whose mother was of the family of Aharun, was in the deserts until the
day of his showing unto Israel. He drank neither wine nor strong drink.
Clad in hair-cloth, and with a girdle of leather, and feeding upon such
food as the desert afforded, he preached, in the country about Jordan,
the baptism of repentance, for the remission of siri-s; that is, the
necessity of repentance proven by _reformation_. He taught the people
charity and liberality; the publicans, justice, equity, and fair
dealing; the soldiery, peace, truth, and contentment; to do violence to
none, accuse none falsely, and be content with their pay. He inculcated
the necessity of a virtuous life, and the folly of trusting to their
descent from Abraham.
He denounced both Pharisees and Sadducees as a generation of vipers,
threatened with the anger of God. He baptized those who confessed their
sins. He preached in the desert; and therefore in the country where the
Essenes lived, professing the same doctrines. He was imprisoned before
Christ began to preach. Matthew mentions him without preface or
explanation; as if, apparently, his history was too well known to need
any. "In those days," he says, "came John the Baptist, preaching in the
wilderness of Judea." His disciples frequently fasted; for we find them
with the Pharisees coming to Jesus to inquire why _His_ Disciples did
not fast as often as they; and He did not denounce _them_, as His habit
was to denounce the Pharisees; but answered them kindly and gently.
From his prison, John sent two of his disciples to inquire of Christ:
"Art thou he that is to come, or do we look for another?" Christ
referred them to his miracles as an answer; and declared to the people
that John was a prophet, and more than a prophet, and that no greater
man had ever been born; but that the humblest Christian was his
superior. He declared him to be Elias, who was to come.
John had denounced to Herod his marriage with his brother's wife as
unlawful; and for this he was imprisoned, and finally executed to
gratify her. His disciples buried him; and Herod and others thought he
had risen from the dead and appeared again in the person of Christ. The
people all regarded John as a prophet; and Christ silenced the Priests
and Elders by asking them whether he was inspired. They feared to excite
the anger of the people by saying that he was not. Christ declared that
he came "in the way of righteousness"; and that the lower classes
believed him, though the Priests and Pharisees did not.
Thus John, who was often consulted by Herod, and to whom that monarch
showed great deference, and was often governed by his advice; whose
doctrine prevailed very extensively among the people and the publicans,
taught _some_ creed older than Christianity. That is plain: and it is
equally plain, that the very large body of the Jews that adopted his
doctrines, were neither Pharisees nor Sadducees, but the humble, common
people. They must, therefore, have been Essenes. It is plain, too, that
Christ applied for baptism as a sacred rite, well known and long
practiced. It was becoming to him, he said, to fulfill all
righteousness.
In the 18th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read thus: "And a
certain Jew, named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and
mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man _was instructed in
the way of the Lord_, and, being fervent in spirit, _he spake and taught
diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John_;
and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue; whom, when Aquilla and
Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him
_the way of God_ more perfectly."
Translating this from the symbolic and figurative language into the true
ordinary sense of the Greek text, it reads thus: "And a certain Jew,
named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, and of
extensive learning, came to Ephesus. He had learned in the mysteries the
true doctrine in regard to God; and, being a zealous enthusiast, he
spoke and taught diligently the truths in regard to the Deity, having
received no other baptism than that of John." He knew nothing in regard
to Christianity; for he had resided in Alexandria, and had just then
come to Ephesus; being, probably, a disciple of Philo, and a Therapeut.
"That, in all times," says St. Augustine, "is the Christian religion,
which to know and follow is the most sure and certain health, called
according to that name, but not according to the thing itself, of which
it is the name; for the thing itself, which is now called the Christian
religion, _really was known to the Ancients_, nor was wanting at any
time from the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ
came in the flesh; from whence the true religion, which had previously
existed, began to be called Christian; and this in our days is the
Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but as
having, in later times, received this name." The disciples were first
called "Christians," at Antioch, when Barnabas and Paul began to preach
there.
The Wandering or Itinerant Jews or Exorcists, who assumed to employ the
Sacred Name in exorcising evil spirits, were no doubt Therapeutae or
Essenes.
