Chapter V: Pre-Christian Gnostics: the Essenes

It comes as rather a wrench to leave the graceful, if vain, speculations of the Greeks, with their joyous and free life and their passionate worship of beauty, which saw in every shifting aspect of nature the revelation of some Being more perfect and glorious than man, for the gloomy and misanthropic monotheism of the Palestinian Jews. Nor is the change made more pleasant when we consider the contrast between the ideas of the two nations as to the perfectibility of man’s nature and his lot after death. While the Greeks under Orphic influence had come to look upon their gods as usually well-disposed to mankind[457] and even willing to share their power and place with, at any rate, a few highly-gifted or fortunate men, the fanatics among the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Captivity seem to have seen in their national Deity a jealous and uncompromising tyrant, possessed with a hatred for humanity in general, and only extending a modified favouritism to one small nation not distinguished by any specially attractive qualities[458]. To this nation, Yahweh had, according to their own traditions, promised exclusive temporal advantages; but in spite of this promise they had become in turn the slaves or tributaries of the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, Chaldaeans, and Persians, and had been more than once forcibly removed by their masters from the land that they looked upon as their God-given inheritance. Moreover, the grace, such as it was, of the Deity they worshipped was held by them to extend to this life only, after which they thought they would either perish like the beasts or would lead at the best a shadowy and colourless existence in Sheol or Hades, like that which called forth the complaints of the Achilles of the _Odyssey_[459]. Hence the soil of Judaea at the coming of Alexander might have seemed to anyone to be as unlikely a field for the propagation of ideas resembling those of the Orphics as could well be imagined. But the Jews, with all their pragmatism and narrowness of ideal, have always shown a power of assimilating the ideas of others and of adapting themselves to the usages of the peoples among whom they are cast by a sort of protective mimicry like that to which the preservation of certain insect types is said to be due. This quality had already stood them in good stead during their different periods of captivity in Egypt and Chaldaea, where before Alexander’s conquests they had contrived to get a good deal of the financial management of their captors’ affairs into their own hands, and where they doubtless acted as spies and guides to the armies of the Great Conqueror[460]. For these services Alexander after his fashion royally rewarded them; but the real crisis of the nation’s fate approached when Alexander’s work was done, and when the different nationalities which he had forced, as it were, into the melting-pot, became tired of acting as pieces in the war game played by his generals and successors, and began to look favourably upon the security offered by the Roman government. In this new order of the world, Palestine, which had hitherto owed its autonomous existence to the fact that it formed a useful buffer state or neutral ground separating the two great powers Egypt and Syria and was not vehemently desired by any other nation, saw the reason for her _quasi_-independence vanishing. Ptolemy Soter, with his usual prescience, had early seen the advantage of getting this borderland into his own custody, and had captured Jerusalem, it is said, one Sabbath morning, when the superstition of the inhabitants deterred them from defending it effectually[461]. The story, as thus told, probably owes something to the necessity for flattering the national vanity; but it is evident that the politic Lagides knew how to reconcile the Jews to the easy yoke of their suzerainty, and under the early Ptolemies the Jews remained generally faithful to Egypt. When Egypt’s sway became enfeebled after the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator, Antiochus the Great seized upon Palestine, probably with the connivance of a part of its inhabitants[462]; and although it remained fairly contented with its new masters until Antiochus’ death, in the reign of his successor, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews found themselves confronted with a very disagreeable dilemma. For Antiochus Epiphanes, after his successful attack upon Egypt had been frustrated by the Romans, saw plainly enough that only an empire united and homogeneous in faith and culture could resist for long the new power rising in the West[463], and resolved to force on the complete Hellenization of the Jews at all hazards. How he failed is told in the Books of the Maccabees, although his failure brought little good to his rebellious subjects, who soon passed with the rest of his empire into the hands of the victorious Romans.

To this end, the splitting-up of the chosen people into warring sects materially contributed. Josephus, writing somewhere about the year 70 A.D., tells us that there existed in his day three “philosophic” sects among the Jews[464]. The first two of these were the Pharisees and Sadducees familiar to everybody through their mention in the New Testament, and the third was the “Essenes.” These Essenes—a name which by some has been thought to mean “the Pure[465]”—he describes as a small sect numbering not more than 4000 in all, and scattered throughout the villages of Palestine. They lived entirely by manual labour, such as agriculture, and were extraordinarily hospitable to other members of the same sect, so that an Essene never found it necessary to take anything with him on a journey, but could always obtain what he wanted from his fellow-sectaries, even though personally unknown to them. As to their doctrines, he tells us that though “Jews by birth” they abjured marriage[466], and only recruited their ranks by adoption. They practised, on the same authority, the fullest community of goods, and forbade conversation on worldly matters before the rising of the sun, at which they repeated certain traditional prayers, “as if they made supplication for his rising.” Their meals were always eaten in common and in a sacramental manner, purification in cold water and the donning of white garments being a necessary preliminary[467]. Sobriety and restraint in speech were, he says, among their most marked characteristics, and they avoided the taking of judicial oaths, averring that “he who cannot be believed without swearing by God is already condemned.” Initiation into the sect was both long and difficult. The novice on his first reception was presented with a hatchet, a girdle and a white garment, but was not allowed to associate with the rest of the order, it being held that they would be defiled if he did so. In spite of this, he was forced to observe the austerities of the order for a year before being allowed “the waters of purification,” and for two years further before being admitted to full association with the other members and the common meal[468]. After this probation, he was sworn on

“the most tremendous oaths to be just towards all men and faithful
to the order, not discovering any of their doctrines to others, no,
not though he should be compelled to do so at the risk of his life.”

Moreover, he had to swear

“to communicate their doctrines to no one in any other manner than
that in which he had received them himself; to abstain from
robbery[469] and that he would equally preserve the books belonging
to the sect and the names of the angels.”

Their doctrine concerning the future life was:

“That bodies are corruptible and that the matter of which they are
made is not permanent; but that souls are immortal, and continue for
ever; and that they come out of the most subtle air, and are united
to their bodies as in prisons, into which they are drawn by a
certain natural enticement[470]; but that when they are set free
from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long
bondage, rejoice and mount upward[471].”

