Chapter 6

85 Haer. 9, 3; cf. 30, 2: “The Ebionites, like the Samaritans, avoid touching an outsider.” A still more extreme fastidiousness on this point is attributed by Josephus to the Essenes; cf. B. J. ii, 8, 10.

86 Photius, Bibliotheca Codicum, cod. 280 (ed. Bekker, p. 285).

87 The Kitab al-Anwār was published in 937, not 637, as by a misprint on p. xviii.

88 Schechter’s translation, Introduction, p. xviii.

89 Schechter, p. xxxvii, n. 21.

90 Founder of a Jewish sect which arose in Persia about the end of the seventh century.

91 On this point see above, p. 362.

92 Quoted in the original by Poznanski, Revue des études juives, vol. xliv (1902). p. 162, n. 2.

93 Quoted by Poznanski, l. c., p. 170.

94 Harkavy attributed it conjecturally to Sahl ben Masliah; Poznanski, whom Dr. Schechter follows, thinks it more likely that the author was Hasan ben Mashiah.

95 As the Karaites do. See e.g. Mishna, Rosh ha-Shana, 1 7 ff., 2 1 f.

96 See Poznanski, Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x (1898), pp. 159, 248, 273.

97 Quoted in the original by Poznanski, Revue des études juives, vol. xliv, p. 176.—The point is that the “Zadokite” 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 “Zadokite” books, but on Rosh ha-Shanah 22 a-b.

98 Poznanski, l. c., p. 177; cf. also Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. x, pp. 246 ff.—Saadia probably means that “Zadok” 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.

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 Boëthusians by the obscure passage 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 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.”—_Boëthos_, 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 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, “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 God by Moses and against his holy Anointed one,” refer to the war under Hadrian?

103 As has been noted above, _yāhīd_ is sometimes rendered in the Greek Old Testament by μονογενής.

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 passage 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 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.