Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 23:8

"For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." — Acts 23:8 (ASV)

The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection.—On the general teaching of the Sadducees, see Note on Matthew 22:23.

Their denial of the existence of angels and spirits seems at first inconsistent with the known facts that they acknowledged the divine authority of the Pentateuch, which contains so many narratives of angelophanies, and were more severe than others in their administration of the Law.

The great body of the higher priestly class were, we know, mere Sadducees (Acts 5:17); and what, on their principles, was the meaning of the Temple ritual?

They were, in fact, carried along by one of the great waves of thought then passing over the ancient world, and were Epicureans and Materialists without knowing it, just as the Pharisees were the counterpart of the Stoics, even in the view of a writer like Josephus (Life, c. 3).

For them the “angels” of the Pentateuch were not distinct beings, but evanescent manifestations of the divine glory.