Now, these three flashes of light seem to me to dispel much, notably all disquisitions which seek to combine the Essene Christ and the anti-Essene Christ. Renan holds that the Church of Jerusalem were Pharisees. If so, why had they Essene rites, A.D. 34 and A.D. 181? He admits that these rites were borrowed from the Mendaites, or Disciples of John, and that there is the closest analogy between the rise of Christianity and the rise of "other ascetic religions, Buddhism for example." ("Les Apôtres," pp. 78-90.) He admits that the accounts in the Acts of Peter's bold preachings in the temple, are not to be reconciled with passages about "closed doors for few of the Jews." What has chiefly led to misapprehensions is not so much the dishonesty of writers like "Luke," as the fiction of the Essenes themselves that they were orthodox Jews. They were most particular about circumcision. They had a Sanhedrim of Justice, and so had the early Christians. The Church of Jerusalem had its "chief priest," as we see from the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. "The daily sacrifices are not offered everywhere, nor the peace-offerings, nor the sacrifices appointed for sins and transgressions, but only at Jerusalem, nor in any place there, but only at the altar before the temple." (Ch. xviii.)
This chief priest must not be confused with the Jewish one. He has been established by God through Christ. (Ch. xix. 7.) It is also stated that Christ has laid down what "offerings and service" must be performed. (Ch. xviii. 14.) This gives a significance to the passages in Revelations describing the temple of the mystic Jerusalem, which would of course be modelled on the "temple" familiar to the white-robed virgin saints of the material New Jerusalem, the "angel" taking the "golden censer" and filling it with the fire of the altar, the "lamps," the "candlesticks," the "golden altar," the "incense." The ground near Jerusalem is perforated with caverns. This temple, probably, was some secret crypt like a chapel in the catacombs. Keim points out that the command given in chap. xi. verse 2 of the Revelations to leave out the court of the bloody sacrifices in the ideal temple of the New Jerusalem, is an additional piece of evidence in favour of the Essenism of the early Church.
This is what Hegesippus, the earliest Christian historian, says about James, described in the Protevangelion as the "chief apostle and first Christian bishop."
"He was consecrated from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, neither ate he any living thing. A razor never went upon his head. He anointed not himself with oil, nor did he use a bath. He alone was allowed to enter into the holies. For he did not wear woollen garments, but linen. And he alone entered the sanctuary and was found upon his knees praying for the forgiveness of the people, so that his knees became hard like a camel's through his constant bending and supplication before God, and asking for forgiveness for the people." (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." ii. 33.)
This passage seems to settle the question whether the early Christians were Essenes or Pharisees. Here we have the chief apostle depicted as an Essene of Essenes. He rejects wine and flesh meat. And the "temple" of the Essenes was plainly not the Jewish temple. The temple guards would have made short work of any one rash enough to attempt to enter the Holy of Holies.
Epiphanius adds the two sons of Zebedee to the list of the ascetics, and also announces that James, the chief apostle, entered the Holy of Holies once a year. He gives another detail, that the Christian bishop wore the bactreum or metal plate of the high priest. (Epiph. Hær. lxxviii. 13, 14.)
Clement of Alexandria gives a similar account of St. Matthew:—
"It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling in us. And happiness is found in the practice of virtue. Accordingly, the Apostle Matthew partook of seeds, and nuts, and vegetables without flesh." (Pædag. ii. 1.)
The Clementine "Homilies" give a far more authentic picture of the Church of Jerusalem than the Acts. In them St. Peter thus describes himself:—