ESSE'NES (Essenoi, Essaiai), a small religious fraternity among the Jews, whose name and origin, as well as character and history, are alike involved in obscurity. Still, in the wide field of the history of the Semitic religions, there are not many subjects of inquiry of greater importance, or calculated to inspire a deeper interest. The K bore one of the most momentous parts in the development of Judaism. Christianity stands in so close connection with them, that John the Baptist and Christ himself have been pronounced to have originally issued from their ranks. More surprising than all, out of Essenism, in the stage of originally has sprung Islam itself, and in this last develop ment of its tenets and practices are still preserved some of its principal rites. It is but natural that from the days of the fathers to our own, an infinite number of writers, more or less qualified for the task, should have endeavored to throw light on this mys terious brotherhood, but with success far from satisfactory. The reason of this is obvious enough. Josephus, Philo, Pliny, Solinus, Eusebius, and the fathers generally, were considered the sources, and the only sources, from which the genuine history of this fraternity could be deduced. Of these, Pliny indeed has a geographical notice, which cannot be traced to either Philo or Josephus; but the rest have so evidently derived their shallow and contradictory accounts indirectly, and through corrupted chan nels, from those two writers, that they lose all claim to consideration. Of the two books of Philo in which information regarding the E. is contained, one (De Vita Contemplatira) is proved to have been written about three centuries after Philo's death by a Christian monk as a penegyric on ascetic monachism. The other (Quod Omnis) is, to say the least, of ful genuineness, and is, moreover, at variance with Josephus. As to Josephus himself, it is now pretty generally allowed that his E. stand in much the same relation to the histori cal E. as the ideal inhabitants of the Germania of Tacitus stand to the real Germans of his
time. Strange that for so many centuries the real and genuine sources—the Talmudical writings—should never have been thought of. These, together with Josephus and Philo, Pliny, and the Arabfans Macrisi and Abulfarag, will perhaps better enable us to form an idea, not only of the real state of this community, but, what is of no less moment, to trace the process by which they gradually arrived at their peculiar mode of life and worship. We need not remind the reader that we must strictly confine ourselves here to an epitome of facts and conclusions.
We have to premise, that exception must at the outset be taken to the opening state ment of Josephus, that there were three different "sects" among the Jews• the Phari sees, the Sadducees, and the E.—a statement which has been copied and accepted from that day to the present. The Sadducees were a political party, nothing more or less, and, as a matter of course, held religious views antagonistic to, or rather they did not accept the traditions of, their adversaries, the Pharisees, who, again, forming as they did, the bulk of the nation, cannot rightly be called a sect. Least of all were the E. such. They were Pharisees of stronger convictions, and carried out the Pharisaic views with a consistency which made them ridiculous even in the eyes of their own mother-party (Sots, 26, a.); neither were they known by the names of E., this being a very late designation, derived either from a Chaldee word sacha, and meaning bathers, or baptists; or from asa, meaning healers. The Mishna, Beraitha, and Talmud speak of these advanced Pharisees in general as Chasidim (Assidaioi, pious men), Nazirim abstinents), Toble ShachArith (hemerobaptists), Banal (builders), and Chaberim (friends). The Arabic book of Maccabees calls the E. simply Assidaioi, and Macrisi speaks of "Nazirs, Essenes, and Baptists" as all being "Asaniun," or Essenes.