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Dositheans, Resurrection and a Messianic Joshua

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

A.D. Crown
A.D. Crown*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

One of the unsolved mysteries of Samaritan history is the problem of the Dosithean sect and its relationships with other Samaritan groups and with Christian and Gnostic sects. Of particular interest, in view of controversy over the history of Samaritan eschatology, is the question of whether the Dositheans believed in the resurrection of the dead and in a Messiah in the person of Joshua. It is more than fifty years since these questions were last examined in any detail and in the light of recent evidence accruing about the Samaritans the time would now seem to be opportune for a fresh evaluation of the evidence relating to Dositheanism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 1 , 1967 , pp. 70 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1967

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References

1 Kraus, Cf.S., ‘Dosithee et les Dositheens,’ Rev. Et. Juives xlii (1901), 27–40,Google Scholar and Kohler, K., ‘Dositheus the Samaritan Heresiarch’, Am. J. Theol. xv (1911).Google Scholar

2 The eschatological evidence relating to Dositheanism was not examined in detail by either of the authors cited above, and is generally given only cursory treatment in recent works covering the field of early Christian-Jewish relationships.

3 For recent assessments of the Dositheans see Driver, G.R., The Judean Scrolls (Oxford, 1965), pp. 78–80;Google ScholarBowman, J. , ‘Pilgrimage to Mt. Gerizim’, Eretz Israel vii (1963)Google Scholar (L. A. Mayer Memorial Volume), 18 f.; Doresse, J., The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics (London, 1960);Google Scholar and Weiss, J. , Earliest Christianity (Harper Torchbook ed., 1959), Vol. ii, pp. 756 f.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Weiss, loc. cit.

5 Cf. Montgomery, J.A., The Samaritans (Philadelphia, 1907), p. 252.Google Scholar

6 HE iv 22.5.

7 The details of Hegesippus in Montgomery, loc. cit., appear to be only half true. Kirsopp Lake’s translation of Eusebius’ text in the Loeb series reads, ‘But Thebouthis, because he had not been made bishop begins its [the Church’s] corruption by the seven heresies, to which he belonged, among the people’. The term ‘among the people’ usually in Eusebius denotes Jews, but here it gives the impression of meaning Palestinian Christians (see translator’s note, loc. cit.); the impression, however, is mistaken.

8 They are said to have existed ‘among the children of Israel’.

9 Daniélou, J. , The Theology of Jewish Christianity, translated by Baker, J.A. (London, 1964), pp. 69–71.Google Scholar

10 Cf. note 7 above.

11 Op. cit. pp. 252 f.

12 In Adv. Haer. i 1.11 in Migne, PG, Vol. xli, p. 235. Note the discrepant source notation for Epiphanius given by Montgomery.

13 Piercy, W.C., Who’s Who in the Early Christian Church (London, 1923).Google Scholar

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17 Piercy, op. cit.

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19 Contra Celsum vi 11.

20 Ibid., Crombie, trans.F. , Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Roberts, A. and Donaldson, J. (American Reprint, 1956), Vol. iv, p. 578.Google Scholar

21 Clementine Recognitions ii 7.

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24 Loc. cit.

25 Clementine Recognitions i 54.

26 Driver, op. cit. passim. See also the references in Wilson, R.McL , ‘Simon, Dositheus and the Dead Sea Scrolls’, Z.für Rel. u. Geistesgesch. ix (1957), 28.Google Scholar

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28 Ibid., pp. 79 f.

29 Ibid. Cf. also Bowman, J. ,‘Contact between Samaritan Sects and Qumran’, Vetus Testamentum 7 (1957), 184 f., and Wilson, R.McL. , op. cit.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Supra, n. 12. I am indebted to Mr E. Judge of the Department of History of this University for the help he gave me in reading the Migne texts.

31 Cf. Piercy, op. cit.

32 Cf. Migne, op. cit., p. 231, and various references in the following section, Migne, cap. 47 (Adv. Haer. i 1.20).

33 Ibid., cap. 31 (Adv. Haer. i 1.13).

34 At least the misidentification of the mountains Ebal and Gerizim must be excepted. However, cf. R. McL. Wilson, op. cit. 26, on the testimony of Epiphanius.

