r texts, with the wholly unknown
internal or external history of a sect. The obscurity is increased by the
fact that the allusions are often a tissue of fragmentary quotations or
reminiscences out of the Old Testament, chosen and combined, it seems, by
purely verbal association, or taken in an occult allegorical sense.(2) The
allegories of which an interpretation is given, as when Amos 5 26 f. is
applied to the emigration to Damascus and the institutions and laws of the
sect, and Ezekiel 44 15 to the classes of the community, do not encourage
us to think that we should be able to divine the meaning by our unaided
intelligence. It is a fortunate circumstance that the writer comes back
more than once to the salient events in the sect's history, for these
repetitions of the same thing in different forms afford considerable help
to the interpreter, so that the main facts may be made out with at least a
considerable degree of probability.

The principal seat of the sect was in the region of Damascus, where its
adherents formed numerous communities. It was composed of Israelites who
had migrated thither from Judaea; thither also had come "the interpreter
of the law," the founder of the sect; there it had been organized by a
covenant repeatedly referred to as "the new covenant in the land of
Damascus." Many who entered into this new covenant at the beginning did
not long remain true to it; the writer inveighs vehemently against those
who fell away, accusing them not only of grave error, but of gross
violations of the law; but this crisis had been passed, and when the book
was written the community was apparently flourishing.

The most coherent account of the origin of the sect is found on pages
5-6:(3)

At the end of the devastation of the land arose men who removed
the boundary and led Israel astray; and the land was laid waste
because they spoke rebelliously against the commandments of God by
Moses and also against his holy Anointed,(4) and prophesied
falsehood to turn Israel back from following God. But God
remembered the covenant with the forefathers, and he raised up
from Aaron discerning men and from Israel wise men, and he heard
them, and they dug the well. "The well, princes dug it, nobles of
the people delved it, with the legislator" (Numbers 21 18). The
well is the law, and they who dug it are the captivity of
Israel(5) who went forth from the land of Judah and sojourne