appear to have been an enthusiastic sect, never numerous, and but little
known; directly opposite to the Pharisees with respect to their reliance
upon tradition, and their scrupulous regard to the ceremonial law, but
pretending, like them, to superior sanctity of manners. They existed in
the time of our Saviour; and though they are not mentioned 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 the account given of the doctrines and institutions of
this sect by Philo and Josephus, we learn that they believed in the
immortality of the soul; that they were absolute predestinarians; that
they observed the seventh day with peculiar strictness; that they held
the Scriptures in the highest reverence, but considered them as mystic
writings, and expounded them allegorically; that they sent gifts to the
temple, but offered no sacrifices; that they admitted no one into their
society till after a probation of three years; that they lived in a
state of perfect equality, except that they paid respect to the aged,
and to their priests; that they considered all secular employment as
unlawful, except that of agriculture; that they had all things in
common, and were industrious, quiet, and free from every species of
vice; that they held celibacy and solitude in high esteem; that they
allowed no change of raiment till necessity required it; that they
abstained from wine; that they were not permitted to eat but with their
own sect; and that a certain portion of food was allotted to each
person, of which they partook together, after solemn ablutions. The
austere and retired life of the Essenes is supposed to have given rise
to monkish superstition.
The Therapeutæ were a distinct branch of the Essenes. Jahn has thus
described the difference between them: The principal ground of
difference between the Essenes or Essaëi, and Therapeutæ consisted in
this; the former were Jews, who spoke the Aramean; the latter were Greek
Jews, as the names themselves intimate, namely, אסיא and Θεραπευταὶ. The
Essenes lived chiefly in Palestine; the Therapeutæ, in Egypt. The
Therapeutæ were more rigid than the Essenes, since the latter, although
they made it a practice to keep at a distance from large cities, lived,
nevertheless, in towns and villages, and practised agriculture and the
arts, with the exception of those arts which were made more directly
subservient to the purposes of war. The Therapeutæ, on the contrary,
fled from all inhabited places, dwelt in fields and deserts and gardens,
and gave themselves up to contemplation. Both the Essenes and the
Therapeutæ held their property in common, and those things which they
stood in need of for the support and the comforts of life, were
distributed to them from the common stock. The candidates for admission
among the Essenes gave their property to the society; but those who were
destined for a membership with the Therapeutæ, left theirs to their
friends; and both, after a number of years of probation, made a
profession which bound them to the exercise of the strictest
uprightness. The Romanists pretend, as Dr. Prideaux observes, without
any foundation, that the Essenes were Christian monks, formed into a
society by St. Mark, who founded the first church at Alexandria. But it
is evident, from the accounts of Josephus and Philo, that the Essenes
were not Christians, but Jews.
Dr. Neander’s account of the Essenes is as follows:--A company of pious
men, much experienced in the trials of the outward and of the inward
life, had withdrawn themselves out of the strife of theological and
political parties, at first apparently (according to Pliny the elder) to
the western side of the Dead Sea; where they lived together in intimate
connection, partly in the same sort of society as the monks of later
days, and partly as mystical orders in all periods have done. From this
society, other smaller ones afterward proceeded, and spread themselves
over all Palestine. They were called Essenes, Ἐσσηνοὶ or Ἐσσαιοὶ. They
employed themselves in the arts of peace, agriculture, pasture,
handicraft works, and especially in the art of healing, while they took
great delight in investigating the healing powers of nature. It is
probable, also, that they imagined themselves under the guidance of a
supernatural illumination in their search into nature, and their use of
her powers. Their natural knowledge, and their art of healing, appear
also to have had a religious, theosophic character, as they professed
also to have peculiar prophetical gifts. The Essenes were, no doubt,
distinguished from the mass of ordinary Jews by this, that they knew and
loved something higher than the outward ceremonial and a dead faith,
that they did really strive after holiness of heart, and inward
communion with God. Their quiet, pious habits also rendered them
remarkable, and by means of these they remained quiet amidst all the
political changes, respected by all parties, even by the Heathens; and
by their laborious habits and kindness, their obedience toward the
higher powers, as ordained of God, their fidelity and love of truth,
they were enabled to extend themselves in all directions. In their
society every yea and nay had the force of an oath; for every oath, said
they, pre-supposes a mutual distrust, which ought not to be the case
among a society of honest men. Only in one case was an oath suffered
among them, namely, as a pledge for those who after a three years’
noviciate were to be received into the number of the initiated.
