Note 499 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY. (continued 2)

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.