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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:56:46 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:56:46 -0700 |
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diff --git a/31960-tei/31960-tei.tei b/31960-tei/31960-tei.tei new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23d96a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/31960-tei/31960-tei.tei @@ -0,0 +1,2460 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> + +<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 SYSTEM "http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/marcello/0.4/dtd/pgtei.dtd" [ + +<!ENTITY u5 "http://www.tei-c.org/Lite/"> + +]> + +<TEI.2 lang="en"> +<teiHeader> + <fileDesc> + <titleStmt> + <title>The Covenanters of Damascus; A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect</title> + <author><name reg="Moore, George Foot">George Foot Moore</name></author> + </titleStmt> + <editionStmt> + <edition n="1">Edition 1</edition> + </editionStmt> + <publicationStmt> + <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher> + <date>April 12, 2010</date> + <idno type="etext-no">31960</idno> + <availability> + <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and + with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it + away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg + License online at www.gutenberg.org/license</p> + </availability> + </publicationStmt> + <sourceDesc> + <bibl> + Created electronically. + </bibl> + </sourceDesc> + </fileDesc> + <encodingDesc> + </encodingDesc> + <profileDesc> + <langUsage> + <language id="en"></language> + <language id="he"></language> + </langUsage> + </profileDesc> + <revisionDesc> + <change> + <date value="2010-04-12">April 12, 2010</date> + <respStmt> + <name> + Produced by Meredith Bach, David King, and the Online + Distributed Proofreading Team at <http://www.pgdp.net/>. + </name> + </respStmt> + <item>Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</item> + </change> + </revisionDesc> +</teiHeader> + +<pgExtensions> + <pgStyleSheet> + .boxed { x-class: boxed } + .shaded { x-class: shaded } + .rules { x-class: rules; rules: all } + .indent { margin-left: 2 } + .bold { font-weight: bold } + .italic { font-style: italic } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + </pgStyleSheet> + + <pgCharMap formats="txt.iso-8859-1"> + <char id="U0x2014"> + <charName>mdash</charName> + <desc>EM DASH</desc> + <mapping>--</mapping> + </char> + <char id="U0x2003"> + <charName>emsp</charName> + <desc>EM SPACE</desc> + <mapping> </mapping> + </char> + <char id="U0x2026"> + <charName>hellip</charName> + <desc>HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS</desc> + <mapping>...</mapping> + </char> + </pgCharMap> +</pgExtensions> + +<text lang="en"> + <front> + <div> + <divGen type="pgheader" /> + </div> + <div> + <divGen type="encodingDesc" /> + </div> + + <div rend="page-break-before: always"> + <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">The Covenanters of Damascus;</p> + <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect</p> + <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">George Foot Moore</p> + <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">Harvard University</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">Harvard Theological Review</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">Vol. 4, No. 3</p> + <p rend="text-align: center">July, 1911</p> + </div> + <div rend="page-break-before: always"> + <head>Contents</head> + <divGen type="toc" /> + </div> + + </front> +<body> + + +<pb n='330'/><anchor id='Pg330'/> + +<div rend='page-break-before: always'> +<index index='toc'/> +<index index='pdf'/> +<head>The Covenanters Of Damascus; A Hitherto +Unknown Jewish Sect</head> + +<p> +Among the Hebrew manuscripts recovered in 1896 from the +Genizah of an old synagogue at Fostat, near Cairo, and now in +the Cambridge University Library, England, were found eight +leaves of a Hebrew manuscript which proved to be fragments of +a book containing the teaching of a peculiar Jewish sect; a single +leaf of a second manuscript, in part parallel to the first, in part +supplementing it, was also discovered. These texts Professor +Schechter has now published, with a translation and commentary, +in the first volume of his <hi rend='italic'>Documents of Jewish +Sectaries</hi>.<note place='foot'>Documents of Jewish Sectaries. Volume I. Fragments of +a Zadokite Work. Edited, with Translation, Introduction, and Notes, by S. Schechter. +Cambridge University Press. 1910.</note> +The longer and older of the manuscripts (A) is, in the opinion +of the editor, probably of the tenth century; the other (B), of +the eleventh or twelfth. +</p> + +<p> +What remains of the book may be divided into two parts. +Pages 1-8 of A, and the single leaf of B, contain exhortations and +warnings addressed to members of the sect, for which a ground +and motive are often sought in the history of the Jewish people +or of the sect itself, together with severe strictures upon such as +have lapsed from the sound teaching, and polemics against the +doctrine and practice of other bodies of Jews. The second part, +pages 9-16, sets forth the constitution and government of the +community, and its distinctive interpretation and application of +the law,—what may be called sectarian <foreign rend='italic'>halakah</foreign>. +</p> + +<p> +Neither part is complete; the manuscript is mutilated and +defective at the end, there is apparently a gap between the first +and second parts, and it may be questioned whether the original +beginning of the work is preserved. The lack of methodical +arrangement in the contents leads Dr. Schechter to surmise that +<pb n='331'/><anchor id='Pg331'/> +what we have in our hands is only a compilation of extracts from +a larger work, put together with little regard for completeness or +order. An orderly disposition, according to our notions of order, +is not, however, so constant a characteristic of Jewish literature +as to make this inference very convincing. +</p> + +<p> +Manuscript A was evidently written by a negligent scribe, +perhaps after a poor or badly preserved copy; B, which represents +a somewhat different recension of the work, exhibits, so far as it +goes, a superior text. When it is added that both manuscripts +are in many places defaced or torn, it may be imagined that the +decipherment and interpretation present serious difficulties, and +that, after all the pains which Dr. Schechter has spent upon the +task, many uncertainties remain. Facsimiles of a page of each +manuscript are given; but in view of the condition of the text a +photographic reproduction of the whole is indispensable. +</p> + +<p> +The legal part of the book, so far as the text is fairly well preserved, +is not exceptionally difficult; the rules are in general +clearly defined, and if in the peculiar institutions of the sect there +are many things we do not fully understand, this is due more to +the brevity with which its organization is described and to the +mutilation of the text than to lack of clearness in the description +itself. The attempt to make out something of the history and +relations of the sect from the first part of the book is, on the other +hand, beset by many difficulties. What history is found there +is not told for the sake of history, but used to point admonitions +or emphasize warnings; and, after the manner of the apocalyptic +literature, historical persons and events are referred to in roundabout +phrases which envelop them in an affected mystery. Even +when such references are to chapters of the national history with +which we are moderately well acquainted, as in the Assumption of +Moses, c. 5, ff., for example, they may be to us baffling enigmas; +much more when they have to do, as is in large part the case in +our texts, with the wholly unknown internal or external history of +a sect. The obscurity is increased by the fact that the allusions +are often a tissue of fragmentary quotations or reminiscences out +of the Old Testament, chosen and combined, it seems, by purely +verbal association, or taken in an occult allegorical sense.<note place='foot'>It +may be added that the quotations are singularly inexact.</note> The +<pb n='332'/><anchor id='Pg332'/> +allegories of which an interpretation is given, as when Amos 5 26 f. +is applied to the emigration to Damascus and the institutions +and laws of the sect, and Ezekiel 44 15 to the classes of the +community, do not encourage us to think that we should be able +to divine the meaning by our unaided intelligence. It is a fortunate +circumstance that the writer comes back more than once to +the salient events in the sect's history, for these repetitions of the +same thing in different forms afford considerable help to the interpreter, +so that the main facts may be made out with at least +a considerable degree of probability. +</p> + +<p> +The principal seat of the sect was in the region of Damascus, +where its adherents formed numerous communities. It was +composed of Israelites who had migrated thither from Judaea; +thither also had come <q>the interpreter of the law,</q> the founder +of the sect; there it had been organized by a covenant repeatedly +referred to as <q>the new covenant in the land of Damascus.</q> +Many who entered into this new covenant at the beginning did +not long remain true to it; the writer inveighs vehemently +against those who fell away, accusing them not only of grave +error, but of gross violations of the law; but this crisis had been +passed, and when the book was written the community was +apparently flourishing. +</p> + +<p> +The most coherent account of the origin of the sect is found +on pages 5-6:<note place='foot'>In my translation +I have sometimes thought it possible to adhere to the +text where Dr. Schechter has preferred a conjectural emendation.</note> +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +At the end of the devastation of the land arose men who removed +the boundary and led Israel astray; and the land was laid waste because +they spoke rebelliously against the commandments of God by Moses and +also against his holy Anointed,<note place='foot'>That is, probably, +against the legitimate high priest of the time (perhaps +Onias).—The rendering <q><emph>by</emph> his Anointed</q> +is grammatically admissible, but +would be unintelligible in this context.</note> and prophesied falsehood to turn Israel +back from following God. But God remembered the covenant with the +forefathers, and he raised up from Aaron discerning men and from Israel +wise men, and he heard them, and they dug the well. <q>The well, princes +dug it, nobles of the people delved it, with the legislator</q> (Numbers 21 18). +The well is the law, and they who dug it are the captivity of Israel<note place='foot'>It +would be possible to render <q>the penitents of Israel.</q></note> +who went forth from the land of Judah and sojourned in the land of +<pb n='333'/><anchor id='Pg333'/> +Damascus, all of whom God called princes because they sought him.<note place='foot'>The +four or five words which follow are unintelligible.</note>... +The legislator is the interpreter of the law, as Isaiah said, <q>Bringing forth +a tool for his work</q> (Isa. 54 16), and the nobles of the people are those +who came to delve the well with the statutes which the legislator decreed +that men should walk in them in the complete end of wickedness; and +besides these they shall not obtain any (statutes) until the teacher of +righteousness shall arise in the last times. +</quote> + +<p> +The migration is referred to in several other places: <q>The +captivity of Israel, who migrated from the land of Judah</q> +(4 2 f.);<note place='foot'>The references are to page and line of +the Hebrew text.</note> <q>those who held firm made their escape to the northern +land,</q> by which the region of Damascus is meant (7 13 f.; cf. +7 15, 18 f.). The time of the migration is plainly indicated in +the passage quoted above (5 20 ff.). The men who, after the +end of the devastation of the land, <q>removed the boundary,</q> +and led Israel astray, speaking rebelliously against the commandments +of God by Moses and against his holy Anointed, prophesying +falsely to turn Israel away from following God, in consequence +of which the land was laid waste, are most naturally +taken for the hellenizing leaders of the Seleucid time. In this +period, it seems that a number of Jews, including priests and +levites, withdrew to the region of Damascus,<note place='foot'>Others +sought refuge in Egypt; the temple of Onias at Leontopolis had its +origin in the same circumstances.</note> and there they +subsequently bound themselves by covenant to live strictly in +accordance with the law as defined by their legislator. +</p> + +<p> +With this the other allusions agree. Thus in A, p. 8 (= B, p. +19), at the end of a violent invective against the sinners, of whom +it is said, <q>The princes of Judah are like those who remove the +boundary,</q> we read that <q>they separated not from the people +[and their sins, B], but presumptuously broke through all restraints, +walking in the way of the wicked (heathen), of whom +God said, <q>The venom of dragons is their wine, and the head +of asps is cruel</q><note place='foot'>So they understood the +words translated in the English version <q>the cruel +venom of asps.</q></note> (Deut. 32 33). The dragons are the kings of the +nations, and their wine means their ways, and the head of asps +is the head of the Greek kings who came to inflict vengeance upon +them.</q> This again is most naturally understood of Antiochus +<pb n='334'/><anchor id='Pg334'/> +Epiphanes; the calamities he brought on the Jews were a direct +consequence of the course of the hellenizing party.<note place='foot'>See 2 +Macc. 4 16: <q>By reason of which (sc. their predilection for Greek +ways) a dire calamity befel them, and those for whose customs they displayed +such zeal and whom they wanted to imitate in everything became their enemies +and avengers.</q> Assumption of Moses, 5 1: <q>When the times of retribution +shall draw near, and vengeance arises through kings who share their guilt and +punish them,</q> etc., describes the same situation.</note> +</p> + +<p> +A definite date for these occurrences is given in 1 5 ff.: <q>When +God's wrath was over, three hundred and ninety years after he +gave them into the power of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, +he visited them, and caused to spring up from Israel and Aaron a +root of his planting to inherit his land and to thrive on the good +things of his earth. And they recognized their wickedness and +knew that they were guilty men, and they were like blind men and +like men groping their way for twenty years. And God took note +of their deeds, that with perfect heart they sought him, and he +raised up for them a teacher of righteousness to guide them in the +way of his heart.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The <q>root</q> which God, mindful of his covenant, caused to +spring up from Aaron and Israel is the men with whom the religious +revival, or reformation, began, the forefathers of the sect +(see 6 2 f., and below, p. <ref target='Pg375'>375</ref>);<note place='foot'>Cf. +<q>the whole race of the elect root,</q> Enoch 93 8.</note> +the <q>teacher of righteousness</q> is +the <q>interpreter of the law who came to Damascus</q> (6 7 f., 7 18 +f.). The dates refer therefore to the origin of the sect. Three +hundred and ninety years from the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar +(597 or 586 <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>) would bring us, by our chronology, +to 207 or 196 <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi> The Jewish chronology of the Persian period +is, however, always too long by from forty to seventy years,<note place='foot'>See +Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes (3 ed.), vol. iii. p. 189.</note> +and assuming, as it is fair to do, that our author made the same +error, the three hundred ninety years would run out in the middle +of the third century. Dr. Schechter suspects, with much probability, +that the original reading was <q><emph>four</emph> hundred and ninety +years,</q> the common apocalyptic cycle (Dan. 9 2, 24; Enoch +89-90; 93, etc.). Making the same allowance for error, we +should be brought again to a time not far removed from the punishment +<pb n='335'/><anchor id='Pg335'/> +inflicted on the people by Antiochus Epiphanes (see +above, p. <ref target='Pg333'>333</ref> f.).