[494]. Epiphanius (Hær. xxx. 16) mentions two points especially, in which the character of this work is shown: (1) It represented James as condemning the sacrifices and the fire on the altar (see above pp. 134–136): (2) It published the most unfounded calumnies against St Paul.
[495]. Lipsius, Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexicon, p. 191.
[496]. Rom. xiv. 2, 21.
[497]. See Galatians p. 310 sq.
[498]. Grätz (III. p. 233) considers this narrative an interpolation made from a Pauline point of view (‘eine paulinistische Tendenz-interpolation’). This theory of interpolation, interposing wherever the evidence is unfavourable, cuts up all argument by the roots. In this instance however Grätz is consistently carrying out a principle, which he broadly lays down elsewhere. He regards it as the great merit of Baur and his school, that they explained the origin of the Gospels by the conflict of two opposing camps, the Ebionite and the Pauline. ‘By this master-key,’ he adds, ‘criticism was first put in a position to test what is historical in the Gospels, and what bears the stamp of a polemical tendency (was einen tendentiösen polemischen Charakter hat). Indeed by this means the element of trustworthy history in the Gospels melts down to a minimum’ (III. p. 224). In other words the judgment is not to be pronounced upon the evidence, but the evidence must be mutilated to suit the judgment. The method is not new. The sectarians of the second century, whether Judaic or anti-Judaic, had severally their ‘master-key.’ The master-key of Marcion was a conflict also—the antagonism of the Old and New Testaments. Under his hands the historical element in the New Testament dissolved rapidly. The master-key of the anti-Marcionite writer of the Clementine Homilies was likewise a conflict, though of another kind—the conflict of fire and water, of the sacrificial and the baptismal systems. Wherever sacrifice was mentioned with approval, there was a ‘Tendenz-interpolation’ (see above p. 136). In this manner again the genuine element in the Old Testament melted down to a minimum.
[499]. Grätz however (III. p. 228) sees a coincidence between Christ’s teaching and Essenism in this notice. Not to do him injustice, I will translate his own words (correcting however several misprints in the Greek): ‘For the connexion of Jesus with the Essenes compare moreover Mark xi. 16 καὶ οὐκ ἤφιεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἵνα τις διενέγκῃ σκεῦος διὰ τοῦ ἱεροῦ with Josephus B.J. ii. 8. 9 ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ σκεῦός τι μετακινῆσαι θαρροῦσιν οἵ Ἐσσαῖοἰ.’ He does not explain what this notice, which refers solely to the scrupulous observance of the sabbath, has to do with the profanation of the temple, with which the passage in the Gospel is alone concerned. I have seen Grätz’s history described as a ‘masterly’ work. The first requisites in a historian are accuracy in stating facts and sobriety in drawing inferences. Without these, it is difficult to see what claims a history can have to this honourable epithet: and in those portions of his work, which I have consulted, I have not found either.
[501]. Matt. xi. 19, Luke vii. 34.
[502]. Ginsburg Essenes p. 14.
[503]. 1 Cor. vii. 26–31.