[Sidenote: (iv) Avoidance of the Temple sacrifices.]
(iv) But not only where the Essenes superadded to the ceremonial law,
does their teaching present a direct contrast to the phenomena of the
Gospel narrative. The same is true also of those points in which they
fell short of the Mosaic enactments. I have already discussed at some
length the Essene abstention from the temple sacrifices[504]. There can,
I think, be little doubt that they objected to the slaughter of
sacrificial victims altogether. But for my present purpose it matters
nothing whether they avoided the temple on account of the sacrifices, or
the sacrifices on account of the temple. Christ did neither. Certainly
He could not have regarded the temple as unholy; for his whole time
during his sojourns at Jerusalem was spent within its precincts. It was
the scene of His miracles, of His ministrations, of His daily
teaching[505]. And in like manner it is the common rendezvous of His
disciples after Him[506]. Nor again does He evince any abhorrence of the
sacrifices. On the contrary He says that the altar consecrates the
gifts[507]; He charges the cleansed lepers to go and fulfil the Mosaic
ordinance and offer the sacrificial offerings to the priests[508].
[Sidenote: Practice of Christ and His disciples.]And His practice also
is conformable to His teaching. He comes to Jerusalem regularly to
attend the great festivals, where sacrifices formed the most striking
part of the ceremonial, and He himself enjoins preparation to be made
for the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb. If He repeats the inspired
warning of the older prophets, that mercy is better than sacrifice[509],
this very qualification shows approval of the practice in itself. Nor is
His silence less eloquent than His utterances or His actions. Throughout
the Gospels there is not one word which can be construed as condemning
the sacrificial system or as implying a desire for its cessation until
everything is fulfilled.
Footnote 504:
See p. 134 sq.
Footnote 505:
Matt. xxi. 12 sq., 23 sq., xxiv. 1 sq., xxvi. 55, Mark xi. 11, 15 sq.,
27, xii. 35, xiii. 1 sq., xiv. 49, Luke ii. 46, xix. 45, xx. 1 sq.,
xxi. 37 sq., xxii. 53, John ii. 14 sq., v. 14, vii. 14, viii. 2, 20,
59, x. 23, xi. 56, xviii. 20.
Footnote 506:
Luke xxiv. 53, Acts ii. 46, iii. 1 sq., v. 20 sq., 42.
Footnote 507:
Matt. xxiii. 18 sq.: comp. v. 23, 24.
Footnote 508:
Matt. viii. 4, Mark i. 44, Luke v. 14.
Footnote 509:
Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7.
[Sidenote: (v) Denial of the resurrection of the body.]
(v) This last contrast refers to the ceremonial law. But not wide is the
divergence on an important point of doctrine. The resurrection of the
body is a fundamental article in the belief of the early disciples. This
was distinctly denied by the Essenes[510]. However gross and sensuous
may have been the conceptions of the Pharisees on this point, still they
so far agreed with the teaching of Christianity, as against the Essenes,
in that the risen man could not, as they held, be pure soul or spirit,
but must necessarily be body and soul conjoint.
Footnote 510:
See above p. 88.
[Sidenote: Some supposed coincidences considered.]
Thus at whatever point we test the teaching and practice of our Lord by
the characteristic tenets of Essenism, the theory of affinity fails.
There are indeed several coincidences on which much stress has been
laid, but they cannot be placed in the category of distinctive features.
They are either exemplifications of a higher morality, which may indeed
have been honourably illustrated in the Essenes, but is in no sense
confined to them, being the natural outgrowth of the moral sense of
mankind whenever circumstances are favourable. Or they are more special,
but still independent developments, which owe their similarity to the
same influences of climate and soil, though they do not spring from the
same root. To this latter class belong such manifestations as are due to
the social conditions of the age or nation, whether they result from
sympathy with, or from repulsion to, those conditions.
[Sidenote: Simplicity and brotherly love.]
Thus, for instance, much stress has been laid on the aversion to war and
warlike pursuits, on the simplicity of living, and on the feeling of
brotherhood which distinguished Christians and Essenes alike. But what
is gained by all this? It is quite plain that Christ would have approved
whatever was pure and lovely in the morality of the Essenes, just as He
approved whatever was true in the doctrine of the Pharisees, if any
occasion had presented itself when His approval was called for. But it
is the merest assumption to postulate direct obligation on such grounds.