<note place='foot'><p>A +comparison with the Apocalypse of the Ten Weeks in Enoch (93 + +91 12-17) is in point here. The sixth <q>week</q> (period of 490 years) ends with +the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar; in the seventh a rebellious +generation arises, all whose works are apostasy (the hellenizers of the Seleucid +time); at its end the <q>chosen righteous men of the eternal plantation of +righteousness</q> are chosen to receive the sevenfold instruction about God's whole +creation (apparently the cosmological revelations of Enoch); the historical retrospect +closes before the robbery and desecration of the temple by Antiochus +Epiphanes (170, 168 <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>), of which the seer knows nothing. +The chronological error here amounts to sixty or seventy years. +</p> +<p> +In the Introduction, p. xii, by a typographical error which is repeated on +p. xxii, Dr. Schechter says that the 390 years of the text would bring us <q>to +within a generation of Simon the Just, who flourished about 290 +<hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>,</q> and twenty +years more would bring us into the midst of the hellenistic persecutions preceding +the Maccabaean revolt (about 170 <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>). Margoliouth, whose +hypothesis 490 does not suit any better than 390, takes courage from Schechter's doubts +to disregard the numbers altogether. Gressmann (Internationale Wochenschrift, +March 4, 1911) is led by metrical considerations to treat all the chronological +notices as interpolations, and gives them no further consideration. But even +if the figures were introduced by a later hand, they may still represent the tradition +of the sect.</p></note> +</p> + +<p> +There is nothing in the texts which demands a later date for the +origin of the sect. The last event in the national history to which +reference is made is the vengeance inflicted on the heathenizing +rulers of the people by <q>the head of the Greek kings.</q> To the +misfortunes of the people in the following centuries, such as the +taking of Jerusalem by Pompey or its destruction by Titus, there +is no allusion. It may perhaps be inferred not only that the +schism antedated these calamities, but that the book was written +before them. In the author's frame of mind toward the religious +leaders of Palestinian Jewry, he would have been likely to +record such conspicuous judgments upon them. A comparison +with the Assumption of Moses is instructive on this point. There +the sweeping denunciation of the priesthood and the scribes, +<q>their teachers in those times,</q> and of the godless Asmonaean +priest-kings, is followed by the well-deserved judgment inflicted +on them by Herod, and after him comes Varus, burning part of +the temple, crucifying, and carrying off into slavery. The second +of the Psalms of Solomon may also be compared. +</p> + +<p> +The schismatic character of the sect would also be explained +<pb n='336'/><anchor id='Pg336'/> +if it arose in an age when the character of the political and religious +heads of the Jewish people was such as to move God-fearing +and law-abiding men to repudiate them with all their ways and +works. For it is not merely with a sect, differing from the mass +of their fellows in certain opinions and practices, that we have to +do, but with a schism. The Covenanters of Damascus are radical +come-outers, seceders not only from the land of Judaea, but +from established Judaism, on which they look much as the Puritan +Separatists in the seventeenth century looked on the English +Church; they might have taken to themselves the prophetic word +so often in the mouth of the Puritan, <q>Depart ye, depart ye, +go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the +midst of her; be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord</q> +(Isa. 52 11), as they do apply to the religious teachers of the Jewish +church the most violent invectives of the same prophet (50 11, +59 4 ff.; see below, p. <ref target='Pg344'>344</ref> f.). They will not even call +themselves Jews, they are Israelites who went forth from the land of Judaea; +their Messiah is to spring from Aaron and Israel, not from Judah; +when the final judgment comes in its appointed time, it will no +longer be permitted to make compact with the house of Judah, +but every man must stand in his own stronghold;<note place='foot'>Perhaps +we should emend <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>ma'mādō</foreign>, +<q>station,</q> i.e. sect.</note> when the glory +of God shines out on Israel, all the wicked of Judah shall be cut +off, in the day of its trial by fire. They reject the temple in Jerusalem, +and will not offer on its altar. If we consider that the Essenes, +notwithstanding their wider divergence from the common +type of Judaism, seem to have regarded themselves as within the +pale of the church, and to have been so regarded by others—enjoying, +indeed, with the people the reputation of peculiar sanctity—the +schismatic character of our sect appears in a still stronger +light. +</p> + +<p> +The language of the book is not inconsistent with the age to +which the contents would seem to assign it. The vocabulary +is in the main Biblical, but there are a number of words which +otherwise occur only in the writings of the Mishnic age or later. +Some of these belong to the technical terminology of the law +schools, some of them appear to be peculiar to the sect. A few +of the Biblical words also are used in later senses and applications. +<pb n='337'/><anchor id='Pg337'/> +It is proper to bear in mind, however, that the Hebrew originals +of the works with which it would be most natural to compare our +text, such as Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Testaments of the +Twelve Patriarchs, the Gospel, are not preserved; in fact, between +the last books of the Old Testament and the rabbinical literature +of the second Christian century there is a hiatus in the history +of the Hebrew language, so that words which appear for the +first time in the Mishna and kindred works may have been, and +in many cases probably were, in use much earlier. It is unnecessary +therefore to suppose that such words were introduced into +our texts by later scribes, though the possibility of such changes +must of course be admitted. The particular instances in which +Dr. Schechter thinks that late and foreign influences are most +clearly to be recognized—the title of the <q>censor</q> and the +peculiar name for a house of worship—are discussed elsewhere.<note place='foot'>See +below, p. <ref target='Pg350'>350</ref>, <ref target='Pg354'>354</ref> f.</note> +More remarkable than the vocabulary of the book is its syntax. +The consecutive constructions of the perfect and the imperfect +are regularly employed, not only in imitation of Biblical models +in narrative and prophetic passages, but in the legal part of the +book; and in spite of some irregularities, which may in part at +least be laid to the charge of scribes, the use of these tenses is +generally correct. In this respect the Hebrew of the book differs +entirely from that of the Mishna and the contemporary and later +Midrashim, in which the characteristic features of classical tense-syntax +have entirely disappeared, under the influence, it is generally +supposed, of the Aramaic vernacular. In comparison with +these writings the vocabulary also is notably free from foreign +admixture. There are no words borrowed from Greek and Latin, +and only one or two instances where an Aramaic term seems to +have been adopted. The orthography also, in its more sparing +use of the semivowels to indicate the vowels <hi rend='italic'>u</hi> +and <hi rend='italic'>i</hi>, resembles +that of the Bible. +</p> + +<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 50%'/> + +<p> +The founder of the sect is called the <q>teacher of righteousness</q> +(1 11),<note place='foot'>Cf. Isa. 30 20 f.</note> <q>the only, +or beloved, teacher</q> (20 14);<note place='foot'>The Septuagint renders +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>yāḥīd</foreign> most frequently by ἀγαπητός, less often +by μονογενής.</note> <q>the only +<pb n='338'/><anchor id='Pg338'/> +one</q> (20 32); he is <q>the legislator,</q> that is, <q>the interpreter +of the law</q> (6 7); and this interpreter of the law, who came to +Damascus, is the star who, according to Balaam's prophecy, +was to issue from Jacob (7 18 f.).<note place='foot'>The same prophecy which +was applied by Akiba to Bar Cocheba and by +the Dositheans to their founder (see below, p. <ref target='Pg362'>362</ref>).</note> +He showed them how to walk +in the way of God's heart (1 11); as interpreter of the law he +ordained them statutes to walk in till the end of wickedness—statutes +which shall not be superseded by any others <q>until +there arise the teacher of righteousness in the last days</q> (6 11 f.). +To him, therefore, are attributed the distinctive principles and +observances of the sect as they are set forth in this book. <q>His +anointed,</q> through whom God made known to men his holy +spirit, and who is true (2 12 f.), is in all probability the same +person with the teacher, the star, just as the anointed from Aaron +and Israel who is to arise in the future (20 1) is the same as the +teacher of righteousness to whose voice they will then listen +(20 32; see below, p. <ref target='Pg343'>343</ref>). +</p> + +<p> +Those of the emigrants who accepted the guidance of the +teacher of righteousness, the interpreter of the law, entered into +the <q>new covenant in the land of Damascus</q> (6 19, 8 21, 19 33 f., +20 12). The idea of the <q>new covenant</q> was doubtless suggested +by Jer. 31 31 ff. (cf. 32 36 ff.; Ezek. 37 26, etc.), where the establishment +of the new covenant, in the stead of the old covenant +which their fathers broke, marks the restoration of God's favor, +the beginning of a new and better time. The same use of the +passage in Jeremiah is made at length by the author of the Epistle +to the Hebrews (8 6 ff.), The substance of the covenant may +be gathered from 6 11-7 5: +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +All who were brought into the covenant are not to enter into the sanctuary +to light its altar, but became closers of the door, as God said, <q>Who +among you will close its door?</q> and <q>Thou shalt not light my altar in +vain</q> (Mal. 1 10);<note place='foot'>The sect rejects the +temple in Jerusalem and its worship. Cf. 20 21 f., in +the last crisis, <q>they will lean upon God ... and will declare the sanctuary +unclean and will return to God.</q></note> but +shall observe to do according to the interpretation +of the law for the end of wickedness, and to separate from the children +of perdition, and to keep aloof from unrighteous gain, which is unclean +by vow and ban,<note place='foot'>Perhaps better, keep aloof, by vow and ban, from +unrighteous, unclean gain.</note> and from the property of the sanctuary, and from +<pb n='339'/><anchor id='Pg339'/> +robbing the poor of the people and making widows their spoil and murdering +orphans; and to separate between the unclean and the clean, +and to show the difference between the holy and the common; and to +observe the Sabbath day as it is defined, and the season feasts, and the +fast-day, in accordance with the commandments of those who entered +into the new covenant in the land of Damascus; to set apart the sacred +dues as they are defined; and that a man should love his neighbor as himself, +and sustain the poor and needy and the proselyte, and to seek each +the welfare of the other; and that no man transgress the prohibited degrees, +but guard against fornication according to the rule; and that a +man should reprove his brother according to the commandment, and +not bear a grudge from day to day; and to separate from all forms of +uncleanness according to their several prescriptions; and that a man +should not defile his holy spirit, even as God separated for them (sc. +unclean from clean). All who walk in these precepts in perfection of +holiness, according to all the foundations of the covenant of God,<note place='foot'>See +below, p. <ref target='Pg353'>353</ref>.</note> +have the assurance that they shall live a thousand generations. +</quote> + +<p> +Early in the history of the sect a serious defection occurred. +Men who entered among the first into the covenant incurred +guilt, like their forefathers, by following their sinful inclinations; +they forsook the covenant of God and preferred their own will, +and went about after the stubbornness of their heart, every man +doing as he pleased (3 10 ff.); the men who entered into the new +covenant in the land of Damascus went back and proved false, +and turned aside from the well of living waters (19 33 f.). Their +names were struck out of the registers of the sect, as were those +of such as fell away in later times. +</p> + +<p> +We can readily imagine that many found the rule of the sect +too strict and the discipline by which it was enforced too severe. +Our texts, however, speak not of such occasional and individual +lapses, but of the repudiation of the covenant by numbers at one +time. It seems that another leader had arisen, of very different +temper from the founder, who drew away many after him. In +the eyes of those who remained steadfast in the faith, the new +teacher was naturally a false prophet, a kind of antichrist. He +is called the liar (<q>the man of lies,</q> 20 15), the scoffer (1 14); his +adherents are scoffers,<note place='foot'>The name comes from +Isa. 28 14, where the scorners are the rulers in Jerusalem, +who boast of their covenant with death and their compact with hell, who +have made lies their refuge and hidden themselves in falsehood. See also Isa. +29 20.</note> who uttered error about the righteous +<pb n='340'/><anchor id='Pg340'/> +statutes, and spurned the covenant and plighted faith which +they established in the land of Damascus, that is to say, the new +covenant. They and their families shall have no portion in the +house of the law (20 10 ff.). For their unfaithfulness they were +delivered to the sword (3 10 ff.), until of all the men of war who +went with the liar none was left (20 14 ff.).<note place='foot'>It might +be surmised that the false prophet had headed an insurrection—perhaps +a Messianic rising—which ended in disaster.</note> This came to pass +about forty years after the death of the unique teacher (<hi rend='italic'>l.c.</hi>). If +the emigration to Damascus occurred under Antiochus Epiphanes,<note place='foot'>See +above, p. <ref target='Pg333'>333</ref>.</note> +the end of the episode of the false prophet would fall about +the beginning of the first century <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>, and we should have at +least an upper limit for the writing of the book. The passion +which every mention of this defection arouses suggests that it +was fresh in memory, and would incline us to date the writing +not very long after the time indicated. It should be observed, +however, that the sentence which counts forty years from the +death of the unrivalled teacher to the end of the liar's army +sits loose in the context, and may be a gloss, in which case the +book might be some decades older. +</p> + +<p> +With the remnant who remained faithful through the great +defection <q>God confirmed his covenant with Israel forever, revealing +to them the secret of things in which all Israel was in error, +his holy Sabbaths and his glorious festivals and his righteous testimonies +and his true ways and the pleasure of his will, things +which if a man do he shall live by them. He opened a way before +them, and they dug a well for copious waters.</q> <q>In the abundance +of his wonderful grace he atoned for their guilt and forgave +their transgression, and built for them a sure house in Israel, +the like of which did not arise in times past nor until now</q> (3 12-20). +The prediction of the sure house (1 Sam. 2 35) seems to be +fulfilled in the stability of the sect itself, or perhaps, with closer +adherence to the prophecy, in that of its faithful priesthood. +</p> + +<p> +So much may be gathered from the book about the origin and +history of the sect. We turn now to its expectation. As a +teacher of righteousness, an anointed one (priest), was the founder +of the sect, so in the last times a teacher of righteousness, an +<pb n='341'/><anchor id='Pg341'/> +anointed one, shall appear (6 10 f.). Those who proved faithless +to the covenant are cut off from the community, <q>from the time +when the unique teacher was taken away until the anointed one +from Aaron and Israel shall arise</q> (19 35-20 1), that is, during +the whole of the present dispensation. Dr. Schechter regards +the anointed one who is to appear in the future as the founder +of the sect <hi rend='italic'>redivivus:</hi> the present dispensation <q>seems to be the +period intervening between the <emph>first</emph> appearance of the Teacher +of Righteousness (p. 1, l. 11) (the founder of the Sect), who was +gathered in or died,<note place='foot'>Or, as Schechter elsewhere +expresses it, <q>disappeared.