THE ESSENES.
The impression which the first week of his sacerdotal duties had made
upon Helon was quite different from all that he had experienced before.
Hitherto his mind had been excited, and his curiosity and expectation
raised; what he had lately seen and felt had given a quiet sober
calmness to his mind, which was only broken at times by the eager desire
of further knowledge on those subjects, on which his conversations with
the old man in the temple had turned.
The following sabbath he attended the morning and evening sacrifice, in
a portico, which lay on the northern side of the court of the Priests,
and opposite to the altar of burnt-offering, and was called the Covert
of the sabbath. This was a distinction allotted to the course of priests
who had been on duty the preceding week, and were now resting from the
noblest of all occupations, the service of Jehovah.
The sun was rising on the Holy City on the first day of the week, when
Iddo took leave of his guests at the Water-gate. They took the road to
Jericho, which leads over the mount of Olives. They had before them a
journey of one hundred and fifty stadia, or about twenty-four
sabbath-days’ journies. Passing the dry bed of the brook Kedron, they
walked under the shade of the cedars, till the road wound up the side of
the mount and led them through rows of olive-trees over the easternmost
of the three summits. It is loftier than any of the hills on which the
city stands. As they ascended it, Helon cast back a look of gratitude
and regret on the sacred spot, where God had shown him so much good. The
summit commanded on one side a view of the temple, the castle Baris,
Zion, and the wide-stretched city; on the other, the eye could reach to
the Dead Sea and the glittering line of the Jordan’s course, which winds
on the other side of the walls of Jericho and falls into the Dead Sea.
Towards the east, the exhalations rose from the sea, at the place where
once Sodom and Gomorrah stood—a terrible memorial of Jehovah’s vengeance
on the transgressors. Towards the west the smoke of the
morning-sacrifice was ascending from the altar of burnt-offering in the
temple. “See,” said Elisama, as he pointed to Moriah, “the fulfilment of
the words of Moses, the glory of the Lord appearing to all the people in
the fire that comes from before him and consumes the burnt-offering on
the altar.”[79] And then turning to the clouds of pitchy smoke that hung
over the Dead Sea; “Behold there the fulfilment of another word of
Scripture, 'The Lord thy God is a consuming fire and a jealous
God.'”[80]
-----
Footnote 79:
Lev. ix. 23, 24.
Footnote 80:
Deut. iv. 24.
-----
They proceeded in silence. At length Helon observed, “When the flame
ascends upon our altar of burnt-offering, or the seven-branched
candlestick is lighted at evening in the holy place, I cannot but think
of Jehovah’s comparison of himself to a light, in our psalms and
prophets. Fire is the most ethereal of the elements, and is a symbol as
well of the grace of God to the pious, as of his indignation against
sinners.”
“Beware,” interrupted Selumiel, “of making to thyself any likeness of
God.”
“I understand,” said Helon, “what you mean. Even the doctrine of
Zerdusht is superstition, because he has disfigured, by human additions,
the knowledge which is handed down in its purity in our sacred writings.
Yet it is remarkable that the children of the east have selected
precisely this point from the divine wisdom of their forefathers,
worshipping, alas, the visible sun, instead of the eternal light.”
“Be satisfied,” said Selumiel, “those whom thou art about to see to-day,
have already prayed some hours ago for the return of the heavenly light.
They do so every morning, and every morning their prayer is heard. You
shall see my Essenes.”
“_Thy_ Essenes!” said Elisama. “Thou hast already thrown out hints of
this kind more than once, Selumiel, greatly to my surprise. I remember
when we were young together in Egypt, thou hadst a similar passion for
the doctrines of the Therapeutæ; and an early passion, it seems, never
dies.”
“I confess,” said Selumiel, “that in my youth I often looked with
veneration towards the hill beside the lake Mareotis, where they had
their favourite abode. But at a later period of my life I perceived that
the contemplative life of the Therapeutæ, their profound solitude, and
their enthusiastic passion for allegory, are not to be compared with the
pious but active life led by the Essenes. I could say much to you of
this people, but I will reserve it till we have passed through Bethany.”
This was indeed a spot more adapted for seeing than for listening.
Bethany was a village on the eastern slope of the mount of Olives, and
about two sabbath-days’ journies from Jerusalem. It was a still and
lovely spot, surrounded with olives, palm-trees, figs, and dates, so
that it seemed to stand in the midst of a large garden. They often
turned to look back upon it, when they had passed through it. As they
crossed a sparkling brook which ran at the foot of a steep hill,
Selumiel exclaimed, “I will first quench my thirst, according to the
manner of the Essenes, from this pure stream, and will then tell you, as
I proposed just now, what I think of this people.”
