Our author was a Pharisee of the straitest sect.
Being a Pharisee he faced the facts of Herod's power and warned the tribunal of the event, just as later he counselled the people to receive him, saying that for their sins they could not escape him.
Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas his disciple were in special honour with him, Josephus says, when he re-entered Jerusalem and put to death the leaders of the faction of Antigonus.
From the sequel it appears that the prophecy was uttered by one Pharisee only, and that it was in no way endorsed by the party.
Being a Pharisee, he sometimes introduces traditions of the Elders, which are either inferences from, or embroideries of, the biblical narrative.