</q> Among the synonyms +for death, Aaron ben Eliahu names <q>gather in</q> (Isa. 58 8).</note> +and the second appearance of the Teacher of +Righteousness who is to rise in <q>the end of the days</q> (p. 6, l. 11). +Moreover, the Only Teacher, or Teacher of Righteousness, is +identical with the Messiah, or the Anointed one from Aaron and +Israel, whose advent is expected by the Sect.</q><note place='foot'>Introduction, +p. xiii.</note> The texts, +however, say nothing of the disappearance, or a second appearance, +or reappearance, or return of the founder; nor do the words +<q>until the teacher of righteousness shall arise in the last days,</q> +<q>until the anointed shall arise from Aaron and Israel,</q> mean that +he shall rise from the dead, as Dr. Schechter interprets them.<note place='foot'>P. +xiii. <q>We gather from another passage that the Only Teacher found +his death in Damascus, but is expected to rise again (p. 19, l. 35; p. 20, l. 1; cf. +also p. 6, l. 11).</q> The verb <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>'āmad</foreign> +means, as frequently in the later books of the +Old Testament, <q>appear upon the scene.</q> In this sense it occurs repeatedly in +the book before us, and there is nothing in the context here to suggest a different +interpretation.</note> +The Messiah whose advent the sect expects at the end of the present +period of history is, as in the older parts of the Testaments of +the Twelve Patriarchs, a priest; and the function of the priest-messiah +is not, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to mediate between +man and God, but to instruct men in righteousness, to guide +them in the way of God's heart. That the founder of the sect +also was both priest and teacher is by no means sufficient to establish +the identity of the two figures. It was the office of the priest +to teach Israel the law, <q>all the statutes which the Lord hath +spoken unto them through Moses</q> (Lev. 10 11; cf. Deut. 33 10); +<q>the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek +<pb n='342'/><anchor id='Pg342'/> +the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts</q> +(Mal. 2 7). Ezra is the type of a priest who had not only prepared +his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, but to +teach in Israel statutes and judgments (Ezra 7 10); he was, +according to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the restorer of +Judaism. It was a departure from the ideal of the law itself +that, when the priesthood showed itself unworthy of its calling, +the teaching function was assumed by lay scribes, and even in +later times there were many priestly teachers among the Scribes +and among the Doctors. That our sect looks back to one such as +its founder, and forward to another as the great teacher of the +Messianic age, is in no way surprising. If the author had meant +what Dr. Schechter thinks, it is fair to assume that he would have +said it unmistakably; for the identity of the expected Messiah +with the dead founder, if it was part of the belief of the sect, +would of necessity be a singular and significant part of it.<note place='foot'>Cf. +Acts 1 11.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The coming judgment of God is represented rather as a judgment +on the faithless members of the sect, including those who +have seceded from it or been expelled, than in its more general +aspects. The long eschatological passage in B (20 15 to the end) +is illegible in spots near the beginning, but the general tenor is +clear: +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +<p> +In that consummation the anger of God will be inflamed against +Israel, as he said, <q>There is no king and no prince, and no judge and +none that reproves in righteousness</q> (cf. Hos. 3 4). Those who turn +from the transgression [of Jacob]<note place='foot'>See Isa. 59 20.</note> +and keep the covenant of God will +then confer with one another; their footsteps will be firm in the way of +God (and the prophecy will be fulfilled which says), <q>And God hearkened +to their words and heard, and a book of remembrance was written +before him for those that fear God and think on his name</q> (Mal. 3 16), +until deliverance and righteousness emerge for those that fear God, +<q>and ye shall return and see the difference between righteous and wicked, +and between a servant of God and one who serves him not</q> (Mal. 3 18). +And he shows favor to those that love him and keep his commandments, +for a thousand generations....<note place='foot'>The quotation +is to be thus restored; see Exod. 20 6 and Deut. 7 9. The +next two or three lines are very obscure: <q>From the house of Peleg, who went +out (or, will go out) from the city of the sanctuary, and they will rely on God +(cf. Isa. 10 20) when the transgression of Israel is at an end, and will declare the +sanctuary unclean, and will return to God. The prince (?) of the people with +few words (??).</q> The house of Peleg may be an etymological allegory for the +seceders; the city of the sanctuary is probably Jerusalem (cf. 6 11 ff., above, +p. 338); but neither the connection with the preceding nor the meaning of the +sequel is clear.</note> +</p> + +<pb n='343'/><anchor id='Pg343'/> + +<p> +Each man according to his spirit, shall they be judged by his holy +counsel, and all who have broken through the bounds of the law, of +those who entered into the covenant, when the glory of God shines out +on Israel, shall be cut off from the midst of the camp, and with them +all the evil-doers of Judah, in the days when it is tried in the fire. But +all who held firmly by these precepts, going out and coming in in conformity with +the law, and listened to the voice of the teacher, will confess<note place='foot'>Text, +<q>and confessed,</q> which leaves the sentence without a predicate.</note> +before God.... <q>We have done evil, we, and our fathers also, +when they went contrary to the statutes of the covenant, and faithful are +thy judgments upon us.</q> And they will not act presumptuously against +his holy statutes and his righteous judgment and his faithful testimonies. +They will be instructed in the ancient judgments by which +the followers of the unique one were judged, and will hearken to the +words of the teacher of righteousness. And they will not controvert +the righteous statutes when they hear them; they will rejoice and be +glad, and their heart will be strong, and they will show themselves +mighty against all the people of the world.<note place='foot'>See also +7 20: <q>The sceptre</q> (Num. 24 17) <q>is the prince of all the congregation; +and when he arises he will destroy all the children of Seth.</q></note> +And God will atone for +them, and they will see his salvation with joy, because they trusted +in his holy name. +</p> +</quote> + +<p> +Here the fragment ends. The destruction of those who fall +away from the sect is threatened in other places; it will suffice +to quote the most important (19 5 ff.): +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +Upon all those who reject the commandments and the statutes, the +deserts of the wicked shall be requited when God visits the earth, when +the word comes to pass which was written by Zechariah the prophet, +<q>Sword, awake against my shepherd and against the man that is my +fellow, saith God; smite the shepherd, and let the sheep be scattered, +and I will turn my hand against the little ones</q> (Zech. 13 7). But +those who observe it (sc. the obligations of the covenant) are <q>the poor +of the flock</q> (Zech. 11 7). These shall escape at the end of the visitation, +but the former (sc. those who reject the commandments) shall be +given over to the sword when the Anointed of Aaron and Israel comes, +as it was at the end of the first visitation, of which God said by Ezekiel +that a mark should be made on the foreheads of them that sigh and cry, +<pb n='344'/><anchor id='Pg344'/> +and the rest were delivered to the sword that executes the judgment +of the covenant. And so shall the judgment be of all who enter into +his covenant and do not hold firmly by these statutes, they shall be +visited even with extermination by the hand of Belial. This is the day +in which God will visit, as he spoke, <q>The princes of Judah are become +like men who remove the boundary; on them will I pour out my fury +like water</q> (Hos. 5 10). For they entered into the covenant of repentance, +but did not turn aside from the way of faithless men, and wallowed +in ways of fornication and in unrighteous gain, and avenging themselves +and bearing a grudge against one another. +</quote> + +<p> +It is possible, of course, that the judgment of the heathen world, +which looms so large in most of the apocalypses, may have had +a place in parts of the book now lost, but if it had been a very +important feature in the expectation of the sect we should hardly +fail to find at least allusions to it in the pages in our hands. The +author is almost exclusively interested in the sect itself, in the +division which had rent it, and in polemics against laxer interpretations +of the law. This limitation of the horizon is characteristically +sectarian, and may suggest, moreover, as has been +said above, that the writer is not far removed in time from the +split in the new organization. +</p> + +<p> +The polemic is especially pointed against certain opponents +who are described as <q>those who build a wall and plaster it with +stucco</q> (4 19; 8 12).<note place='foot'>It is not improbable +that the author thought also of the other meaning +of the word <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>tāphēl</foreign>, +here rendered <q>stucco,</q> viz. something insipid, stupid; cf. +Lam. 2 14, in a passage which, like Ezek. 13 10, refers to the false prophets. I +see nothing to indicate that <q>the wall</q> is the fence or hedge which the Pharisaean +rabbis drew around the law to protect it from infraction, as Dr. Schechter +thinks.</note> They follow a commandment (<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>ṣau</foreign>); +probably connoting, as in Hosea 5 11, from which the phrase is +taken, an arbitrary rule of their own, a commandment of men.<note place='foot'>The text +explains, <q>this is the prater of whom it says, they prate unceasingly</q> +(4 19 f.; cf. Mic. 2 11). Dr. Schechter regards this explanation as <q>a +disturbing parenthesis.</q></note> +God hates them, his anger is kindled against them (8 18). These +<q>builders</q> are false teachers; Biblical denunciations of the false +prophets are applied to them. (See especially 8 12 f.) Points +in which their teaching is particularly assailed are that they allow +polygamy and the remarriage of divorced persons during the life of +the other party, and hold it lawful for a man to marry his niece; +<pb n='345'/><anchor id='Pg345'/> +that they defile the sanctuary by the laxity of some of their rules +and practice about sexual uncleanness; they presume blasphemously +to impugn the <q>statutes of the covenant of God</q> (the +legislation of the sect), declaring that they are not right, and +saying abominable things about them (4 20-5 14). The positions +so hotly denounced, especially in the matter of marriage +and divorce, are those of the Palestinian rabbis as we know them +in the Mishna and kindred works, and in so far as the Pharisees +had a dominating influence in the schools of the law they may +be regarded as in a peculiar sense the object of this invective, +which is, however, sweeping enough to include all rabbinical +Judaism. Such verses as Isaiah 50 11 and 59 4 ff. are hurled +at them; they are compared to Johanneh and his brother, whom +Belial raised up against Moses (5 17 ff.).<note place='foot'>The +Jannes and Jambres of 2 Tim. 3 8.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The sect prohibited polygamy, which they stigmatized as fornication, +arguing from the creation—<q>a male and a female created +he them</q> (cf. Matt. 19 4), and from the story of the flood—<q>by +pairs they went into the ark,</q> and from the law which forbade +the prince to multiply wives unto himself (Deut. 17 17), that is, +as they understood it, to take more than one wife. To forestall +an objection, it is added: <q>But David had not read in the sealed +book of the law which was in the ark, for it was not opened in +Israel from the time of the death of Eleazar and Joshua and the +elders who worshipped the Astartes, but was hidden and not +brought to light until Zadok arose</q> (5 2-5; see below, p. +<ref target='Pg359'>359</ref>). +</p> + +<p> +Marriage with another woman while a man had a divorced wife +living was apparently put in the same category with having two +wives at the same time (4 20 f.; cf. Matt. 5 31 f.). Marriage +with a niece (brother's or sister's daughter) they treated as incest, +reasoning that marriage between a woman and her uncle stood +on all fours with marriage between a man and his aunt, which was +expressly forbidden as within the prohibited degrees of kinship.<note place='foot'>Such +marriages, especially with a sister's daughter, are not only permitted, +but especially commended in the Talmud (Yebamoth 62b-63a; see Maimonides, +Issure Biah 2 14), and are still common in countries where the Jews are free to +follow the rabbinical law. On the Karaite prohibition of marriage with a niece, +see below, p. <ref target='Pg366'>366</ref>.</note> +The three snares of Belial by which he ensnared Israel +<pb n='346'/><anchor id='Pg346'/> +are fornication (that is, plural or incestuous unions), wealth (that +is, unrighteous gain), and the pollution of the sanctuary (4 15 f.; +cf. 5 6 f.).<note place='foot'>On the pollution of +the sanctuary, cf. Assumption of Moses 5 3; Testament +of Levi 14 5 ff.; Psalms of Solomon 2 3.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The same rigorous tendency which appears in the attitude of +the sect in regard to marriage pervades the whole legal part of +the work before us. The rules for the observance of the Sabbath +(10 14-11 21) will make this clear. +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +<p> +Concerning the Sabbath, to keep it as it is prescribed. +</p> + +<p> +1. On the sixth day no man shall do any work from the time when +the disk of the sun is distant from the western portal<note place='foot'>On the +portals of the sun, see Enoch 72, etc.</note> by its diameter (?); +for this is what he said: Observe the Sabbath day to hallow it. +</p> + +<p> +2. On the Sabbath a man shall not engage in any foolish conversation; +and he shall not exact repayment from his neighbor; nor shall he +give judgment in matters of property; he shall not talk about matters +of work and labor to be done on the next day. +</p> + +<p> +3. A man shall not walk in the country to do the work of his business +on the Sabbath. He shall not walk outside of his town above one +thousand<note place='foot'>Perhaps an error of the text for 2000; +see below, § 8.</note> cubits. +</p> + +<p> +4. No man shall eat on the Sabbath anything except what was previously +prepared or what is spoiling in the field. He shall not eat or +drink anything but what was in the camp. If he be on the way and +descend to bathe, he may drink as he stands, but must not draw water +in any vessel.<note place='foot'>Cf. Jubilees 50 8.</note> +</p> + +<p> +5. He must not send a foreigner to do his business on the Sabbath day. +</p> + +<p> +6. A man must not put on soiled garments or such as are brought by +a gentile, without washing them in water or rubbing them with +frankincense.<note place='foot'>This holds on week-days as well as on the Sabbath.</note> +</p> + +<p> +7. A man shall not exchange pledges<note place='foot'>Perhaps we should +read, <q>make an <q><foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>erūb</foreign></q></q> +(a legal fiction by which dwellings +or limits were treated as one). The Sadducees and Samaritans rejected this +evasion of the law.