The Covenanters of Damascus; A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect

The Covenanters of Damascus;
A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect
George Foot Moore
Harvard University
Harvard Theological Review
Vol. 4, No. 3
July, 1911

What remains of the book may be divided into two parts. Pages 1-8 of A, and the single leaf of B, contain exhortations and warnings addressed to members of the sect, for which a ground and motive are often sought in the history of the Jewish people or of the sect itself, together with severe strictures upon such as have lapsed from the sound teaching, and polemics against the doctrine and practice of other bodies of Jews. The second part, pages 9-16, sets forth the constitution and government of the community, and its distinctive interpretation and application of the law,—what may be called sectarian halakah.
Manuscript A was evidently written by a negligent scribe, perhaps after a poor or badly preserved copy; B, which represents a somewhat different recension of the work, exhibits, so far as it goes, a superior text. When it is added that both manuscripts are in many places defaced or torn, it may be imagined that the decipherment and interpretation present serious difficulties, and that, after all the pains which Dr. Schechter has spent upon the task, many uncertainties remain. Facsimiles of a page of each manuscript are given; but in view of the condition of the text a photographic reproduction of the whole is indispensable.
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.