us with any
sect previously known is not surprising. The three or four centuries in
the middle of which the Christian era falls were prolific in sects and
heresies of many complexions, as were the centuries following the rise of
Islam. Through Philo, Josephus, the church Fathers, and the Talmud, we are
acquainted with some of them; but it is probable that there were many
others of which no reports have reached us. If we cannot, out of the
collection at our disposal, put a label on our Covenanters, we may console
ourselves with the reflection that here we know one Jewish sect from its
own monuments, and that the texts in our hands, mutilated as they are,
suffice to give us a much clearer notion of its peculiarities than we get
of most of the other sects from the descriptions which have come down to
us.

Its affinities with various antipharisaic or antirabbinical parties, such
as the Samaritans, the Sadducees, and, in later times, the Karaites, is
obvious. It shared with all these a zeal for the letter and the literal
interpretation, and a disposition to extend the law by analogy of
principle, as a result of which their rules were in general much stricter
than those of the Rabbis, who possessed in the theory of tradition and in
their methods of exegesis the means of adapting the law to changed
conditions, and who were also more disposed to give the precedence to the
great principles of humanity in the law over its particular prescriptions
when the two seemed to conflict. The organization of the sect, on the
other hand, has no parallel within our knowledge. In view of the use of
the name "camps" for the local communities, and the references to the
"mustering" of the members, the "trumpets of the congregation," and the
like, it may be surmised that the organization of Israel in the wilderness
suggested the plan, and that the Supervisors were meant to correspond to
the chiefs of the tribes (for instance, Num. 1 10), each having authority
over a separate camp.

The sect seems to have perpetuated itself for a considerable time,
otherwise this book would hardly have been preserved. It may perhaps be
conjectured that it survived long enough to be gathered, along with
numerous younger sects, into the capacious bosom of Karaism, of which it
was in various points a precursor. Such an hypothesis would explain how it
came about that copies of the book were made in the tenth century and
later, we should then suppose by Karaite scribe