Finally, Josephus tells us that the Essenes take great pains in “studying the writings of the ancients and choose out of them what is most for the advantage of their soul and body,” that they were much given to the practice of medicine, and had those among them “who undertake to foretell things to come by reading the holy books and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets,”—a statement which is explained by another passage[472] wherein he tells us that they believed “fate forms all things and nothing befalls men but according to it.” From yet another passage[473] we learn that they were excluded from the Temple worship and offered their sacrifices for themselves instead of through the regular Jewish priesthood[474].

That Josephus’ account of the Essenes is fairly accurate and well informed appears from the fact that Philo of Alexandria, writing some fifty years earlier than he, also asserts that they numbered “in his opinion about 4000,” and explains their abstention from the Temple worship as being due to their objection to sacrificing living animals[475]. Philo further tells us that there were among them no makers of warlike weapons, that they refrained from trade and had no slaves; but that their principal study was that of the Jewish Law and the “enquiry into the being of God and the creation of the universe.” According to him, on the seventh or holy day when no work was done, they were accustomed to meet together, when one

“takes up the holy volume and reads it, and another of the men of
the greatest experience [among them] comes forward and explains what
is not very intelligible, for a great many precepts are delivered in
enigmatical modes of expression and allegorically.”

He at the same time confirms Josephus’ statement as to their having all goods in common.

Pliny in his _Natural History_ also speaks of the Essenes; but adds little to our knowledge, except the remark that it was the irksomeness of this present life which in his opinion gave rise to the sect[476]. Of the Christian heresiologists, Hippolytus in his _Philosophumena_ merely repeats the statements of Josephus with the doubtfully accurate addition that the Essenes believed in a final conflagration of the world[477] and the eternal punishment of the damned; while Epiphanius in his _Panarion_ shows plainly that he had no first-hand knowledge of the Essenes and did not understand the traditional accounts of the sect which must have been extinct a long time before he wrote[478]. Porphyry in his treatise _on Abstinence_ avowedly quotes from Josephus only[479].

We see, then, that all we really know about the Essenes is contained in the accounts of Josephus and Philo; but on this slender foundation there has been raised a vast superstructure of conjecture which the unprejudiced reader will probably consider too heavy for its base. The Essenes have been claimed by different writers as merely a strict order of Pharisees, as Zoroastrians, and as Buddhists. It has been argued that St John Baptist was an Essene and even that Jesus Himself belonged to the sect[480]. A more probable theory is that the Essenes derived some of their tenets from the Orphics, whose views were particularly prevalent at Alexandria in the time of the early Ptolemies, as well as in Asia Minor under the Seleucids. From the death of Alexander the Great until that of Antiochus Epiphanes, Palestine was, as we have seen, successively under the sway of these two rival dynasties, and it was the rapid progress of the Jews towards Hellenization in culture, religion, and morals that brought about the Maccabaean uprising, in connection, with which we first hear of the Essenes[481]. Hence this is the time when, if ever, we should expect the Orphic teaching to affect the Jews, and it is difficult to see whence the Essenes derived their views of the pre-existence of the soul—if that be indeed the construction to be placed upon the scanty and obscure words of Josephus—except from Orphism[482]. Save for this, however, there is no very cogent reason for attributing to this Jewish sect an Orphic origin. The use of white garments is in a hot climate too general a practice to be really characteristic, while the abstinence from the procreation of children and from food that has had life, although common to the Essenes and the Orphics[483], may easily have come to the Jews from more quarters than one. To the Essene refusal to take oaths and to engage in trade there is no parallel whatever in the Orphic teaching[484].

But, although there is thus little sign of a direct connection of the Essenes with the Orphics, there can hardly be any doubt that the Jewish sect were Gnostics in the larger sense in which the word is used above. The one distinguishing fact which stands out from Josephus’ account of them is that they had secret doctrines of a kind differing from the beliefs of the rest of the Jews. This is shown by the great pains taken by them in the choice of neophytes, the “tremendous oaths” by which they, who forbade swearing in general, enforced secrecy upon them, and the prohibition to confide their teaching to any save by a long and tedious process of initiation. The only hints we have as to the nature of these doctrines are contained in Philo’s statement that they were given to the enquiry into the being of God and the creation of the universe, and in that of Josephus that the initiate into these secrets was sworn “to preserve the books of the sect and the names of the angels.” Dr Kohler and other Jewish writers see in Philo’s statement a reference to the speculations of the later Jewish Cabala upon what is there called “the Mystery of the Chariot” and “the Mystery of the Creation[485]”; or in other words how the universe came forth from God and how it is governed. Although the proof of this is slender, it seems probable from the tendency of the whole of the Apocryphal literature of the time which dealt principally with the same subjects. It is evident that the Essene interpretation of the Old Testament, then recently made familiar to the Jews by the Alexandrian translation into Greek known as the Septuagint, must have been different in some respects from that of the other Jews, and that it must have been in some way likely to shock those who held by the traditional interpretation, as otherwise there would have been no necessity for the Essenes to bind their neophytes to so strict a secrecy. From Philo’s language on this point it would seem that they interpreted both the Law and the Prophets in some non-natural manner, and it is likely enough that this took the shape of the juggling with the numerical values of the letters of which we find at least one instance in the Revelation of St John, and to which we shall have to return later[486].

What now can be said in explanation of Josephus’ statement that the Essenes were sworn to secrecy as to the “names of the angels”? The personal name of no angel appears in the Old Testament except in the Book of Daniel, now generally admitted to have been written in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and there is on the face of it no reason why any Jew should wish to keep those there given—Gabriel and Michael—secret. But the knowledge of the name of an inhabitant of the spirit world was at the time of which we are speaking held throughout the East to give a magician full power over the being named, and this belief was universal in the magic of all the nations among whom the Jews had found themselves since the Captivity[487]. There is thus every likelihood that the Essenes used “the names of the angels” for magical purposes, and this is borne out by the tradition that it was as exorcists of demons and healers of disease that they were afterwards celebrated[488]. The manner in which these names were used may be judged from the tradition among the Jews that each tribe or order of demons was governed by an angel, and that his subjects were bound to obey upon being addressed by his name[489].