35 Epiphanius‘ note.

36 No copy of Abu’l Fath is available to me except for portions, in photocopy, of PayneSmith’s version dealing with the conquest of Canaan, and I am indebted for statements about the Dositheans in Abu’l Fath to a table lent to me by Professor J. Bowman of Melbourne University. This table was verified by reference to Montgomery’s survey of Dosithean practices (op. cit. p. 254) except that Professor Bowman’s table was more extensive and differed from Montgomery in some matters of no relevance to this discussion.

37 For the details of Israelite calendars I have drawn on the survey in Driver, op. cit. pp. 316 f. Cf. also De Vaux, R., Ancient Israel (London, 1962).Google Scholar

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43 Ibid.

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46 Midrash Tanhuma Wayeshebh, Yalkut 2.234. Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer.

47 AJ xiii 3.4.

48 Cf. Jastrow, M. , Dictionary of the Targumim (New York, 1950), p. 290 and p. 286.Google Scholar

49 A mark of a solar calendar? Cf. De Vaux, op. cit. pp. 180 f.

50 Zadokite Document 13.14.

51 Cf. n. 37, and Montgomery, op. cit. pp. 256 f.

52 Zadokite Document 9.8, 29.

53 See Driver, op. cit. pp. 8–13, 79 f.; also K. Kohler, op. cit.

54 Cf. nn. 64, 62, and Bowman, op. cit.

55 Bowman’s table.

56 See Driver, op. cit. p. 79.

57 De Principiis iv 1.17.

58 See Piercy, op. cit., for the date. Migne, PG, Vol. ciii (Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. ccxxx).

59 Montgomery, op. cit. p. 258.

60 Pfeiffer, R.H. , Introduction to the Old Testament (London, 1963), p. 130.Google Scholar

61 Op. cit. p. 245, n. 162.

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63 See Ginzberg, L., The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1946), Vol. ii, p. 4; Vol. vi, PP. 95. 169, 173.Google Scholar

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65 Daniélou, loc. cit.

66 Ibid. p. 262.

67 Daniélou, loc. cit.

68 i 57.

69 Op. cit. p. 259.

70 Montgomery, loc. cit.; cf. also Kohler, op. cit. 412.

71 Jastrow, op. cit. p. 50.

72 Op. cit. 413.

73 Kohler, loc. cit.; also Driver, op. cit. p. 79.

74 Op. cit. p. 256.

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76 Cf. Trotter, R.J.F. , Gnosticism and Memar Marqah (Leeds University Oriental Society Monograph Series No. 4, July 1964).Google Scholar

77 Cf. Doresse, op. cit.

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79 See Waxman, M., A History of Jewish Literature (New York and London, 1960), p. 68.Google Scholar

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81 Montgomery, op. cit. pp. 116 f.

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83 MacDonald, J., Memar Marqah, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1963).Google Scholar

84 Cf. Trotter, op. cit. It may well have been this factor which influenced MacDonald’s broad dating over two centuries. See MacDonald, op. cit., Introduction.

85 Bowman, loc. cit.

86 See Adler, and Seligsohn, , ‘Une nouvelle chronique samaritaine’ (hereafter ‘Chronicle Adler’), Part II, Rev. Et. Juives xlv, 94.Google Scholar

87 See Bowman, J., ‘Early Samaritan Eschatology’, J. Jewish Stud. vi, no. 2 (1955), 63–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88 Neubauer, A., ‘Chronique Samaritaine’, Journal Asiatique (December, 1869), 26 f.Google Scholar

89 In the absence of a copy of Abu’l Fath, I rely for this comment on the copious footnotes to Chronicle Adler, where deviations from Abu’l Fath are noted.

90 Op. cit. pp. 102–3, ‘the largely exuberant and absurd story of the hero’.

91 Chronicle Adler, 87 f.

92 Bowman’s table.

93 Chronicle Adler, 90.

94 Chronicle Adler mistranslates mikvah as ‘school’.

95 Chronicle Adler, 95.

96 Ibid. 88 f.

97 Ibid. 95.

98 Loc. cit.; cf. also Chronicle Neubauer.

99 In private discussion.

100 See n. 40, supra.