from among them.

M. Simon, with more probability, supposes them to have risen hence; that the more knowing among the Jews opposing the dreams and reveries of the rabbins, and using the pure texts of scripture to refute their groundless traditions, had the name of Caraim given them; which signifies as much as the barbarous Latin, Scripturarii; i.e. people attached to the text of scripture. The other Jews give them the odious name Sadducees, from their agreement with those sectaries on the head of traditions. Scaliger, Vossius, and Spanheim, rank the Caraites among the Sabeans, Magi, Manichees, and Mussulmans, but by mistake: Wolfgang, Fabricius, &c. say the Sadducees and Esseni were called Caraites, in opposition to the Pharisees: others take them for the doctors of the law so often mentioned in the gospel: but these are all conjectures. Josephus and Philo make no mention of them; which shows Their theology only seems to differ from that of the Caramanites other Jews, in that it is purer, and clearer of superstition: they give no credit to the explications of the Cabbalists, chimerical allegories, nor to any constitutions of the Talmud, but what are conformable to the scripture, and may be drawn from it by just and necessary consequences.

Peringer observes of the Caraites in Lithuania, that they are very different, both in aspect, language, and manners, from the rabbiniti, wherewith that country abounds. Their mother tongue is the Turkish; and this they use in their schools and synagogues. In village they resemble the Mahometan Tartars. Their synagogues are placed north and south; and the reason they give for it is, that Shalmaneser brought them northward: so that in praying, to look to Jerusalem, they must turn to the south. He adds, that they admit all the books of the Old Testament; contrary to the opinion of many of the learned, who hold that they reject all but the Pentateuch.

Caleb, a Caraites, reduces the difference between them and the rabbiniti to three points: 1. In that they deny the oral law to come from Moses, and reject the Cabbala. 2. In that they abhor the Talmud. 3. In that they observe the feasts, as the sabbaths, &c., much more rigorously than the rabbins do. To this may be added, that they extend the degrees of affinity, wherein marriage is prohibited, almost to infinity.