According to the portraiture of them, given by Philo, the Alexandrian,
in his separate treatise concerning the “True Freedom of the Virtuous,”
we should take the Essenes for men of an entirely practical religious
turn, far removed from all theosophy and all idle speculation; and we
should ascribe to them an inward religious habit of mind, free from all
mixture of superstition and reliance on outward things. But the account
of Philo does not at all accord with that of Josephus; and the more
historical Josephus deserves in general more credit than Philo, who was
too apt to indulge in philosophizing and idealism. Beside, Josephus had
more opportunity of knowing this sect thoroughly, than Philo; for Philo
lived in Egypt, and the Essenes did not extend beyond Palestine.
Josephus had here passed the greater part of his life, and had certainly
taken all necessary pains to inform himself accurately of the nature of
the different sects, among which he was determined, as a youth of
sixteen years of age, to make choice, although he can hardly have
completely passed through a noviciate in the sect of the Essenes,
because he made the round of all the three Jewish sects, in a period of
from three to four years. Josephus, also, shows himself completely
unprejudiced in this description; while Philo, on the contrary, wished
to represent the Essenes to the more cultivated Greeks as models of
practical wisdom, and, therefore, he allowed himself to represent much,
not as it really was, but as it suited his purpose. We must conclude
that the Essenes did also busy themselves with theosophy, and pretended
to impart to those of their order disclosures relating to the
supernatural world of spirits, because those who were about to be
initiated, were obliged to swear that they would never make known to any
one the names of the angels then to be communicated to them. The manner
in which they kept secret the ancient books of their sect is also a
proof of this. And, indeed, Philo himself makes it probable, when he
says, that they employed themselves with a φιλοσοφία διά συμβολῶν, a
philosophy which was supported by an allegorical interpretation of
Scripture, for this kind of allegorizing interpretation was usually the
accompaniment of a certain speculative system. According to Philo, they
rejected the sacrifice of victims, because they considered, that to
consecrate and offer up themselves wholly to God, was the only true
sacrifice, the only sacrifice worthy of God. But according to Josephus
they certainly considered sacrifice as something peculiarly holy, but
they thought that from its peculiar holiness it must have been
desecrated by the profane Jews in the temple of Jerusalem, and that it
could be worthily celebrated only in their holy community, just as
mystic sects of this nature are constantly accustomed to make the
_objective_ acts of religion dependent on the _subjective_ condition of
those who perform or take part in them. In the troublesome and
superstitious observance of the rest of the Sabbath, according to the
letter, and not according to the spirit, they went even farther than the
other Jews, only with this difference, that they were in good earnest in
the matter, while the Pharisees by their casuistry relaxed their rules,
or drew them tighter, just as it suited their purpose. The Essenes, not
only strenuously abhorred, like the other Jews, contact with the
uncircumcised, but, having divided themselves into four classes, the
Essenes of a higher grade were averse from contact with those of a
lower, as if they were rendered unclean by it, and when any thing of
this kind did happen, they purified themselves after it. Like many other
Jews, they attributed great value, in general, to lustration by bathing
in cold water. To their ascetic notions, the constant and healthy
practice in the east of anointing with oil seemed unholy, and if it
befel any one of them, he was obliged to purify himself. It was also a
great abomination to them to eat any food except such as had been
prepared by persons of their own sect. They would die rather than eat of
any other. This is a sufficient proof that although the Essenes might
possess a certain inward religious life, and a certain practical piety,
yet that these qualities with them, as well as with many other mystical
sects, as for example, those of the middle ages, were connected with a
theosophy, which desired to know things hidden from human reason,
ἐμβατευειν εἰς ἁ τις μη ἑωρακεν, and therefore lost itself in idle
imaginations and dreams, and were also mixed up with an outward
asceticism, a proud spirit of separation from the rest of mankind, and
superstitious observances and demeanours totally at variance with the
true spirit of inward religion.
