The order was held together by the strictest discipline. Full membership was granted only after a novitiate of two years, and then upon an oath to reveal everything to the members and nothing to the outside world. Offenders against the rules of the order were punished by exclusion ; and as tliey were still held bound by their vows, they w'ere unable to return to ordinary life.
What makes the Essenes ' the great enigma of Hebrew history' (Lightfoot, Col." p. 82) is that, while they are distinguished by exaggerated adherence to the Jewish Law and by special reverence for Moses as lawgiver, they betray at the same time certain ideas and prattices whioli are foreign to Judaism, and seem inooiiiipatiblf witli its spirit. The indica- tions of incipient cliiuli^iii which maybe found in their abstinence from marriage and in other ascetic practices, find a parallel in their doctrine of im- mortality, wherein they agreed with the Pharisees against the Sadducees as to the immortality of the soul, but differed from the Pharisees in denying the resurrection of the body- And they deviated still further from orthodox Judaism in the practice of making a daily prayer to the sun ' as if entreat- ing him to rise,' "and in refraining altogether from animal sacrifice. It followed that they were ex- cluded from tlie services of the Temple. On the other hand, they were rigid bevond all others in their observance of the Sabbath; and tliey went
beyond the Pharisees in their absolute determinism, affirming ' that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination' (Jos. Ant. XIII. v. 9).
It is in this apparent eclecticism that the prob- lem of the origin of Essenism consists. While it is impossible to deny the Jewish foundation on which it rests, it is equally impossible to overlook the presence of foreign elements. The .source of these has formed the subject of endless discussion, and has been found by various writers in Parsism and Buddhism (Hilgenfeld), Parsism (Liglitfoot), Syro- Palestinian heathenism (Lipsius), and Pythagorean- ism (Zeller, Keira). But all attempts to demonstrate any necessary connexion or indubitable channel be- tween any one of these and Essenism have failed. And it remains either to assume that foreign influ- ences had percolated unobserved, or to suppose that the characteristic phenomena emerged indepen- dently in Persia, Greece, and Palestine.
The Essenes are not directly referred to in the NT ; but some have without sufficient reason claimed John the Baptist, and even Jesus, as Essenes. It has also been alleged that their influence may be traced within the circle of Chris- tian ideas and practices. The possible relation of Essenism to the heresy controverted by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians has been discussed at length by Bishop Lightfoot in his edition of the Epistle (cf. his Galatians', p. 322 ft'.), and also by Klopper, Brief an die Kolosser, pp. 76-95.
LiTERATrRE.— Schurer, HJP ii ii. 188 ff. (with full Bibliog- raphy): Bousset, Die Religion des Jttdentums, pp. 431-443; artt.' ' Essenes' in Hastings' DB (by Convbeare) and in Encyc. Bibl. (by A. JuUcher), and ' Essener' in PRE3 (by Uhlhom).
C. Anderson Scott. ETERNAL FIRE.— An expression twice used by Christ in reference to the future punishment of the wicked. In Mt 18' §\-qdriiiai (is rb vvp tA aiiiKioK stands in contrast to cia-eXffe'ii' ei's tjjii fuijv ; and from Mt 25^' we learn that this eternal fire, into which the wicked are to be cast, was prepared not for them but for the devil and his angels. These are the only passages in which the expression is found in the Gospels ; but equivalent terms occur. In Mt 18' the eternal fire is identified with the lire of Gehenna ; and in 25" we have k-iXacris oiiii'ios. In Mt 312 and Mk 9" it is the unquenchable fire (ia^earov), and in Mk 9*' Gehenna is the place of punishment where their worm dieth not, koL t4 Tvp ov (r^evvvrai. The wicked after their separation from the righteous (Mt 13*-- ^) are to be cast into a furnace (kojuh'os) of fire.
. A brief account of the oririn of this phraseology will throw light on its meaning. The idea of punishment by fire comes from the OT. The destruction by fire of Sodom and Gomorrah supplied the t\'pical example, ai such (Dt 2923; Is 19 1319, Jer 41 cf. such well-known NT passag ment is spoken atraiiist Edont
thef
r examples
\ . See for ^ lai, Jer 4* s ■ of Is 3314 But there of the idea ure world. According to Dt .32=2 the fire of Jehovah's anger reaches down to Sheol. Cheyne finds in Is .'iOii and 66^^ a reference to the punishment of souls in the underivorld : but Salmond and A. B. Dayidson see in the latter only the description of a present-world penalty : and seems the more natural interpretation. This passage seems to have suggested the punishment, f
Ezk 2CH- refer, like the preccdin are passages which at 1
passage <
Jewish belief regartling eternal
the Apocryphal writin (Mk 9*7). The scene of i Valley of Hinnom, reu'-'i''* account of its Molech s:u burning, through which
,■ Thrist ity. the
t. that a Arc was kept constantly burning ^ the offal and the dead bodies which were too Late (*.D. 1200) to be accepted without