10 ff.). For their unfaithfulness they were delivered to the sword (3 10
ff.), until of all the men of war who went with the liar none was left (20
14 ff.).(23) This came to pass about forty years after the death of the
unique teacher (_l.c._). If the emigration to Damascus occurred under
Antiochus Epiphanes,(24) the end of the episode of the false prophet would
fall about the beginning of the first century B.C., and we should have at
least an upper limit for the writing of the book. The passion which every
mention of this defection arouses suggests that it was fresh in memory,
and would incline us to date the writing not very long after the time
indicated. It should be observed, however, that the sentence which counts
forty years from the death of the unrivalled teacher to the end of the
liar's army sits loose in the context, and may be a gloss, in which case
the book might be some decades older.

With the remnant who remained faithful through the great defection "God
confirmed his covenant with Israel forever, revealing to them the secret
of things in which all Israel was in error, his holy Sabbaths and his
glorious festivals and his righteous testimonies and his true ways and the
pleasure of his will, things which if a man do he shall live by them. He
opened a way before them, and they dug a well for copious waters." "In the
abundance of his wonderful grace he atoned for their guilt and forgave
their transgression, and built for them a sure house in Israel, the like
of which did not arise in times past nor until now" (3 12-20). The
prediction of the sure house (1 Sam. 2 35) seems to be fulfilled in the
stability of the sect itself, or perhaps, with closer adherence to the
prophecy, in that of its faithful priesthood.

So much may be gathered from the book about the origin and history of the
sect. We turn now to its expectation. As a teacher of righteousness, an
anointed one (priest), was the founder of the sect, so in the last times a
teacher of righteousness, an anointed one, shall appear (6 10 f.). Those
who proved faithless to the covenant are cut off from the community, "from
the time when the unique teacher was taken away until the anointed one
from Aaron and Israel shall arise" (19 35-20 1), that is, during the whole
of the present dispensation. Dr. Schechter regards the anointed one who is
to appear in the future as the founder of the sect _redivivus:_ the
present dispensation "seems to be the period intervenin