Free The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Geza Vermes Page B

that a figure of the stature of the Teacher should have left no trace in the literature relating to that time? The answer to this objection is that such writings are to all intents and purposes restricted to the Books of the Maccabees, sources politically biased in favour of their heroes and virtually oblivious of the very existence of opposition movements. Josephus himself relies largely on 1 Maccabees and cannot therefore be regarded as an independent witness. But even were this not so, and he had additional material at his disposition, his silence vis-à-vis the Teacher of Righteousness would still not call for particular comment since he also makes no mention of the founder of the Pharisees. And incidentally, not a few historians hold that he has nothing to say either of Jesus of Nazareth. The so-called Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities XVIII, 63-4), they maintain, is a Christian interpolation into the genuine text of Antiquities (though others, myself included, think that part of the text is authentic). Be this as it may, not a word is breathed by him about Hillel, the greatest of the Pharisee masters, or about Yohanan ben Zakkai, who reorganized Judaism after the destruction of the Temple, although both of these men lived in Josephus’ own century and Yohanan was definitely his contemporary.
    Admittedly, the various fragments of information gleaned from the Dead Sea Scrolls result in an unavoidably patchy story, but it is fundamentally sound, and the continuing anonymity of the Teacher does nothing to impair it. For the present synthesis to be complete it remains now to turn to Josephus for his occasional historical references to individual Essenes and to Essenism.
    To begin with it should be pointed out that four members of the Community are actually mentioned by the Jewish historian, three of them associated with prophecy, one of the distinctive interests of the Teacher of Righteousness himself. The first, called Judas, is encountered in Jerusalem surrounded by a group of pupils taking instruction in ‘foretelling the future’, which probably means how to identify prophetic pointers to future events. Josephus writes of him that he had ‘never been known to speak falsely in his prophecies’, and that he predicted the death of Antigonus, the brother of Aristobulus I (104-103 BCE) (Antiquities XIII, 311-13). A second Essene prophet, Menahem, apparently foretold that Herod would rule over the Jews (xv, 373-8). Herod showed his gratitude to him by dispensing the Essenes, who were opposed to all oaths except their own oath of the Covenant, from taking the vow of loyalty imposed on all his Jewish subjects. A third Essene named Simon interpreted a dream of Archelaus, ethnarch of Judaea (4 BCE-6 CE), in 4 BCE to mean that his rule would last for ten years (XVII, 345-8). John the Essene, the last sectary to be referred to by Josephus, was not a prophet, but the commander or strategos of the district of Thamna in north-western Judaea, and of the cities of Lydda (Lod), Joppa (Jaffa) and Emmaus at the beginning of the first revolution (War 11, 567). A man of ‘first-rate prowess and ability’, he fell in battle at Ascalon (III, II, I9). 72
    Finally, Josephus depicts in vivid language the bravery of the Essenes subjected to torture by the Romans.
    The war with the Romans tried their souls through and through by every variety of test. Racked and twisted, burned and broken, and made to pass through every instrument of torture in order to induce them to blaspheme their lawgiver or to eat some forbidden thing, they refused to yield to either demand, nor ever once did they cringe to their persecutors or shed a tear. Smiling in their agonies and mildly deriding their tormentors, they cheerfully resigned their souls, confident that they would receive them back again.
    (War 11, 152-3)
    Since it would appear from this passage that the Romans were persecuting not individuals, but a group, it is tempting, bearing