The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English Read Free Page A

preserve the faith in the Land with steadfastness and meekness and shall atone for sin by the practice of justice and by suffering the sorrows of affliction. They shall walk with all men according to the standard of truth and the rule of the time.
    (IQS VIII, 1-4)
    These three priests and twelve men are referred to also as ‘fifteen men’ in a hybrid version of the Community Rule and the Damascus Document (4Q265 fr. 7 ii). Their presence was obviously essential: both documents state that when they ‘are in Israel, the Council of the Community shall be established in truth’ (IQS VIII, 4-5; 4Q265 fr. 7 ii, 7-8). But whether they formed the nucleus of the sect as a whole, or the minimum quorum of the leadership of the Community, symbolically portrayed as consisting of the twelve tribes and the three Levitical clans, or a special elite within the Council designated elsewhere ‘the Foundations of the Community’, must be left open to question. The purpose of the meetings is in any case clear. It was to debate the Law, to discuss their current business, to select or reject newcomers under the guidance of the Guardian, to hear charges against offenders and to conduct a yearly inquiry into the progress of every sectary, promoting or demoting them in rank, again under the Guardian’s supervision (IQS v, 23-4; VI, 13-23). During their sessions, order and quiet were to prevail: a person wishing to offer his opinion or ask a question was to crave permission in a prescribed way. He was to rise and tell the Guardian and the Congregation, ‘I have something to say to the Congregation’ and then wait for their consent before going ahead (IQS VI, 8-13).
    The procedure followed in inquiries into infringements of the Law and the sect’s Rule has been preserved, and the list of faults with their corresponding sentences tells us more about the mentality of the Dead Sea ascetics than any isolated exposition of their doctrine and principles can do.
    Beginning with the blackest sins: any transgression, by commission or omission, of ‘one word of the Law of Moses, on any point whatever’ earned outright expulsion. No former companion might from then on associate with the sinner in any way at all (IQS VIII, 21-4). Expulsion followed, secondly, the pronouncement for any reason whatever of the divine Name:
    If any man has uttered the [Most] Venerable Name, even though frivolously, or as a result of shock, or for any other reason whatever, while reading the Book or blessing, he shall be dismissed and shall return ... no more.
    (IQS VI, 27-VII, 2)
    Thirdly, a sectary was expelled for slandering the Congregation (IQS VII, 16). Fourthly, he was sent away for rebelling against the ‘Foundations’ of the Community:
    Whoever has murmured against the authority of the Community shall be expelled and shall not return.
    (IQS VII, 17)
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Lastly, where a man had been a member of the Council for at least ten years and had then defected to ‘walk in the stubbornness of his heart’, not only was he to be expelled, but the same judgement was extended to any of his former colleagues who might take pity on him and share with him their food or money
    (IQS VII, 22-3).
    The remaining offences are of a kind that might be confessed and censured in any Christian religious order of today, though one cannot perhaps say the same of the penances imposed for them.
    In a descending order of gravity: a man who ‘betrayed the truth and walked in the stubbornness of his heart’ (IQS VII, 18-21), or transgressed the Mosaic Law inadvertently (IQS VIII, 24-IX, I), was visited with two years of penance. He was to lose his rank and during the first year be separated from the ‘purity’ of the Congregation, and during the second year, from its ‘drink’. Both notions will be developed presently. He was then to be re-examined by the Congregation and subsequently returned to his place in the order.
    Lying