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 party acclaimed him as in some sense a Messiah, or anointed leader of the nation. The other Messiah, the Teacher of Righteousness, must then be Jesus. That he appeared twenty years after John, so far from being an argument against this identification, would relieve the difficulty of trying to crowd John’s whole history into little more than a year. “It is surely not necessary to defend the Lucan tradition on this point at all hazards, and it seems quite likely that the newly discovered document has at last given us the right perspective of events.” If these identifications are correct, the “man of scoffing,” or Belial,(100) who is sent to pervert the nation and turn it from the law, can be no other than the Apostle Paul, and it is noted for confirmation that “the period here assigned to his activity and that of his immediate following is about forty years, a space of time not far removed from the result of recent critical computation.” The New Covenant so often referred to in the texts is clearly to be connected with the identical conception and expression in the New Testament, nor does it seem to be accidental that the Teacher of Righteousness is several times spoken of as the “only” or “unique” one. Mr. Margoliouth presents his complete hypothesis as follows:—