It was partly, and perhaps mainly, from this sect of the Essenes that there came, according to the general opinion of scholars, the apocryphal or secret literature which, from the name of its principal book, may be described under the generic name of Enochian[490]. In the _Book of Enoch_ in its various forms was set forth a vast system of teaching on matters which the Canonical books of the Old Testament hardly touch. Here we have a complete cosmogony in which the mundane egg[491] of the Orphics plays its part; and the duties of the innumerable orders of angels and their connection with the heavenly bodies, the rebellion of Satan and his host against God, the fall of the Watchers, or angels set over the earth, through the beauty of mortal women, and the arrangement of the different heavens and hells all find a place in it[492]. But it also deals at great length with that Messianic hope which had for two centuries been dangled by the Prophets before Israel, and which, thanks to the materialistic sense in which it was interpreted by the vast majority of Jews, was to lead directly to their extermination as a nation[493]. The _Book of Enoch_ and its many successors and imitators are full of predictions of the coming of a Messiah, who should lead the chosen race to the conquest of the world, and, what was to them probably an even more alluring prospect, to the overthrow and enslavement of all the other peoples in it[494]. In the earlier parts of the Ethiopic version—which is in itself, as Dr Charles has pointed out, but “a fragmentary survival of an entire literature that once circulated under the name of Enoch[495]”—it is described how

“the Holy and Great One will come forth from His dwelling, the God
of the world, and going from thence He will tread on Mount Sinai and
appear with His hosts, and in the strength of His might appear from
heaven[496].”

The judgment and destruction of all but the elect is next described, and the hurling down of the sinning angels into “the abyss of fire,” while the elect—that is, the Jews, or perhaps only the Essenes—are to live among millennial blessings of a material kind and in the enjoyment of universal peace[497]. This seems to represent fairly the earlier Essene teaching upon this point, and there is reason to suppose that it was written before the Maccabaean struggles, after which the decadence of the Syrian Empire under Antiochus Epiphanes—hard pressed as he was by the Romans on one side and the Parthians on the other—allowed the Jews to obtain a temporary independence, and to set up a kingdom of their own for the first and last time in their history[498]. But the wine of military success and political independence proved too strong for the heads of the race which had hitherto been the tributaries and subjects of the Persian, the Greek, the Egyptian, and the Syrian Empires in turn, and, like their kinsmen the Arabs of Mohammed’s time and the Mahdists in our own, nothing less would now satisfy the fanatical among them than universal domination. In the later parts of the same work, the aspirations of the writers become more bloodthirsty and less spiritual, and we hear of a time “When the congregation of the righteous will appear[499],” a phrase which seems to cover the coming-forth of some sect or society till then kept in seclusion. “Then,” it goes on to say, “will the kings and the mighty perish and be given into the hand of the righteous and holy[500].” In another part of the same book, we hear of angels being sent to

“the Parthians and Medes, to stir up the kings and provoke in them a
spirit of unrest, and rouse them from their thrones, that they may
break forth from their resting-places as lions and as hungry wolves
among the flocks[501].”

These are to make one final assault upon Jerusalem, and

“to tread under foot the land of His elect ones and the land of His
elect ones will be before them a threshing floor and a path. But the
city of My righteous [_i.e._ Jerusalem] will be a hindrance to their
horses, and they will begin to fight among themselves, and their
right hand will be strong against themselves, and a man will not
know his brother, nor a son his father or his mother, till the
number of corpses through their slaughter is beyond count, and their
punishment be no idle one. And in those days Sheol will open his
jaws, and they will be swallowed up therein, and their destruction
will be at an end. Sheol will devour the sinners in the presence of
the elect[502].”

This, according to the author who has made the most exhaustive study of the Enochian literature yet attempted, must have been written after the spirit which had inspired the Maccabaean revolt had died away under the tyranny and luxury of the later Jewish kings[503]. It seems very difficult, in the face of the many interpolations that the documents have undergone at the hands of Jewish and even Christian writers, to decide how much of these prophecies can be attributed directly to the sect of the Essenes; but there can be little doubt that they accurately represent the hope of supremacy over the nations which they shared with the Pharisees and the other fanatics among the Jewish nation. Only thus can we explain the community of goods and the very un-Jewish contempt for money-making which formed the most singular features of Essene practice[504]. To those who expected to be immediately put in possession of the whole earth all desire for worldly advancement must have been a matter of indifference. A similar conviction led to the maintenance of the same practice in the Christian Church so long as she continued to believe in the nearness of the Parusia or Second Coming of her Founder[505].

From this dream of universal dominion, nothing seemed able to arouse the poorer Jews. In vain did the Sadducees, who comprised those of the nation who had become rich either by trading with the Gentile or by dependence on the luxurious Jewish Court, try to persuade the people that they had better make the best of the Hellenist culture thrust upon them than try to arrest its progress by fighting against powers that would crush them like glass when once sufficiently provoked[506]. In vain did the Syrian Empire, warned by the mistakes of Antiochus Epiphanes in Hellenizing the Jews against their will, accord them the largest possible religious liberty and even acknowledge their right to self-government in exchange for tribute[507]. When the Romans, whom, according to their own account, they had called in to protect them against their Syrian overlords, destroyed once for all their chance of remaining an independent state, they not only gave the Jews the fullest liberty to practise their own religion, but set over them first a vassal king and then tetrarchs of Semitic blood, who might be supposed to moderate the too pronouncedly Western ideas of the Roman governor of Syria[508]. But these concessions were no more effective in inducing the Jews to settle down quietly as the peaceful tributaries of a great empire than had been the severities of Antiochus. They seized every opportunity to revolt, every time with the accompaniment of horrible atrocities committed upon those unfortunate Gentiles who for a moment fell into their power, until, some sixty years after the Destruction of the Temple by Titus, Hadrian had to wage against them the awful war of extermination which extinguished their nationality for ever. At the Fair of the Terebinth, when every able-bodied Jew left alive in Palestine was sold into slavery, the nation must have realized at last the vanity of its dream[509].