ESTHER. The book of Esther is so called, because it contains the history
of Esther a Jewish captive, who by her remarkable accomplishments gained
the affection of King Ahasuerus, and by marriage with him was raised to
the throne of Persia; and it relates the origin and ceremonies of the
feast of Purim, instituted in commemoration of the great deliverance,
which she, by her interest, procured for the Jews, whose general
destruction had been concerted by the offended pride of Haman. There is
great diversity of opinion concerning the author of this book; it has
been ascribed to Ezra, to Mordecai, to Joachim, and to the joint labours
of the great synagogue; and it is impossible to decide which of these
opinions is the most probable. We are told, that the facts here recorded
happened in the reign of Ahasuerus king of Persia, “who reigned from
India even unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces,”
Esther i, 1; and this extent of dominion plainly proves that he was one
of the successors of Cyrus. That point is indeed allowed by all; but
learned men differ concerning the person meant by Ahasuerus, whose name
does not occur in profane history; and consequently they are not agreed
concerning the precise period to which we are to assign this history.
Archbishop Usher supposed, that by Ahasuerus was meant Darius Hystaspes,
and Joseph Scaliger contended that Xerxes was meant; but Dean Prideaux
has very satisfactorily shown, that by Ahasuerus we are to understand
Artaxerxes Longimanus. Josephus also considered Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes
as the same person; and we may observe, that Ahasuerus is always
translated Artaxerxes in the Septuagint version; and he is called by
that name in the apocryphal part of the book of Esther. See ECBATANA,
and AHASUERUS.
ETERNITY is an attribute of God. (See _God_.) The self-existent being,
says the learned Dr. Clarke, must of necessity be eternal. The ideas of
eternity and self-existence are so closely connected, that because
something must of necessity be eternal, independently and without any
outward cause of its being, therefore it must necessarily be
self-existent; and because it is impossible but something must be
self-existent, therefore it is necessary that it must likewise be
eternal. To be self-existent, is to exist by an absolute necessity in
the nature of the thing itself. Now this necessity being absolute, and
not depending upon any thing external, must be always unalterably the
same; nothing being alterable but what is capable of being affected by
somewhat without itself. That being therefore which has no other cause
of its existence but the absolute necessity of its own nature, must of
necessity have existed from everlasting, without beginning; and must of
necessity exist to everlasting, without end.
On the eternal duration of the divine Being, many have held a
metaphysical refinement. “The eternal existence of God,” it is said, “is
not to be considered as successive; the ideas we gain from time are not
to be allowed in our conceptions of his duration. As he fills all space
with his immensity, he fills all duration with his eternity; and with
him eternity is _nunc stans_, a permanent _now_, incapable of the
relations of past, present, and future.” Such, certainly, is not the
view given us of this mysterious subject in the Scriptures; and if it
should be said that they speak popularly, and are accommodated to the
infirmity of the reason of the body of mankind, we may reply, that
philosophy has not, with all its boasting of superior light, carried our
views on this attribute of the divine nature at all beyond revelation;
and, in attempting it, has only obscured the conceptions of its
admirers. “Filling duration with his eternity,” is a phrase without any
meaning: for how can any man conceive a permanent instant, which
coëxists with a perpetually flowing duration? One might as well
apprehend a mathematical point coëxtended with a line, a surface, and
all dimensions. As this notion has, however, been made the basis of some
theological opinions, it may be proper to examine it.
2. Whether we get our idea of time from the motion of bodies without us,
or from the consciousness of the succession of our own ideas, or both,
is not important to this inquiry. Time, in our conceptions, is
divisible. The artificial divisions are years, months, days, minutes,
seconds, &c. We can conceive of yet smaller portions of duration; and,
whether we have given to them artificial names or not, we can conceive
no otherwise of duration, than continuance of being, estimated as to
degree, by this artificial admeasurement, and therefore as substantially
answering to it. It is not denied but that duration is something
distinct from these its artificial measures; yet of this every man’s
consciousness will assure him, that we can form no idea of duration
except in this successive manner. But we are told that the eternity of
God is a fixed eternal _now_, from which all ideas of succession, of
past and future, are to be excluded; and we are called upon to conceive
of eternal duration without reference to past or future, and to the
exclusion of the idea of that _flow_ under which we conceive of time.