</note> of his own accord on the +Sabbath. +</p> + +<p> +8. A man shall not follow his cattle, to pasture them outside his town, +except within 2000 cubits. He shall not lift his arm to strike them with +his fist; if the animal is breachy, let him not take her out of the +house. +</p> + +<p> +9. A man shall not take anything out of a house into the street, nor +<pb n='347'/><anchor id='Pg347'/> +bring anything from the street into the house; and if he be in the entry, +he shall not pass anything out of it or bring anything into it. +</p> + +<p> +10. He shall not open on the Sabbath a vessel the cover of which has +been luted on. +</p> + +<p> +11. A man shall not carry on his person spices, going out or coming +in on the Sabbath. +</p> + +<p> +12. Within a house he shall not lift stone nor earth on the Sabbath +day. +</p> + +<p> +13. The nurse shall not carry an infant in arms, going out or coming +in with it on the Sabbath. +</p> + +<p> +14. A man shall not deal harshly with his slave or his maid or his +hired servant on the Sabbath. +</p> + +<p> +15. A man shall not deliver cattle of their young on the Sabbath +day. +</p> + +<p> +16. If a beast fall into a cistern or trap, a man shall not lift it out on +the Sabbath. +</p> + +<p> +17. A man shall not pass the Sabbath in a place near the gentiles. +</p> + +<p> +18. A man shall not profane the Sabbath for the sake of gain. +</p> + +<p> +19. If a human being fall into a tank of water or into a place of ... no +man shall fetch him up by means of a ladder or a rope or any +implement. +</p> + +<p> +20. No man shall bring upon the altar on the Sabbath anything except +the Sabbath burnt-offerings, for so it is written, <q>aside from your +Sabbaths.</q> +</p> +</quote> + +<p> +The dietary laws afford other examples of the strict rules of +the sect.<note place='foot'>See 12 12 ff.</note> Fish +may be eaten only if, while still alive, they have +been split open and drained of their blood; grasshoppers and +locusts must be put alive into the water or the fire (in which they +are to be cooked); honey in the comb is apparently prohibited. +So, again, in a house in which a death has occurred, fixtures, +such as nails and pegs in the walls, are unclean; and wood, stone, +and dust are capable of contracting and communicating various +kinds of uncleanness (12 15-18). The sect sees in these stricter +distinctions between clean and unclean the superiority of its +ordinances over those of other Jews, whom they regard as sinfully +lax. The Pharisees are to them gross latitudinarians! +</p> + +<p> +Oaths are to be taken only by the covenant and the curses of +the covenant, that is, the vows by which the members of the sect +bind themselves, on their admission to it, to live in conformity +with its rule and submit to the authority of those set over them, +<pb n='348'/><anchor id='Pg348'/> +and the curses invoked on such as violate these obligations.<note place='foot'>Similarly +the Essenes, at their reception into the order, bound themselves +by the <q>tremendous oaths</q> which Josephus describes, B. J. ii, 8 7.</note> +Oaths by God, whether under the name +<hi rend='italic'>Aleph Lamed</hi> (<hi rend='italic'>El</hi> or +<hi rend='italic'>Elohim</hi>) or +<hi rend='italic'>Aleph Daleth (Adonai)</hi> are prohibited;<note place='foot'>The +oath by the Tetragrammaton included <hi rend='italic'>a fortiori</hi>.</note> +nor is it permissible +to mention in the oath the law of Moses; the formula +of the oath is strictly sectarian (15 1 ff.).<note place='foot'>The Essenes +excluded oaths altogether, except in the initiation of members. +See also Slavonic Enoch 49 1; Philo, De spec. legibus ii, 1, and elsewhere +(Charles, Secrets of Enoch, p. 65). Our sect recognizes judicial oaths (9 8 ff.) +and imprecations (9 12), as well as vows under oath (16 6 ff.).</note> +But, though the name +of God is not used, <q>if a man swear and transgress the oath, he +profanes the name</q> (15 3). Obligations voluntarily assumed +under oath (vows) are to be fulfilled to the letter; neither redemption +nor annulment seems to be allowed, unless to carry +out the vow would be a transgression of the covenant. +</p> + +<p> +Another point in which the sect is at variance with the great +body of the Jews is the calendar. They represent the faithful +remnant to whom God revealed the mysteries about which all +Israel went astray, his holy sabbaths and his glorious festivals, +and his righteous testimonies, and his true ways (3 12 ff.). The +point of this appears when it is compared with Jubilees 1 14: +<q>They will forget my law and all my commandments and all +my judgments, and will go astray as to new moons and sabbaths +and festivals and jubilees and ordinances</q> (cf. 6 34 ff., +23 19). The texts before us do not explain what the peculiarities +of the sectarian calendar were, but inasmuch as the Book of +Jubilees, under the title <q>The Book of the Division of the Times +by their Jubilees and their Sabbatical Years,</q> is cited as an +authority for the exact determination of <q>their ends</q> (the coming +crisis of history), it may be inferred with much probability +that our sect had a calendar constructed on principles similar +to that of the Jubilees,<note place='foot'>On the relation of the +Jubilees to the sect, see further below, p. +<ref target='Pg359'>359</ref>.</note> in which the seasons and festivals were +not determined by lunar observations or astronomical tables, as +among the Jews generally, but had a fixed place in a solar year. +Such upsetting of the calendar is branded as heresy in Midrash +Tehillim on Ps. 28 5: <q>They do not regard the work of the Lord, +<pb n='349'/><anchor id='Pg349'/> +nor the operation of his hands.... <q>The operation of his hands</q> +means the new moons; as it is said, <q>God made the two great lights,</q> and it +is written, <q>He made the moon for festival seasons.</q><note place='foot'>Cf. +Jubilees 2 9, God appointed the sun ... for sabbaths, and months, +and feasts; and Jubilees 6 37, the observation of the moon disturbs the calendar.</note> +These are the heretics who do not calculate (by the moon) the +festival seasons and the equinoxes. <q>He will tear them down +and not build them up.</q> He will tear them down, in this world, +and not build them up, in the world to come.</q> Perhaps the +Boëthusians, who hired false witnesses to deceive the authorities +about the appearance of the new moon, were not merely animated +by a desire to harass the rabbis, but were partisans of +some such calendar reform. +</p> + +<p> +The organization of the sect furnished it an effective means of +enforcing its rules by discipline. This organization is so peculiar +that it must be described in some detail. Like the normal Jewish +community, it consists of three classes, priests, levites, and +Israelites, to whom as a fourth class may be added proselytes. +In this order they are mustered and inscribed in the rolls of the +camp. In some sense all the members of the sect are priests. +Ezekiel 44 15 is quoted and explained: <q><q>The priests and the +levites and the sons of Zadok who kept the charge of his sanctuary</q> +[<hi rend='italic'>sic</hi>]. The priests are the exiles of Israel who migrated from +the land of Judah and [the levites are]<note place='foot'>It seems +necessary to supply these words.</note> those who attached +themselves to them; and the sons of Zadok are the chosen ones +of Israel, men designated by name, who arose in the last days.</q> +Allegory apart, it appears that the priests were of the Zadokite +line, but this legitimacy is assumed, not emphasized. Priests +and levites formed part of every court of ten judges (see below, p. +<ref target='Pg351'>351</ref>); and in every company of ten Israelites (the quorum of a +religious assembly), a priest, well versed in the Book of +Institutes,<note place='foot'><q>The book of +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>hagu</foreign>.</q> The rendering +<q>Institutes</q> is not offered as a translation +of the name, but as indicating the probable character of the work. See +below, p. <ref target='Pg353'>353</ref> f.</note> +must be present, to whose words all must conform. If +the priest does not possess the requisite qualifications, and a +competent levite is at hand, it shall be ordained that all who +enter the camp shall go out and come in at his orders. In a +<pb n='350'/><anchor id='Pg350'/> +case of leprosy the priest shall come and stand in the midst of +the camp and the Supervisor shall instruct him in the interpretation +of the law; even if the priest be an ignoramus, it is he who +must shut up the leper, for the decision belongs to them (13 1 ff.). +To a priest is assigned also the duty of taking the census of the +commonalty; he who fills this office must be between thirty and +sixty years old, versed in the Book of [Institutes and] in all the +prescriptions of the law, to pronounce them according to their +prescriptions (14 3 ff.). +</p> + +<p> +A much more important place in the organization is filled by +an officer whose title (<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>mebaḳḳer</foreign>) +signifies <q>examiner,</q> <q>inspector,</q> +and may perhaps best be rendered <q>Supervisor.</q><note place='foot'>Dr. Schechter +renders <q>Censor,</q> and remarks, <q>Such an office, entirely +unknown to Judaism, could only have been borrowed from the Romans.</q> But +the functions of the Inspector or Supervisor bear no resemblance to those of the +Roman censors; and for the identity of the title the translator is solely accountable, +not the constitution of the sect. Mr. Margoliouth talks loosely about +dependence on Roman administrative models; it would be interesting to learn +in what particulars. With the very large authority vested in the Supervisor may +be compared that of the managers, or administrators (ἐπιμεληταί), among the +Essenes, <q>without whose directions they do nothing</q>; though the functions of +the managers in the Essene coenobite establishments were of course quite different +from those of the Supervisors of our sect.</note> Every <q>camp,</q> +or settlement, of the sect had a Supervisor, and over these stood +a <q>Supervisor of all the camps,</q> who must be a man in the prime +of life, between thirty and fifty years of age. To the Supervisor +of the individual camp it belonged to instruct the community +<q>in the works of God, and make them familiar with his wonderful +deeds of might, and recount before them the things that +happened long ago...; and he shall have compassion on them +as a father toward his children (13 7 ff.).</q><note place='foot'>In the +partly illegible lines that follow, his dealing with the congregation +is compared with that of a shepherd with his flock.—Dr. W. H. Ward suggests +that the title <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>mebaḳḳer</foreign> +may be connected with Ezek. 34 11 f., where the verb +is used of a shepherd's looking out for his flock.</note> We have seen that +he has even to instruct the priest in the rules for the diagnosis +of leprosy.<note place='foot'>As in Mishna +<hi rend='italic'>Yoma</hi> the High Priest has to be instructed by experts in the +ritual of the Day of Atonement, and made to swear not to depart from his +instructions.</note> The admission of new members to the sect is also +in his hands; no one is permitted to introduce a man into the +<pb n='351'/><anchor id='Pg351'/> +congregation without his consent. He examines the candidates +in regard to their character and intelligence, their physical strength +and courage, and their possessions, and enrolls each in his proper +place in the lot<note place='foot'>Probably the lands belonging to +the sect.</note> of the camp (13 11 ff.). From the following +badly defaced lines so much at least can be made out, that the +Supervisor had extensive powers of control over the dealings of +members of the sect with outsiders in the way of trade. He evidently +had also a leading part in the administration of justice +and the enforcement of the discipline of the sect, but the state +of the text here denies us insight into the particulars. +</p> + +<p> +Courts were constituted of ten members,<note place='foot'>That a +court must consist of ten judges, the Karaites deduce from Ruth +4 2. So Anan quoted by Poznanski, Revue des études juives, vol. xlv, p. 67, +and p. 69, n. 1.</note> chosen <hi rend='italic'>ad hoc</hi> from +the congregation, four of the tribe of Levi and Aaron and six +Israelites, all well versed in the Book of Institutes and in the +Foundations of the Covenant, between twenty-five and sixty +years of age. No man of more than sixty shall be a judge, <q>for +on account of the unfaithfulness of mankind his days were shortened, +and through the wrath of God on the inhabitants of the +earth he bade to remove their understanding before they completed +their days (10 4 ff.).</q> The rules relating to the competence of +witnesses are strict. No one may testify against the accused +in a capital case who is not a god-fearing man old enough to be +included in the census (that is, at least twenty years of age, Exod. +30 14); nor shall a man's testimony be credited against his neighbor +who is himself a wilful transgressor of any of the commandments, +until he has come to repentance (9 23-10 3). A peculiar +provision is made for the case that a single witness (on whose +testimony therefore conviction could not be had) sees a capital +offence committed. He is to make known the facts to the Supervisor, +who records the testimony in writing. If subsequently +the offence is committed again in the presence of another witness, +the same process is repeated; on a second repetition, the testimony +of the three single witnesses combined suffices for conviction +(9 16 ff.).<note place='foot'>This seems to be the +meaning of the somewhat obscure passage.</note> +</p> + +<pb n='352'/><anchor id='Pg352'/> + +<p> +Besides the penalties of the Mosaic law, the sect has a formidable +means of discipline in expulsion, or as it is called <q>separation +from the Purity,</q> which may in some cases be inflicted even +on the testimony of one witness (9 21 ff.). Josephus vividly +depicts the desperate straits into which those came who, for +grave offences, were expelled from the Essene order; being unable +to eat food not prepared by members of the order, they were +exposed to starvation. This particular consequence would not +follow separation from our sect; but the lot of the excommunicated +man was evidently hard enough. <q>When his deeds come +to light he is to be expelled from the congregation, as though +his lot had never fallen in the midst of the disciples of God; according +to his misdeeds men shall bear him in remembrance ... until +the day when he returns to take his place in the station +of the men of perfect holiness. No man shall have any dealings +with him in matters of property or work, for all the saints of the +Most High have cursed him</q> (20 3 ff.); such have no part in +the <q>house of the law</q>; their names are erased from the rolls +of the congregation (20 10 f.). They are not only cut off from +the communion of saints in this world, but are doomed to extermination +by the hand of Belial (8 1 f., 19 14 f.). One who leads +men astray and profanes the Sabbath and the festivals shall not +be put to death, but shall be committed to the custody of men;<note place='foot'>It +is not clear whether imprisonment or surveillance is meant.</note> +if he is cured of his error, they shall keep him for seven years, +and afterwards he may come into the assembly (12 3 ff.). A +member of the sect who seduces others to apostasy is more severely +dealt with: <q>A man over whom the spirits of Belial have rule,<note place='foot'>On +the spirit of Belial (ruling over Israel) see Jubilees 1 20.</note> +and who advocates defection (Deut. 13 6), shall be judged according +to the law of the necromancer and the wizard</q> (12 2 f.; cf. +Deut. 18 9).<note place='foot'><q>Rebellion is as the +sin of witchcraft,</q> 1 Sam. 15 23.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The sect possessed the Jewish Scriptures. The books of the +law are <q>the hut of the King</q> (i.e. the congregation)—the fallen +hut which God had promised to raise up; <q>the pillar of your +images</q> are the books of the prophets, whose words Israel despised. +The founder of the sect, the star out of Jacob, is the +<pb n='353'/><anchor id='Pg353'/> +interpreter of the law who came to Damascus (7 14 ff.). The +authority of the Pentateuch is appealed to in support of the position +of the sect in the matter of marriage and divorce; their +peculiar statutes and ordinances are the true interpretation and +application of the law of God. The prophets are frequently +cited, and allusions to passages in the prophets or reminiscences +of their phraseology are much more numerous. There are similar +reminiscences of the Psalms and of the Proverbs, and perhaps of +other books among the Hagiographa. As regards the Old Testament +scriptures, therefore, the sect stood on common ground +with Palestinian orthodoxy.