During this time, that is to say, between the years 168 B.C. and 135 A.D., the flood of Apocalyptic literature never ceased to pour forth. All of it was what is called pseudepigraphical, that is to say, the books of which it was composed were falsely attributed to Enoch, the sons of Jacob, Moses, Job, Ezra, Baruch, and other personages of the Old Testament. Not all of these have come down to us, but a considerable number of books have survived. The pre-Christian ones that we have, included, beside the Ethiopian _Book of Enoch_ quoted above, the _Testaments of the XII Patriarchs_, the _Psalms of Solomon_, and part of the _Sibylline Oracles_. Later probably than the beginning of our era, appeared the _Book of the Secrets of Enoch_, which Dr Charles thinks was written in Egypt, the _Wisdom_ literature, certainly having the same place of origin, the _Book of Jubilees_ or little Genesis, the _Assumption of Moses_, the rest of the _Sibyllines_, the _Apocalypse of Baruch_, the later books of _Maccabees_, and the _Fourth Book of Esdras_[510]. One and all of these deal with the glories before the Jewish nation, when by supernatural help it will be able to turn the tables on its would-be civilizers, and one and all breathe the most virulent hatred against every body who is not a Jew[511]. They show no consensus of opinion as to the future lot of the Gentiles; for, while some teach that the victories of the Messiah will end in their complete annihilation, others declare that they will be preserved to become, as Isaiah had prophesied, the servants and hand-maidens of the Jews, to build up the walls of Jerusalem, and to be the herdsmen, ploughmen, and vinedressers of Israel[512]. Others again, held that the Gentiles would be hurled into Gehenna with the sinning angels[513]—even those who were dead being raised again for that purpose—and would there be tormented for ever in the presence of the Jews, who were to find one of their chief pleasures in the sight of their sufferings[514].

“And I saw all the sheep that had been left, and all the beasts of
the earth, and all the birds of the heaven,”

says the pseudo-Enoch in a vision wherein he describes under this figure the nations which had not been destroyed by the celestial hosts of the Messiah,

“falling down and doing homage to those sheep [_i.e._ the Jews] and
making petition to and obeying them in every thing[515].”

For the world was made for the Jews and the perversity of the Gentiles was divinely ordained for the express purpose that their “punishment” might be great[516].

“All this I have spoken before thee, O Lord,” says the Apocryphal
Ezra, “because thou madest the world for our sakes. As for the other
people which also came of Adam, thou hast said that they are
nothing, but are like unto spittle, and hast likened the abundance
of them unto a drop that falleth from a vessel[517]. And now O Lord
behold, these heathen, which have ever been reputed as nothing, have
begun to be lords over us, and to devour us.... If the world now be
made for our sakes, why do we not enter into possession of our
world? How long shall this endure?” And then comes Yahweh’s answer:
“Behold I will call together all the kings of the earth to reverence
me, which are from the rising of the Sun, from the South, from the
East, and Libanus: to turn themselves one against another, and repay
that they have done to thee. Like as they do yet this day unto my
chosen, so will I do also, and recompense in their bosom[518].”
“After the signs have come of which thou wast told before,” says the
_Apocalypse of Baruch_, “when the nations become turbulent, and the
time of My Messiah is come, He shall both summon all the nations,
and some of them He shall spare and some of them He shall slay.
These things therefore shall come upon the nations which are to be
spared by Him. Every nation which knows not Israel, and has not
trodden down the seed of Jacob, shall indeed be spared. And this
because some out of every nation shall be subjected to thy people.
But all those who have ruled over you, or have known you, shall be
given up to the sword[519].”

So in the _Book of Jubilees_ we are told that God

“sanctified [Israel] and gathered it from amongst all the children
of men; for there are many nations and many peoples, and all are His
and over all hath He placed spirits in authority to lead them astray
from Him. But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or
spirit[520].”

As for the delight in the sufferings of the damned Gentiles it is poetically expressed in the _Assumption of Moses_:

“For the Heavenly One will arise from His royal throne
And He will go forth from His holy habitation
And His wrath will burn on account of His sons

*****

And the horns of the Sun will be broken and he shall be turned into
darkness;
And the moon shall not give her light, and be turned wholly into
blood
And the circle of the stars shall be disturbed

*****

For the Most High will arise, the Eternal God alone,
And He will appear to punish the Gentiles
And He will destroy all their idols
Then thou, O Israel, shalt be happy
And thou shalt mount upon the neck of the eagle[521]
And the days of thy mourning will be ended
And thou shalt look from on high and shalt see thy enemies in
Gehenna,
And thou shalt recognize them and rejoice
And thou shalt give thanks and confess thy Creator[522].”

And in what has been called the Apocalypse of Salathiel, we hear that the righteous Jews will “have joy in seven ways”:

“First of all they shall see with great joy the glory of him who
receives them up, for they shall rest in seven orders. The first
order because they have striven with great labour to overcome ‘the
innate evil thought[523]’ which was fashioned together with them,
that it might not lead them astray from life into death. The second
order, because they see the round in which the souls of the ungodly
wander and the punishment that awaits them...[524]”

A comparison of the dates of these documents lends little support to the view that this hatred of the Gentiles was wrung from the Jews by oppression; and there seems grounds for supposing that it had been present to their minds ever since their return from the Captivity[525]. Tacitus was certainly justified when he speaks of the nation as animated by bitter enmity against the rest of the human race[526].

How far the Essenes were responsible for the whole of this later literature, it is now impossible to say. Nearly every one of the books above quoted have been claimed as of Essene origin by some scholar or another[527], and those who, like Dr Charles, are inclined to reduce Essene influence upon them to a minimum, admit that considerable interpolations have been made in most of the documents by Essene hands. Moreover, all those books which do not purport to be by Enoch himself either mention his name with peculiar reverence, or give the same account of celestial physics and other matters as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, or quote it directly[528]. There seems, therefore, little doubt that all this literature came forth from the same school, and that it was directly or indirectly the result of Essene teaching.

