the number of the initiated. According to the delineation which Philo has given of them in his remarkable book upon the true freedom of the virtuous man, the Essenes appear to be men of a practical religious tendency, unacquainted with all theosophy and idle speculation, and characterized by a deep, inward devotion, free from superstition. But the report of Philo does not here agree with that of Josephus, whose testimony is entitled to far more confidence.

Josephus had, in particular, better opportunity to learn, accurately, the Jewish sects, than Philo, because Philo lived in Egypt, whither there is no evidence that the Essenes ever extended. Josephus spent the greatest part of his life in Palestine, and had certainly given all pains, accurately, to inform himself of the condition of the different sects, between which, even when a youth of sixteen, he had resolved to choose, although he could not have gone beyond the novitiate in the sect of the Essenes, since he informs us that in the space of from three to four years, he had passed through all three sects of the Jews. Josephus manifests also, in this representation in particular, entire impartiality and fairness; Philo, on the contrary, ardently desired to represent the Essenes to the cultivated Greeks as models of practical wisdom, and allowed himself, accordingly, to represent them not so much as they really were, but as his object demanded. That the Essenes busied themselves also with speculation, and professed to make disclosures in respect to the higher spiritual world, is apparent; for the initiated were obliged to swear that they would make known to no one the names of the angels communicated to them. The manner in which they concealed the ancient books of the sect, also attests the same thing. Even Philo himself makes this probable, when he says, that they occupied themselves with a piloooqia dia ovußolov, a philosophy which was founded on allegorizing exegesis; because every kind of allegorizing presupposes a real speculative system. According to Philo, they rejected the worship of sacrifice, asserting that to dedicate themselves entirely to God, is the only true sacrifice. But, according to Josephus, they certainly held the sacrificial offering to be particularly holy; but they thought that precisely on account of its sacredness, it was desecrated by the profane Jews, in the temple at Jerusalem, and that it could be celebrated in a worthy manner only in their holy community; as such mystic sects are always inclined to let the objective worth of religious actions depend upon the subjective state of those who perform them. In the painfully superstitious observance of Sabbath-rest, according to the letter, not the spirit of the laws, they went still farther than the other Jews; while the casuistry of the Pharisees expounded its decrees more strongly or mildly, according to their interest for the time being. They not only anxiously shrunk from contact with other Jews, but, since they themselves

were divided into four degrees, even the Essenes of a higher grade shrunk from contact with Essenes of a lower grade, as if they could become polluted, and underwent a purification, wherever such a contact occurred. They, too, like other Jews, placed peculiar worth in lustration by bathing in cold water. To their asceticism, the usual custom of anointing with oil, appeared as something unholy; so that every one, whom this had any how befallen, must carefully purify himself. They anxiously shunned other food than that which was preferred by their own sect. They would rather die than receive food from others. Proof enough, that, if the Essenes had a true religious life, and a true practical piety, there was, for all that, mixed with it no little superstition.

In the age of the Gospels, the Jewish nation seems to have been much cut up into sects. Neander speaks of seven in all. Among these must have been, of course, the New Testament Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians; while the Essenes, Gaulonites, Karaites, and Baithuseans, noticed by other writers, must make up the rest. Possibly the Samaritans are included in the number. Only three of these, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, were of any considerable significance. And these, Lightfoot tells us, were only "excrescences from the national religion." "They spoiled by over-doing." The great body of the people kept on in the old Church, and Christ with them, to renew and to fulfil with all wisdom and prudence. The Pharisee was a formalist; the Sadducee, a rationalist; the Essene, an austere pietist. Pharisaism busied itself in "making a hedge to the law," and placed holiness in a precise observance of external and traditive ordinances. Every age finds Pharisaism plying the same work. As to the first of them, Lightfoot, speaking of the ancient Pharisees, says: "For that the law should lie to the commons, without any fence about it, to keep men off from breaking in upon it by their own interpretations and expositions of it, they could soon persuade the people, was a thing not to be tolerated or endured; and when they had wrought this lesson home upon their hearts, then they had glosses ready of their own invention to put upon it, as to hedge or fence in from private interpretation." Pharisaism was itself hedged up and enslaved by its will-worship, and burdensome ceremonies; and, the worst of it was, there was no life within to prepare the way for something better. The Essenes, however, who carried out into precise and severe practice, the original theory of the Pharisees, were, no doubt, as honest-hearted in seeking righteousness by works of supererogation and voluntary offices over and above the precepts of the law, as men could be under the ordinary moral influences of their day. Between these two movements of Jewish religionists, there was a near relation, and a bond of sympathy, so far as earnestness entered at all into the more showy circle of the Pharisee. But the Sadducee, who