A wild and dreary region lay before them, called the desert of Jericho.
“I know,” said Selumiel, “that our Sadducees ridicule the Essenes, and
our Pharisees curse them. But however the former may ridicule the idea
of self-communion and moral strictness, it is certain that there is a
deeper foundation for this self-communion at least, than individual
inclination or caprice. The aged are generally inclined to it, and I
know not what more genuine happiness one who has seen the world can
propose to himself, in declining years, than the undisturbed society of
persons like minded with himself, engaged in the united worship of
Jehovah. And as there is a period of life, in which almost all men feel
the disposition to turn the thoughts inward, circumstances may arise to
produce this inclination at an earlier period. Calamity and sorrow
respect no age; and as it may be said of some men that they are children
even in their grey hairs, so is it true of others, that even from their
childhood they show the contemplative and serious character of age. Why
then should not a whole society, consisting of such youths and such old
men, unite to devote themselves to self-communion? It has been said of
the Greeks, that they are always children; it may be said with equal
truth and more honour of the Essenes, that they are always old men.”
“But,” said Elisama, “they never appear in the temple.” “That is what
the Pharisees condemn in them, and I will not undertake to decide upon
the question: but thus much is certain, that they fulfil all the other
precepts of the law so much the more zealously, and appeal, on this
point, to passages of holy writ, which teach the inefficacy of any
ritual of sacrifice. But I will not defend them for not coming to mount
Moriah; and I am so far from agreeing with them in this respect, that I
am, as you know, a punctual visiter at all the festivals. Let us rather
consider what both Sadducees and Pharisees blame in them, and see
whether this blame does not really redound to their praise. You know
that the Sadducees in their folly maintain, that the whole course of the
events of life depends upon man’s own free will, that fate has no
influence over human affairs, and that it rests with ourselves to be the
authors of our own weal or woe. The Pharisees, with more reason, teach
that some things in our lives are the work of fate, but not all, and
that in some cases it depends upon ourselves whether events shall happen
or not. But how many rulers of the world must they then suppose to
exist, or how would they contrive to keep this host of rulers in order
and in harmony? How much more just and consistent is the doctrine of the
Essenes, that fate disposes of all events, that nothing happens to man
without its appointment, and that the great and the trifling in events,
what is necessary and what is apparently arbitrary, all is alike subject
to a predestined order!”
“Nay,” Elisama exclaimed, “these are subjects on which only the Messiah
when he comes can instruct us fully—but this doctrine is horrible.”
“Myron would say,” observed Helon, “that the Essenes were Jewish
Pythagoreans; as the Pharisees might be called Jewish Stoics; and the
Sadducees, Jewish Epicureans.”
Their conversation broke off here, all parties being a little out of
humour, an effect to which the desert on which they had now entered
perhaps contributed. It was a long, hilly, dreary waste. Deep ravines
without verdure opened beside serrated cliffs, sometimes of a chalky
whiteness, sometimes of sand. No fountain, no shrub, was to be
discerned, as far as the eye could reach; scarce here and there a
stunted plant or a dry blade of grass. The rocks were rent and thrown in
such wild confusion, that Helon thought an earthquake must have torn up
the bowels of the earth, in this abode of desolation and of death.
Towards the east, between the ragged summits of the hills, the thick
clouds of smoke from the Dead Sea arose, as from the bottom of the
abyss. From the higher ground the region around Jericho might indeed be
seen, but it served by the contrast rather to aggravate the dreariness
of the nearer scene.
Selumiel was the first to resume the discourse. “You remarked,” said he
to Helon, “that the Essenes are Jewish Pythagoreans; and there are in
truth many points of resemblance between them. Both practise community
of goods, both hold in abhorrence every kind of effeminacy and
voluptuousness, both love white garments, forbid to take an oath, drink
only water, pay extraordinary reverence to old age, enjoin silence for a
stated time upon their novices, offer only unbloody sacrifices, and
teach that destiny is supreme and uncontroulable in human affairs. They
agree besides in this, that both believe the soul alone to be immortal;
while the Sadducees deny that any thing of man is imperishable, and the
Pharisees maintain the resurrection of the body. This coincidence in so
many remarkable points may give us a clue to the common source of their
doctrines and institutions. Pythagoras is said to have been in Babylon
at the time of our captivity, and Zerdusht to have known Israel on the
banks of Chebar—may not these both have drawn from the same source as
our Essenes? For my own part, I consider the Essenes to be those who
have preserved the original knowledge of divine things in the greatest
purity. Hence it is that they so zealously observe the law, that they
keep the sabbath with peculiar sanctity, that they consider agriculture
as the most honourable of all occupations, that they hold Moses in the
highest veneration, and endeavour to observe the precepts of the law
with unusual strictness, directing their attention to its inward
fulfilment in the heart, rather than the outward act of conformity to
its commands. Of their mode of life you shall judge for yourself, when
we visit their village; their heroic deeds in war are known from the
recent history of our country.”