A point more difficult to determine is how the Essenes managed to reconcile their secret doctrines with the reverence for the Mosaic Law and its promulgator which they undoubtedly professed[529]. There is no direct evidence with regard to this save Philo’s remark quoted above as to their allegorical interpretation of Scripture. This, too, may have had its origin in Orphic practice, for we know that the Orphics were accustomed to carry allegory so far as to both materialize their gods, as when they spoke of Bacchus as Wine, and to deify abstractions, as when they made hymns to Health, Peace and other abstract conceptions as if they were actual persons[530]. But besides this, the Essenes probably practised a mode of interpretation peculiar to themselves, which they kept secret or confined to members of the sect. Something of the kind was not unknown among the Greeks, for some of the Orphic gold plates found in Magna Graecia are intended to be read acrostically[531], and the Graeco-Egyptian magic papyri contain many instances of a similar use of the Homeric poems by which they could be converted into an oracle or fortune-telling book[532]. By such means any document can of course be made to mean anything, and the Essenes seem to have added to this the practice of isopsephism or regarding words as equivalent in sense which had the same numerical value. The most familiar instance of this is in the Revelation of St John where “the number of the Beast” is said to be “the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six”; or, in other words, Nero Caesar, whose name written in Hebrew letters is equivalent to the number given[533]. In like manner we read in the _Book of Enoch_, in the story of the sinning angels:

“This is the number of Kesbeêl, who showed the head of the oath to
the holy ones when he dwelt high above in glory, and its name is
Bêqâ. And this angel requested Michael to show him the hidden name,
that they might mention it in the oath, so that those who revealed
all that was hidden to the children of men might quake before that
name and oath. And this is the power of that oath, for it is
powerful and strong, and he placed this oath Akae in the hand of
Michael[534].”

From the context, it would appear that the words Akâe and Bêqâ both cover the Tetragrammaton or four-lettered name of JHVH, by means of which omnific word it is said the heavens and earth were created[535]. The mysterious name of Taxo given in the _Assumption of Moses_ as that of the protagonist against Antiochus is doubtless to be interpreted in some such fashion[536].

Of the history of the Essenes as an organized sect, we know hardly anything. If we accept Josephus’ account of their numbers as relating to his own time[537], it would seem that they were flourishing at the date of the Destruction of the Temple under Titus. This event would probably affect them little directly, because, as we have seen, they took no part in the Temple worship; and, scattered as they were through the villages of Palestine, they may easily have escaped the punishment meted out by the Romans to those towns which were the strongholds of the rebellion. But it is extremely improbable that they can have survived the War of Extermination under Hadrian, when the partizans of the false Messiah kept up a futile resistance in the country as well as in the towns, and Hadrian’s general, Severus, had in consequence to lay the land desolate[538]. Moreover, it is not improbable that the sect may have taken an active part in the Revolt, which they may easily have looked upon as the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes, and may thus have perished under the stern measures of repression which the fanaticism and barbarities of the rebels forced upon the conquerors. At any rate, we hear little more of the Essenes after this date. But the fantastic method of interpreting Scriptures which they practised and probably introduced, lingered long, and, after being used by the earliest Christian writers[539], was revived, as has been said, by the Cabalists of the Middle Ages, and has even survived into our own time. It was especially high in favour with those numerous bodies of heretics who in the first three centuries of our era asserted that knowledge was the one thing needful for salvation and were thus called, both by themselves and by their opponents the Fathers of the Church, by the generic and distinctive name of Gnostics[540].

Footnote 457:

So Euripides makes Iphigenia (_I. in Taur._ l. 400) say, “I think not
that any one of the gods is bad.” Cf. J. A. Hild, _Ét. sur les
Démons_, pp. 53, 136. In sharp contrast to the Jewish idea exemplified
in Deuteronomy of a god whose “name is Jealous” is Plato’s description
of the Creator in the _Timæus_ (40 C.), “He is not jealous, for he is
good, and in him that is good no jealousy exists.”

Footnote 458:

It should be noted that what is said here of the Jews applies not to
the Hebrew race in general, but only to those members of it who
settled in Palestine after the return from the Captivity. Winwood
Reade puts the matter with no less truth than point when he says
(_Martyrdom of Man_, p. 203): “The people who did return were chiefly
the fanatics, the clergy, and the paupers. The harvest ... was worthy
of the seed.”

Footnote 459:

R. H. Charles, _A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life_
(Jowett Lectures), 1899, pp. 33-50, and authorities there quoted.

Footnote 460:

J. P. Mahaffy, _Empire of the Ptolemies_, pp. 85, 86.

Footnote 461:

Droysen, _Hellénisme_, II. p. 155.

Footnote 462:

Mahaffy, _op. cit._ p. 87 and n. 1; _ibid._ p. 293 and nn. 1 and 2.

Footnote 463:

W. D. Morrison, _Jews under Roman Rule_, pp. 5, 6.

Footnote 464:

Jos. _de Bell._ Bk II. c. 8, _passim_.

Footnote 465:

Or “the Pious.” See Morrison, _op. cit._ p. 327; A. Jülicher in
_Encyc. Bibl._ _s.v._ Essenes, col. 1397, n. 1.

Footnote 466:

There was, says Josephus, _loc. cit._ § 13, another order of Essenes
which married and had children. The reason given for the celibacy of
the first order is not the Orphic one, _ibid._ § 2.

Footnote 467:

Cf. the _Agapae_ or love-feasts of the Greek _thiasi_ and the
Christian Church. There is no authority, however, for supposing that
the meal was regarded by the Essenes as a sacrifice.

Footnote 468:

The girdle has been thought to be identical with the _kosti_ or sacred
thread of the Parsis. The use of the hatchet or pick was to bury the
_ejecta_, perhaps for sanitary reasons. The Essenes were said to be
further divided into four classes (Josephus, _loc. cit._ § 10), but
Josephus does not say what these classes were, and it is doubtful
whether there is any foundation for the statement.