"And it came to pass," we read in the 19th chapter of the Acts, verses 1
to 4, "that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through
the upper parts of Asia Minor, came to Ephesus; and finding certain
_disciples_, he said to them, 'Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye
became Believers?' And they said unto him, 'We have not so much as heard
that there _is_ any Holy Ghost.' And he said to them, 'In what, then,
were you baptized?' And they said 'In John's baptism.' Then said Paul,
'John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the
people that they should believe in Him who was to come after him, that
is, in Jesus Christ. When they heard this, they were baptized in the
name of the Lord Jesus."
This faith, taught by John, and so nearly Christianity, could have been
nothing but the doctrine of the Essenes; and there can be no doubt that
John belonged to that sect. The place where he preached, his macerations
and frugal diet, the doctrines he taught, all prove it conclusively.
There was no other sect to which he _could_ have belonged; certainly
none so numerous as his, _except_ the Essenes.
We find, from the two letters written by Paul to the brethren at
Corinth, that City of Luxury and Corruption, that there were contentions
among them. Rival sects had already, about the 57th year of our era,
reared their banners there, as followers, some of Paul, some of Apollos,
and some of Cephas. Some of them denied the resurrection. Paul urged
them to adhere to the doctrines taught by himself, and had sent Timothy
to them to bring them afresh to their recollection.
According to Paul, Christ was to come again. He was to put an end to all
other Principalities and Powers, and finally to Death, and then be
Himself once more merged in God; _who should then be all in all_.
The forms and ceremonies of the Essenes were symbolical. They had,
according to Philo the Jew, four Degrees; the members being divided into
two Orders, the _Practici_ and _Therapeutici_; the latter being the
contemplative and medical Brethren; and the former the active,
practical, business men. They were Jews by birth; and had a greater
affection for each other than the members of any other sect. Their
brotherly love was intense. They fulfilled the Christian law, "Love one
another." They despised riches. No one was to be found among them,
having more than another. The possessions of one were intermingled with
those of the others; so that they all had but one patrimony, and were
brethren. Their piety toward God was extraordinary. Before sunrise they
never spake a word about profane matters; but put up certain prayers
which they had received from their forefathers. At dawn of day, and
before it was light, their prayers and hymns ascended to Heaven. They
were eminently faithful and true, and the Ministers of Peace. They had
mysterious ceremonies, and initiations into their mysteries; and the
Candidate promised that he would ever practise fidelity to all men, and
especially to those in authority, "because no one obtains the government
without God's assistance."
Whatever they said, was firmer than an oath; but they avoided swearing,
and esteemed it worse than perjury. They were simple in their diet and
mode of living, bore torture with fortitude, and despised death. They
cultivated the science of medicine and were very skillful. They deemed
it a good omen to dress in white robes. They had their own courts, and
passed righteous judgments. They kept the Sabbath more rigorously than
the Jews.
Their chief towns were Engaddi, near the Dead Sea, and Hebron. Engaddi
was about 30 miles southeast from Jerusalem, and Hebron about 20 miles
south of that city. Josephus and Eusebius speak of them as an ancient
sect; and they were no doubt the first among the Jews to embrace
Christianity: with whose faith and doctrine their own tenets had so many
points of resemblance, and were indeed in a great measure the same.
Pliny regarded them as a very ancient people.
In their devotions they turned toward the rising sun; as the Jews
generally did toward the Temple. But they were no idolaters; for they
observed the law of Moses with scrupulous fidelity. They held all things
in common, and despised riches, their wants being supplied by the
administration of Curators or Stewards. The Tetractys, composed of round
dots instead of jods, was revered among them. This being a Pythagorean
symbol, evidently shows their connection with the school of Pythagoras;
but their peculiar tenets more resemble those of Confucius and
Zoroaster; and probably were adopted while they were prisoners in
Persia; which explains their turning toward the Sun in prayer.
Their demeanor was sober and chaste. They submitted to the
superintendence of governors whom they appointed over themselves. The
whole of their time was spent in labor, meditation, and prayer; and they
were most sedulously attentive to every call of justice and humanity,
and every moral duty. They believed in the unity of God. They supposed
the souls of men to have fallen, by a disastrous fate, from the regions
of purity and light, into the bodies which they occupy; during their
continuance in which they considered them confined as in a prison.