It is said however, that the moral resemblances are more particular than
this. [Sidenote: Prohibition of oaths.]There is for instance Christ’s
precept ‘Swear not at all ... but let your communication be Yea, yea,
Nay, nay.’ Have we not here, it is urged, the very counterpart to the
Essene prohibition of oaths[511]? Yet it would surely be quite as
reasonable to say that both alike enforce that simplicity and
truthfulness in conversation which is its own credential and does not
require the support of adjuration, both having the same reason for
laying stress on this duty, because the leaders of religious opinion
made artificial distinctions between oath and oath, as regards their
binding force, and thus sapped the foundations of public and private
honesty[512]. And indeed this avoidance of oaths is anything but a
special badge of the Essenes. It was inculcated by Pythagoreans, by
Stoics, by philosophers and moralists of all schools[513]. When Josephus
and Philo called the attention of Greeks and Romans to this feature in
the Essenes, they were simply asking them to admire in these practical
philosophers among the ‘barbarians’ the realisation of an ideal which
their own great men had laid down. Even within the circles of Pharisaism
language is occasionally heard, which meets the Essene principle
half-way[514].
Footnote 511:
Jos. _B.J._ ii. 8. 6 πᾶν τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἰσχυρότερον ὅρκου· τὸ δὲ
ὀμνύειν αὐτοῖς περιΐσταται, χεῖρόν τι τῆς ἐπιορκίας ὑπολαμβάνοντες·
ἤδη γὰρ κατεγνῶσθαί φασι τὸν ἀπιστούμενον δίχα θεοῦ, Philo _Omn. prob.
lib._ 12 (II. p. 458) τοῦ φιλοθέου δείγματα παρέχονται μυρία ... τὸ
ἀνώμοτον κ.τ.λ. Accordingly Josephus relates (_Ant._ xv. 10. 4) that
Herod the Great excused the Essenes from taking the oath of allegiance
to him. Yet they were not altogether true to their principles; for
Josephus says (_B.J._ ii. 8. 7), that on initiation into the sect the
members were bound by fearful oaths (ὅρκους φρικώδεις) to fulfil
certain conditions; and he twice again in the same passage mentions
oaths (ὀμνύουσι, τοιούτοις ὅρκοις) in this connexion.
Footnote 512:
On the distinctions which the Jewish doctors made between the validity
of different kinds of oaths, see the passages quoted in Lightfoot and
Schöttgen on Matt. v. 33 sq. The Talmudical tract _Shebhuoth_ tells
its own tale, and is the best comment on the precepts in the Sermon on
the Mount.
Footnote 513:
See e.g. the passages in Wetstein on Matt. v. 37.
Footnote 514:
_Baba Metsia_ 49 _a_. See also Lightfoot on Matt. v. 34.
[Sidenote: Community of goods.]
And again; attention has been called to the community of goods in the
infant Church of Christ, as though this were a legacy of Essenism. But
here too the reasonable explanation is, that we have an independent
attempt to realise the idea of brotherhood—an attempt which naturally
suggested itself without any direct imitation, but which was soon
abandoned under the pressure of circumstances. Indeed the communism of
the Christians was from the first wholly unlike the communism of the
Essenes. The surrender of property with the Christians was not a
necessary condition of entrance into an order; it was a purely voluntary
act, which might be withheld without foregoing the privileges of the
brotherhood[515]. And the common life too was obviously different in
kind, at once more free and more sociable, unfettered by rigid
ordinances, respecting individual liberty, and altogether unlike a
monastic rule.
Footnote 515:
514: Acts v. 4.
Not less irrelevant is the stress, which has been laid on another point
of supposed coincidence in the social doctrines of the two communities.
[Sidenote: Prohibition of slavery.]The prohibition of slavery was indeed
a highly honourable feature in the Essene order[516], but it affords no
indication of a direct connexion with Christianity. It is true that this
social institution of antiquity was not less antagonistic to the spirit
of the Gospel, than it was abhorrent to the feelings of the Essene; and
ultimately the influence of Christianity has triumphed over it. But the
immediate treatment of the question was altogether different in the two
cases. The Essene brothers proscribed slavery wholly; they produced no
appreciable results by the proscription. The Christian Apostles, without
attempting an immediate and violent revolution in society, proclaimed
the great principle that all men are equal in Christ, and left it to
work. It did work, like leaven, silently but surely, till the whole lump
was leavened. In the matter of slavery the resemblance to the Stoic is
much closer than to the Essene[517]. The Stoic however began and ended
in barren declamation, and no practical fruits were reaped from his
doctrine.
Footnote 516:
Philo _Omn. prob. lib._ § 12 (II. p. 458) δοῦλός τε παρ’ αὐτοῖς οἰδὲ
εἶς ἐστιν ἀλλ’ ἐλεύθεροι πάντες κ.τ.λ., _Fragm._ II. p. 632 οὐκ
ἀνδράποδον, Jos. _Ant._ xviii. I. 5 οὔτε δούλων ἐπιτηδεύουσι κτῆσιν.
