Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/571

Rh E S S E K E 551 tlieir clothes or their shoes till they were torn in pieces or worn completely away. In general they thought it good to dres-s coarsely, and preferred to be clad in white. Their daily routine was prescribed for them in the strictest manner. Before the rising of the sun they were to speak of nothing profane, but offered to it certain traditional forms of prayer as if beseeching it to rise. Thereafter they went about their daily tasks, working continuously at whatever trade they knew 1 11 the fifth hour, when they assembled, and, girding on a garment of linen, bathed in cold water. They next seated themselves quietly in the dining hall, where the baker set bread in order, and the cook brought each, a single dish of one kind of food. Before meat and after it grace was said by a priest. After dinner they resumed work till sunset. In the evening they had supper, in which strangers belonging to the society joined them, if there happened to be any such present. Withal there was no noise or confusion to mar the tranquillity of their inter course; no one usurped more than his share of the conver sation j the stillness of the place oppressed a stranger with a feeling of mysteiious awe. This composure of spirit was owing to their perfect temperance in eating and drinking. Not only in the daily routine of the society, but generally, the activity of the members was controlled by their presi dents. In only two things could they take the initiative, helpfulness and m^rcy; the deserving poor and the destitute were to receive instant relict ; but no member could give anything to his relatives without consulting the heads of the society. Their office-bearers were elected. They had also their special courts of justice, which were composed of not less than a hundred members, and their decisions, which were arrived at with extreme care, were irreversible. Oaths were strictly forbidden ; their word was stronger than an oath. They were just and temperate in anger, the guardians of good faith, and the ministers of peace, obedient to their elders and to the majority. But the moral characteristics which they most earnestly cultivated and enjoined will best appear in their rules of initiation. There was a novitiate of three years, during which the intending member was tested as to his fitness for entering the society. If the result was satisfactory, he was admitted, but before partaking of the common meal, he was required to swear awful oaths, that he would reverence the deity, do justice to men, hurt no man voluntarily or at the command of another, hate the unjust and assist the just, and that he would render fidelity to all men, but especially to the rulers, seeing that no one rules but of God. He also vowed, if he should bear rule himself, to make no violent use of his power, nor outshine those set under him by superior display, to make it his aim to cherish the truth and unmask liars, to be pure from theft and unjust gain, to conceal nothing from his fellow-members, nor to divulge any of their affairs to other men, even at the risk of death, to transmit their doctrines iinchanged, and to keep secret the books of the society and the names of the angels. Within the limits of the society there were four grades so distinct that if any one touched a member of an inferior grade he required to cleanse himself by bathing in water ; members that had been found guilty of serious crimes were expelled from the society, and could not be received again till reduced to the very last extremity of want or sickness. As the result of the ascetic training of the Essenes, and of their temperate diet, we find that they lived to a great age, and were superior to pain and fear. During the Roman war they cheerfully underwent the most grievous tortures rather than break any of the principles of their faith. In fact, they had in many respects reached the very highest moral elevation attained by the ancient world ; they were just, humane, benevolent, and spiritually-minded ; the sick and agod were the object*) of a special affectionate regard, and they condemned slavery, not only as an injustice, but as an impious violation of the natural brotherhood of men. There were some of the Essenes who permitted marriage, but strictly with a view to the preservation of the race; in other respects, they agreed with the main body of the society. It will be apparent that the predominant tendency of the society was practical Phile tolls us expressly that they rejected logic as unnecessary to the acquisition of virtue, and speculation on nature as too lofty for the human intel lect. Yet they had views of their own as to God, Provi dence, the soul, and a future state, which, while they had a practical use, were yet essentially speculative. On the one hand, indeed, they held tenaciously by the traditional Judaisms: blasphemy against their lawgiver was punished with death, the sacred books w^ere preserved and read with great reverence, though not without an allegorical interpre tation, and the Sabbath was most scrupulously observed. But in many important points their deviation from the strait path of Judaic development was complete. They rejected animal sacrifice as well as marriage ; the oil with which priests and kings were anointed they accounted un clean ; and the condemnation of oaths and the community of goods were unmistakable innovations for which they found no hint or warrant in the old Hebrew writings. Their most singular feature, perhaps, was their reverence for the sun. As we have seen, no profane word was to be uttered before his rising, and certain forms of prayer were offered to him; they were not to insult his rays by any act of un- clcanness, however natural. In their speculative hints respecting the soul and a future state, we find another im portant deviation from Judaism, and the explanation of their asceticism. They held that the body is mortal, and its substance transitory : that the soul is immortal, but, coming from the subtlest ether, is lured as by a sorcery of nature into the prison-house of the body. At death it is released from its bonds, as from long slavery, and joyously soars aloft. To the souls of the good there is reserved a life beyond the ocean, and a country oppressed neither by rain, nor snow, nor heat, but refreshed by a gentle west wind blowing continually from the sea, but to the wicked a region of wintry darkness and of unceasing torment. (In these points the resemblance of Essenism to certain phases of Greek philosophy and to some of the earlier Greek myths is unmistakable.) To all intensely earnest minds, in which the force of one great idea is not corrected by other tendencies, a spiritual asceticism is the natural complement of a theory according to which a vile body is the prison- house of an immortal soul. Josephus tells us, too, that the Essenes believed in fate ; but in what sense, and what re lation it bore to Divine Providence, does not appear. In view of such divergencies from the normal develop ment of Judaism, and of doctrines on the soul and a future state, which so closely resemble Pythagorean, Platonic, and even Zoroastrian speculations, the question naturally arises how far Esseuism was a native product of the Jewish mind, and how far it had experienced the influence of Greek and Oriental thought. On the one hand it is clear, from the facts we have noted, that it must have completely passed the barriers of traditional Judaism, and equally clear, on the other, that they could not have reached their peculiar point of view in perfect isolation from antecedent and con temporary speculation. For more than a century before the Essenes appear as a factor in Jewish history, the Jews had come into closest contact with Greek life; doubtless they were rather repelled than attracted, but in either case could not help being affected, by it. AVith the theosophic speculations of Persia they had also been acquainted for many centuries, first during the Babylonian captivity, and afterwards through the general diffusion of that way of