§ 3. OF MENAHEM, THE EBIONITE.
After many lamentations for the evils of Israel, and especially because the Holy City had been destroyed by “Babylon” (meaning Rome) whereby the sacrifice had been made to cease, the letter turns aside to describe the manner of the worship of the Temple in times past and especially the presence and glory of the High Priest: “Alas, how was he honored in the midst of the people in his coming forth from the sanctuary! He was as the morning star before the sun hath risen, and as the moon at the full, yea as the sun shining upon the Temple of the Most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the bright clouds. When he took the portions of the priests’ hands, he himself stood by the altar compassed round with his brethren, even as a cedar of Lebanon compassed round with palm-trees. He stretched out his hand to the cup and poured out the blood of the grape, a sweet-smelling savor unto the Most High King. Then shouted the sons of Aaron, then sounded the silver trumpets, to be heard for a remembrance before the Most High. And the people besought the Most High by prayer before him that is merciful, till the solemnity of the Lord was ended. O Lord, if thou didst so much hate thy people that thou must needs cast them down, yet shouldst thou at the least destroy them with thine own hands and not give them over to Babylon. For what are they that inherit Babylon? Are their deeds more righteous than ours that they should have the dominion over Sion?”
After this Menahem reproached me in his letter that I had made myself one with “him” (meaning Paulus) “who professed to be a Jew and was no Jew;” and he affirmed that Jesus had not come to destroy the Law but to confirm it, and that we blasphemed God because we made Jesus to be even as God, whereas he was a man and of the sons of men, howbeit the deliverer and Messiah. Thence, passing again to the condition of his nation he added this hope that “the hand which now had power“—meaning the Emperor Vespasianus—should be wasted suddenly, and that “Babylon” (that is to say Rome) should be cast down, and that the spoils that she had taken from the nations should be carried back to the cities of the East in the day of vengeance of the Lord. After these things, said he, a time should come when men should hope much but obtain naught, and labor, but not prosper; for the world should be turned back again into the old silence of seven days, even as in the first beginning, so that no man should remain; and, after that, the Judgment should come, and the Lord Jesus should judge the earth and reward his brethren in Israel. But still the strain of trust died away in sorrow, and the thought of the Deliverer was lost in the thought of Israel, and the letter came to an end in these words: “Our psaltery is laid in the ground, our song is put to silence, our rejoicing is at an end; the light of our candlestick is put out, and the ark of our covenant is defiled; our priests are burned with fire, our Levites led captive, our virgins and wives defiled and ravished, our righteous men are carried away, our little ones destroyed, our young men brought into bondage, and our strong men become weak; and the seat of Sion hath now lost her honor, for she is delivered into the hands of them that hate us.”
After this manner wrote Menahem the Ebionite, a good man and devout, and one that loved the Lord Jesus and was himself of a gentle and meek disposition. Wherefore if even in so gentle a nature the thought of Jesus was swallowed up in the thought of the Holy City, much more was this likely to happen with others of his countrymen. And so indeed it was. For each year of troubles now seemed to cast a new veil of ignorance on the hearts of the Jews so that they might not understand the Scriptures, nor discern the will of God, nor be brought into the Church of Christ.