<note place='foot'>In contrast to the +Samaritans.</note> The formula of citation is peculiar; +a quotation is usually introduced by the words <q>as he said,</q> +rarely <q>as God said</q>; or with the name of the sacred author, +<q>as Moses said.</q> Besides the Biblical books, we have a quotation +from Levi—probably the Testament of that Patriarch—introduced +by the same phrase as quotations from the Bible; +and the reader is referred to the Book of Jubilees by name for an +exact computation of the last times. There is nothing to indicate +that the authority attributed to these writings was inferior to +that of the Hagiographa. The canon of the <q>Scriptures</q> was +not defined, even in the rabbinical schools, until the second century +of our era, and in the sects many books enjoyed high esteem +which the orthodox repudiated.<note place='foot'>In 8 18 ff., +after saying, <q>Such will be the judgment of every one who +despises the commandments of God, and he forsook them and they turned away +in the stubbornness of their heart,</q> A adds: <q>This is the word which Jeremiah +spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah and Elisha to his servant Gehazi,</q> referring +probably to otherwise unknown apocryphal books. Johanneh and his brother, +whom Belial raised up against Moses, are familiar figures of Jewish legend.</note> +</p> + +<p> +To a different class belong, apparently, the Book of Institutes, +and the Foundations of the Covenant, in which the judges must +be well versed. To every religious gathering of ten men or more +belongs a priest well versed in the Book of Institutes. The title +Foundations of the Covenant suggests a writing (or a fixed tradition) +dealing with the obligations and duties of members of the +sect. The name here rendered Book of Institutes, on the other +hand, is obscure,<note place='foot'>The simplest explanation +of the form would be to take it as an abstract +noun of the type <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>fa`l</foreign>, +like <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>sáḥu</foreign>; <q>swimming</q> or +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>fi`l, fu`l,</foreign> like +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>séku</foreign> (n. pr.), +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>tóhu</foreign>, +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>bóhu</foreign>, etc., from +the verb <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>hagah</foreign> (root +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>hagw</foreign>), +<q>reflect, give thought to something,</q> also <q>read</q> (aloud), so +that the noun might literally mean <q>study,</q> equivalent to +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>midrash</foreign>, or perhaps +<q>reading.</q>—If the opinion which connects the sect with the +Dositheans were tenable (see below, p. <ref target='Pg360'>360</ref> +ff.), another explanation of the name +might be suggested by a passage in Abul-Fath's account of the origin of the Dositheans. +He narrates that a son of the Samaritan high priest, named Zar'ah, a +man preëminent for learning in his time, having been expelled from the community +for immorality, betook himself to Dositheus, who made him the chief of his +sect. This man <q>wrote a book in which he vituperated all the Samaritan religious +heads and set forth heresies.</q> The words are, +<foreign rend='italic'>haja fīhī kul al' a'immetin wa'abda'a +fīhī</foreign>. Inasmuch as the Arabic <foreign rend='italic'>hajwun</foreign> +formally corresponds to the Hebrew +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>hagu</foreign>, the Book of +<foreign rend='italic'>Hagu</foreign> in our texts might be identified with this +controversial writing of Zar'ah, the disciple of Dositheus. The Hebrew verb +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>hagah</foreign> is thought +by Kohut (Aruch Completum, III, 177) to occur in Echa Rabbathi on Lam. +1 4 and 3 33 in the sense <q>contemn, deride,</q> equivalent to the Arabic +<foreign rend='italic'>haja</foreign>, <q>lampoon, +vituperate.</q> It might then be conjectured that Abul-Fath had heard of +a Dosithean book of <hi rend='italic'>hagu</hi> (in Hebrew) and, +taking the word in its Arabic meaning, +evolved his description of the character of the work from this etymology.</note> +but the fact that a knowledge of it is demanded +<pb n='354'/><anchor id='Pg354'/> +of the priest and of the judges makes it likely that it contained +the <q>statutes and ordinances</q> of the sect, its peculiar definitions +and interpretations of the law, often referred to as +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>perush</foreign>; +in technical phrase, a collection of sectarian +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>halakoth</foreign>, such as is +preserved in the second part of the texts before us, which seems +to be derived from such a legal manual. The objection to committing +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>halakah</foreign> +to writing which was long maintained in the +rabbinical schools was not shared by the sects, and would be +least likely to exist where the ordinances were not in theory a +traditional law handed down from remote antiquity, but were +attributed to an individual interpreter, the founder of the +sect. +</p> + +<p> +The sect had houses of worship, which a man in a state of +uncleanness is forbidden to enter (11 22),<note place='foot'>Some +Karaite authorities, also, transferring to the synagogue the holiness +of the temple, forbade a man in a state of uncleanness to enter the inner room +of the synagogue (Nissi; see Winter und Wünsche, Die jüdische Litteratur, vol. +ii, p. 74).</note> but nothing more is +said about them, except that when the trumpets of the congregation +are blown, the blowing shall follow or precede the service, +and not interrupt it. It is a natural surmise that they answered +to the synagogues both as places of worship and of religious +instruction, such, for example, as the Supervisor is required to +give. The name, <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>Beth hishtahawōth</foreign>, +literally, <q>house of bowing +<pb n='355'/><anchor id='Pg355'/> +down</q> (in worship), is peculiar, and may have been chosen to +distinguish these sectarian conventicles from the synagogues +of regular Judaism, as the English nonconformists of various +stripes would not call their meeting-houses churches. It is possible +that the prayers of the sect may have been accompanied +by genuflections and prostrations such as, though unknown in +the synagogue, have formed in all ages and religions a common +feature of Oriental worship; but it is also possible that <q>bowing +down</q> simply stands by metonymy for worship, as is often the +case with the corresponding Syriac verb, +<foreign rend='italic'>segad</foreign>.<note place='foot'>The coincidence +of the name with the Arabic <foreign rend='italic'>masjid</foreign>, <q>place of bowing +down,</q> mosque, is hardly a sufficient reason for suspecting Moslem influence, as +Dr. Schechter does, who thinks it possible that the word was introduced by a +later (Falasha?) scribe as a substitute for the original term.—Elia Bashiatzi +(Adereth Eliahu, p. 58), a Karaite writer of the 15th century, gives +<foreign rend='italic'>Beth hishtaḥawīya,</foreign> +together with <foreign rend='italic'>Beth hakeneseth</foreign> and +<foreign rend='italic'>Beth hamidrash</foreign>, as the three names +of the place of worship. Moslem influence can here hardly be questioned; in +a later chapter Elia describes the postures of prayer quite after the Moslem pattern, +alleging Biblical authority for all of them.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Sacrificial worship was also maintained.<note place='foot'>The opinion +that after Josiah's reform, or after the restoration of the temple +by Zerubbabel and Joshua, Jerusalem was the only place where Jewish sacrifices +were offered is refuted by an accumulating volume of evidence from various +regions. See D. S. Margoliouth, Expositor, 1911, pp. 40 ff.</note> The City of the +Sanctuary was eminently holy; sexual intercourse within its +limits is forbidden, <q>defiling the City of the Sanctuary with their impurity</q> +(<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>beniddatham</foreign>).<note place='foot'>Cf. the +accusation against the orthodox Jews (5 6): <q>They defile the Sanctuary +in that they do not separate according to the law,</q> etc.—It is possible that +the prohibition quoted above applied, not to the inhabitants of the city, but to +persons who visited it for the purpose of worship, as is the rule for pilgrims to +Mecca.</note> To this city, probably, the sacrifices +were brought to which there is frequent reference. <q>No one shall +send to the altar burnt offerings or oblation, frankincense or wood, +by a man who is unclean with any of the forms of uncleanness; +for it is written, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, but +the prayer of the righteous is an acceptable oblation</q> (11 18 ff.). +On the Sabbath nothing is to be brought upon the altar except +the Sabbath burnt offerings—that is, we may suppose, the stated +daily burnt offerings with the supplementary Sabbath victims +(13 17 f.; see Num. 28 1-10). Votive sacrifices are also mentioned; +<pb n='356'/><anchor id='Pg356'/> +it is forbidden to vow to the altar anything that has been +procured by compulsion; the priest shall refuse to receive such +offerings (16 13 f.). There is nothing to indicate where this +sanctuary was situated, further than the natural presumption +that it was in the region of Damascus, where the sect had established +itself. The priests have the precedence of all others in +the community; in its registers their names are enrolled in the +first rank. Their place in the courts and in the local religious +community, and their duties in the examination of lepers, have +already been mentioned. Those who officiated at the sanctuary +had doubtless their legal toll from private sacrifices of every kind. +Lost property for which no owner appears falls to the priests; a +man who has appropriated such property shall confess to the +priest, and all that he pays in restitution belongs to the priest, +besides the ram of the trespass offering (9 13 ff.). +</p> + +<p> +A charitable fund is provided by monthly payment of certain +dues by members of the community to the Supervisor. From +this fund relief is given by the judges to the poor and needy, to +the aged, to the wanderer (?), to such as have fallen into captivity +to foreigners, and others (14 12 ff.). +</p> + +<p> +The religious conceptions and beliefs of the sect present little +that is peculiar. For God the name <foreign rend='italic'>El</foreign> +is consistently used, without +any epithets. <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>Adonai</foreign> +is mentioned only to forbid its use +in oaths. The only other name which occurs is the Most High +(once, in the phrase <q>the saints of the Most High,</q> that is, the +members of the sect). There is repeated reference to the holy +spirit: God, through his Anointed, made men know his holy +spirit (2 12); the opponents of the sect, by blasphemous speech +against the statutes of God's covenant, defiled their holy spirit +(5 11);<note place='foot'>The holy spirit in +them. Dr. Schechter adduces parallels in Jewish writings. +Cf. Jubilees 1 21, 23, <q>Create in them a clean heart and a holy spirit.</q></note> +its members are warned not to defile his holy spirit +by failing to observe the distinctions of clean and unclean which +God has ordained (7 3 f.). +</p> + +<p> +The <q>Prince of Lights (<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>Urim</foreign>),</q> +through whom Moses and +Aaron arise, is perhaps, as the contrast to Belial suggests, one +of the highest angels.<note place='foot'>Dr. Schechter conjectures +that the author wrote <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>Sar ha-Panim</foreign>, the Prince +of the Presence, but the passages from Jubilees which he quotes in support of this +opinion are hardly convincing.</note> The destroying angels execute God's +<pb n='357'/><anchor id='Pg357'/> +inescapable judgment on those who turned out of the way and +despised the statute (2 6). The fall of the Watchers, which is +a favorite subject in the apocalyptic literature, is referred to in +2 18. The chief of the evil spirits is Belial: he is <q>let loose</q> +during the whole of the present dispensation; he lays snares +for men and entraps them, especially in the three sins of fornication, +unrighteous gain, and the defilement of the sanctuary +(4 15 ff.); his spirits rule over men and lead them to apostasy +(12 2 f.); he also exterminates the faithless in the day of God's +visitation (8 1 f.). Another name for the devil is Mastema +(the commoner name in Jubilees), equivalent to Satan, <q>the +adversary.</q> The angel of Mastema ceases to follow a man +who resolves to return to the law of Moses (16 4 f.). According +to Jubilees 10 8 f., 11 5, Mastema had permission from +God to employ some of his evil spirits to corrupt men and lead +them astray. +</p> + +<p> +Concerning the future life we read only that those who hold +firmly to the law are <q>for eternal life,</q><note place='foot'>See +Slavonic Enoch 42 5; cf. 9.</note> or, as it is elsewhere +expressed, <q>have the assurance that they shall live a thousand +generations.</q> To a punishment of the wicked after death<note place='foot'>So +far as may be argued from silence, this is an important difference +from Jubilees.</note> or +to a resurrection of the dead there is no allusion whatever. +</p> + +<p> +The moral teachings of the sect have been frequently touched +upon above in speaking of their rules of life. Man is led into +sin not only by the snares of Belial, but by his own sinful inclination +and adulterous eyes (2 16; seemingly the +<foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>yeṣer hara'</foreign> of +the rabbis). It was through these that the Watchers fell; by +them the generation of the flood sinned, and the sons of Jacob, +and their descendants in Egypt and in Canaan, and brought +judgment upon themselves (2 14 ff.). We have seen that the +sect insisted upon monogamy, and perhaps rejected divorce +altogether. Particular emphasis is laid in several places on the +commandments, <q>thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any +grudge against the children of thy people,</q> <q>thou shalt reprove +thy neighbor and not bear sin because of him</q> (Lev. 19 17, 18).<note place='foot'>See +7 2; cf. Slavonic Enoch 50 4: <q>When you might have vengeance, do +not repay either your neighbor or your enemy. For God will repay as your +avenger in the day of the great judgment. Let it not be for you to take vengeance.</q> +(ed. Charles, p. 67); cf. Ecclus. 28 1.</note> +<pb n='358'/><anchor id='Pg358'/> +Thus, at the beginning of the legal part of the book, the delivery +of a fellow Israelite to the gentiles so that he is condemned +by their law is said to fall under this prohibition, and further, +<q>any man of those who enter into the covenant who brings up +against his neighbor a matter not in the nature of a reproof before +witnesses, but which he brings up in anger, or tells it to his elders +to bring the man into disrepute, he is one that takes vengeance +and bears a grudge.