er under the name _Aleph
Lamed_ (_El_ or _Elohim_) or _Aleph Daleth (Adonai)_ are prohibited;(45)
nor is it permissible to mention in the oath the law of Moses; the formula
of the oath is strictly sectarian (15 1 ff.).(46) But, though the name of
God is not used, "if a man swear and transgress the oath, he profanes the
name" (15 3). Obligations voluntarily assumed under oath (vows) are to be
fulfilled to the letter; neither redemption nor annulment seems to be
allowed, unless to carry out the vow would be a transgression of the
covenant.

Another point in which the sect is at variance with the great body of the
Jews is the calendar. They represent the faithful remnant to whom God
revealed the mysteries about which all Israel went astray, his holy
sabbaths and his glorious festivals, and his righteous testimonies, and
his true ways (3 12 ff.). The point of this appears when it is compared
with Jubilees 1 14: "They will forget my law and all my commandments and
all my judgments, and will go astray as to new moons and sabbaths and
festivals and jubilees and ordinances" (cf. 6 34 ff., 23 19). The texts
before us do not explain what the peculiarities of the sectarian calendar
were, but inasmuch as the Book of Jubilees, under the title "The Book of
the Division of the Times by their Jubilees and their Sabbatical Years,"
is cited as an authority for the exact determination of "their ends" (the
coming crisis of history), it may be inferred with much probability that
our sect had a calendar constructed on principles similar to that of the
Jubilees,(47) in which the seasons and festivals were not determined by
lunar observations or astronomical tables, as among the Jews generally,
but had a fixed place in a solar year. Such upsetting of the calendar is
branded as heresy in Midrash Tehillim on Ps. 28 5: "They do not regard the
work of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands.... 'The operation of his
hands' means the new moons; as it is said, 'God made the two great
lights,' and it is written, 'He made the moon for festival seasons.'(48)
These are the heretics who do not calculate (by the moon) the festival
seasons and the equinoxes. 'He will tear them down and not build them up.'
He will tear them down, in this world, and not build them up, in the world
to come." Perhaps the Boethusians, who hired false witnesses to deceive
the authorities about the appearance of the new moon, were not merely
animated by a desire to harass the rab