“They are not confined to one city, but live in different places, and everything they have is at the service of the members who happen to come from another city. Though meeting for the first time they at once salute each other as intimate friends (ἴσασιν ὥσπερ συνήθεις); hence they travel without taking anything with them. They do not change either garments or sandals till they are torn or worn out by age; they neither buy nor sell, but every one gives of that which he has to him that wants it, and receives that which he needs; but even without receiving anything in return they freely communicate to him that wants. Their piety towards God is extraordinary. None of them speak about anything profane before the sun rises; but they offer to it some of the prayers transmitted to them by their forefathers, as if they supplicated it to rise, &c., &c.” He repeats almost literally the whole of § 5 of Josephus On the Jewish War, book ii. chap. viii., which we have given above, p, 43.
Porphyry omits § 6 of Josephus, but gives, with a few verbal alterations, both the whole of § 7, which describes the admission into the order, and § 8, which describes the punishment. He omits the greater part of § 9, and adds the following statement, which is not to be found in Josephus. “Their food is so poor and scanty that they do not require to ease nature on the Sabbath,[72] which they devote to singing praises to God and to rest.” He omits from § 10 the description of the division of the Essenes into four classes, and [[56]]simply mentions firmness in suffering and death. He also omits from § 11 the whole piece beginning with the words “In harmony with the opinion of the Greeks, &c.;” whilst he not only gives the whole of § 12, but has also the following addition, “With such a manner of life, and with their firm adhesion to truthfulness and piety, there are naturally many among them who can foretel future events, &c.;” and concludes with the words, “This is the nature of the order of the Essenes among the Jews,” omitting altogether what Josephus says in § 13 about those Essenes who marry.
Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia and metropolitan of Cyprus, who was born in Bezanduca, a small town of Palestine, in the first part of the fourth century, and died in 403, has also given us some brief notices of the Essenes in his celebrated work Against the Heretics. His first notice is to be found in Adver. Haer., lib. i. ord. x. p. 28, ed. Col., 1682, under the title Against the Essenes and the Samaritans, and is as follows:
“The Essenes continue in their first position, and have not altered at all. According to them there have been some dissensions among the Gorthenes, in consequence of some difference of opinion which has taken place among them—I mean among the Sebuens, Essenes and Gorthenes. The difference of opinion relates to the following matter. The law of Moses commands the Israelites of all places to come up to Jerusalem to the three festivals, viz., the feasts of the Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. As the Jews in Judea and Samaria were largely dispersed, it is supposed that those of them who made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem went through Samaritan cities, and as the Samaritans assemble at the same time to celebrate the festivals, a conflict arose between them.”
Epiphanius speaks of them again (Adv. Haer., lib. i. ord. xix. p. 39), and under the title, Against the Ossenes (κατὰ Ὀσσηνῶν), as follows: [[57]]
“Next follow the Ossenes, who were closely connected with the former sect. They too are Jews, hypocrites in their demeanour, and peculiar people in their conceits.[73] They originated, according to the tradition which I received, in the regions of Nabatea, Itruria, Moabitis and Antilis, (Ἀρηϊλίτις), in the surrounding neighbourhood of the so-called Dead Sea.… The name Ossenes, according to its etymology, signifies the stout race (στιβυρὸν γένος).… A certain person named Elxai joined them at the time of the Emperor Trajan, after the advent of the Saviour, who was a false prophet. He wrote a so-called prophetical book, which he pretended to be according to divine wisdom. He had a brother named Jeeus, who also misled people in their manner of life, and caused them to err with his doctrine. A Jew by birth, and professing the Jewish doctrines, he did not live according to the Mosaic law, but introduced quite different things, and misled his own sect.… He joined the sect of the Ossenes, of which some remnants are still to be found in the same regions of Nabatea and Perea towards Moabitis. These people are now called Simseans.”[74]
“But hear the Sadducee’s nonsense (comp. ibid., p. 42): he rejects the sacrificial and altar services, as repulsive to the Deity, and as things which, according to the meaning of the fathers and the Mosaic law, were never offered to the Lord in a worthy manner. Yet he says that we must pray with our faces to Jerusalem, where the sacrificial altar and the sacrifices have their place. He rejects the eating of animal flesh which is common among the Jews, and other things; nay, even the sacrificial altar and the sacrificial fire, as being foreign to the [[58]]Deity. The purifying water, he says, is worthy of God, but the fire is unworthy, because of the declaration of the prophet: ‘Children, go ye not there to see the fire of the sacrifices, for ye err; yea, it is already an error to think such a thing.’ ‘If you look at the fire very closely,’ says he, ‘it is still far off. Moreover, go ye not to look at the sacrificial fire, but go ye rather to the doctrine of the water.…’ There is much more of such idle talk to be found among the Ossenes.”[75]
These are the sources from which writers upon the Essenes have, till within very lately, drawn their information. As to the account of Eusebius (comp. Hist. Ecclesiast., lib. ii, cap. xvii), to which appeal is often made, it is nothing but a Christianized reproduction of the so-called Philonic description of the Therapeutae. It would therefore be useless to give it. In looking through these accounts, it will be seen that there are only three independent ones among them, namely—Philo’s, Josephus’s and Pliny’s; as the notice of Solinus is merely a repetition of Pliny, the description of Porphyry is almost a literal reproduction of Josephus; whilst the distorted scraps of Epiphanius are not only worse than useless, but are unworthy of him, and the account of Eusebius is simply misleading, inasmuch as it is a repetition of an apocryphal story, which has nothing to do with the Essenes. [[59]]
III.
Having given the ancient documents, all that now remains is that I should give a brief sketch of the most important modern literature on the Essenes. In doing this part of my task, as in the former, I shall try as much as it is possible to follow the chronological order.