מקצת מעשי התורה' וברכת המינים'

The treatise deals with the prehistory of the Benediction against the Heretics in the light of rabbinic and other texts and especially with the help of a text from Qumran. The point of departure of this benediction is the belief that those who pronounce blasphemies against God are condemned to an eternal punishment in Hell, and there is no hope that their mortal sin will be forgiven. Later on, the definition of these sinners is enlarged. The list, which appears in the Seder Olam, contains מי שפרשו מדרכי ציבור כגון המינים והמשומדים והמסורות והחניפין, (' those who separated themselves from the ways of the community, as the heretics, those who abandoned the religion, the informers and the villains'). In this list of those who rebelled against God, the stress is put upon their lack of solidarity with the Jewish people. The first three kinds of sinners appear also in the ancient form of the synagogal Benediction against the Heretics, as also the concept that they have no hope for divine mercy. The benediction is evidently older than Christianity; in any case the Christians appear in the benediction only in the rite of Ereẕ Israel and not before the end of the third century C.E. Once I suggested that the Benediction against the Heretics was understood as polemics against the Essenes, who separated themselves from the other Jews. This suggestion is now fully confirmed by a newly published text from Qumran (4QMMT).