Footnote 469:

_Ibid._ § 7. From the context, it would seem that “robbery” here means
the attempt to obtain possession of the secrets of the order by
stealth. In an earlier part of the same section the neophyte is said
to be sworn to “keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from
unlawful gains.”

Footnote 470:

_I.e._ by sexual desire. The same idea is met with in the doctrines of
Simon Magus, see Chap. VI, _infra_, and in many other sects. Cf.
Cumont, _Recherches sur le Manichéisme_, Bruxelles, 1908, pt I. Appx
1, “La Séduction des Archontes” for particulars.

Footnote 471:

Dr Kohler, apparently a Rabbi of New York, gives other particulars of
the Essenic initiation, including a song describing Heaven and Hell.
This he takes from the _Testament of Job_ described by him in the
Festschrift called Kohut’s _Semitic Studies_, Berlin, 1897, pp. 265
_sqq._ Among other things, he thinks the initiate was told that Satan
was the cosmocrator, or ruler of the world, and that the sacred girdle
was an amulet which would enable him both to defy Satan’s snares, and
to see the wonders of the world of angels. But I do not see that he
brings forward any proof that either this book or what he calls the
whole Job literature is attributable to the Essenes.

Footnote 472:

Joseph. _Antiq._ Bk XIII. c. 5, § 9.

Footnote 473:

_Id._ _op. cit._ Bk XVIII. c. 1, § 5.

Footnote 474:

Their supposed sun-worship seems to resolve itself into the usual
Jewish prayer at dawn, see Cheyne, _Jewish Religious Life after
Exile_, New York, 1898, note on p. 251, and Jülicher, _Encyc. Bibl._
_s.v._ Essenes.

Footnote 475:

Philo Judaeus, _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, c. XII.; _id._ _Apologia_ in
Eusebius, _Praep. Evang._ Bk VIII. c. 13. The authenticity of both
works has been attacked (for the controversy _v._ Morrison, _op. cit._
p. 347, n. 2) with some success. While therefore there can be no doubt
that they are from the pen of some of Philo’s school, it is not
impossible that they may be later than Josephus and have copied his
statements.

Footnote 476:

Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ Bk V. c. 15: _In diem ex aequo convenarum turba
renascitur large frequentantibus, quos vita fessos ad mores eorum
fortunae fluctus agitat._

Footnote 477:

Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_, Bk IX. c. 27, pp. 465, 466, of Cruice.
Later, he attributes the same doctrine to the Pharisees. His desire to
show that in both cases it was derived by the Jews from the
Pythagoreans or the Stoics is manifest.

Footnote 478:

Epiphanius, _Panar._ Bk I. t. I. Haer. X. c. 1 (pp. 75, 76 of Oehler,
vol. II. pt 1). Epiphanius makes them a Samaritan sect.

Footnote 479:

Porphyrius, _de Abstinentia_, Bk IV.

Footnote 480:

Jülicher in _Encyc. Bibl._ _ubi cit._ and Ritschl and Lucius there
quoted; J. B. Lightfoot, _Epistles to Colossians and to Philemon_,
1876, pp. 82-93, 348-419, and Hilgenfeld, _Die Ketzergeschichte des
Urchristenthums_, Leipzig, 1884, p. 156; Arthur Lillie, _Buddhism in
Christendom_, 1887, _passim_; _id._ _Buddha and Buddhism_, Edinburgh,
1900, pp. 159 _sqq._ Buddhism is however posterior in time to Orphism,
as Buddha did not die till B.C. 483 (see Fleet in _J.R.A.S._ 1909, p.
22), which was some years after the break-up of the Pythagorean
school.

Footnote 481:

See note 1 p. 154, _supra_.

Footnote 482:

There is no evidence of a belief in the pre-existence of the soul in
Persian religion until the rise of the worship of Mithras in the Ist
century B.C. See Chap. XII, _infra_. Marshall (Hastings’ _Dict. of
Bible_, _s.v._ Pre-existence) would find proof of the doctrine among
the Jews in the Book of Wisdom and Philo. Both are much later than
Orphism.

Footnote 483:

But see note 2 p. 152, _supra_. Jewish priests after the Exile were
forbidden to wear wool or to touch corpses, prohibitions which have an
Orphic twang. See Ezekiel xliv. 17, 23.

Footnote 484:

So far from despising wealth, many of the Orphic Hymns pray for
riches. Cf. Hymns X. XIII. XIV. XIX. XL. etc. in Abel’s _Orphica_.

Footnote 485:

K. Kohler, _Testament of Job_, in Kohut’s _Semitic Studies_, Berlin,
1897, pp. 281, 282; Isidore Loeb in _La Grande Encyclopédie_, Paris,
_s.v._ La Cabbale Juive, p. 587.

Footnote 486:

Rev. xiii. 18. A. Hausrath, _History of New Testament Times_ (Eng.
ed.), 1878, vol. I. pp. 113-117, gives all the different processes of
what is called the “Practical” Cabala with illustrations. Cf. Ad.
Franck, _La Kabbale_, Paris, 1843, p. 167, n. 2.

Footnote 487:

J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, 3rd ed. pt II. vol. I. pp. 318-334,
gives references to, I think, all the authorities for this belief,
which even at the present day is universal among primitive people.

Footnote 488:

Morrison, _op. cit._ p. 338, for authorities. Exorcism for the healing
of disease followed naturally from their demonology, which taught that
diseases were caused by demons. See Hausrath, _Hist. of N. T. Times_
(Eng. ed.), I. p. 127.

Footnote 489:

Hausrath, _op. cit._ I. pp. 124, 125; _Clementine Homilies_, Bk V. c.
5.

