in Heb. ix. 10. Asceticism, it is true, is hardly a characteristic of Judaism. Yet fasting was considered to have a religious value, especially among the Pharisees, and Paul himself buffeted the body and brought it into bondage. Nor is it clear whether asceticism was regarded as an end in itself or a means to an end. It might be practised to induce visions. But, apart from this, it is a tendency so congenial to certain temperaments that all need for postulating a Gnostic origin, through a belief in the evil of matter, disappears.
It has, with more plausibility, been suggested that we should seek for its origin in Essenism, or some form of teaching with Essene affinities. In favour of this it may be said that the Essenes were extremely rigid in keeping the Sabbath, they had some secret lore about the angels, they abstained from meat and wine, they eliminated marriage from their communal life. But there is no indication of any extreme Sabbatarianism at Colossz ; what Paul attacks is the view that the Sabbath law should be regarded as still binding. The doctrine of angels has been already amply explained apart from Essenism, while we have no proof that the Essenes worshipped angels. Nor are we acquainted with the precise view of the false teachers as to eating and drinking, whether this involved abstinence from meat and wine. In any case the precepts of the Law as to food, with the extension they appear to have received in later Judaism (Heb. ix. 10), seem sufficient to account for this phase of the false teaching. And there is not a word in the Epistle to warrant us in assuming that there was any attack on marriage at Colossez. Further, there is no reference to some of the most important Essene practices. Such are their frequent washings, their alleged worship of the sun, their communal life, their “ fearful oath" on initiation, their protracted and severe probation and their use of magic. And, lastly, we know nothing of Essenism at this time in Phrygia. For the most part the sect had its home by the Dead Sea, and before the destruction of Jerusalem it seems to have been unknown outside Palestine. Klépper tries to turn the edge of these arguments by limiting this element to a dynamic influence of Essene principles on the Jews of the Dispersion, by urging that we should expect the larger movement of Essenes to Christianity after the destruction of Jerusalem to have been preceded by isolated instances, and by the reminder that we know the heresy only imperfectly. Lightfoot similarly is content to argue for Essene affinities in the false teaching. But in face of the absence from it of some of the most striking features of Essenism, and the possibility of accounting for it from contemporary Judaism, it seems much safer to set aside this theory
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