Helon’s attention and interest were very powerfully excited, but the
last warning of the old man of the temple resounded in his ears, and to
interrupt the panegyrics of Selumiel, he asked him, “Can you tell me
when they made their first appearance, and what is their origin?”
“Some,” said Selumiel, “suppose them to descend from Jonadab, the son
Rechab, who lived before the captivity; others, from those who fled into
the desert with Judas Maccabæus, during the oppression of the Syrian
kings; while others deduce them from Egypt, and from some of its sects
of heathen philosophers. I hold them, however, to be of very high
antiquity.”
While he was thus speaking, they saw a wanderer hastening over one of
the naked hills which were near them. He was an aged man, of a spare
form and long white beard, who, supporting his steps with a staff, kept
on his way without looking around him, the human counterpart of this
ungenial region. “This,” said Selumiel, “is one of them: I know him by
his clothing, and by his only spitting behind him.” As he approached
they greeted him, and he gravely returned the salutation. According to
the custom of the Essenes he was clad only in white garments, and
carried nothing but a staff on his journey.
“Wilt thou guide us to the Oasis of the Essenes?” asked Helon.
“Follow me,” he replied abruptly.
“How many are there of you?” asked Helon, endeavouring to engage him in
conversation.
“There are four thousand of us in this country.”
“But I am surprised that you travel without any wallet.”
“I am come, curious youth, from a distance, to assist at the trial of
one of our body, which cannot be held by fewer than one hundred persons.
Among us every thing is in common. We avoid great cities, but where we
go we trust to the hospitality of our brethren.”
“Who is the transgressor on whom ye are to sit in judgment?” asked
Selumiel.
“A man who had scarcely completed his probation, and was not able to
keep the secret of our institution.”
“Tell me,” said Helon, “I beseech you, what is the probation which must
be gone through, before any one can be received as a member of your
society.”
“He receives a white garment, a girdle of peculiar sanctity, and a
spade, after which he must labour for a year, and practise
self-examination. He is then received into our society, but for three
years is not admitted to the common table. If in this time he gives
evident tokens of being discreet, just, temperate, and chaste, an oath
of tremendous sanctity is demanded from him, that he will before all
things honour and serve the Lord, that he will be just towards men, that
he will hate all unrighteousness, assist the pious, keep his faith and
word towards every man, and pay profound obedience to the magistrate,
who rules not but by the ordination of God; that he will not himself
abuse power if he should be in possession of it, that he will keep his
hands pure from theft and his mind from the desire of unlawful gain;
that he will conceal nothing from his brethren, nor reveal their secrets
to any other, even when threatened with tortures and death; that he will
not communicate the doctrines of the body to any one, in any other form
than that in which they have been taught to him, and that he will keep
with equal care the books of doctrine and the names of the angels. When
he has sworn to do all this, he is admitted to a participation in the
bath, in the common meal, and all the secrets of the society.”
The gravity of the man, the solemnity of his words, and the earnestness
with which he spoke, thrilled through Helon’s frame, combined as they
were with the peculiar character of the scene.
They proceeded without further speaking, till they came within sight of
an Oasis, a fruitful spot amidst the waste. A fountain rose here from a
cleft in the rock, and a few cottages, surrounded by cultivated fields,
stood under the shade of palm-trees. Beyond the immediate neighbourhood
of the fountain all was wild, desolate, and barren, an emblem, according
to the Essenes, of the soul of an unrighteous man, and the naphtha-smoke
which rose in the distance from the Dead Sea, they regarded as a type of
the future punishment of the wicked. This was the settlement of the
Essenes. As they approached, they perceived by the multitude of persons
who were going to and fro, that the trial had occasioned an unusual
resort. Yet, in spite of this, every thing went on with such a
stillness, as if single individuals were pursuing some noiseless
occupation. An Essene, an acquaintance of Selumiel, told them how great
was the consternation and horror of the whole body, at the discovery
that a traitor had divulged their secrets. This offence was to be
visited by the most fearful penalty of their code, expulsion from their
society. Its terror consisted in this, that having bound himself by an
oath, which even the unworthy dared not violate, never to use ordinary
food, nor even to receive food at all from other men, there was nothing
left him, but to support himself on roots and herbs till he died.