</q> It is forbidden also to exact of another an +oath except in the presence of the judges; he who does so transgresses +the law which forbids a man to take justice into his own +hands. Every one who enters into the covenant pledges himself +not only not to rob the poor and make widows his spoil, but +to love his neighbor as himself, to seek the welfare of his fellow, +and to sustain the poor and needy. As regards the relations of +the members of the sect to gentiles, it is forbidden to shed the +blood of a gentile or to take aught of their property, <q>in order +to give them no occasion to blaspheme</q> (12 6 f.), that is, to prevent +the profaning of God's name (15 3), a motive frequently +urged in similar connection in the rabbinical writings. On the +other hand, no man may sell to gentiles clean animals or birds, +lest they offer them in sacrifice, nor grain, nor wine—naught of +his possessions; nor shall he sell to them his slave or maid servant +who have come with him into the covenant of Abraham +(12 9 ff.), He may not pass the Sabbath in the neighborhood +of gentiles. They are unclean, and garments they may have +handled require purification. +</p> + +<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 50%'/> + +<p> +No record of a schismatic body such as reveals itself in our +texts is preserved in the early catalogues of Jewish heresies, nor +have references to it been discovered in rabbinical sources. Like +many sects, it exhibits the separatist inclination to outdo the orthodox +in zeal for the letter and in strenuousness of practice, and +it is not surprising that its interpretations of the law frequently +agree with those of other strict-constructionists, such as Samaritans, +Sadducees, Karaites; but these coincidences illustrate a +common tendency rather than prove historical connection. The +<pb n='359'/><anchor id='Pg359'/> +relation to the Book of Jubilees is, however, such as to show that +there was some affinity between our sect and the circles in which +that work originated. Jubilees is cited as authority on the last +times; its calendar probably contains the secrets of God's holy +sabbaths and glorious festivals about which all Israel was in +error; the rules for the observance of the Sabbath in our book +accord in many particulars with the injunctions in Jubilees 50 6 ff. +(see also 2 26 ff.); and various other resemblances might be +pointed out, such as the preference for the unornamented word +God (in Jubilees, God, or the Lord), in contrast with the many +mouth-filling periphrases in Enoch; the holy spirit in men; the +name Mastema for the adversary instead of Satan; Belial who +ensnares men, and the spirits of Belial which rule over sinners, +besides others to which Dr. Schechter directs attention in his +notes. The relation to the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs +is less clear. The saying attributed to Levi (4 15) is not found +in the Testament, and the other resemblances Dr. Schechter has +noted are vague or belong to the commonplaces. The place of +honor given to Judah in the Testaments, as we have them, is +strikingly at variance with the attitude of our sect toward that +tribe and its princes. The Levite Messiah of the Testaments +is not precisely the same as the <q>Anointed from Aaron and +Israel</q> in our book. In Jubilees also there are salient features, +such as the more developed angelology and the form of the Messianic +expectation, which hardly permit us to suppose that the +book was a product of our sect, however highly it may have been +esteemed by it. +</p> + +<p> +The sect gives especial honor to the sons of Zadok, the ancient +priesthood of the temple in Jerusalem (Ezek. 44 15, 2 Chron. +31 10, Sirach 51 12 Heb.); they are the chosen ones of Israel, +men designated by name, who arose in the latter times (4 3); +it was Zadok who brought to light the Book of the Law which +no one had seen since the death of Eleazar and Joshua (5 5). +The context of the latter passage would suggest that Zadok the +contemporary of David is meant, who after the deposition of +Abiathar became Solomon's chief priest.<note place='foot'>That Zadok was +the name of the <q>interpreter of the law,</q> the founder +of the sect, is a much less probable opinion; the name stands in no connection +with the origin of the sect or its legislation, but with the bringing to light again +of the Pentateuch. The author cannot have supposed that the <emph>written</emph> law +remained unknown till the second century <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>; +the reforms of Josiah, based on +another recovery of the book by Hilkiah, would preclude such a notion.</note> +The precedence given +<pb n='360'/><anchor id='Pg360'/> +to the sons of Zadok may possibly have a side reference to the +illegitimate high priests of Seleucid creation, such as Menelaus, +though, if this were the intention, we should expect it to be +emphasized. +</p> + +<p> +The passages quoted are the only places in the book in which +the name Zadok or the sons of Zadok appear, and they are certainly +a very slender reason for describing the body which produced +the book as a <q>Zadokite</q> sect, whatever meaning may +be attached to the term. On the contrary, one of the outstanding +things in the constitution of the sect is the predominance of +the lay element. The Supervisor is a layman; laymen form the +majority in every court; the Messiah is the <q>Anointed from +Aaron <emph>and Israel</emph>.</q> Whether the external testimony upon which +Dr. Schechter relies for justification of the name is more adequate +will be considered below. +</p> + +<p> +Zadok and the sons of Zadok suggest the Sadducees,<note place='foot'>The +coincidence of names does not count for very much. Abul-Fath names +two Samaritan <q>Zadokite</q> subsects among the later Dositheans alone.</note> whose +name, according to the most probable explanation, designates +them as descendants (or followers and partisans) of Zadok. Here +again it is a question whether Zadok of David's time is meant, +so that the Sadducees were the Zadokite aristocracy of the priesthood, +as most modern scholars think, or whether the name of +the Sadducee sect is derived from a heresiarch of much later +times, as the Jewish legend represents which makes Zadok, from +whom the sect descends, a recalcitrant disciple of Antigonus of +Socho, about the middle of the second century <hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>, +contemporary, if we rightly interpret our texts, with the origin of the sect +we are studying. +</p> + +<p> +With the Sadducees, as we know them from the New Testament, +Josephus, and rabbinical sources, our sect cannot well be +identified. There is, however, a sect sometimes associated with +the Sadducees, namely, the Dositheans, in whose teachings and +customs Dr. Schechter finds such resemblances as lead him to +surmise that the Dositheans were an offshoot of our sect. The +<pb n='361'/><anchor id='Pg361'/> +accounts of the Dositheans in writers of different ages and religious +connections, from Origen and Epiphanius down to the +Samaritan Chronicler Abul-Fath and the Moslem heresiographer +Shahrastani, are notoriously confused and contradictory,<note place='foot'>See +Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, 1884, pp. 155 ff.; +Montgomery, The Samaritans, 1907, pp. 252 ff.</note> so that +many scholars have felt constrained to conclude that there was +more than one sect of the name. The Fathers generally agree in +describing the Dositheans as a Samaritan heresy, though Epiphanius +and Philaster have it that the author of the heresy was +by extraction a Jew. They frequently bring him into connection +with Simon Magus, in the time of the Apostles. According +to Origen, he gave himself out for the Messiah foretold by Moses; +his followers had books of his, and legends pretending that he +had not died, but was still alive somewhere. Other Fathers give +no date for the rise of the heresy, but by coupling it with the +Sadducees seem to imply that it was older than Christianity; +thus (Pseudo)Tertullian (probably after Hippolytus)<note place='foot'>See +also Epiphanius; the Sadducees were an offshoot from Dositheus.</note> says that +Dositheus the Samaritan was the first to reject the prophets as +not inspired; the Sadducees, springing from this root of error, +ventured to deny the resurrection also. From this Philaster +probably drew the inference that Zadok, the founder of the +Sadducees, was a disciple of Dositheus. The Samaritan and +Moslem authors agree with the Fathers in treating the Dositheans +as a Samaritan sect. Abul-Fath, a Samaritan writer of the fourteenth +century, puts the beginnings of the sect in the first century +<hi rend='smallcaps'>b.c.</hi>, at the time when the yoke of the Jews had been broken by +the kings of the gentiles, and the Samaritans were able to return +and restore their sanctuary, which had been destroyed by Simon +and John Hyrcanus.<note place='foot'>Not in the time +of Alexander the Great, as Dr. Schechter has from Montgomery. +Abul-Fath, indeed (and Adler's Chronicle after him), introduces this +whole story before Alexander, and makes Simon a protégé of Darius; but the +testimony that Dositheus appeared after the time of Hyrcanus, which, as a matter +of Samaritan history, may be conceived to rest on tradition, is not to be set aside +because, in fitting his Samaritan traditions into the framework of universal history, +Abul-Fath is in error by two or three centuries about the date of Hyrcanus. This +used to be understood; see, e.g., De Sacy, Chrestomathie arabe, vol. ii (1806), +p. 209.</note> The Moslem writer Shahrastani, in his +<pb n='362'/><anchor id='Pg362'/> +learned work on Religious Sects and Philosophical Schools (first +half of the twelfth century), gives substantially the same date: +the founder of the Dositheans, who professed to be the prophet +foretold by Moses, the star spoken of in the law, appeared about +a century before Christ. +</p> + +<p> +In this state of the evidence it is obvious that no argument can +be based on the coincidence in time between the origin of the +Dositheans and that of our sect. When the Fathers bring the +names of Dositheus and Zadok into conjunction, it means no +more than that they attributed certain errors to both Dositheans +and Sadducees; just as the Talmudic legend which makes Zadok +and Boëthus apostate disciples of Antigonus of Socho is but a +mythological way of saying that Sadducees and Boëthusians +were addicted to the same heresies concerning retribution, or as +the coupling of Dositheus and Simon Magus means that both +passed for Samaritan arch-heretics. +</p> + +<p> +The first point of agreement between the Dositheans and our +sect which Dr. Schechter notes is in the calendar. Abul-Fath +says that the Dositheans did away with the computation of the +almanac (tables of lunar conjunctions), making all their months +exactly thirty days long, and (thus) annulled the correct festivals and the ordinance +of the fasts and the affliction (Day of Atonement).<note place='foot'>Epiphanius avers, +on the contrary, that the Dositheans kept their festivals +at the same time with the Jews.</note> +The circle of thirty disciples, who, with a woman called +Helena (Moon), formed the train of Dositheus, according to +the Clementine Recognitions (ii, 8) symbolized the days of the +month. If our sect employed the calendar of the Book of Jubilees, +as seems highly probable, they also had thirty-day months; +but it would not follow that the system was original with them, +nor that the Dositheans must have adopted it from them. There +were, in fact, from very remote times, two years in use within +the area of the ancient civilizations, a lunar-solar year, consisting +of twelve lunar months of twenty-nine or thirty days each, +with a thirteenth month added every two or three years to maintain +approximate agreement with the solar year and make the +months fall in the same seasons, and a solar year of three hundred +and sixty-five days, divided into twelve months of thirty +<pb n='363'/><anchor id='Pg363'/> +days each without regard to the lunations, and five extra days +(<foreign rend='italic'>epagomenae</foreign>). The former was the system of the +Babylonians and the Greeks, as well as the Jews; the latter was in use in Egypt +from immemorial times until the Roman reforms. From the +Egyptians it was borrowed by the Abyssinians; it was employed +also for some centuries before and after the Christian era in the +calendars of Gaza and Ashkelon. The Persians had the same +system; the Yashts contain a liturgy for the thirty regents of +the days of the month, the five extra days being assigned to the +divine Gathas. Probably under Persian influences, this calendar +was established in Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts of Asia +Minor.<note place='foot'>See Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen +Chronologie, vol. i, pp. 437 ff., 517; Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen +Chronologie, vol. i, pp. 170 f., 287. On the calendar of Gaza, Schürer, Geschichte +des jüdischen Volkes (3 ed.), vol. ii, pp. 88 f.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Jews and Samaritans not only lived in many of the lands of +their dispersion among peoples who used the thirty-day month, +but encountered this calendar in commercial centres on the very +borders of Palestine with which they had close relations. The +advantages of a system in which the festivals came on fixed dates, +instead of shifting within wide limits, as they must in the lunar-solar +year with its irregular intercalation, are obvious,<note place='foot'>We +have experience of the inconvenience of this system in the wandering +of Easter and the Christian festivals dependent on it; a reform by which Easter +should come on a fixed date in the solar year has repeatedly been proposed, and +a movement is now on foot in Europe to bring this about by agreement of governments +and churches.</note> and an +attempt to reform the Jewish calendar accordingly may have +been made more than once and in more than one region. The +peculiarity of the system of the Book of Jubilees is not the uniform +length of the months, but the admission of only <emph>four</emph> extra days, +thus making an even fifty-two weeks (364 days), which was of +more concern to the author than the increased error of a whole +day in the solar year.<note place='foot'>The year of +364-days is found also in Enoch 72-82, and (by the side of the +true solar year of 365-¼ and the lunar year of 354 days) in the Slavonic Enoch. +The intercalary days are introduced one at the beginning of each quarter of the +year (Enoch 75 1); this is also the method in Jubilees; see 6 23. In effect this +is equivalent to a year in which eight months have thirty days and four—those +in which the equinoxes and solstices fall—have thirty-one (Enoch 72 13, 19). +It is not impossible that this system is implied in the chronology of the flood in +Genesis; see B. W. Bacon, Hebraica, vol. viii (1891-1892), pp. 79-88, 124-139; +Charles, Jubilees, p. 56.</note> We do not know whether the Dositheans +<pb n='364'/><anchor id='Pg364'/> +of Abul-Fath and the Sadducees of Kirkisani (of whom later) +agreed in this point with Jubilees, or counted <emph>five</emph> extra days like +the rest of the world. The former may be thought probable, +but it cannot be assumed as certain. The year of 365 days is +also found in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, c. 6. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Schechter quotes Epiphanius<note place='foot'>This is +not the place to discuss the value of Epiphanius's testimony. His +description of the Scribes and Pharisees at least admonishes to caution.</note> +on the Dositheans as saying, +<q>some of them abstain from a second marriage, but others never +marry</q>; and, although <q>the text is not quite certain on this +point,</q><note place='foot'>The text is certain enough, in the sense that all the +manuscripts hitherto collated have the same reading.</note> +is inclined to perceive in the statement <q>at least an echo +of the law of our sect prohibiting a second marriage as long as +the first wife is alive.</q> The passage in Epiphanius is more than +obscure, and the text is for that reason suspected. The passage +runs: Ἐμψύχων ἀπέχονται, ἀλλὰ καί τινες αὐτῶν ἐγκρατεύονται ἀπὸ +γάμων μετὰ τοῦ βιῶσαι, ἄλλοι δὲ καὶ παρθενεύουσιν. Whatever +this may mean, it certainly is not, <q>some of them abstain +from marriage after the death of their first wives,</q> nor does anything +in the context justify the large changes in the text which +would be required to force this sense upon it. Casaubon's conjecture +υἱῶσαι has nothing to commend it. The simplest solution +of the difficulty would be to write συμβιῶσαι,<note place='foot'>Nicetas, +in reproducing Epiphanius's account of the Dositheans, has τεκνῶσαι, +<q>after having begotten children,</q> which also agrees very well with the +context.</note> <q>some of them +refrain from marital relations after having lived together, others +preserve their virginity.</q> Whether this emendation is right or +not, it is clear that Epiphanius describes his Dositheans as a kind +of Encratite ascetics, while the prohibition of polygamy—whether +contemporaneous or consecutive—by our sect has a totally different +ground; of asceticism there is, indeed, no symptom in its +ordinances. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Schechter thinks that the statement of Epiphanius quoted +<pb n='365'/><anchor id='Pg365'/> +above that the Dositheans <q>abstain from eating living creatures</q> +<q>may have some connection with the law in our text on p. 12, l. +11, which may perhaps be understood to imply that the sect forbade +honey, regarding it as <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>'eber min haḥai</foreign> +(a limb cut off from +a living animal), which would agree with the testimony of Abul-Fath +that they forbade the eating of eggs, except those which +were found in a slaughtered fowl.