The proper abstract idea of duration is, however, simple continuance of
being, without any reference to the exact degree or extent of it,
because in no other way can it be equally applicable to all the
substances of which it is the attribute. It may be finite or infinite,
momentary or eternal; but that depends upon the substance of which it is
the quality, and not upon its own nature. Our own observation and
experience teach us how to apply it to ourselves. As to us, duration is
dependent and finite; as to God, it is infinite; but in both cases the
originality or dependence, the finiteness or infinity of it, arises, not
out of the nature of duration itself, but out of other qualities of the
subjects respectively.
3. Duration, then, as applied to God, is no more than an extension of
the idea as applied to ourselves; and to exhort us to conceive of it as
something essentially different, is to require us to conceive what is
inconceivable. It is to demand of us to think without ideas. Duration is
continuance of existence; continuance of existence is capable of being
longer or shorter; and hence necessarily arises the idea of the
succession of the minutest points of duration into which we can conceive
it divided. Beyond this the mind cannot go, it forms the idea of
duration no other way: and if what we call _duration_ be any thing
different from this in God, it is not duration, properly so called,
according to human ideas; it is something else, for which there is no
name among men, because there is no idea, and therefore it is impossible
to reason about it. As long as meta-physicians use the term, they must
take the idea: if they spurn the idea, they have no right to the term,
and ought at once to confess that they can go no farther. Dr. Cudworth
defines infinity of duration to be nothing else but perfection, as
including in it necessary existence and immutability. This, it is true,
is as much a definition of the moon, as of infinity of duration; but it
is valuable, as it shows that, in the view of this great man, though an
advocate of the _nunc stans_, “the standing now,” of eternity, we must
abandon the term _duration_, if we give up the only idea under which it
can be conceived.
4. It follows from this, therefore, that either we must apply the term
_duration_ to the divine Being in the same sense in which we apply it to
creatures, with the extension of the idea to a duration which has no
bounds and limits; or blot it out of our creeds, as a word to which our
minds, with all the aid they may derive from the labours of
metaphysicians, can attach no meaning. The only objection to successive
duration as applied to God, which has any plausibility, is, that it
seems to imply change; but this wholly arises from confounding two very
distinct things; succession in the duration, and change in the
substance. Dr. Cudworth appears to have fallen into this error. He
speaks of the duration of an imperfect nature, as sliding from the
present to the future, expecting something of itself which is not yet in
being; and of a perfect nature being essentially immutable, having a
permanent and unchanging duration, never losing any thing of itself once
present, nor yet running forward to meet something of itself which is
not yet in being. Now, though this is a good description of a perfect
and immutable nature, it is no description at all of an
eternally-enduring nature. Duration implies no loss in the substance of
any being, nor addition to it. A perfect nature never loses any thing of
itself, nor expects more of itself than is possessed; but this does not
arise from the attribute of its duration, however that attribute may be
conceived of, but from its perfection and consequent immutability. These
attributes do not flow from the duration, but the continuance of the
duration from them. The argument is clearly good for nothing, unless it
could be proved that successive duration necessarily implies a change in
the nature; but that is contradicted by the experience of finite
beings,--their natures are not at all determined by their duration, but
their duration by their natures; and they exist for a moment, or for
ages, according to the nature which their Maker has impressed upon them.
