Page:The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery.djvu/68

 future, both lights will, we think, be found serviceable. In other words, to render clearly intelligible what ought to be, we have deemed it an essential part of our inquiry to ascertain what has been and what now is. In the prosecution of this task, we now proceed to show how Christianity and selfishness concurred in changing the slavery that was into the slavery that is.

As already explained, the institution of slavery was never called in question by any class of the ancients before the advent of Christ, if we except that small obscure sect amongst the Jews known by the name of Essenes. Even these are supposed by some to have been a society of Christian monks originally formed by St. Mark, who is said to have founded the first Christian church at Alexandria. The accounts given us by Jesephus and Philo, however, make it much more probable that the Essenes were Jews, and not Christians, and that they existed before the birth of the Messiah. Those who ascribe their origin to St. Mark evidently confound them with another sect of later growth, established at Alexandria by Christian monks, and known by the name, Therapeutæ. The bulk of this latter sect are supposed to have been Greek Jews, converted to Christianity, and settled in Egypt. The Essenes lived chiefly in Palestine, and spoke the Aramean and not the Greek language. As far as certainty can be had in such matters, there is reason to believe that the Essenes existed before and in the time of Christ; and though no mention is made of them in the New Testament, they are supposed to be alluded to by St. Paul in his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians and in his First Epistle to Timothy. From Josephus's and Philo's account of them, we should suppose them to have been enthusiasts and ascetics, who occupied pretty much the same position amongst their contemporaries and co-religionists, the Jews, as the Shakers in America do amongst the modern Christian sects of that country. That they were not necessarily Christians might, we think, be fairly inferred from the very doctrines and practices ascribed to them; and that the existence of such a sect might well have preceded Christ's appearance will appear strange to no one who considers how very popular St. John the Baptist was, and what crowds of enthusiastic followers he attracted by his preachings and asceticism before the Saviour made known His mission. Assuredly the Essenes were not more ascetic than St. John the Baptist, whose raiment was camel's hair, and food locusts and wild honey; and assuredly their mysticism and social equalitarianism bear less analogy to veritable Christianity than the doctrines and practices of John.

This argument alone, independently of historic authority, ought, we think, to suffice to set aside the ill-grounded belief of many that the Essenes were necessarily an early Christian sect. Their holding certain doctrines in common with Christians, such as the immortality of the soul and man's spiritual responsibility to and equality before God, is no more a proof that they were followers of Christ, than the holding of similar doctrines by Socrates and Plato would prove these philosophers to have been believers in a religion which was unknown till near four centuries after their death. Dr. Neander's