[1587] Ps. xxx. 4; xxxi. 23; xxxvii. 28.
[1588] vi. 21; ix. 1; x. 11; Neh. ix. 2.
[1589] Comp. generally, Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 230, 231.
[1590] Ber. v. 1; comp. with Vayyikra R. 2, ed. Warsh. t. iii. p. 5 a.
[1591] Here it deserves special notice that the Old Testament term Chasid, which the Pharisees arrogated to themselves, is rendered in the Peshito by Zaddîq. Thus, as it were, the opponents of Pharisaism would play off the equivalent Tsaddiq against the Pharisaic arrogation of Chasid.
[1592] Such by-names, by a play on a word, are not unfrequent. Thus, in Shem. R. 5 (ed. Warsh. p. 14 a, lines 7 and 8 from top), Pharaoh's charge that the Israelites were {hebrew} idle,' is, by a transposition of letters made to mean that they were prnoi.
[1593] It seems strange, that so accurate a scholar as Schürer should have regarded the national party' as merely an offshoot from the Pharisees (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 431), and appealed in proof to a passage in Josephus (Ant. xviii. 1.6), which expressly calls the Nationalists a fourth party, by the side of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. That in practice they would carry out the strict Judaism of the Pharisees, does not make them Pharisees.
[1594] Philo, Quod omnis probus liber, 12, ed, Mang. ii. p. 457; Jos. Ant. xviii. 1.5.
[1595] They are also mentioned by Pliny (Hist. Natur. v. 16).
[1596] This may be inferred from Josephus' Life, c. 2.
[1597] This point is conclusively disposed of by Bishop Lightfoot in the third Dissertation appended to his Commentary on the Colossians (pp. 397-419). In general, the masterly discussion of the whole subject by Bishop Lightfoot, alike in the body of the Commentary and in the three Dissertations appended, may be said to form a new era in the treatment of the whole question, the points on which we would venture to express dissent being few and unimportant. The reader who wishes to see a statement of the supposed analogy between Essenism and the teaching of Christ will find it in Dr. Ginsburg's Article Essenes,' in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography. The same line of argument has been followed by Frankel and Gärtz. The reasons for the opposite view are set forth in the text.
[1598] Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 9.
[1599] 105-104 b.c.; Ant. xiii. 11. 2; War i. 3. 5.
[1600] Compare Josephus, Ant. xiii. 5, 9; xv. 10. 4, 5; xviii. 1. 5; Jewish War, ii. 8, 2-13; Philo, Quod omnis probus liber, 12, 13 (ed. Mangey, ii. 457-459; ed. Par. and Frcf. pp. 876-879; ed. Richter, vol. v. pp. 285-288); Pliny, N.H. v. 16, 17. For references in the Fathers see Bp. Lightfoot on Colossians, pp. 83, 84 (note). Comp. the literature there and in Schürer (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 599), to which I would add Dr. Ginburg's Art. Essenes' in Smith's and Wace's Dict. of Chr. Biogr., vol. ii.
[1601] Philo, ii.p. 457.
[1602] Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 16, 17.
[1603] Philo, u.s. p. 632; Jos. Jewish War ii. 8. 4.
[1604] Ant. xiii. 11.2; xv. 10. 5; xvii. 13.3.
[1605] War v. 4. 2.
[1606] Philo, u. s. p. 632.
[1607] War ii. 8. 9.
[1608] War ii. 8. 6.
[1609] u. s. § 4.
[1610] The distinction is Schürer's, although he is disposed to minimise this point. More on this in the sequel.
[1611] Jos. War ii. 8. 5; Ant. xviii. 1. 5.
[1612] Schürer regards these children as forming the first of the four classes' or grades' into which the Essenes were arranged. But this is contrary to the express statement of Philo, that only adults were admitted into the order, and hence only such could have formed a grade' or class' of the community. (Comp. ed. Mangey, ii. p. 632, from Eusebius' Præpar. Evang. lib. viii. cap. 8.) I have adopted the view of Bishop Lightfoot on the subject. Even the marrying order of the Essenes, however, only admitted of wedlock under great restrictions, and as a necessary evil (War, u. s. sections 13). Bishop Lightfoot suggests, that these were not Essenes in the strict sense, but only like the third order of a Benedictine or Franciscan brotherhood.'