We can readily imagine that many found the rule of the sect too strict and the discipline by which it was enforced too severe. Our texts, however, speak not of such occasional and individual lapses, but of the repudiation of the covenant by numbers at one time. It seems that another leader had arisen, of very different temper from the founder, who drew away many after him. In the eyes of those who remained steadfast in the faith, the new teacher was naturally a false prophet, a kind of antichrist. He is called the liar (“the man of lies,” 20 15), the scoffer (1 14); his adherents are scoffers,(22) who uttered error about the righteous statutes, and spurned the covenant and plighted faith which they established in the land of Damascus, that is to say, the new covenant. They and their families shall have no portion in the house of the law (20 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.