f 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.

Apart from these general considerations, Mr. Margoliouth's identifications
rest upon a palpable misinterpretation. On page 1 we read: "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 _to inherit his land and to prosper on the good
things of his earth_." The italicized clauses prove beyond question that
the "root" is not an individual, but is a collective designation for the
first generation of the sect.(106) The parallel passage on p. 5 says
explicitly: "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." "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." In the face of this perfectly plain meaning of the passage
Mr. Margoliouth takes "the root" for the person designated in other places
as "the Anointed from Aaron and Israel," who led the people "to recognize
their wickedness and know that they were guilty men."(107) 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 groping
like the blind, and guided them in the way of God's heart.(108)

That by the "man of scoffing" 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 "scorner" and "liar,"
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 "man of lies" seems quite
inapplicable to Paul.(109)

That we should be unable to identify the Covenanters of Damasc