As our sect is very zealous for things which have no connection with Christianity, so on the other hand the texts disclose no trace of specific Christian beliefs or conceptions. For the Christian Jews of the first century, the belief that Jesus, who had been crucified under Pontius Pilate, was the Messiah of prophecy, that he had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, whence he was presently to come in might and majesty, according to the vision of Daniel, to usher in the new era, was the pith and substance of their faith, the “heresy” by which they were separated from their countrymen, the focus of their polemic and apologetic in controversies with those who rejected their Messiah. It is impossible to imagine a writing as long as this, and imbued as strongly as this with a controversial spirit, proceeding from any Christian sect, in which there should not be so much as an allusion to any of 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)