4. Abstention from marriage. This was equally a counsel o( perfection in the early Church, but was there held to be right in view of the impending second advent and end of the world (1 Co 725ff). 8. Obedience to established authorities. 6. In- ternal government. The officers of the E. community were vari- ously termed aTcJi*Tot* tw» rooiroiMr * receivers of the revenue,' itri/j-tXtiTiti 'curators,' xyM.u-ovtf 'relieving officers,' tk/mbu 'stewards' (in Philo). These otHcers were, like the bishops of the early Church, elected by show of hands (;(;i*^«To*,)yi»Tic), ace. to the testimony of both Philo and Josephus. It is significant that Hippolytus calls them outright irpoiffriTit or presidents (lib. ix. § 25), the regular 2nd cent, equivalent of ' bishop.* 7. The common meals, with which we may compare the picture of the early Church of Jerusalem given in the Acts. But whereas the Es-^enes dined together because of their anxiety to eat no food but what was ceremonially pure, the Christians were chiefly actuated, it would seem, by charitable and communistic reasons. Their love-feast, however, also had from an early date, if not from the very first, a sacramental character and con- clusion, and required, like the Essene common meal, the presence of a priest both to prepare it and to give thanks before and after it to God ' the Giver of Life." 8. The Eesene priests inpt7!) were elected to preside at the common meal, and viak^ the food eaten thereat. Since the Essene common repasts had plainly a sacramental character, the function of their priests, as of Christian ones, was simply to prepare and preside over a sacramental meal, to which none were admitted save those rendered pure by previous baptism. 9. General organization, (a) Obedience to the Essene offlceiB. The brethren in their deportment and bodily habit were like children under the eye of a schoolmaster whom they feared (BJ ll. viii. 9). (J3) They were all brethren, but the elder members were revered by the juniors as if they were their parents, (y) The entire^ body or class of Essenes (>-'**' *^ Jos. calls it) is a 8ieur»<, an «7^i*-if , an e^Xae, a Ttt-yMt. The two former were generic names for any body of co-reUgionists, and Christian congregations among the Gentiles were so described. (5) The travelling precepts of the E. resembled those enjoined by Jesus on the Seventy. They were to take nothing at all with them, but only to go armed tor fear of robbers.*' (i) They were to wear their cloaks and shoes right out, never changing them till they were quite worn out. Hippolytus paraphrases this by saying that no E. owned two cloaks or two pairs of shoes (Hipp. I.e. } 20). (t) The four grades of E. resembled the steps of the catechumenate. Such a distinction, however, of grades of initiation was common to most ancient mysteries, and was not special to Christianity. 'The dUdpluia arcani of the E. was also reproduced in the Christian Church, but equally in the pagan mysteries. 10. Like the Christians, the Essenes were not content with the ordinary lustrations («>»!<'«<) of Judaism, but had superior ones of their oivn. Whereas, however, the Christian baptism was conferred once and for all, the Essene baptism was daily. The Essene alTectation of a purity of food superior even to the ordinary purity of the Jews, also recalls the eucharistic meal of the Christians. From it the novice was excluded, just as was the catechumen from the Eucharist. And just as 'Jie priest among the E. was elected to make the food eaten in their syssitia, so the priest in the Or. Church, even to this day, him- self prepares and bakes the eucharistic loaves. Jos. expressly s.ays that the Essenes elected priests. They were therefore not content with the hereditary Levites of Judaism.
More analogies between the Essenes and the earliest Christians could no doubt be discerned. But it is a fatal objection to any real identilica. tion, that the Essenes were ultra-Jewish in the ob- servance of the Sabbath, and, if we may credit Hippolytus, in their insistence on the circumcision of converts. The most wo can say is that the
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Christians copied many features of their organiza- tion and propagandist activity from the Essenes.
Tlie relation of tlie different sources on which aur knowledge of the E. depends requires further sifting than it has generally received. Of course there nave been attempts to prove the Philonean sources to be not authentic, but they are based on mere ignorance. There are occa-sional verbal re- semblances * between the accounts of Philo and Jos. which indicate that Jos., besides his own personal experience of the sect, nsed either Philo or else a document previously used by Philo. The accounts of the two writers, however, do not always agree. Thus Philo says that all the E. were full-grown men, or verging on old age ; but Jos. avers that they recruited their sect by adopt- ing other people's children wliile they were still supple and plastic to receive their teachings {BJ II. viii. 2). Vet in the same context Jos. speaks of those who desired to become members of the .sect.t and also of th^ir period of probation, in words suit- able only to the view that these recruits were adult men. We may perhaps infer that the sect was recruited in both ways. Pliny's statement that the men from all quarters joined it when they repented of their lives, and left tlie world, agrees well enough with Philo's statement ; and, if we trans- late/K«ni?en(ia as ' repentance ' rather than mere ennui, offers a striking parallel to Jolin the Baptist's preaching : Repent of your sins and be baptized, because the kingdom of God is at hand. There is reason to suspect some close affinity be- tween John, who came fasting, and the E. ; the more so as John's sphere of activity in the valley of Jordan lay close to the Essene settlement on the shores of the Dead Sea.