the season feasts,
and the fast-day, in accordance with the commandments of those who
entered into the new covenant in the land of Damascus; to set
apart the sacred dues as they are defined; and that a man should
love his neighbor as himself, and sustain the poor and needy and
the proselyte, and to seek each the welfare of the other; and that
no man transgress the prohibited degrees, but guard against
fornication according to the rule; and that a man should reprove
his brother according to the commandment, and not bear a grudge
from day to day; and to separate from all forms of uncleanness
according to their several prescriptions; and that a man should
not defile his holy spirit, even as God separated for them (sc.
unclean from clean). All who walk in these precepts in perfection
of holiness, according to all the foundations of the covenant of
God,(21) have the assurance that they shall live a thousand
generations.

Early in the history of the sect a serious defection occurred. Men who
entered among the first into the covenant incurred guilt, like their
forefathers, by following their sinful inclinations; they forsook the
covenant of God and preferred their own will, and went about after the
stubbornness of their heart, every man doing as he pleased (3 10 ff.); the
men who entered into the new covenant in the land of Damascus went back
and proved false, and turned aside from the well of living waters (19 33
f.). Their names were struck out of the registers of the sect, as were
those of such as fell away in later times.

We can readily imagine that many found the rule of the sect too strict and
the discipline by which it was enforced too severe. Our texts, however,
speak not of such occasional and individual lapses, but of the repudiation
of the covenant by numbers at one time. It seems that another leader had
arisen, of very different temper from the founder, who drew away many
after him. In the eyes of those who remained steadfast in the faith, the
new teacher was naturally a false prophet, a kind of antichrist. He is
called the liar ("the man of lies," 20 15), the scoffer (1 14); his
adherents are scoffers,(22) who uttered error about the righteous
statutes, and spurned the covenant and plighted faith which they
established in the land of Damascus, that is to say, the new covenant.
They and their families shall have no portion in the house of the law (20