g between the
_first_ appearance of the Teacher of Righteousness (p. 1, l. 11) (the
founder of the Sect), who was gathered in or died,(25) and the second
appearance of the Teacher of Righteousness who is to rise in 'the end of
the days' (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."(26) The texts,
however, say nothing of the disappearance, or a second appearance, or
reappearance, or return of the founder; nor do the words "until the
teacher of righteousness shall arise in the last days," "until the
anointed shall arise from Aaron and Israel," mean that he shall rise from
the dead, as Dr. Schechter interprets them.(27) 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, "all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them
through Moses" (Lev. 10 11; cf. Deut. 33 10); "the priest's lips should
keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the
messenger of the Lord of Hosts" (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 an