If it be said that, at least, successive duration imports that a being
loses past duration, and expects the arrival of future existence, we
reply, that this is no imperfection at all. Even finite creatures do not
feel it to be an imperfection to have existed, and to look for continued
and interminable being. It is true, with the past we lose knowledge and
pleasure; and expecting in all future periods increase of knowledge and
happiness, we are reminded by that of our present imperfection; but this
imperfection does not arise from our successive and flowing duration,
and we never refer it to that. It is not the past which takes away our
knowledge and pleasure; nor future duration, simply considered, which
will confer the increase of both. Our imperfections arise out of the
essential nature of our being, not out of the manner in which our being
is continued. It is not the flow of our duration, but the flow of our
nature, which produces these effects. On the contrary, we think that the
idea of our successive duration, that is of continuance, is an
advantage, and not a defect. Let all ideas of continuance be banished
from the mind, let there be to us a _nunc semper stans_, during the
whole of our being, and we appear to gain nothing,--our pleasures surely
are not diminished by the idea of successive duration being added to
present enjoyment: that they have been, and still remain, and will
continue, on the contrary, greatly heightens them. Without the idea of a
flowing duration, we could have no such measure of the continuance of
our pleasures; and this we should consider an abatement of our
happiness. What is so obvious an excellency in the spirit of man, and in
angelic natures, can never be thought an imperfection in God, when
joined with a nature essentially perfect and immutable.
5. But it may be said, that “eternal duration, considered as successive,
is only an artificial manner of measuring and conceiving of duration;
and is no more eternal duration itself than minutes and moments, the
artificial measures of time, are time itself.” Were this granted, the
question would still be, whether there is any thing in duration
considered generally, or in time considered specially, which corresponds
to these artificial methods of measuring and conceiving of them. The
ocean is measured by leagues; and the extension of the ocean, and the
measure of it, are distinct; they, nevertheless, answer to each other.
Leagues are the nominal divisions of an extended surface; but there is a
real extension, which answers to the artificial conception and
admeasurement of it. In like manner, days, and hours, and moments, are
the measures of time: but there is either something in time which
answers to these measures; or not only the measure, but the thing
itself, is artificial--an imaginary creation. If any man will contend,
that the period of duration which we call _time_ is nothing, no farther
dispute can be held with him; and he may be left to deny also the
existence of matter, and to enjoy his philosophic revel in an ideal
world. We apply the same argument to duration generally, whether finite
or infinite. Minutes and moments, or smaller portions, for which we have
no name, may be artificial things, adopted to aid our conceptions; but
conceptions of what? Not of any thing standing still, but of something
going on. Of duration we have no other conception; and if there be
nothing in nature which answers to this conception, then is duration
itself imaginary, and we discourse about nothing. If the duration of the
divine Being admits not of past, present, and future, one of these two
consequences must follow,--that no such attribute as that of eternity
belongs to him,--or that there is no power in the human mind to conceive
of it. In either case, the Scriptures are greatly impugned; for “He who
_was_, and _is_, and _is to come_,” is a revelation of the eternity of
God, which is then in no sense true. It is not true, if used literally:
and it is as little so, if the language be figurative; for the figure
rests on no basis, it illustrates nothing, it misleads. It is, however,
to be remembered, that the eternal, supreme cause, must of necessity
have such a perfect, independent, unchangeable comprehension of all
things, that there can be no one point or instant of his eternal
duration, wherein all things that are past, present, and to come, will
not be as entirely known and represented to him in one single thought or
view, and all things present and future be equally entirely in his power
and direction; as if there was really no succession at all, but all
things were actually present at once.
6. The Hebrew word for eternity is שלם. This is its proper sense; but,
as Gesenius observes, as with us in common life, it is often used in an
inaccurate or loose manner to express a very long space of time. So it
is applied to the Jewish priesthood; to the Mosaic ordinances; to the
possession of the land of Canaan; to the hills and mountains; to the
earth, &c. These must, however, be considered as exceptions to
predominant and certain usage.
ETHAN, the Ezrahite, one of the wisest men of his time; nevertheless,
Solomon was wiser than he, 1 Kings iv, 31. The eighty-ninth psalm bears
the name of Ethan the Ezrahite. This Ethan, and Ethan son of Kishi, of
the tribe of Levi, and of the family of Merari, are the same person, 1
Chron. vi, 44. He was called likewise Idithun, and appears under this
name in the titles to several psalms. He was a principal master of the
temple music, 1 Chron. xv, 17, &c.