Therefore they did not believe in the resurrection of the body; but in
that of the soul only. They believed in a future state of rewards and
punishments; and they disregarded the ceremonies or external forms
enjoined in the law of Moses to be observed in the worship of God;
holding that the words of that lawgiver were to be understood in a
mysterious and recondite sense, and not according to their literal
meaning. They offered no sacrifices, except at home; and by meditation
they endeavored, as far as possible, to isolate the soul from the body,
and carry it back to God.
Eusebius broadly admits "that the ancient Therapeutæ were Christians;
and that their ancient writings were our Gospels and Epistles."
The ESSENES were of the Eclectic Sect of Philosophers, and held PLATO in
the highest esteem; they believed that true philosophy, the greatest and
most salutary gift of God to mortals, was scattered, in various
portions, through all the different Sects; and that it was,
consequently, the duty of every wise man to gather it from the several
quarters where it lay dispersed, and to employ it, thus reunited, in
destroying the dominion of impiety and vice.
The great festivals of the Solstices were observed in a distinguished
manner by the Essenes; as would naturally be supposed, from the fact
that they reverenced the Sun, not as a god, but as a symbol of light and
fire; the fountain of which, the Orientals supposed God to be. They
lived in continence and abstinence, and had establishments similar to
the monasteries of the early Christians.
The writings of the Essenes were full of mysticism, parables, enigmas,
and allegories. They believed in the esoteric and exoteric meanings of
the Scriptures; and, as we have already said, they had a warrant for
that in the Scriptures themselves. They found it in the Old Testament,
as the Gnostics found it in the New. The Christian writers, and even
Christ himself, recognized it as a truth, that all Scripture had an
inner and an outer meaning. Thus we find it said as follows, in one of
the Gospels:
"Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but
unto men _that are without_, all these things are done in parables; that
seeing, they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not
understand.... And the disciples came and said unto him, 'Why speakest
Thou the truth in parables?'--He answered and said unto them, 'Because
it is given unto _you_ to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven,
but to _them_ it is not given.'"
Paul, in the 4th chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians, speaking of
the simplest facts of the Old Testament, asserts that they are _an
allegory_. In the 3d chapter of the second letter to the Corinthians, he
declares himself a minister of the New Testament, appointed by God; "Not
of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth." Origen and
St. Gregory held that the Gospels were not to be taken in their literal
sense; and Athanasius admonishes us that "Should we understand sacred
writ according to the letter, we should fall into the most enormous
blasphemies."
Eusebius said, "Those who preside over the Holy Scriptures, philosophize
over them, and expound their literal sense by allegory."
The sources of our knowledge of the Kabalistic doctrines, are the books
of Jezirah and Sohar, the former drawn up in the second century, and the
latter a little later; but containing materials much older than
themselves. In their most characteristic elements, they go back to the
time of the exile. In them, as in the teachings of Zoroaster, everything
that exists emanated from a source of infinite LIGHT. Before everything,
existed THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, the KING OF LIGHT; a title often given to
the Creator in the _Zend-Avesta_ and the code of the _Sabaæns_. With the
idea so expressed is connected the pantheism of India. THE KING OF
LIGHT, THE ANCIENT, is ALL THAT IS. He is not only the real cause of all
Existences; he is Infinite [AINSOPH]. He is HIMSELF: there is nothing in
Him that We can call _Thou_.
In the Indian doctrine, not only is the Supreme Being the real cause of
all, but he is the only real Existence: all the rest is illusion. In the
Kabalah, as in the Persian and Gnostic doctrines, He is the Supreme
Being unknown to all, the "Unknown Father." The world is his revelation,
and subsists only in Him. His attributes are reproduced there, with
different modifications, and in different degrees, so that the Universe
is His Holy Splendor: it is but His Mantle; but it must be revered in
silence. All beings have emanated from the Supreme Being: The nearer a
being is to Him, the more perfect it is; the more remote in the scale,
the less its purity.