</q> Ἐμψύχων ἀπέχονται does not +mean <q>abstain from eating living creatures,</q> but <q>abstain from +animal food,</q><note place='foot'>The familiar +title of Porphyry's book on vegetarianism, Περὶ ἀποχῆς +ἐμψύχων, will occur to every one. Epiphanius himself explains the word in +Haer. 18, 1, <q>they (Nasaraei) thought it unlawful to eat meat.</q></note> +while our sect certainly did not include vegetarianism +among its eccentricities, any more than the depreciation +of marriage. +</p> + +<p> +Several authors describe the Dositheans as extravagant sabbatarians. +Origen reports that their rule was, that in whatever +place and in whatever posture the Sabbath found a man, there +and thus he was to remain till its end. Abul-Fath gives a longer +account of their Sabbath laws, which are much stricter than those +of our texts. It was forbidden, for example, to feed domestic +animals or give them drink on the Sabbath, they were to be provided +on Friday with enough provender and water to last them +through the Sabbath. Extreme sabbatarianism is, however, a +sectarian propensity which does not have to be borrowed. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Schechter quotes Epiphanius further as saying that the Dositheans +<q>have no intercourse with all people because they detest +all mankind,</q> in which he thinks <q>we may readily recognize here +the law of our Sect requiring the washing of the clothes when they +were brought by a Gentile (because of the contamination), and the +prohibition of staying over the Sabbath in the vicinity of Gentiles</q> +(Introduction, pp. xxiii f.). What Epiphanius says is that +the Dositheans agree with the rest of the Samaritans in the observance +of circumcision and the Sabbath, and in avoiding contact +with any one because they feel that all men (that is, all gentiles) +are unclean. He had already described the customs of all the +Samaritans: They wash themselves and their clothes in water +when they come in contact with a foreigner; for they regard it as +a defilement to come in contact with any one or even to touch +<pb n='366'/><anchor id='Pg366'/> +a man of another religion.<note place='foot'>Haer. 9, 3; cf. +30, 2: <q>The Ebionites, like the Samaritans, avoid touching +an outsider.</q> A still more extreme fastidiousness on this point is attributed by +Josephus to the Essenes; cf. B. J. ii, 8, 10.</note> It is, therefore, not a Dosithean +peculiarity, but the general Samaritan usage which Epiphanius +describes, and it is useless to search for remoter affinities. +</p> + +<p> +The marked hostility to the patriarch Judah with which +Eulogius, the Patriarch of Alexandria (died 607 <hi rend='smallcaps'>a.d.</hi>), charges +Dositheus<note place='foot'>Photius, Bibliotheca Codicum, cod. 280 (ed. +Bekker, p. 285).</note> is natural enough in a Samaritan heresiarch; in the +same sentence Eulogius accuses him of scorning the prophets of +God, which, again, is not peculiar to the Dositheans, but is the +general Samaritan position. It has been remarked above (p. +353) that our sect gives especial honor to the books of the prophets +<q>whose words Israel has despised</q>; and, however unfriendly the +attitude of these seceders to the degenerate Judah of their time, +there is no indication of animosity to the patriarch, as there is +none in the Jubilees. +</p> + +<p> +From a much later time Dr. Schechter has gleaned some notices +of a sect of <q>Zadokites</q> in whose tenets also he recognizes resemblances +to those of our sect. Kirkisani, a Karaite author of the +tenth century,<note place='foot'>The Kitab al-Anwār was +published in 937, not 637, as by a misprint on +p. xviii.</note> says: <q>Zadok was the first who exposed the +Rabbanites and contradicted them publicly. He revealed a part +of the truth, and composed books [a book] in which he frequently +denounced the Rabbanites and criticised them. But he adduced +no proof for anything he said, merely saying it by way of statement, +except in one thing, namely, in his prohibition against +marrying the daughter of the brother and the daughter of the sister. +For he adduced as proof their being analogous to the paternal +and maternal aunt.</q><note place='foot'>Schechter's +translation, Introduction, p. xviii.</note> +</p> + +<p> +This is a matter about which our sectaries are especially fierce +in their denunciations of the laxity of the orthodox. The argument +they employ is the same which Kirkisani attributes to +Zadok. It is, however, the obvious argument, if the principle of +analogy be admitted in the interpretation of the law; it is common +<pb n='367'/><anchor id='Pg367'/> +in the Karaite books, and is ascribed to the Samaritans +also.<note place='foot'>Schechter, p. xxxvii, n. 21.</note> +Kirkisani also says that the Zadokites absolutely forbade divorce, +which the Scripture permitted, agreeing in this with the Christians +and with the Isawites, whose founders, Jesus and Obadiah of +Ispahan,<note place='foot'>Founder of a +Jewish sect which arose in Persia about the end of the seventh +century.</note> had likewise forbidden it. We are not told expressly +that our sect prohibited divorce, but their prohibition of remarriage +during the life of the divorced wife would have the same +effect. Finally, Kirkisani says that the Zadokites fixed all the +months at thirty days each,<note place='foot'>On this point see above, p. +<ref target='Pg362'>362</ref>.</note> and that they did not count the +Sabbath among the seven days of the celebration of the Passover +and the Tabernacles, making the feast consist of seven days exclusive +of the Sabbath. Substantially the same statements are +made about the Zadokites by another Karaite author, Hadassi, +who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century, and perhaps +derived his information from Kirkisani. +</p> + +<p> +What the <q>Zadokite</q> writings really were to which these +authors refer is not known. It is certain, however, that both +the Karaites and their opponents took them to be Sadducean +works. In the passage about Zadok, part of which Dr. Schechter +quotes (see above), Kirkisani says: <q>After the appearance of the +Rabbanites (the first of whom was Simeon the Just), the Sadducees +appeared; their leaders were Zadok and Boëthus.... Zadok +was the first who exposed the Rabbanites,</q> etc.<note place='foot'>Quoted +in the original by Poznanski, Revue des études juives, vol. xliv +(1902). p. 162, n. 2.</note> Zadok's disclosure +of a part of truth was followed by the full discovery of +the truth about the laws by Anan, the founder of the Karaites. +Not only do the opponents of the Karaites stigmatize Anan and +his followers as the remnants of the disciples of Zadok and +Boëthus, but the older Karaites expressly claim this origin. Thus +Joseph al-Baṣir (first half of the eleventh century) says that, in +the times of the second temple, the Rabbanites, who were then +called Pharisees, had the upper hand, while the Karaites, then +known as Sadducees, were less influential.<note place='foot'>Quoted +by Poznanski, l. c., p. 170.</note> The Karaite author +<pb n='368'/><anchor id='Pg368'/> +of an anonymous commentary on Exodus preserved in manuscript +in St. Petersburg<note place='foot'>Harkavy attributed +it conjecturally to Sahl ben Masliah; Poznanski, +whom Dr. Schechter follows, thinks it more likely that the author was Hasan +ben Mashiah.</note> polemizes against a disciple of Saadia, +the great <hi rend='italic'>Malleus Karaeorum</hi>, about the proper way of determining +the beginning of the months (and consequently the dates of +the feasts), which the Rabbanites fixed by calculation of the +conjunctions, while the Karaites depended on observation of +the visible new moon. The ancients, he says, required evidence +of the appearance of the new moon.<note place='foot'>As the +Karaites do. See e.g. Mishna, Rosh ha-Shana, 1 7 ff., 2 1 f.</note> +Saadia, who mistakenly +assumed that the beginning of the month had been determined +astronomically from remote antiquity—the calendar was, in fact, +of Sinaitic origin<note place='foot'>See Poznanski, +Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x (1898), pp. 159, 248, 273.</note>—asserted +that the taking of testimony about +the appearance of the moon was an innovation occasioned by +the contention of Zadok and Boëthus that the law required the +beginning of the month to be determined by actual observation; +witnesses were heard only to prove that observation confirmed +the calculation. To this the author replies: <q>The book of the +Zadokites (Sadducees) is well known, and there is no such thing +in it as that man (Saadia) avers. In the book of Zadok are various +things in which he dissents from the Rabbanites of the second +temple with regard to sacrifices and other matters, but there +is not a syllable of what the Fayyumite (Saadia) says.</q><note place='foot'>Quoted +in the original by Poznanski, Revue des études juives, vol. xliv, +p. 176.—The point is that the <q>Zadokite</q> writings known to the author said +nothing about fixing the beginning of the month by observation. Saadia doubtless +based his assertion, not on anything he found in <q>Zadokite</q> books, but on +Rosh ha-Shanah 22 a-b.</note> Saadia +himself appears not to have questioned the authenticity of the +writings that went under the name of Zadok, with which he seems +to have been acquainted, directly or indirectly, for in a passage +quoted by Yefet ben 'Ali he says that Zadok had proved from +the one hundred and fifty days in the story of the flood just the +opposite of what the Karaites try to prove from them.<note place='foot'>Poznanski, +l. c., p. 177; cf. also Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x, pp. 246 ff.—Saadia +probably means that <q>Zadok</q> argued from the fact that the 150 days +of Gen. 7 24, 8 3, make an even five months (7 11, 8 4), that each month had thirty +days (cf. Jubilees 5 27), while for the Karaites thirty days was only the extreme +length of a lunar month. See Poznanski, Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x, p. +241.</note> +</p> + +<pb n='369'/><anchor id='Pg369'/> + +<p> +Zadokite books thus meant, for all those from whom our information +comes, Sadducean books; and so, in the sense that, whatever +their age and origin, they contained substantially Sadducean +teachings, most modern scholars, also, have understood +the name. +</p> + +<p> +The possibility that Sadducean writings from the beginning +of the Christian era had survived to the Middle Ages cannot well +be denied, especially in view of the preservation of the book of +the unknown sect that forms the subject of our present study +in copies as late as the tenth or eleventh century; and even if +the book which the Karaites took for Sadducean was erroneously +attributed to that sect, there is no sufficient ground for identifying +it with the texts in our hands or for ascribing it to our sect. A +thirty-day month, and the prohibition of divorce and of marriage +with a niece, are much too slender a foundation to support +so large an inference, and it is hardly legitimate to argue that if +we had the entire book, of which only a part—or, according to +Dr. Schechter, excerpts—is preserved, we might find other and +more significant agreements. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Schechter has also remarked certain coincidences between +the tenets of our sect and those of the Falashas, or Abyssinian +Jews, whom, with Beer, he is disposed to connect in some way +with the Dositheans. Their Sabbath laws resemble those in +the Jubilees and in the texts before us; they also prohibit marriage +with a niece; they have a tradition that the Pentateuch was +brought to Abyssinia by Azariah, the son of Zadok (1 Kings +4 2); certain features of their calendar may possibly be related to +that of the Zadokites as described by Kirkisani. Here, again, +the correspondences are not numerous or distinctive enough +to establish an historical connection. +</p> + +<p> +Putting together these scattered indicia, Dr. Schechter arrives +at a theory of the history and relations of the sect which must +be given in his own words:— +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +We may, then, formulate our hypothesis that our text is constituted +of fragments forming extracts from a Zadok book, known to us chiefly +<pb n='370'/><anchor id='Pg370'/> +from the writings of Kirkisani. The Sect which it represented, did +not however pass for any length of time under the name of Zadokites, +but was soon in some way amalgamated with and perhaps also absorbed +by the Dosithean Sect, and made more proselytes among the Samaritans +than among the Jews, with which former sect it had many points of +similarity. In the course of time, however, the Dosithean Sect also +disappeared, and we have only some traces left of them in the lingering +sect of the Falashas, with whom they probably came into close contact +at an early period of their (the Falashas') existence, and to whom they +handed down a good many of their practices. The only real difficulty +in the way of this hypothesis is, that according to our Text the Sect had +its original seat in Damascus, north of Palestine, and it is difficult to +see how they reached the Dositheans, and subsequently the Falashas, +who had their main seats in the south of Palestine, or Egypt. But +this could be explained by assuming special missionary efforts on the +part of the Zadokites by sending their emissaries to Egypt, a country +which was especially favourable to such an enterprise because of the +existence of the Onias Temple there. The severance of the Egyptian +Jews from the Palestinian influence (though they did not entirely give +up their loyalty to the Jerusalem Sanctuary), prepared the ground for +the doctrines of such a Sect as the Zadokites in which all allegiance to +Judah and Jerusalem was rejected, and in which the descendants of the +House of Zadok (of whom indeed Onias himself was one) represented +both the Priest and the Messiah. +</quote> + +<p> +The evidence adduced in support of this ingenious hypothesis +has already been examined in detail, and the results need only +be summarized here: There is nothing in the book before us to +warrant classing the men who made the new covenant in the +land of Damascus as a Zadokite sect;<note place='foot'>See above, p. +<ref target='Pg359'>359</ref> f.</note> neither the external +nor the internal evidence suffices to identify the work quoted by +Kirkisani as Zadokite (by which he and all the rest understood +Sadducean) with the book before us; the connection of the sect +with the Dositheans rests in great part on misunderstanding of +the testimonies about the Dositheans—misunderstandings, it +is fair to say, which are not all original with Dr. Schechter,—in +part upon points of resemblance which are not distinctive enough +to prove anything. Of the peculiar organization of our sect, +which would be conclusive, there is no trace anywhere. +</p> + +<milestone unit='tb' rend='rule: 50%'/> + +<p> +A much more sensational hypothesis was broached by Mr. G. +Margoliouth in the <hi rend='italic'>Athenaeum</hi> for November 26, 1910, under +<pb n='371'/><anchor id='Pg371'/> +the title, <q>The Sadducean Christians of Damascus.</q> He takes +<q>the root</q> which God caused to spring from Israel and Aaron +(1 7) for the same person who is subsequently called the Anointed +one (Messiah), and distinguishes this figure from the Teacher of +Righteousness, also called the Anointed one, who appeared +twenty years later. <q>Both these Messiahs were dead when the +document was composed, but they were both expected to reappear +in the latter days.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The first of them, the Messiah descended from Aaron and +Israel, in consequence of whose work <q>they meditated over their +sin, and knew that they were guilty men,</q> is John the Baptist. +John's father was a priest, and though his mother also is said to +have been of priestly descent, <q>this need not stand in the way +of believing that there was a strain of non-priestly Israelite +blood in the family.</q> The Sadducees would naturally prefer +a priestly Messiah to a Davidic one, and, when John won the +recognition of the people as a prophet sent by God, it would not +be strange if a priestly party acclaimed him as in some sense a +Messiah, or anointed leader of the nation. +</p> + +<p> +The other Messiah, the Teacher of Righteousness, must then +be Jesus. That he appeared twenty years after John, so far +from being an argument against this identification, would relieve +the difficulty of trying to crowd John's whole history into little +more than a year. <q>It is surely not necessary to defend the +Lucan tradition on this point at all hazards, and it seems quite +likely that the newly discovered document has at last given us +the right perspective of events.