How widely were the Essenes dispersed?
But the Essenes of whom historical notices are preserved were inhabitants of the Holy Land. Their monasteries were situated on the shores of the Dead Sea. We are told indeed, that the sect was not confined to any one place, and that members of the order were found in great numbers in divers cities and villages[[264]]. But Judæa in one notice, Palestine and Syria in another, are especially named as the localities of the Essene settlements[[265]]. Have we any reason to suppose that they were represented among the Jews of the Dispersion? In Egypt indeed we find ourselves confronted with a similar ascetic sect, the Therapeutes, who may perhaps have had an independent origin, but who nevertheless exhibit substantially the same type of Jewish thought and practice[[266]]. But the Dispersion of Egypt, it may be argued, was exceptional; and we might expect to find here organisations and developments of Judaism hardly less marked and various than in the mother country. |Do they appear in Asia Minor?| What ground have we for assuming the existence of this type in Asia Minor? Do we meet with any traces of it in the cities of the Lycus, or in proconsular Asia generally, which would justify the opinion that it might make its influence felt in the Christian communities of that district?
How the term Essene is to be understood.
Now it has been shown that the colonies of the Jews in this neighbourhood were populous and influential[[267]]; and it might be argued with great probability that among these large numbers Essene Judaism could not be unrepresented. But indeed throughout this investigation, when I speak of the Judaism in the Colossian Church as Essene, I do not assume a precise identity of origin, but only an essential affinity of type, with the Essenes of the mother country. As a matter of history, it may or may not have sprung from the colonies on the shores of the Dead Sea; but as this can neither be proved nor disproved, so also it is immaterial to my main |Probabilities of the case.| purpose. All along its frontier, wherever Judaism became enamoured of and was wedded to Oriental mysticism, the same union would produce substantially the same results. In a country where Phrygia, Persia, Syria, all in turn had moulded religious thought, it would be strange indeed if Judaism entirely escaped these influences. Nor, as a matter of fact, are indications wanting to show that it was not unaffected |Direct indications.| by them. If the traces are few, they are at least as numerous and as clear as with our defective information on the whole subject we have any right to expect in this particular instance.
St Paul at Ephesus A.D. 54–57.
When St Paul visits Ephesus, he comes in contact with certain strolling Jews, exorcists, who attempt to cast out evil spirits[[268]]. Connecting this fact with the notices of Josephus, from which we infer that exorcisms of this kind were especially |Exorcisms and| practised by the Essenes[[269]], we seem to have an indication of their presence in the capital of proconsular Asia. If so, it is a significant fact that in their exorcisms they employed the name of our Lord: for then we must regard this as the earliest notice of those overtures of alliance on the part of Essenism, which involved such important consequences in the subsequent history of the Church[[270]]. It is also worth observing, that the next incident in St Luke’s narrative is the burning |magical books.| of their magical books by those whom St Paul converted on this occasion[[271]]. As Jews are especially mentioned among these converts, and as books of charms are ascribed to the Essenes by Josephus, the two incidents, standing in this close connexion, throw great light on the type of Judaism which thus appears at Ephesus[[272]].
Sibylline Oracle A.D. 80.
Somewhat later we have another notice which bears in the same direction. The Sibylline Oracle, which forms the fourth book in the existing collection, is discovered by internal evidence to have been written about A.D. 80[[273]]. It is plainly a product of Judaism, but its Judaism does not belong to the normal Pharisaic type. With Essenism it rejects sacrifices, even regarding the shedding of blood as a pollution[[274]], and with Essenism also it inculcates the duty of frequent washings[[275]]. Yet from other indications we are led to the conclusion, that this poem was not written in the interests of Essenism properly so called, but represents some allied though independent development of Judaism. In some respects at all events its language seems quite inconsistent with the purer type of Essenism[[276]]. But its general tendency is clear: and of its locality there can hardly be a doubt. The affairs of Asia Minor occupy a disproportionate space in the poet’s description of the past and vision of the future. The cities of the Mæander and its neighbourhood, among these Laodicea, are mentioned with emphasis[[277]].
Phrygia and Asia congenial to this type of religion.
And certainly the moral and intellectual atmosphere would not be unfavourable to the growth of such a plant. The same district, which in speculative philosophy had produced a Thales and a Heraclitus[[278]], had developed in popular religion the worship of the Phrygian Cybele and Sabazius and of the Ephesian Artemis[[279]]. Cosmological speculation, mystic theosophy, religious fanaticism, all had their home here. Associated with Judaism or with Christianity the natural temperament and the intellectual bias of the people would take a new direction; but the old type would not be altogether obliterated. Phrygia reared the hybrid monstrosities of Ophitism[[280]]. She was the mother of Montanist enthusiasm[[281]], and the foster-mother of Novatian rigorism[[282]]. The syncretist, the mystic, the devotee, the puritan, would find a congenial climate in these regions of Asia Minor.