(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.

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;(99)
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.

-------------------------------------

A much more sensational hypothesis was broached by Mr. G. Margoliouth in
the _Athenaeum_ for November 26, 1910, under the title, "The Sadducean
Christians of Damascus." He takes "the root" 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. "Both these Messiahs were dead when the document was composed, but
they were both expected to reappear in the latter days."

The first of them, the Messiah descended from Aaron and Israel, in
consequence of whose work "they meditated over their sin, and knew that
they were guilty men," is John the Baptist. John's father was a priest,
and though his mother also is said to have been of priestly descent, "this
need not stand in the way of believing that there was a strain of
non-priestly Israelite blood in the family." 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 pa