</q> +</p> + +<p> +If these identifications are correct, the <q>man of scoffing,</q> or +Belial,<note place='foot'>In <q>Belial is let +loose,</q> Mr. Margoliouth finds a witless pun on Paul's +apostolic claims.</note> who is sent to pervert the nation and turn it from the +law, can be no other than the Apostle Paul, and it is noted for +confirmation that <q>the period here assigned to his activity and +that of his immediate following is about forty years, a space of +time not far removed from the result of recent critical computation.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The New Covenant so often referred to in the texts is clearly +to be connected with the identical conception and expression +<pb n='372'/><anchor id='Pg372'/> +in the New Testament, nor does it seem to be accidental that +the Teacher of Righteousness is several times spoken of as the +<q>only</q> or <q>unique</q> one. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Margoliouth presents his complete hypothesis as follows:— +</p> + +<quote rend='display'> +The natural and apparently inevitable conclusion of the whole matter, +therefore, is that we have here to deal with a primitive Judaeo-Christian +body of people which consisted of priests and Levites belonging to the +Boëthusian section of the Sadducean party,<note place='foot'>Mr. Margoliouth +is led to the opinion that they were Boëthusians by the +obscure passage in 2 13, which he interprets, <q>in the explanation of his name +(sc. the Messiah's) are also their names,</q>—the name of the sect points +mysteriously to the name of the Messiah. <q>Now the Boëthusians derived their name +from a priest named Boëthus, and the meaning of βοηθὸς is the same as that of +the Hebrew name represented by Jesus. The inference would be that the +section of the Zadokite or Sadducees who adopted an attitude of belief toward +John the Baptist and Jesus were none other than the Boëthusians (perhaps identical +with the great company of believing priests of Acts 6 7), who not unnaturally +liked to dwell on the identity of meaning between their names and that of +the Teacher.</q>—<hi rend='italic'>Boëthos</hi>, it may be remarked, is probably a +Greek equivalent for the name Ezra, not for Jeshua.</note> fortified—as the document +shows—by a considerable Israelitish lay element, besides a real +or contemplated admixture of proselytes. They acknowledged, as we +have seen, John the Baptist, as a Messiah of the family of Aaron, and +they also believed in Jesus as a kind of second (or, perhaps, as pre-eminent) +Messiah whose special function it was to be a <q>Teacher of +Righteousness.</q> Paul they abhorred; and they strove with all their +might to combine the full observance of the Mosaic Law, as they understood +it, with the principles of the <q>new covenant,</q> again as they understood +it. On the destruction of the Temple by Titus, finding that it +would not serve any good purpose to linger in Judaea, they determined +to migrate to Damascus,<note place='foot'>Mr. Margoliouth +thinks that <q>the end of the destruction of the land,</q> +after which the migration to Damascus took place, <q>can hardly be anything else +than the completion of the Roman conquest in <hi rend='smallcaps'>a.d.</hi> 70.</q> +<q>At the end of the +devastation of the land</q> means, however, not when the destruction was complete, +but when the period of desolation was over. The phrase itself, therefore, is no +more appropriate to Titus than to Nebuchadnezzar—or to Hadrian. Mr. Margoliouth +does not say how he interprets the rest of the passage. Are the men +who, at the end of the devastation of the land, <q>removed the boundary and led +Israel astray,</q> the great rabbis of the generations after the destruction of Jerusalem, +and does the sequel, <q>and the land was laid waste because they spoke +rebelliously against the commandments of God by Moses and against his holy +Anointed one,</q> refer to the war under Hadrian?</note> intending to establish their +central organization in that city, and to found communities of the sect in different parts +of the neighboring country. It was at this juncture that the manifesto, +<pb n='373'/><anchor id='Pg373'/> +bearing as it does unmistakable marks of personal touch, was composed +by a leader of the movement. +</quote> + +<p> +No scholar who has made an independent study of the texts +published by Dr. Schechter can have failed to consider the question +whether these schismatics, with their <q>unique teacher,</q><note place='foot'>As +has been noted above, <foreign lang='he' rend='italic'>yāhīd</foreign> +is sometimes rendered in the Greek Old +Testament by μονογενής.</note> +their <q>new covenant,</q> their <q>Supervisor,</q> whose name and +functions might be compared with those of a bishop ἐπίσκοπος, +their loyalty to their dead leader, God's Anointed one (Messiah), +who made them know his holy spirit, and their expectation of +an Anointed one in the last times, their hostility to the Pharisees, +can have been a Jewish Christian sect. +</p> + +<p> +The more closely the documents are examined, however, the +less tenable this conjecture appears. One feature of the sectarian +eschatology which, if established, would afford the most +striking coincidence with early Christian belief, namely, that the +Messiah who died in the early days of the sect is to <q>reappear</q> +(Margoliouth), or <q>rise again</q> (Schechter), has no support whatever +in the text.<note place='foot'>See above, p. <ref target='Pg341'>341</ref>.</note> +The <q>new covenant</q> in the land of Damascus +is plainly the obligation by which the members of the sect bind +themselves to the organization, with its peculiar interpretations +of the law and its distinctive observances. Neither in the terms +of the covenant nor in the law itself is there anything that suggests +Christian origin or influence. That <q>a man should love +his neighbor as himself</q> is not peculiarly or even preëminently +a Christian precept. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs +reiterate it; by the most orthodox rabbis it was recognized as +the most comprehensive commandment in the law. +</p> + +<p> +The things which the sect esteems of vital importance lie wholly +in the sphere of the law; polemic zeal for a code which is at every +point more rigorous than that of the Pharisees is the salient characteristic +of both parts of the book. The moral precepts are +the commonplaces of Judaism narrowed to a sectarian horizon.<note place='foot'>The +commandment to love one's neighbor as himself, for example. In the +context of the covenant formula, in contrast to Jewish orthodoxy no less than to +Christianity, the neighbor is not the fellow man, nor even the fellow Jew, but +the fellow member of the schismatic church.</note> +<pb n='374'/><anchor id='Pg374'/> +The judgment of God is similarly circumscribed. It is not a +judgment of the world or of the Jewish people, but of those who +reject and controvert the legal interpretation of the sect, and of +those who have fallen away from it. +</p> + +<p> +The code of law which is the constituent principle of the sect +and the reason for its existence was given it by its founder, the +Teacher of Righteousness. This unique teacher was not a prophetic +reformer, but <q>the interpreter of the law who came to +Damascus,</q> <q>the legislator.</q> The statutes he decreed are final; +the sect <q>shall receive no others until the teacher of righteousness +shall arise in the last times.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Margoliouth thinks that the <q>teacher of righteousness</q> +to whom the sect attributed its institutions and laws was Jesus. +The statement of this conjecture is its refutation. The rôle of +a legislator is the last which the character and teaching of Jesus +in the Gospels would suggest even to a sect in search of a +founder. That he, whose disregard for the Pharisaic rules of +Sabbath observance repeatedly got him into trouble, should, +within a generation after his death, have been metamorphosed +into the author of the sabbatical code in our texts, which out-pharisees +the Pharisees at every point, surpasses ordinary powers +of imagination. The Christian Jews of the first century in Palestine, +so far as we know anything about them, conformed in the +matter of observance to the authority of the scribes and Pharisees, +and alleged the express command of Jesus for this practice +(Matt. 23 2). Early Christian heresies sometimes exhibit ascetic +features reminding us of the Essenes; but none of ultra-legalistic +tendency is known. +</p> + +<p> +As our sect is very zealous for things which have no connection +with Christianity, so on the other hand the texts disclose no trace +of specific Christian beliefs or conceptions. For the Christian +Jews of the first century, the belief that Jesus, who had been +crucified under Pontius Pilate, was the Messiah of prophecy, +that he had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, whence +he was presently to come in might and majesty, according to +the vision of Daniel, to usher in the new era, was the pith and +substance of their faith, the <q>heresy</q> by which they were separated +from their countrymen, the focus of their polemic and +<pb n='375'/><anchor id='Pg375'/> +apologetic in controversies with those who rejected their Messiah. +It is impossible to imagine a writing as long as this, and imbued +as strongly as this with a controversial spirit, proceeding from +any Christian sect, in which there should not be so much as an +allusion to any of these things; or that a sect which put John +the Baptist in so high a place should not make something of +baptism in the admission of members. +</p> + +<p> +Apart from these general considerations, Mr. Margoliouth's +identifications rest upon a palpable misinterpretation. On page 1 +we read: <q>But because God remembered the covenant with the +forefathers, he left Israel a remnant, and did not suffer them to +be exterminated. And at the end of wrath ... he visited them +and caused to spring up from Israel and Aaron a root of his planting +<emph>to inherit his land and to prosper on the good things of his earth</emph>.</q> +The italicized clauses prove beyond question that the <q>root</q> +is not an individual, but is a collective designation for the first +generation of the sect.<note place='foot'>See above, p. +<ref target='Pg334'>334</ref>.</note> The parallel passage on p. 5 says explicitly: +<q>God remembered the covenant with the forefathers, +and he raised up from Aaron men of insight and from Israel +wise men, and he heard them, and they dug the well.</q> <q>The well +is the law, and they who dug it are the exiles of Israel who migrated +to Judah and sojourned in the land of Damascus.</q> In the face +of this perfectly plain meaning of the passage Mr. Margoliouth +takes <q>the root</q> for the person designated in other places as <q>the +Anointed from Aaron and Israel,</q> who led the people <q>to recognize +their wickedness and know that they were guilty men.</q><note place='foot'>That +the repentance of the people was brought about by the work of <q>the +root</q> is not suggested in any way in the text; on the contrary, the only natural +construction and interpretation of the passage would make the penitent generation +the same with that which is called <q>the root.</q></note> +In this first Messiah he recognizes John the Baptist, and, consequently, +in the Teacher of Righteousness who came after him, +Jesus. The point of correspondence is the relation between the +forerunner and his successor. The text, however, as I have just +showed, says nothing of a precursor of the teacher of righteousness; +on the contrary, it was this teacher who first brought light +to the generation which in the consciousness of its sin was +<pb n='376'/><anchor id='Pg376'/> +groping like the blind, and guided them in the way of God's +heart.<note place='foot'>See above, p. <ref target='Pg334'>334</ref>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +That by the <q>man of scoffing</q> the Apostle Paul is meant is +for Mr. Margoliouth a corollary of the preceding identifications, +and falls with them. The enemies of Paul were doubtless capable +of calling him all sorts of hard names, but there is nothing in the +epithets <q>scorner</q> and <q>liar,</q> or in the doings attributed to +this figure, which fits Paul better than any other false teacher +and sower of discord, while the reference to the fate of the men +of war who followed the <q>man of lies</q> seems quite inapplicable +to Paul.<note place='foot'>Gressmann is sure +that this <q>man of lies</q> must be Bar Coziba (Bar Cocheba), +the Messianic leader of the rebellion under Hadrian. He might have +added that the contrast to the true star out of Jacob, the founder of the sect, +would be peculiarly pertinent. The punning etymology, <q>Say not <q>Star,</q> but +<q>liar</q></q> (Echa Rabbathi on Lam. 2 2), is ascribed to the Patriarch Judah.</note> +</p> + +<p> +That we should be unable to identify the Covenanters of +Damascus with any sect previously known is not surprising. +The three or four centuries in the middle of which the Christian +era falls were prolific in sects and heresies of many complexions, +as were the centuries following the rise of Islam. +Through Philo, Josephus, the church Fathers, and the Talmud, +we are acquainted with some of them; but it is probable that +there were many others of which no reports have reached us. +If we cannot, out of the collection at our disposal, put a label +on our Covenanters, we may console ourselves with the reflection +that here we know one Jewish sect from its own monuments, and +that the texts in our hands, mutilated as they are, suffice to give +us a much clearer notion of its peculiarities than we get of most +of the other sects from the descriptions which have come down +to us. +</p> + +<p> +Its affinities with various antipharisaic or antirabbinical parties, +such as the Samaritans, the Sadducees, and, in later times, the +Karaites, is obvious. It shared with all these a zeal for the letter +and the literal interpretation, and a disposition to extend the +law by analogy of principle, as a result of which their rules were +in general much stricter than those of the Rabbis, who possessed +<pb n='377'/><anchor id='Pg377'/> +in the theory of tradition and in their methods of exegesis the +means of adapting the law to changed conditions, and who were +also more disposed to give the precedence to the great principles +of humanity in the law over its particular prescriptions when +the two seemed to conflict. The organization of the sect, on the +other hand, has no parallel within our knowledge. In view of +the use of the name <q>camps</q> for the local communities, and +the references to the <q>mustering</q> of the members, the <q>trumpets +of the congregation,</q> and the like, it may be surmised that the +organization of Israel in the wilderness suggested the plan, and +that the Supervisors were meant to correspond to the chiefs of +the tribes (for instance, Num. 1 10), each having authority over +a separate camp. +</p> + +<p> +The sect seems to have perpetuated itself for a considerable +time, otherwise this book would hardly have been preserved. +It may perhaps be conjectured that it survived long enough to +be gathered, along with numerous younger sects, into the capacious +bosom of Karaism, of which it was in various points a precursor. +Such an hypothesis would explain how it came about +that copies of the book were made in the tenth century and later, +we should then suppose by Karaite scribes.<note place='foot'>Perhaps +the manuscripts may have been in the possession of some Rabbanite +controversialist in Egypt, and thus found their way, like various Karaite +writings, into the Genizah of the Synagogue.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Schechter has laid all students of Judaism under new obligations +by the discovery and publication of these texts. They +will join with their congratulations the hope that he may find yet +other treasures among the accumulations of the Genizah. +</p> + +</div> + +</body> +<back rend="page-break-before: right"> + <div id="footnotes"> + <index index="toc" /> + <index index="pdf" /> + <head>Footnotes</head> + <divGen type="footnotes"/> + </div> + <div rend="page-break-before: right"> + <divGen type="pgfooter" /> + </div> +</back> +</text> +</TEI.2> |