A ray of Light, shot from the Deity, is the cause and principle of all
that exists. It is at once Father and Mother of All, in the sublimest
sense. It penetrates everything; and without it nothing can exist an
instant. From this double FORCE, designated by the two parts of the word
I. H. U. H. emanated the FIRST-BORN of God, the Universal FORM, in which
are contained all beings; the Persian and Platonic Archetype of things,
united with the Infinite by the primitive ray of Light.
This First-Born is the Creative Agent, Conservator, and animating
Principle of the Universe. It is THE LIGHT OF LIGHT. It possesses the
three Primitive Forces of the Divinity, LIGHT, SPIRIT, and LIFE Φώς,
Πνευμά, and Ζωη. As it has received what it gives, Light and Life, it is
equally considered as the generative and conceptive Principle, the
Primitive Man, ADAM KADMON. As such, it has revealed itself in ten
emanations or _Sephiroth_, which are not ten different beings, nor even
beings at all; but sources of life, vessels of Omnipotence, and types of
Creation. They are _Sovereignty_ or _Will, Wisdom, Intelligence,
Benignity, Severity, Beauty, Victory, Glory, Permanency_, and _Empire_.
These are attributes of God; and this idea, that God reveals Himself by
His attributes, and that the human mind cannot perceive or discern God
Himself, in his works, but only his mode of manifesting Himself, is a
profound Truth. We know of the Invisible only what the Visible reveals.
_Wisdom_ was called NOUS and LOGOS [and Νου̃ς Λογος], INTELLECT or the
WORD. _Intelligence_, source of the oil of anointing, responds to the
Holy Ghost of the Christian Faith.
_Beauty_ is represented by green and yellow. _Victory_ is
YAHOVAH-TSABAOTH, the column on the right hand, the column _Jachin:
Glory_ is the column _Boaz_, on the left hand. And thus our symbols
appear again in the Kabalah. And again the LIGHT, the object of our
labors, appears as the creative power of Deity. The circle, also, was
the special symbol of the first Sephirah, Kether, or the Crown.
We do not further follow the Kabalah in its four Worlds of Spirits,
_Aziluth, Briah, Yezirah_, and _Asiah_, or of _emanation, creation,
formation_, and _fabrication_, one inferior to and one emerging from the
other, the superior always enveloping the inferior; its doctrine that,
in all that exists, there is nothing purely material; that all comes
from God, and in all He proceeds by irradiation; that everything
subsists by the Divine ray that penetrates creation; and all is united
by the Spirit of God, which is the life of life; so that all is God; the
Existences that inhabit the four worlds, inferior to each other in
proportion to their distance from the Great King of Light: the contest
between the good and evil Angels and Principles, to endure until the
Eternal Himself comes to end it and re-establish the primitive harmony;
the four distinct parts of the Soul of Man; and the migrations of impure
souls, until they are sufficiently purified to share with the Spirits of
Light the contemplation of the Supreme Being whose Splendor fills the
Universe.
The WORD was also found in the Phœnician Creed. As in all those of Asia,
a WORD of God, written in starry characters, by the planetary
Divinities, and communicated by the Demi-Gods, as a profound mystery, to
the higher classes of the human race, to be communicated by them to
mankind, created the world. The faith of the Phœnicians was an emanation
from that ancient worship of the Stars, which in the creed of Zoroaster
alone, is connected with a faith in one God. Light and Fire are the most
important agents in the Phoenician faith. There is a race of children of
the Light. They adored the Heaven with its Lights, deeming it the
Supreme God.
Everything emanates from a Single Principle, and a Primitive Love, which
is the Moving Power of All and governs all. Light, by its union with
Spirit, whereof it is but the vehicle or symbol, is the Life of
everything, and penetrates everything. It should therefore be respected
and honored everywhere; for everywhere it governs and controls.
The Chaldaic and Jerusalem Paraphrasts endeavored to render the phrase,
DEBAR-YAHOVAH דבר יהוה, the Word of God, a personalty, wherever they met
with it. The phrase, "And God created man," is, in the Jerusalem Targum,
"And the Word of IHUH created man."