Footnote 490:

F. C. Porter in Hastings’ _Dict. of Bible_, _s.v._ Apocrypha, and
Wellhausen as there quoted. A list of the books comprised in the
expression used in the text with conjectural dates and authorship is
given by R. H. Charles in the same work, _s.v._ Apocalyptical
Literature. Cf. article under same heading (also by Charles) in
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_. Prof. Charles is less inclined than earlier
writers (_e.g._ Lightfoot and Kohler, _opp. cit._) to credit the
Essenes with the composition of the whole of this literature; but he
admits that part of the _Book of Enoch_, chap. cviii. 1-15, is by
Essene hands. The other parts attributed to the Essenes by Sieffert,
Tideman, and Cheyne are indicated by him in _The Book of Enoch_,
Oxford, 1893, pp. 13, 14, 21.

Footnote 491:

_The Book of the Secrets of Enoch_ (Morfill and Charles trans.),
Oxford, 1896, p. 32.

Footnote 492:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, _cit. sup._ pp. 24-33.

Footnote 493:

_Id._ _op. cit._ chap. xc. 28-38; cf. _id._ _Crit. Hist._ p. 192.

Footnote 494:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, xc. 30.

Footnote 495:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, p. 24.

Footnote 496:

_Id._ _op. cit._ chap. i. 4.

Footnote 497:

_Id._ _op. cit._ chap. i. 8.

Footnote 498:

David had the Philistines for suzerain, as Solomon had Egypt, cf.
Stanley A. Cook, in _Encyc. Bibl._ _s.v._ David, and Maspero, _Hist.
anc. des Peuples de l’Orient_, 1904, pp. 391, 422. Their successors,
too, up to the Captivity seem to have always been tributaries to
Assyria, Chaldaea, or Egypt. After that event, they were of course
vassals to the Persian and Macedonian Empires.

Footnote 499:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, chap. xxxviii. 1.

Footnote 500:

_Op. cit._ chap. xxxviii. 5. Cf. xlvi. 4, “And this Son of Man whom
thou hast seen will arouse the kings and the mighty ones from their
thrones, and will loosen the reins of the strong and grind to powder
the teeth of the sinners.”

Footnote 501:

_Op. cit._ chap. lvi. 5. This verse, which Dr Charles considers an
interpolation, was evidently written in 40 B.C., when a Parthian army
under Pacorus invaded Palestine and put a puppet of their own on the
throne of Jerusalem, and before 39 B.C., when Publius Ventidius Bassus
drove the Parthians back to their own country. Cf. Morrison, _Jews_,
etc., pp. 58-61, and authorities there quoted.

Footnote 502:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, chap. lvi. 6-8.

Footnote 503:

Charles, _op. cit._ p. 108. He there puts the date of the Similitudes,
as this portion of the Book of Enoch is called, about a quarter of a
century before the Parthian invasion. In that case, the prediction in
the text would be about the only instance of fulfilled political
prophecy known. But the discrepancy is doubtless to be explained by
the theory of interpolation after the event.

Footnote 504:

As in the admittedly Essene portion of the _Book of Enoch_ (Charles,
_op. cit._ chap. cviii. 8): “Who loved God and loved neither gold nor
silver, nor any of the goods of the world.”

Footnote 505:

Compare with this the desire to rid themselves of this world’s goods
which seized upon the inhabitants of Western Europe in 1000 A.D., when
it was believed that the Second Advent was at hand, and donations to
the Church beginning “in view of the approaching end of the world”
were common.

Footnote 506:

Schürer, _Hist. of Jewish People_ (Eng. ed.), II. pp. 157, 158.

Footnote 507:

Josephus, _Antiq._ Bk XIII. cap. 2, 3, where the tributes and taxes
are set forth. Morrison, _op. cit._ p. 360, notes that the Jews showed
no hostility to the tribute payable to the Greek kings, and that it
was the Roman system of taxation which most embittered their feelings
against the Gentiles.

Footnote 508:

Morrison, _op. cit._ pp. 41, 42.

Footnote 509:

Renan, in _L’Église Chrétienne_, chap. XI, tells the story with as
much grace as truth. His account is largely taken from the
investigations of Hartwig Derenbourg, himself of Jewish blood. Cf.
Morrison, _op. cit._ pp. 198-206.

Footnote 510:

They are arranged in the text as near as possible in the order of
their probable dates. As to these and on the question of authorship,
see Charles, _Crit. Hist._ pp. 172-226. The Sibylline Oracles can now
be consulted in the scholarly edition of Rzach (_Sibyllina Oracula_,
1891), and in Dr Charles’ _Apocrypha of the O.T._ (see below). The
Greek text of the Psalms of Solomon with a French translation and
critical introduction has been published by Dr J. Viteau and M.
François Martin (_Les Psaumes de Salomon_, Paris, 1911). (The Odes of
Solomon recently recovered for us by Dr Rendel Harris are most
probably Christian hymns.) The Latin text of the 4th Book of Esdras is
given by Bensly and James in Cambridge _Texts and Studies_, vol. III.
No. 2, and an English translation of part of it appears in the
Apocrypha of the A. V. (see _Speaker’s Commentary_ for a good text and
commentary by Lupton). The _Wisdom Literature_, _i.e._ the _Wisdom of
Solomon_ and _Ecclesiasticus_, also appears in the Apocrypha of the
A.V., as do the Books of _Maccabees_. English versions of all the
other books with critical notes and introductions have been published
by Prof. Charles as follows: _Book of Enoch_, Oxford, 1893; _Book of
the Secrets of Enoch_, Oxford, 1896; _Apocalypse of Baruch_, 1896;
_Assumption of Moses_, 1897; _Book of Jubilees_, 1902; and _Testament
of the XII Patriarchs_, 1908. All the above appear in English dress in
Dr Charles’ _Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the O.T._, Oxford, 1913.

Footnote 511:

See note 2 p. 149, _supra_. The essentially Jewish tendency towards
hyperbole and exaggeration in language must, however, be allowed for.
As someone has said, “Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated,” in
the mouth of a Jew means little more than that on the whole the
speaker prefers Jacob to Esau. See also note 1 p. 163, _supra_.