"confessed neither angel or spirit," and with the denial of avάoraois gave up both immortality and future retribution, stood much farther off from the equally practical and contemplative circle of Essenism. The Sadducean school had started from a true dictum, of their reputed master, Sadoc or Tzadoc; or, at least, from a great "half truth torn from its connection," which, as Neander observes, is usually the origin of fanatical or false religious movements at all times. He had said "Be not as slaves who obey their masters for reward; but obey without hoping for any fruits of your labors. Let the fear of God be upon you.' So far as the scholars followed this ipse dixit, they created a point of connection between themselves and all truth, which is infinitely far from being a mercenary affair. But the cold Sadducee was as deep in the ditch as the blind Pharisee was in the mire. Rejecting the objective in religion, he lost the subjective. He forgot the dependence of imperfect man on those great springs of right action, hope and fear. Being neither religious nor superstitious-being given to no vowing nor fasting, or punctilios of devotion-those "enclosures of holiness"-and chilled by his eternal negations, the ancient Sadducee lost his reverence for the divine, could sympathize with neither the ceremonious Pharisee, nor fervent Essene; and having an eye on the present only, lived the life of a thorough worldling.

A resemblance has been pointed out by a respectable writer between these three ancient Jewish sects, and three Mohammedan sects mentioned by Malcolm in his account of Persia, as existing in that country, viz., the Sheahs, Soonees, and Soofees. The Sheahs maintained the literal meaning of the Koran; the Soonees assert the necessity of a supplement to it by the sonna, which is a collection of traditions and commentaries; whilst the Soofees resemble the Essenes in the contemplation of the divine love and their four stages to the attainment of divine beatitude. And doctrinally speaking, as it respects their view of the human will, we may perhaps also say that the Sadducees were Pelagians, the Essenes absolute predestinarians or necessitarians; and the Pharisees semi-pelagians. But however astray in their metaphysics, the Essenes were, no doubt, of the three, truest in their feelings to the natural religious sentiment of entire dependence on a higher power, and nearest in their practice to the self-denying ethics of Jesus Christ.

The origin of this sect is not historically clear. Pliny, who wrote in Vespasian's reign, ascribes to them a great antiquity, and makes them out a great marvel of self-preservation. As the passage is curious and in point, as giving their locality as well as several peculiarities, such as their misogamy, celibacy, &c., we present it entire in the original Latin: "Ab occidentali (Asphaltitis) litore Esseni, quos fugitant usquequaque nocentes, gens sola, et in toto in orbe præter ceteros mira, sine ulla fœmina, omni

venere abdicatâ, sine pecunia, socia palmarum. In diem ex quo convenarum turba renascitur, large frequentatibus quos vita fessos ad mores eorum fortunæ fluctus agitat. Ita per seculorum millia (incredibile dictu) gens eterna est in qua nemo nascitur. Tam fœcunda illis aliorum vitæ penitentia est. Infra hos Engadda oppidum fuit."* The Roman naturalist's descriptive powers are no doubt more reliable than his chronological accuracy. Jewish sectarism was undoubtedly of late growth among that people. The origin of the oldest of their leading sects has no historical vouchers farther back than about two hundred years before Christ. Essenism, however, may have sprung out of ancient Rechabitism. Lightfoot, from the local habitation of the two, thinks they may have so descended by generation or example. The community mentioned by Pliny seem to have occupied the old dwelling spot of the Kenites, designated Judges 1:16. "The wilderness of Judah," was doubtless the desert on the western side of the Dead sea, and identical with "the wilderness of Engedi." The locality, called 'Ain Jidy, by the modern Arabs, is situated, according to Dr. Robinson, nearly at the middle point of the western coast. It abounds, we are told, with caverns and "the rocks of the wild goats;" while "a death-like solitude" reigns over the region. But still there are streams and a fine soil at 'Ain Jidy. Had it been otherwise, it would not have suited such an association as the Essenes. This place is not far from twenty miles south of Jerusalem.

