Community Rule Scroll (1QS)

Eleven preserved columns of the scroll 1QS were published in 1951 as the Manual of Discipline. The community rule is one of the oldest documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This document was intended for the Community's rabbis (teachers), for its Masters or Guardians, it outlines the spirits of truth and falsehoods and the religious duties of the Master and their disciples. Remnants of community rule would live on in the Christians sects that followed.

The contents of the scroll has three sections:

• Entry into the covenant and instruction on the two spirits.

• Statues relating to the council of the community.

• Directives issued by the Master.

Of the Commitment

Everyone who wishes to join the community must pledge himself to respect God and man; to live according to the communal rule:

to seek God; to do what is good and upright in His sight, in accordance with what He has commanded through Moses and through His servants the prophets;

to love all that He has chosen and hate all that He has rejected; to keep far from evil and to cling to all good works;

to act truthfully and righteously and justly on earth and to walk no more in the stubbornness of a guilty heart and of lustful eyes, doing all manner of evil;

to bring into a bond of mutual love all who have declared their willingness to carry out the statutes of God;

to join the formal community of God; to walk blamelessly before Him in conformity with all that has been revealed as relevant to the several periods during which they are to bear witness (to Him) ;

to love all the children of light, each according to the measure of his guilt, which God will ultimately requite.

All who declare their willingness to serve God's truth must bring all of their mind, all of their strength, and all of their wealth into the community of God, so that their minds may be purified by the truth of His precepts, their strength controlled by His perfect ways, and their wealth disposed in accordance with His just design. They must not deviate by a single step from carrying out the orders of God at the times appointed for them; they must neither advance the statutory times nor postpone the prescribed seasons. They must not turn aside from the ordinances of God's truth either to the right or to the left.

Of Initiation

Moreover, all who would join the ranks of the community must enter into a covenant in the presence of God to do according to all that He has commanded and not to turn away from Him through any fear or terror or through any trial to which they may be subjected through the domination of Belial (Satan). When they enter into that covenant, the priests and the Levites are to pronounce a blessing upon the God of salvation and upon all that He does to make known His truth; and all that enter the covenant are to say after them, Amen, amen.

Of the annual Review.

The following procedure is to be followed year by year so long as Belial (Satan) continues to hold sway.

The priests are first to be reviewed in due order, one after another, in respect of the state of their spirits. After them, the Levites shall be similarly reviewed, and in the third place all the laity one after another, in their thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. The object is that every man in Israel may be made aware of his status in the community of God in the sense of the ideal, eternal society, and that none may be abased below his status nor exalted above his allotted place. All of them will thus be members of a community founded at once upon true values and upon a becoming sense of humility, upon charity and mutual fairness-members of a society truly hallowed, partners in an everlasting communion.

Of the obligation of holiness.

Everyone who is admitted to the formal organization (Council) of the community is to enter into a covenant of God in the presence of all fellow-volunteers in the cause and to commit himself by a binding oath to return with all his heart and soul to the commandments of the Law of Moses, as that Law is revealed to the sons of Zadok-that is, to the priests who still keep the Covenant and seek God's will -and to a majority of their co-covenanters who have volunteered together to adhere to the truth of God and to walk according to His pleasure.

No one is to go into water in order to attain the purity of holy men. For men cannot be purified except they repent their evil. God regards as impure all that transgress His word. No one is to have any association with such a man either in work or in goods, lest he incur the penalty of prosecution. Rather is he to keep away from such a man in every respect, for the Scriptures says: 'Keep away from every false thing' [Exodus 23:7]. No member of the community is to abide by the decision of such men in any matter of doctrine or law. He is not to eat or drink of anything that belongs to them nor receive anything from them except for cash, even as sit is written: 'desist from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for as what is he reckoned:' [Isaiah 2:22]. All that are not reckoned in the Covenant must be put aside, and likewise all that they posses. A holy man must not rely on works of vanity, and vanity is what all of them are that have not recognized God's Covenant. All that spurn His word will God blast out of the world. All their actions are as filth before Him, and He regards all their possessions as unclean.

Of the two spirits in man.