They arrived about the fifth hour (eleven o’clock) the time when they
took their meal in common. They had risen before daylight, had conversed
together briefly, but only concerning divine, never concerning human
things, and had then greeted the sun as if imploring him to rise. After
this every one had been dismissed by the person under whose
superintendence he was placed, to pursue his labour for the day, and
having now pursued it for several hours, they had bathed themselves in
cold water a second time, and girded themselves with the sacred linen
dress. Assembling in a hall, the entrance to which was forbidden to all
but the members of their own order, they had thence proceeded, as
carefully purified as if they were in a temple, to their refectory,
where they seated themselves at table, not reclined as was the custom of
the east. Bread and vegetables were placed before them; a priest prayed
before and after the meal; while eating, a solemn silence was preserved,
and when they had finished, they laid aside the holy garment, and each
prepared himself to pursue his labour without intermission till the
evening.
Food was placed before the strangers, Essene fare, bread and hyssop. No
women were to beseen: for the Essenes on this Oasis belonged to the
highest class, in which marriage was forbidden: it was allowed in the
inferior classes, only with strict limitations and restraints. They must
speedily have become extinct, had it not been that they received many
children among them for education, and that many grown-up persons
constantly joined their society, weary of the cares and vicissitudes of
busy life. Thus they formed a society which never died out, although no
child was born among them. They allowed no traffic in their community,
because it must have been carried on through the medium of gold, which
they considered as the root of all moral corruption; they had no
servants, for each ministered to the other; and they took no oath, that
which they had taken at their admission rendering every other
superfluous.
Although our travellers were not admitted into the refectory of the
Essenes, they were not alone. They found a multitude of sick persons
assembled, who had come in hope of relief from the secret wisdom of the
Essenes. They performed their cures by means of mysterious formularies,
and recipes carefully preserved in their ancient books. These books had
come to them in times of venerable antiquity from remote regions of the
east, and were carefully studied by them, especially on the sabbath,
which they held even more sacred than the other Jews. Their cures were
wrought chiefly by enforcing temperance, self-command, and the dominion
of the soul over the body; and with these means they performed wonders.
The simplicity of their lives preserved their health to extreme old age,
and not a few boasted that the spirit of prophecy had been wakened in
them.
When Selumiel and Elisama had laid themselves down after the frugal
repast, to rest beneath the palms, Helon went about to examine the whole
arrangement and economy of this establishment. He would gladly have
entered into conversation with some of the Essenes, but no one addressed
him, and the determined taciturnity of their looks, and the profound
stillness which reigned around these cottages, deterred him from making
the attempt. He silently followed an aged man, who with his staff was
making his round through the fields, when about noon every one was
already again at his labour, and who seemed to be superintending their
operations. The bending of the men, the prostration of the youths, as he
approached them, showed to Helon that reverence for age was here
inculcated and practised as a part of the duties of religion. Every
thing here was done by command; no man followed a will of his own;
indeed the will itself appeared to be social not individual, one thing
only was excepted—beneficence. If those who were in need were not his
own kindred, every one might assist and relieve them without asking
permission or waiting for a command. The fields were covered with
luxuriant crops, but the cultivators themselves were spare and pale.
Selumiel and Elisama had rested themselves, the heat of the mid-day was
past, and there was no more to be discovered in a day than in an hour
respecting the Essenes. The simple exterior of their habits and customs
was easily seen. To learn any part of their secrets, it was necessary to
listen in silence for years together. Our travellers therefore broke up
immediately after the mid-day, and continued their tedious way through
the desert to Jericho. Selumiel had requested his friend, the Essene, to
be their guide, as the road was intricate even to those who had
frequently travelled it. The Essene, at home amidst these solitudes,
readily complied, and led them through ravines, amidst precipices,
through sandy plains destitute of vegetation, and over naked hills.
Always alert and ready to assist, he went before them, gave them his
hand in difficult parts of the way, supported the elder men in the
steeper ascents, and answered every question that was addressed to him,
but so briefly that he seemed to weigh every word, and to be in
perpetual apprehension of allowing one that was superfluous to escape
his lips.
In answer to the question of Elisama, whence the name of Essene was
derived, he informed them that it was Persian, and denoted the
resemblance of their life to that of bees. “We learn from them to be
unwearied in our diligence, to live in brotherly union, to be without
distinction of sex in respect to desire, and to gather stores for the
supply of others.” Their contempt for the female sex and aversion from
matrimony displeased Elisama, who called the latter an ordinance of God,
and pronounced it a vain and presumptuous thought of man, to wish to
annihilate the distinction of sex, when the Creator had made the human
race male and female.
