And such teaching bore fruit. Their life-long purity, their avoiding o( oaths or falsehood, their recognition of a good providence alone, showed their love of God. Their love of virtue revealed itself in their indifference to money, worldly position, and pleasure. Their love of man in their kindliness, their equality, their fellowship passing all words. For no one had his private house, but shared his dwelling with all ; and, living as they did in colonies (fliactf-auf), they threw open their doors to any of their sect who came their way. They h.id a storehouse, common expenditure, common raiments, coninion footi eaten in Syssitia or common meals. This wa« made possible by their practice of putting whatever they each earned day by day into a common fund, out of which also the sick were supported when they could not work. The aged among them were objects of reverence and honour, and treated by the rest as parents by real children.
The most cruel and deceitful tyrants, says Philo, that had been the scourge of their country, had yet been moved to admiration of their quiet but invincible freedom, of their common meals, of their consummate fellowship.
Perhaps in these last words Philo refers to Herod the Great, whose subsequent rise to great- ness was foretold to him as a child by an E. named Manaemus (Menahem), and who in conscfjuence befriended and honoured the sect { Josephus, A nt. XV. X. 5).
Eusebiua in his Prreparatio Evangelica has
S reserved a fragment of Philo's 'Apology for the ews,* which repeats much of the information given by Philo, but also supplements it.
Our lawgiver, he says, trains into fellowship and com- munion thousands of his disciples, who for their saintliness iiniri^rot) are called Essenes. They inhabit many cities of ^udsa, as well as many villages and populous tract«. Their tenets are espoused by Uiem of free choice, and not as a matter of race.
There are do children or youths among them, but only full- grown men, or men already m the decline of life. They have no private property, but put all they have into a common fund, and live as members of a thiasus or philosophic colony, having common meals. They are very industrious, and work hard from early sunrise to sunset, as tillers of the soil, or henlsmen, or bee-farmers, or as craftsmen. ^Tiatever they so earn they hand over to the elected steward (rctt^Jm xii^«T***}di»rt), who at once buys victuals for the common repast.
No Essene, adds Philo in this account, marries, but all practise continence. For women are selfish and jealous, and apt to pervert men's characters by ceaseless chicanery and wile*. While, if they have children, they are pufi'ed up and bold Id speech ; driving their husbands to actions which are a bar to any real fellowship with other men.
The next VNTiter who describes the Essenes is Pliny the elder (t A.D. 79), in hi& Natural Huitory^ bk. V. ch. 17. * The Hessenes,' he says, * live on the W. side away from tlie shores (of the Dead Sea), out of reach of their baneful influences, A solitary race, and strange above all others in the entire world They live without women, renounc-
ing all sexual love. They eschew money, and Utc among the palm-trees. Yet the number of their fellows (convenarum) is kept up and day by day renewed ; for there flock to them from alar many who, wearied of battling with the rough sea of life, drift into their system ' {ad mores). * Thus for thousands of ages (strange to tell) the race is per- petuated, and yet no one is bom in it. So does the contrition felt by others for their past life enrich this set of men. Below them lay Engadi, a to^vn once second only to Jems, in its fertility and groves of palms. Now 'tis but one more tomb. Next comes Masada, a fort on a rock, and, like the former, not far from the Dead Sea. And here ends our account of Judoea.'
There are two passages in Josephus in which the E. are described at length, and many minor re- ferences. The following is an epitome of his infor- mation : —
Josephus calls them Essenl in BJ n. viiL 2, Ant. xra. ▼. 9, X. 6, etc., and with Philo, Essai in Ant. xr. x. 4. They arose along with the sects of Pharisees {Aiit. xiii. v. 9) and Saddu- cees, about B.C. 144, and formed from the first an ajptrtf or sect.
About B.C. 107 iAnt. xm. xi. 2) a certain Essene, named Judas, had a school, it would seem, in the temple, in which he taught his companions and pupils the art of predicting events. Again, about B.C. 21 we reaa (Ant. xv. x. 4) that Herod excused then: along with the Pharisees from taking the oath of fidelity tc himself. In the Jewish war (BJ i\. xx. 4> we hear of one John the Essene leading the Jewish rebels in Thamna. And at that time (c. A.D. 70) there was a gate at the S.E. corner of the city of David called the Gate of the E. (BJ V. iv. 2), which is proof that they were tlit-n n numerous sect.
The E. were so called because of their holiness (ri/»»»T*!T«) (BJ II. viii. 6 ; Ant. xvni. i. 5). They beheved that God controls all things, and committed all things to Him. Sometimes, how- ever, Josephus says that they re^rded Fate (iiLutput>^) as the supreme determinant of all human affairs (so a Mussulman believes in Allah and Kismet both at once) {Ant. xvui. i. 3).