The Sadducean nobility continued in power under his brother and successor Alexander Jannaeus (103-78); and the breach between the king and the mass of the people widened.
With the Temple and its Sadducean high priests perished the Sanhedrin in which the Sadducees had competed with the Pharisees for predominance.
Of the author nothing is known beyond the obvious fact that he was a man of wide observation and philosophic thought, of the Sadducean type in religion, but non-Jewish in his attitude toward life.
The new king's Sadducean proclivities rendered him odious to the populace, which rose in revolt, but only to bring upon itself a savage revenge.
Nay more, it cannot have been written after the open breach between Hyrcanus and the Pharisees, when the former joined the Sadducean party.