Selumiel endeavoured to silence Elisama, by reminding him that nearly
all the members of this community were old men. But the Essene himself
would not accept this explanation; he maintained that this opinion was
intimately and necessarily connected with the rest of their system. “The
body as ye see,” said he, “is perishable and its elements for ever
changing; the soul is immortal and unchangeable. Sprung from the purest
ether, it is drawn down to the body by a certain natural impulse, and
kept as it were imprisoned there while the body continues to exist. When
freed from the fetters of the flesh, it rejoices like those delivered
from a long and galling bondage, and wings its flight upwards. The souls
of the just are conducted to an abode, beyond the ocean, of
indescribable delight, where neither rain nor snow deforms the sky, and
mild sea-breezes temper the rays of the sun. The wicked, on the
contrary, are condemned to eternal thraldom and torment in a dwelling of
frost and darkness. Should not then every soul abhor and shun
intemperance and pleasure, as its worst enemies, and renounce every
gratification which would give the body an ascendency over it, while it
cultivates sobriety and chastity as the means of making its present
captivity more tolerable, and of being ultimately delivered from it?”
The Essene spoke thus, animated in the defence of his doctrines, and
almost forgetting the ordinary conciseness of his discourse. When he had
ended, he turned abruptly round, after a brief salutation to the
travellers. A hill higher than any in the desert, and equally bare,
though on its verge, stood before them. They looked back, and saw the
Essene vanishing among the intricacies of the path which they had just
quitted, carefully holding his garments together, and hastening back to
his brethren, without looking to the right hand or to the left. Helon
seemed to breathe more freely as they emerged from this region of
desolation. Selumiel, looking back towards the Oasis, and leaning on his
staff, asked his companions, “Now, then, how like ye my Essenes?”
“Call them not _thy_ Essenes,” said Elisama, “for, Jehovah be praised,
there is a wide difference between them and thee.”
“Allow me this,” said Selumiel, “and I will in return allow thee to
speak of _thy_ Pharisees.”
“That,” said Elisama, very earnestly, “I shall never be; call me an
Aramæan Jew, and I shall gladly accept the title.”
“What difference should one or the other make in our friendship?” said
Selumiel. “Cannot we attach ourselves to different opinions, without any
breach of our mutual good-will? Iddo takes it ill if I call him a
Sadducee.”
“Alas for Israel,” said Elisama; “shall peace never come to thee? It has
been a melancholy reflection to me, that in the land where alone Israel
is truly Israel, I have scarcely found a single old friend who does not
lean to one sect or other. What will be the end of these things?”
The young priest, dissatisfied with the turn which their conversation
had taken, said hastily, and in a manner which neither of the old men
understood, “In my service in the temple one thing only displeased me,
that the turn of duty comes to each course of priests but once in
twenty-four weeks. I fain would live the life of a priest every week and
every day.”
“You might have discovered the method of doing so this very day,” said
Selumiel.
“The Essenes do not sacrifice,” said Helon; “how then shall I find among
them a perpetual priesthood?”
Elisama looked at him with astonishment. Selumiel, rejoiced as if he had
come over to his opinion, replied, “You may find it in the daily
mortification of your body and obedience to the law.”
“No,” said Elisama, “I will tell you—the conjugal and domestic life is
the perpetual priesthood. You know that the patriarchs sacrificed with
their own hands, and even now the master of the house becomes a priest,
when, at the feast of the Passover, he kills the lamb, blesses the
bread, and praises Jehovah. In spite of all the Essenes and their
admirers,” said he, looking significantly at Selumiel, “it is my
opinion, that the true Chasidean must be the father of a family.”
Selumiel stretched out his hand to the friend of his youth; they turned
round, and scarcely had they advanced a few steps further when they had
reached the summit of the hill, and the garden of God, the plain of
Jericho, lay before them. The towers of the city arose from amidst the
fertile fields, through which the silver Jordan wound its course. From
the valley of death through which they had just passed, they had emerged
into a scene where life displayed itself in all its luxuriance and
fulness. The wide meadows through which the Jordan rolled were adorned
by groups of towering palm trees and balsam bushes; the hills on both
sides closed in the landscape with a beautifully picturesque effect. The
air was fragrant with the odour of the roses which bear the name of
Jericho. The note of the quail was heard in the corn-fields, the eagle
swept his majestic way through the air, and the stork and the pelican
strode stately beside the flood.