Footnote 512:

Isaiah xiv. 2; lx. 10; lxi. 5. All these passages are now said to be
post-Exilic by Charles, _Crit. Hist._ p. 115.

Footnote 513:

Charles, _Apocalypse of Baruch_, chap. xxx. 4, 5; chap. xxxvi. 11; 4
Esdras vii. 87.

Footnote 514:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, chap. xlviii. 9; lxii. 9-12.

Footnote 515:

_Op. cit._ chap. xc. 30.

Footnote 516:

See note 3 p. 166, _infra_.

Footnote 517:

Cf. Isaiah xl. 15.

Footnote 518:

4 Esdras vi. 55-59; xv. 20, 21.

Footnote 519:

Charles, _Apocalypse of Baruch_, chap. lxxii. 2-6.

Footnote 520:

Charles, _Book of Jubilees_, chap. xv. 31, 32.

Footnote 521:

_I.e._ the Roman Empire.

Footnote 522:

Charles, _Assumption of Moses_, chap. x. 3, 5, 7, 8, 10.

Footnote 523:

Evidently a reminiscence of the Zoroastrian demon who is opposed to
the Amshaspand Vohu Mano or “Good Thought.” See Chapter VI, _infra_.

Footnote 524:

4 Esdras vii. 91-93.

Footnote 525:

The earliest document quoted is the part of the _Book of Enoch_ which
Prof. Charles considers was written between 166-161 B.C.; the latest,
the _Fourth Book of Esdras_, which he puts at 90 A.D. Yet he shows
that the hatred of the Gentiles and the hope that they would be
eternally destroyed or made slaves to Israel were present many
centuries earlier and are to be found in the writings attributed to
Ezekiel, Haggai, Joel, and Zachariah, as well as in Isaiah. Cf. _Crit.
Hist._ p. 160.

Footnote 526:

Tacitus, _Historia_, Bk V. c. 5.

Footnote 527:

Thus Jellinek, _Ueber das Buch der Jubilaen und das Noah-Buch_,
Leipzig, 1855, _passim_, says that the Book of Jubilees is of Essene
origin, and Schmidt and Merx, _Archiv für wissenschaftliche
Erforschung des Alten Testaments_, I. II. (1868) pp. 111-152, make the
same claim for the _Assumption of Moses_ and so on. For the _Book of
Enoch_ itself see above.

Footnote 528:

For the quotations from Enoch in the _Testament of the XII Patriarchs_
see Charles, Introduction to that book, p. lix; for those in the _Book
of Jubilees_ see _B. of J._ pp. 13, 36, 37, 53, 62-64, 102, 134, 146,
150, 212, 213; in the _Apocalypse of Baruch_, see A. of B. p. 101 and
notes; in the _Assumption of Moses_, see _A. of M._ x. 4, 9.

Footnote 529:

Josephus, _ubi cit._ in note 4 p. 151, _supra_, says (§ 8) that they
honoured the name of Moses next after that of God Himself; and that
any who blasphemed him was punished capitally.

Footnote 530:

Cf. Abel’s _Orphica_, Fr. 160, 161, 162, 202, 203, 204. From the
Orphics the practice passed into the Mysteries and the writings of the
post-Christian Gnostics. See Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1888, pp. 69,
74-75.

Footnote 531:

Like the Gold Plate of Caecilia Secundina, Chapter IV, p. 133,
_supra_. So the Sibylline Oracles contain the acrostic ΙΧΘΥΣ which
covers the name and titles of Jesus, Renan, _L’Église Chrétienne_, p.
535 and note. The Greeks must have caught the taste for such devices,
for an acrostic is found in a treatise on astronomy by Eudoxos of
Cnidos copied in the second cent. B.C. Many other instances are given
by Brunet de Presle, _Les Papyrus Grecs du Musée du Louvre_, Paris,
1865, pp. 43, 44. He says with some reason that the practice was
borrowed by the Greeks from the Jews.

Footnote 532:

Kenyon, _Gk. Pap. in B. M._, Papyrus CXXI, pp. 83 _sqq._

Footnote 533:

Hausrath, _op. cit._ pp. 114-116, where many other instances are
given. The explanation of “Nero(n) Caesar” as the Number of the Beast
is in fact as old as Irenaeus, who remarks that the variant 616 given
in some texts is due to the omission of the final _n_ in Latin. It
does not seem to be seriously disputed by any modern theologian.
Isopsephism however was not the invention of the Essenes, but of the
Babylonians, among whom it was in use, to judge from Berossos, in the
time of Alexander. See Alexander Polyhistor in Cory, _Ancient
Fragments_, 2nd ed. p. 25.

Footnote 534:

Charles, _Book of Enoch_, chap. lxix. 13-15. Cf. _id._, _The Apoc.
etc. of the O.T._, II. p. 234, where he has made some verbal
alterations in the reading.

Footnote 535:

Hausrath, _op. et_ _loc. cit._

Footnote 536:

Charles, _A. of M._ chap. ix. 1, and the note beginning on p. 35, _op.
cit._ Hausrath, _op. cit._ _sup._ pp. 116, 117, thinks the name is
arrived at by the process called Atbash.

Footnote 537:

If the authenticity of the Fragment quoted above from Philo could be
established, it would seem probable that Josephus simply copied the
figure from this last, and that 4000 was the number of the Essenes
about 20 A.D.

Footnote 538:

Renan, _L’Église Chrétienne_, p. 209.

Footnote 539:

Hausrath, _op. cit._ pp. 116, 117, for examples. By the method called
Temura he gets _Romah hagedôlah_ for Armageddon in the Canonical
Apocalypse. So Justin Martyr, _Cohort._ c. XXIV. says that Moses is
unintelligible without mystic insight, and that the name of Christ
contains a hidden meaning (_2nd Apol._ c. VI.).

Footnote 540:

Thus Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ Bk I. c. XII. § 11, p. 146, Harvey, makes
Marcus the heresiarch show that Alpha and Omega, the name given to
Jesus in Revelation, means the Dove which descended upon Him at His
baptism, because it has the same numerical value (περιστερά) of 801.