This is for the man who would bring other to the inner vision, so that he may understand and teach to all the children of light the real nature of men, touching the different varieties of their temperaments with the distinguishing traits thereof, touching their actions throughout their generations, and touching the reason why they are now visited with afflictions and now enjoy periods of well-being.

All that is and ever was comes from a God of knowledge. Before things came into existence He determined the plan of them; and when they fill their appointed roles, it is in accordance with His glorious design that they discharge their functions. Nothing can be changed. In His hand lies the government of all things. God it is that sustains them in their needs.

Now, this God created man to rule the world, and appointed for him two spirits after whose direction he was to walk until the final Inquisition. They are the spirits of truth and perversity.

The origin of truth lies in the Fountain of Light, and that of perversity in the Wellspring of Darkness. All who practice righteousness are under the domination of the Prince of Lights, and walk in ways of light; whereas all who practice perversity are under the domination of the Angel of Darkness, however, even those who practice righteousness are made liable to error. All their sin and their iniquities, all their guilt and their deeds of transgression are the result of his domination; and this, by God's inscrutable design, will continue until the time appointed by Him. Moreover, all men's afflictions and all their moments of tribulation are due to this being's malevolent sway. All of the spirits that attend upon him are bent on causing the sons of light to stumble. Howbeit, the God of Israel and the Angel of His truth are always there to help the sons of light. It is God that created these spirits of light and darkness and made them the basis of every act, the [instigators] of every deed and the direction and the directors of every thought. The one He loves for to all eternity, and is ever pleased with its deeds; but any association with the other He abhors, and He hates all its ways to the end of time. This is the way those spirits operate in the world. The enlightenment of man's heart, the making straight before him all the ways of righteousness and truth, the implanting in his heart of fear for the judgments of God, of a spirit of humility, of patience, of abundant compassion, of perpetual goodness, of insight, of perception, of that sense of the Divine Power that is based at once on an apprehension of God's works and a reliance on His plenteous mercy, of a spirit of knowledge informing every plan of action, of a zeal for righteous government, of a hallowed mind in a controlled nature, of abounding love for all who follow the truth, of self-respecting purity which abhors all the taint of filth, of a modesty of behaviour coupled with a general prudence and an ability to hide within oneself the secrets of what one knows - these are the things that come to men in this world through communion with the spirit of truth. And the guerdon of all that walk in its ways is health and abundant well-being, with long life and fruition of seed along with eternal blessings and everlasting joy in the life everlasting, and a crown of glory and a robe of honor, amid light perpetual.

But to the spirit of perversity belong greed, remissness in right doing, wickedness and falsehood, pride and presumption, ruthless deception and guile, abundant insolence, shortness of temper and profusion of folly, arrogant passion, abominable acts in a spirit of lewdness, filthy ways in the thralldom of unchastity, a blasphemous tongue, blindness of eyes, dullness of ears, stiffness of neck and hardness of heart, to the end that a man walks entirely in ways of darkness and of evil cunning. The guerdon of all who walk in such ways is multitude of afflictions at the hands of all the angels of destruction, everlasting perdition through the angry wrath of an avenging God, eternal horror and perpetual reproach, the disgrace of final annihilation in the Fire, darkness throughout the vicissitudes of life in every generation, doleful sorrow, bitter misfortune and darkling ruin-ending in extinction without remnant of survival. It is to these things that all men are born, and it is to these that all the host of them are heirs throughout their generations. It is in these ways that men needs must walk and it is in these two divisions, according as a man inherits something of each, that all human acts are divided throughout all the ages of eternity. For God has appointed these two things to obtain in equal measure until the final age.

Thus far, the spirits of truth and perversity have been struggling in the heart of man. Men have walked both in wisdom and folly. If a man casts his portion with the truth, he does righteously and hates perversity; if he casts it with perversity, he does wickedly and abominates truth. For God has appointed them in equal measure until the final age, until 'He makes all things new'. He foreknows the effect of their works in every epoch of the world, and He has made men heirs to them that they might know good and evil. But [when the time] of Inquisition [comes], He will determine the fate of every living being in accordance with which of the [two spirits he has chosen to follow].