The Covenanters of Damascus; A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect Part 5

99 See above, p. 359 f.

100 In "Belial is let loose," Mr. Margoliouth finds a witless pun on Paul's apostolic claims.

101 Mr. Margoliouth is led to the opinion that they were Boethusians by the obscure pa.s.sage in 2 13, which he interprets, "in the explanation of his name (sc. the Messiah's) are also their names,"-the name of the sect points mysteriously to the name of the Messiah. "Now the Boethusians derived their name from a priest named Boethus, and the meaning of ????? 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 att.i.tude of belief toward John the Baptist and Jesus were none other than the Boethusians (perhaps identical with the great company of believing priests of Acts 6 7), who not unnaturally liked to dwell on the ident.i.ty of meaning between their names and that of the Teacher."-_Boethos_, it may be remarked, is probably a Greek equivalent for the name Ezra, not for Jeshua.

102 Mr. Margoliouth thinks that "the end of the destruction of the land," after which the migration to Damascus took place, "can hardly be anything else than the completion of the Roman conquest in A.D.

70." "At the end of the devastation of the land" 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 t.i.tus than to Nebuchadnezzar-or to Hadrian. Mr. Margoliouth does not say how he interprets the rest of the pa.s.sage. Are the men who, at the end of the devastation of the land, "removed the boundary and led Israel astray," the great rabbis of the generations after the destruction of Jerusalem, and does the sequel, "and the land was laid waste because they spoke rebelliously against the commandments of G.o.d by Moses and against his holy Anointed one," refer to the war under Hadrian?

103 As has been noted above, _yahid_ is sometimes rendered in the Greek Old Testament by ????e???.

104 See above, p. 341.

105 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.

106 See above, p. 334.

107 That the repentance of the people was brought about by the work of "the root" is not suggested in any way in the text; on the contrary, the only natural construction and interpretation of the pa.s.sage would make the penitent generation the same with that which is called "the root."

108 See above, p. 334.

109 Gressmann is sure that this "man of lies" 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, "Say not 'Star,' but 'liar' " (Echa Rabbathi on Lam. 2 2), is ascribed to the Patriarch Judah.

110 Perhaps the ma.n.u.scripts 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.