[110] The quotations in this chapter from the book of Elchasai were doubtless taken from a Greek translation of that work brought to Rome by Alcibiades.
[111] The reasons that probably influenced Hippolytus in writing this description of Jewish religion as a sequel to his Ninth Book are stated in the Introduction. It is for the most part extracted from Josephus, the order of the paragraphs following that adopted by him, and the words being in many cases the same. This has led Cruice to suggest that both are taken from a common source, which he takes to be a Christian writer of the first century. This is extremely unlikely, since Epiphanius, Porphyry and Pliny all quote Josephus directly; but it is probable that when he leaves Josephus, as he does after the account of the Sadducees, Hippolytus draws from the statements of some Jewish convert to Christianity of whom we know nothing. In this, the Messianic ideas of the Jews which brought about the great revolt under Bar Cochba are clearly set out, but it is curious that writing as he must have done long after the practical extermination of the Jewish nation by Hadrian, he should have made no allusion to it; and it may therefore well be that he preferred to condense here the statements which Justin Martyr puts into the mouth of Trypho, with which his own agree in almost every particular. This Ninth Book bears throughout the marks of haste or weariness, many of the sentences, except where he is manifestly using the work of another as model, being slurred over and difficult to construe grammatically. In one or two cases, he contradicts his own statements, as in the case of the Sadducees, making a subsequent correction by himself or the scribe necessary. See n. on p. [147] infra.
[112] οἱ φιλομαθεῖς. Here as elsewhere this seems to mean “the learned” simply.
[113] εἴδη, “species,” or “kinds.”
[114] ἕτεροι δὲ. Does he mean that all the rest of the Jews are Essenes? Throughout this Book the article is frequently omitted as in the title to this chapter. The rest of the section is almost verbatim from Josephus, de Bell Jud., II, 8, 2.
[115] τεκνυποιοῦνται, “make them their own children.”
[116] αἱρετιστῶν. A Latinism here used for the first time by Hippolytus.
[117] These two sections also are taken from Josephus, op. cit., II, 8, 3, 4.
[118] So is this. Cf. Josephus, op. cit., II, 8, 5.
[119] τῷ προεστῶτι. The president of the feast is evidently a different person from the official of the same name in § 20, or of the ἱερεύς or priest in § 21, supra.