Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/163

 Essene Schismatics who Allow Marriage

There is yet another order of Essenes, who, while at one with the rest in their mode of life, customs and regulations, differ from them in their views on marriage. They think that those who decline to marry cut off the chief function of life—that of transmitting it—and furthermore that, were all to adopt the same view, the whole race would very quickly die out. They give their wives, however, a three years' probation, and only marry them after they have thrice undergone purification, in proof of fecundity. They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy, thus showing that their motive in marrying is not self-indulgence but the procreation of children. In the bath the women wear a dress, the men a loin-cloth. Such are the usages of this order.

The Pharisees and Sadducees

Of the two first-named schools, the Pharisees have the reputation of being the most accurate expositors of the laws, and owe to this their position as the leading sect. They attribute everything to Fate and God; yet they admit that to act rightly or otherwise rests for the most part with men, though in each action Fate is an auxiliary. Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment.

The Sadducees, the second of the orders, do away with Fate altogether, and remove God beyond, not merely the commission, but the very sight, of evil. They maintain that good and evil lie open to men's choice and that it rests with every man's will whether he embraces the one or the other. As for the permanence