So, in xxviii. Gen. 20,21, where Jacob says: "If God [יהיה אלהי IHIH
ALHIM] will be with me..." then shall IHUH be my ALHIM [Hebrew ]; UHIH
IHUH Li LALHIM; and this stone shall be God's House [[Hebrew].. IHIH
BITH ALHIM]: Onkelos paraphrases it, "If the word of IHUH will be my
help ... then the word of IHUH shall be my God".
So, in iii. Gen. 8, for "The Voice of the Lord God" [[Hebrew], IHUH
ALHIM], we have, "The Voice of the Word of IHUH."
In ix. Wisdom, 1, "O God of my Fathers and Lord of Mercy! who has made
all things with thy word.. [Greek: έν λόγου σου.]"
And in xviii. Wisdom, 15, "Thine Almighty Word [Greek: Λογος] leaped
down from Heaven."
Philo speaks of the Word as being the same with God. So in several
places he calls it "[Greek: δεύτερος Θείος Λóγος]," the Second Divinity;
"[Greek: είμώντουΘεού]," the Image of God: the Divine Word that made all
things: "the [Greek: υπαρχος]," substitute, of God; and the like.
Thus, when John commenced to preach, had been for ages agitated, by the
Priests and Philosophers of the East and West, the great questions
concerning the eternity or creation of matter: immediate or intermediate
creation of the Universe by the Supreme God; the origin, object, and
filial extinction of evil; the relations between the intellectual and
material worlds, and between God and man; and the creation, fall,
redemption, and restoration to his first estate, of man.
The Jewish doctrine, differing in this from all the other Oriental
creeds, and even from the Alohayistic legend with which the book of
Genesis commences, attributed the creation to the immediate action of
the Supreme Being. The Theosophists of the other Eastern Peoples
interposed more than one intermediary between God and the world. To
place between them but a single Being, to suppose for the production of
the world but a single intermediary, was, in their eyes, to lower the
Supreme Majesty. The interval between God, who is perfect Purity, and
matter, which is base and foul, was too great for them to clear it at a
single step. Even in the Occident, neither Plato nor Philo could thus
impoverish the Intellectual World.
Thus, Cerinthus of Ephesus, with most of the Gnostics, Philo, the
Kabalah, the Zend-Avesta, the Puranas, and all the Orient, deemed the
distance and antipathy between the Supreme Being and the material world
too great, to attribute to the former the Creation of the latter. Below,
and emanating from, or created by, the Ancient of Days, the Central
Light, the Beginning, or First Principle [[Greek: Αρχή]], one, two, or
more Principles, Existences or Intellectual Beings were imagined, to
some one or more of whom [without any immediate creative act on the part
of the Great Immovable, Silent Deity], the immediate creation of the
material and mental universe was due.
We have already spoken of many of the speculations on this point. To
some, the world was created by the LOGOS or WORD, first manifestation
of, or emanation from, the Deity. To others, the beginning of creation
was by the emanation of a ray of LIGHT, creating the principle of
_Light_ and _Life_. The Primitive THOUGHT, creating the inferior
Deities, a succession of INTELLIGENCES, the Iynges of Zoroaster, his
_Amshaspands_, _Izeds_, and _Ferouers_, the _Ideas_ of Plato, the
_Aions_ of the Gnostics, the _Angels_ of the Jews, the _Nous_, the
_Demiourgos_, the DIVINE REASON, the _Powers_ or _Forces_ of Philo, and
the Alohayim, Forces or Superior Gods of the ancient legend with which
Genesis begins,--to these and other intermediaries the creation was
owing. No restraints were laid on the Fancy and the Imagination. The
veriest Abstractions became Existences and Realities. The attributes of
God, personified, became Powers, Spirits, Intelligences.
God was the _Light of Light_, _Divine Fire_, the _Abstract
Intellectuality_, the _Root_ or _Germ_ of the Universe. _Simon Magus_,
founder of the Gnostic faith, and many of the early Judaizing
Christians, admitted that the manifestations of the Supreme Being, as
FATHER, or JEHOVAH, SON or CHRIST, and HOLY SPIRIT, were only so many
different _modes_ of Existence, or _Forces_ [[Greek: δυναμεις]] of the
same God. To others they were, as were the multitude of Subordinate
Intelligences, real and distinct beings.