It is generally believed by the learned, that we have a trace of the original Essenes, and perhaps Pharisees also, in Maccabees 2:42 (168 B. C.), which thus reads: "Then there came unto him a company of Assideans, who were mighty men of Israel, even all such as were voluntarily devoted to the law." Grotius, with many others, finds them in these ancient on Hassidim,. or Hassideans, thus called, according to Philo, from their singular piety, humility, and devotion. Among them, as Gale in his most erudite "Court of the Gentiles" observes, Hebrew philosophy chiefly flourished. Between the Essene and Pythagorean practice, he shows remarkable similarities, which indicate some relationship. Every nation, however, and every religious system, has had its ascetics, its Pythagorean religionists, who mistake austerities for piety, and engage in the contest with evil in too transcendental a manner. Among ancient and modern heathen, in the bosom of Judaism, in the centre of Christendom, we find these peculiar developments of the moral and religious sentiment. They imply no imitation or collusion, but spring from a true feeling at bottom, which is, however, indulged disproportionately to knowledge. So far as they embody and promote truth, they stand on one and the

*Nat. Hist., Lib. 5, cap. 19.

same basis. So far as they violate its laws, they are only manifestations of a common morbid tendency. From this original Assidean stock, both Pharisees and Essenes, or Essæans, were probably derived, being one in the outset; and hence, by verbal corruption, the name of the latter, according to Wolzogenius and others.

When we come to the important question, why the Essenes are not mentioned by the Evangelists, we must not pass by the view of the learned Drusius, that they were in point of fact a branch or order of Pharisees, in the popular estimation, and that the names of the two were sometimes confounded, or interchanged, the more obscure being in common parlance sunk into the more distinguished. His chief authority for this opinion is Gorion, a Jewish author, who mentions only two sects, viz. the Sadducees, and the Hassideans or Pharisees, "whom the people followed." Another proof to this effect is, that Menahem, an Essene, who lived under Herod the Great, was a disciple of Pollio, a chief of the Pharisees. Again, Josephus tells of one Bannus, a great ascetic, whom he fell in with in his sectarian experiments, the said Bannus being clothed with barks of trees, using only food spontaneously grown, and dipping his body night and day in cold water, in order to live a chaste life. But this man was an Essene; yet the author of the book of Juchasin calls him a Pharisee. But for more information on this point, we must refer to the works of Drusius, who had a controversy with Scaliger and Serrarius relative to the Assideans. Without pressing this hypothesis, however, the silence of the Gospels as to the Essenes is still very far from authorizing any suspicion of the real historical integrity of these revered records. It must certainly be admitted, that though the latitude of meaning in which the name Pharisee was used, may have excluded the name Essene from them, the non-occurrence in the narratives of persons, answering to their known ethical and religious peculiarities, calls for additional explanation. Most writers who have adverted to this subject, agree that the small number of this sect-said not to have exceeded about four thousand-their recluse and eremitic life, their anchoretic separation from the people, with whom they did not mingle, and whom they did not teach-they being strangers and unknown at Jerusalem, and systematically shunning all large towns-and, as Prideaux thinks, their harmless and virtuous lives, are the true reasons why the Evangelists have nothing to say of the Essenes. And besides, as Lardner observes," it was not their design to write the history of Jewish sects, but of our Savior's ministry.""Is it any wonder that the Evangelists had no particular occasion to mention this private set of men in writing the life of our Savior? John 18:19, 20. This is one of the glories of our Savior's character, as it is our very great happiness, that what he said and did, was public. These men would not come to him, and it would have been a disparagement for him to have gone to them. Certainly, as Dr. Prideaux