Footnote 517:
See for instance the passages from Seneca quoted in _Philippians_ p.
305.
[Sidenote: Respect paid to poverty.]
Moreover prominence has been given to the fact, that riches are decried,
and a preference is given to the poor, in the teaching of our Lord and
His Apostles. Here again, it is urged, we have a distinctly Essene
feature. We need not stop to enquire with what limitations this
prerogative of poverty, which appears in the Gospels, must be
interpreted; but, quite independently of this question, we may fairly
decline to lay any stress on such a coincidence, where all other
indications of a direct connexion have failed. The Essenes, pursuing a
simple and ascetic life, made it their chief aim to reduce their
material wants as far as possible, and in doing so they necessarily
exalted poverty. Ascetic philosophers in Greece and Rome had done the
same. Christianity was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming the
equal rights of all men before God, of setting a truer standard of human
worth than the outward conventions of the world, of protesting against
the tyranny of the strong and the luxury of the rich, of redressing
social inequalities, if not always by a present compensation, at least
by a future hope. The needy and oppressed were the special charge of its
preachers. It was the characteristic feature of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’
as described by the prophet whose words gave the keynote to the
Messianic hopes of the nation, that the glad-tidings should be preached
to the poor[518]. The exaltation of poverty therefore was an absolute
condition of the Gospel.
Footnote 518:
Is. lxi. I. εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς, quoted in Luke iv. 18. There are
references to this particular part of the prophecy again in Matt. xi.
5, Luke vii. 22, and probably also in the beatitude μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί
κ.τ.λ., Matt. v. 3, Luke vi. 20.
[Sidenote: The preaching of the Kingdom wrongly ascribed to the
Essenes.]
The mention of the kingdom of heaven leads to the last point on which it
will be necessary to touch before leaving this subject. ‘The whole
ascetic life of the Essenes,’ it has been said, ‘aimed only at
furthering the _Kingdom of Heaven_ and the _Coming Age_.’ Thus John the
Baptist was the proper representative of this sect. ‘From the Essenes
went forth the first call that the Messiah must shortly appear, _The
kingdom of heaven is at_ _hand_’[519]. ‘The announcement of the kingdom
of heaven unquestionably went forth from the Essenes’[520]. For this
confident assertion there is absolutely no foundation in fact; and, as a
conjectural hypothesis, the assumption is highly improbable.
Footnote 519:
Grätz _Gesch._ III. p. 219.
Footnote 520:
_ib._ p. 470.
[Sidenote: The Essenes not prophets, but fortune-tellers.]
As fortune-tellers or soothsayers, the Essenes might be called prophets;
but as preachers of righteousness, as heralds of the kingdom, they had
no claim to the title. Throughout the notices in Josephus and Philo we
cannot trace the faintest indication of Messianic hopes. Nor indeed was
their position at all likely to foster such hopes[521]. The Messianic
idea was built on a belief in the resurrection of the body. The Essenes
entirely denied this doctrine. The Messianic idea was intimately bound
up with the national hopes and sufferings, with the national life, of
the Jews. The Essenes had no interest in the Jewish polity; they
separated themselves almost entirely from public affairs. [Sidenote:
They had no vivid Messianic expectations.]The deliverance of the
individual is the shipwreck of the whole, it has been well said, was the
plain watchword of Essenism[522]. How entirely the conception of a
Messiah might be obliterated, where Judaism was regarded only from the
side of a mystic philosophy, we see from the case of Philo. Throughout
the works of this voluminous writer only one or two faint and doubtful
allusions to a personal Messiah are found[523]. The philosophical tenets
of the Essenes no doubt differed widely from those of Philo; but in the
substitution of the individual and contemplative aspect of religion for
the national and practical they were united; and the effect in obscuring
the Messianic idea would be the same. When therefore it is said that the
prominence given to the proclamation of the Messiah’s kingdom is a main
link which connects Essenism and Christianity, we may dismiss the
statement as a mere hypothesis, unsupported by evidence and improbable
in itself.
Footnote 521:
Lipsius Schenkel’s _Bibel-Lexikon_ s.v. Essäer p. 190, Keim _Jesus von
Nazara_ I. p. 305. Both these writers express themselves very
decidedly against the view maintained by Grätz. ‘The Essene art of
soothsaying,’ writes Lipsius, ‘has absolutely nothing to do with the
Messianic prophecy. ‘Of all this,’ says Keim,‘there is no trace.’
Footnote 522: