Essenes (continued) – Esther

Essenes (continued)

Owing to the fact that so many of the doctrines and practices attributed to the Essenes have no resemblance to anything else in Judaism the question of origin has a special meaning in regard to them. Although like all Easterners the Jews have a desire for progeny--indeed the man who has no child occupies a secondary place in social esteem - yet the Essenes, or at all events some of them, shunned marriage. Despite the elaborate system of animal sacrifices that claimed to originate with Moses whom they venerated, they abjured bloody sacrifices. Although the seed of Aaron were anointed priests, they set up priests of their own. Their habit of morning and evening prayer, timed by the rising and setting of the sun, suggested sun- worship. The external resemblance of these tenets of the Essenes to those of the Pythagoreans impressed Josephus, and was emphasized by him all the more readily, since thus he brought himself and his nation into line with Greek thought. This suggestion of Josephus has led some, eg. Zeller, to the deduction that they were Jewish neo-Pythagoreans. The features of resemblance are formidable when drawn out in catalogue. He shows that like the Pythagoreans the Essenes regarded asceticism a means of holiness. Both abstained from animal food and bloody sacrifices, admired celibacy and, dressing in white linen garments, had frequent washings. Both prohibited oaths, both formed a corporate body into which admission was had by act of initiation and after probation. Community of goods was the custom in both. Both believed in transmigration of souls. The value of this formidable list is lessened by the fact that there is something of uncertainty on both sides as to the precise views and customs. Philo and Josephus unquestionably Hellenized the views of the Essenes when they presented them before readers educated in Greek culture; further the views of Pythagoras have come down to us in a confused shape.

4. Essenes and Pythagoras:

As to the assertion that the Pythagoreans dressed in white linen, Diogenes Laertius says that linen was not yet invented. Zeller has no sufficient evidence that the Essenes avoided the flesh of animals as food, and Diogenes Laertius expressly says that Pythagoras ate fish, though rarely (VIII, 18). While there seems no doubt as to the Pythagorean belief in the transmigration of souls, it seems certain that this was not a doctrine of the Essenes. Neither Philo nor Josephus attribute this view to them. This is the more striking that, immediately after dealing with the Essenes, Josephus proceeds to take up the doctrines of the Pharisees to whom he does attribute that view. Moreover the distinctive views of the Pythagoreans as to numbers and music have no sign of being held by the Essenes. On the other hand the fact that Pythagoras had a wife seems to throw doubt on their alleged preference for celibacy. Another chronological difficulty has to be met. The Pythagoreans as a society were put down in the 5th century before Christ. They may be regarded as having disappeared, till in the 2nd century AD they reappear as prominent neo-Pythagoreans. It is true that Cicero and Seneca mention Pythagoreans, but only as individuals who would claim to be the followers of Pythagoras, and not as members of a sect: they were without influence even in Italy.

5. Buddhism and Essenism:

Chronology is equally against the view favored by Hilgenfeld that the influence of Buddhism may be traced in Essenism. As late as the end of the 2nd century AD, Clement of Alexandria, although acquainted with the name Buddha, is ignorant of his tenets and of divisions of his followers. The Alexandria which Hilgenfeld identified with Alexandria of Egypt, in which there was a Buddhist settlement, was really to be found in Bactria, where a Buddhist settlement was likely.

6. Parseeism and Essenism:

There is more to be alleged in favor of Parsee influence being traceable. Neither geography nor chronology protests against this influence. The Jews were for centuries under the domination of the Persians, who were followers of Zoroaster. They seem on the whole to have been favored by the Persian rulers, a state of matters that would make the Jews all the more ready to view with sympathy the opinions and religion of these masters. Moreover the Persian worship had spread away to the west, far beyond Syria. At the same time it is easy to exaggerate the points of resemblance. The dualism alleged to be a leading feature in Essenism is more a matter of deduction than of distinct statement. Indeed the proofs alleged by Zeller are almost ludicrous in their insufficiency, since Philo says that the Essenes shun marriage because women are selfish (philautos), and Josephus, that they do so because women are addicted to excess (aselgeia); that therefore they regard the female generally as under the dominion of the evil principle, the fact being that this is really a part of the Hellenizing which the Essene views underwent at the hands of Philo and Josephus. The alleged sun-worship is scarcely more worthy of credit: it is a deduction not even plausible. When carefully looked at the evidence points the other way. Their first prayer is offered not at sunrise but before it (BJ, II, viii, 5); in other words, they work while it is day. Their evening orisons are offered after the sun has set. At the same time their elaborate angelology seems to be due to the influence of the Zend-Avesta, but in this the Essenes merely shared with the rest of the Jews. We know that the Jews brought the names of the angels with them from Babylon.

7. Essenism Mainly Jewish:

The most singular feature in Essenism is really a feature of Judaism emphasized out of proportion. It was unlike the Jews to shun marriage, yet in seasons when special holiness was required intercourse between the sexes was forbidden (Exodus 19:15; 1 Samuel 21:5). The whole act of sexual intercourse was regarded as unclean (Leviticus 15:16–18). In the Pauline Epistles uncleanness is used as equivalent to fornication (Romans 1:24; Romans 6:19, etc.). So also in 2 Peter 2:10. Such a view naturally led to the idea which soon became regnant in Christianity that the state of virginity was one of special sanctity (Revelation 14:4). The respect they gave to the unmarried state may be exaggerated. If Philo's representation (quoted in Euseb., Preposition Evan., VIII, 11) be correct, men were not admitted until maturity was attained and passed, when, therefore, such desires had begun to die down. Their avoidance of marriage is a matter of less importance. Their extreme reverence for the Sabath is of a piece with their celibacy. Their avoidance of the Temple sacrifices, so far as they did so, may well be due to something of more than contempt for the religion of the Sadducean high-priestly party. Moreover the long residence of Israel in Babylon, when the Temple worship had to be in abeyance, and the consequent prevalence of synagogue worship, tended to lessen the importance of the sacrifices of the Temple. Thus it would seem that the Essenes were really a Jewish sect that had retained more of the Zoroastrian elements than had the rest of the Jews.

V. Relation to the Apocalyptic Books.

Among the features of Essenism which seem to have impressed Josephus most was the fact that they had sacred books of their sect which they preserved, as also the names of the angels, thus bringing the Essenian special books into connection with angelology. These books their proselytes were bound by oath to preserve (BJ, II, viii, 7). Concerning the kindred sect of the Therapeutae, Philo says, "They have also writings of ancient men" (De Vita Contemp., III). On the other hand we have a mass of writings the same in character, dependent on one another, all apparently proceeding from one school of Jewish thought. Of the three sects of the Jews from which alone they could have proceeded the Sadducees are excluded because, while the apocalyptic books are full of angels, they believe neither in angel nor spirit (Acts 23:8). While doctrinally the Pharisees might suit, the fact that practically there is no reference to any of these books in the Talmud, which proceeded from the Pharisaic school, renders them unlikely to have been the authors. The Essenes seem to us to have been the school from which these apocalyptic works proceeded. The sect, at the fall of the Jewish state, disappeared in Christianity, and in the Christian church these books are preserved.

1. Reasons for Holding the Essenes to Be the Writers of the Apocalypses:

The section of the Essenes who dwelt as coenobites beside the Dead Sea were in circumstances specially liable to see visions and to have distorted views of morality, so that the composition of pseudonymous writings, literary forgeries, might seem right. As seen in the study of the apocalyptic books there is the undue prominence given to sexual sin--a prominence that seems to be symptomatic of the unhealthy mental state engendered by celibacy. These writings are the product of a school that professed to have secret sacred books. In 2 (4) Esdras 14:45,46 we have an account of how, while 24 of the sacred books were published to the multitude, 70 were retained for the "worthy," that is, for some inner circle, some brotherhood like the Essenes. In the Assumption of Moses, Joshua is commanded to place the revelations given him "in certain vessels and anoint them with oil of cedar." Such an order would be held as explaining at once the disappearance of the book for the years succeeding Moses and its opportune reappearance. On the one hand we have a sect that professes to have secret sacred books, and on the other we have sacred books that have been composed by a school that must have had many features which we recognize as Essenian. Further, the Essenes disappeared in the Christian church, and in the Christian church and not among the Jews are these books preserved.

2. Objections Answered:

The main objection to this ascription is the prominence of the Messianic hope in the apocalyptic books, and the absence of any notice in Josephus and Philo that the Essenes had this hope. But from neither of these writers could be discovered that any of the Jews cherished this hope. Yet from the New Testament we know that this hope was a prominent feature in national aspirations. Philo, associating perpetually with Greeks, would be sensitive to the ridicule to which such views would expose him, and how it would undo much of his laborious efforts to commend Judaism to the Greeks as a higher philosophy. Josephus had not only that motive, but the more serious one of personal safety. To have enlarged on Messianic hopes and declared these hopes to have been cherished by these Essenes whom he had praised so much would be liable to bring him under suspicion of disloyalty to Rome. The silence of these two writers proves nothing because it proves too much; and further we have easy explanation of this silence. The assumption of Dr. Charles that the Essenian ideal was ethical and individualistic is pure assumption. There is another objection that while the doctrine of resurrection is recognized in these books we know nothing of the Essenes holding it. That the Greeks and their scholars in philosophy, the Romans, looked at the idea of resurrection from the dead as a subject for ridicule would be reason sufficient for Philo and Josephus to suppress such a feature in their description of the Essenes. From them it could not be learned that the Pharisees ever had any such belief. It is also objected that while the Essenes held the pre-existence of souls, there is no trace of this belief in the apocalyptic books. Josephus, however, does not really assert that they believed in the prior existence of individual souls, but rather in a soul-stuff from which individual souls were separated. Thus both positively and negatively we think there is a strong case for the Essenes being regarded as the authors of the apocalyptic books. Further objections are brought forward by Dr. Charles as applicable to the Assumption of Moses specially. One is the interest manifested in the Temple by the writer while, so says Dr. Charles, "the Essene was excluded from its courts," and refers to Josephus, Ant, XVIII, i, 5. He must have forgotten, while penning this sentence, Ant, XIII, xi, 2, in which Judas, the Essene, is represented as teaching in the Temple. His objection that Josephus credits the Essenes with a belief in a paradise beyond the ocean like the Greek Islands of the Blest, appears to us to lay too much stress on what is in both cases figurative language. Moreover, in Enoch the description of Paradise (chapters 24-26) would almost seem to be the original from which Josephus (BJ, II, viii, 11) drew his picture. He seems to regard our ignorance of how far the Essenes agreed with the rest of their countrymen in considering the enemies of Israel "the wicked," as evidence that they disagreed with them on that point.

VI. The Essenes and Christinaity.

1. Resemblances between Essenism and Christianity:

That there were many points of resemblance between the Essenes and the church in its earliest form cannot be denied. The Essenes, we are told, maintained a community of goods and required anyone who joined their society to sell all he had and present it to the community (Hippolytus, Adv. Heret., ix; x; Josephus, BJ, II, viii, 3), just as so many of the primitive Christians did in Jerusalem (Acts 4:37). Another peculiarity of the Essenes--noted by Josephus (BJ, II, viii, 4)--that they moved about from city to city, and wherever they went found accommodation with members of their order, although perfect strangers, may be compared with our Lord's instructions to His disciples when He sent them forth (Matthew 10:11): "Into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter, search out who in it is worthy." When one thinks of who those worthy persons could be, and what was the evidence by which their worthiness was expected to be established, one is almost obliged to suppose that it was some specially easily recognized class that was so designated. If the worthiness in question was the moral quality, there are so many ideas of moral worth that when the apostles inquired, on entering a city, who was worthy, before they could act on the answer they would need to discover what was the criterion of worthiness in the mind of him from whom they had inquired. If, however, this term was the private designation of the members of a sect, one by which they, in speaking of each other, indicated that they were co-members, as the "Quakers" speak of each other as "Friends," the inquiry for those who were worthy would be simple enough. If the Essenes were "the worthy," then identification would be complete, but we cannot assume that. The majority of the points in which the Essenes resembled the primitive Christians are noted above in connection with each feature as it appears in the passage or passages of the authorities that record it, and to these we refer our readers.

2. Points of Difference:

At the same time, although there are thus many points of likeness, it is not to be denied that there are also many features in Essenism which are at variance with the practice of the early church and the teaching of our Lord and His apostles. The most prominent of these is the difference of attitude toward marriage and the female sex. Our Lord sanctified marriage by His presence at the marriage at Cana of Galilee, although He himself never married. He used the festivities of marriage again and again as illustrations. He drew women to Him and had none of the contempt of the sex which Josephus and Philo attribute to the Essenes. The apostles assume the marriage relationship as one into which Christians may be expected in due course to enter, and give exhortations suited to husbands and wives (1 Peter 3:1–7; Ephesians 5:22–33; Colossians 3:18,Colossians 3:19). The apostle Paul uses the relation of husband and wife as the symbol of the relation of Christ to His church (Ephesians 5:32). The writer of the Epistle to the He declares, "Marriage is honorable in all" (Hebrews 13:4 the King James Version). Another point in which the Essenes differed from the practice of our Lord and His disciples was the exaggerated reverence the former gave to the Sabbath, not even moving a vessel from one place to another on the seventh day. our Lord's declaration, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27), cuts at the feet of that whole attitude. The point of His conflict with the Pharisees was His disregard of the Sabbath as fenced by their traditions. The Essenes shrank from contact with oil, which our Lord certainly did not do. On the contrary He rebuked the Pharisee for his neglect (Luke 7:46). He was twice anointed by women, and in both cases commended the deed. The purely external and material bulked largely in the opinions of the Essenes. our Lord emphasized the internal and spiritual. Many have held and do hold that our Lord was an Essene. If at the beginning of His career He belonged to this sect He must have broken with it long before the end of His ministry.

Why our Lord Never Meets the Essenes. There are some phenomena which, irrespective of these resemblances and differences, have a bearing on the relation between Essenism and Christianity. The first is the fact that our Lord, who met so many different classes of the inhabitants of Palestine--Pharisees and Sadducees, Zealots and Herodians, publicans, Samaritans, Greeks--never is recorded to have met an Essene. The common answer, which satisfied even Bishop Lightfoot, is that they were so few and lived so retired that it was no marvel that He never encountered any of them. They had little or no effect on the national life. This mistaken answer is due to forgetting that though both Josephus and Philo say the Essenes were 4,000 they also declare that they were "many in every city," that there were "ten thousands of them." our Lord must have met them; but if the name "Essene" was a designation given from without like "Quakers," then they may appear in the Gospels under another name. There is a class of persons three times referred to--those "that waited for the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25 the King James Version), "looking for the redemption" (Luke 2:38), "waited for the kingdom of God" (Mark 15:43 the King James Version; Luke 23:51 the King James Version). There are thus Simeon and Anna at the beginning of His earthly life, and Joseph of Arimathea at the end, connected with this sect. If, then, this sect were the Essenes under another name, the difficulty would be removed. If, further, in any sense our Lord belonged, or had belonged, to the Essenes, then as He would be perpetually meeting and associating with them, these meetings would not be chronicled. A man cannot meet himself. If they are the authors of the apocalyptic books, as we contend, then the title "waiters for the kingdom of God" would be most suitable, full as these books are of Messianic hopes. If this opinion is correct our Lord's assumption of the title "Son of Man" is significant, taken in connection with the prominence given to that title in the Enoch books.

3. Disappearance of Essenism in Christianity:

Another significant phenomenon is the disappearance of Essenism in Christianity. Bishop Lightfoot, in his dissertation on the Colossian Heresy (Comm. on Col, 21-111), proves that it was Essenism. These Essenes must have been baptized into Christ, or they could not have got entry into the Christian communities which had been drawn to Christ from heathenism. But that is not the only heresy that is connected with the Essenes. The Ebionites seem to have been Essenes who had passed over into Christianity. In the Apostolical Constitutions the Ebionites and Essenes are brought into very close connection. Epiphanius, in his confused way, mixes up the various names under which the Essenes appear in his works with a certain Elkaisa, a connection also to be found in Hippolytus, an earlier and better authority. But Elkaisa claimed to be a Christian. His leading follower, Alcibiades, appeared in Rome and was resisted by Hippolytus. The Clementine Homilies, a religious novel of which Peter is the hero, has many Essenian features. It is assumed to be Ebionite, but that only makes the evidence that the Essenes had become Christians all the more convincing. The Ebionites were Christians, if defective in their views, and the presence of Essenian features in a work proceeding from them emphasizes the identity. See EBIONISM.

4. Monachism:

There is another phenomenon, more extensive and important than those we have considered above--the presence of Monachism in the church. Notwithstanding that our Lord prayed "not that" the disciples be taken "out of the world," but that they be kept "from the evil" (John 17:15), implying that they were not to retire into solitude, and that the apostle Paul regards it as demonstrating the falsity of our possible interpretation of an exhortation of his that it would imply that the disciples "must needs go out of the world" (1 Corinthians 5:10); yet the monks did retire from the world and regarded themselves as all the holier for so doing, and were regarded so by others. The apostle Paul declares the "forbidding to marry" one of "the doctrines of demons," yet very soon asceticism set in and virginity was regarded as far holier than the married state. Retirement from the world and asceticism were the two cardinal characteristics of Monachism. Despite that these were in antagonism to the teachings of Christ and His apostles, within little more than a century after our Lord's ascension Monachism began to appear, and prevailed more and more and continues to this day. These characteristics, retirement from the world and asceticism, especially forbidding to marry, were marked features of Essenism. The wholesale entrance of the Essene sect into the church would explain this. On the other hand this wholesale passing over into Christianity of so intensely Jewish a sect implies a historic connection or affinity. It is true that the catechetic school of Alexandria praises the contemplative life, so admired by their contemporaries, the neo-Platonists, and that philosophy which had been looked at askance by the church was, so to say, taken under their protection by the Alexandrian school, and the retirement of solitaries into the deserts or the formation of monasteries served to promote this contemplation. This led to all the extravagances of the monks being regarded as heights of philosophy. Such views were a cause, but as certainly were they also effects. The cause of these effects as it seems to us was to some extent the admiration extended by Philo, the Alexandrian, to the Essenes and Therapeutae, and the influence of Philo on his Christian successors in Alexandria.

LITERATURE.

Sources: Philo, Josephus, Pliny, Hegesippus, Porphyry, Hippolytus, Epiphanius. Secondary Literature: Besides works specially on the Essenes, the following are mentioned: Frankel, Die Essaer; Lucius, Der Essenismus; Ginsburg, Essenes; and portions of books, as Delaunay, Moines et Sibylles, 1-88; Thomson, Books Which Influenced our Lord, 74-122; Ritschl, Die Entstehung der alt-katholischen Kirche, 179-203; Lightfoot, Commentary on Col, 7-111, 347-417.

There are in histories of the Jews discussions of the questions in order. Of these may be noted: Ewald, Hist of Israel, V, 370-71; Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, III, 657-63; Schurer, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, II, ii, 188-218, translation. This opens with a fairly full account of the literature up to the date of the 2nd German edition; Zeller, Geschichte der Philos. der Griechen, III, ii, 2, pp. 235-93. There are also articles in various Bible and theological dictionaries, as Smith and Wace, Dict. of Eccles Biography; Smith and Fuller, Dict. of the Bible; HDB; Jewish Encyclopedia;RE; Schenkel, Bibel-Lexikon; M'Clintock, Theological Dict.

At the same time, while submitting these as a sample, and only as a sample, of the vast literature of the subject, we agree in the advice given by F. C. Conybeare--in HDB, under the word: "The student may be advised to study for himself the very limited documentary sources relating to the Essenes and then to draw his own conclusions." We feel the importance of this advice all the more that perusal has shown us that most of these secondary writers have considered exclusively the coenobite community at Engedi to the neglect of the wider society. After the student has formed opinions from a careful study of the sources he may benefit by these secondary works.

J. E. H. Thomson

Estate

es-tat':

While the King James Version uses both "estate" and "state" with the meaning of "condition," the American Standard Revised Version distinguishes, using "state" for the idea of condition, "estate" for position; and replaces "estate" of the King James Version by more definite expressions in many cases. Compare Colossians 4:7 the King James Version, "All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you," but 4:8, the King James Version "might know your estate" the Revised Version (British and American) "may know our state"; Luke 1:48 the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) "the low estate" (of the Lord's hand-maiden); Mark 6:21, the King James Version "chief estates" the Revised Version (British and American) "chief men"; Daniel 11:7,Daniel 11:20,Daniel 11:21,Daniel 11:38, the King James Version "his estate," the Revised Version (British and American) "his place," both with margin "his office."

F. K. Farr

Esteem

es-tem' (chashabh; hegeomai):

"To esteem" means sometimes simply "to think" or "reckon"; in other connections it means "to regard as honorable" or "valuable." We have examples of both senses in the Bible. The word most often so translated in the Old Testament is chashabh, meaning perhaps originally, "to bind," hence, "combine," "think," "reckon" (Job 41:27 the King James Version; Isaiah 29:16,Isaiah 29:17; Isaiah 53:4; Lamentations 4:2). In Isaiah 53:3 we have the word in the higher sense, "We esteemed him not." This sense is expressed also by `arakh, "to set in array," "in order" (Job 36:19, the King James Version "Will he esteem thy riches?" the English Revised Version "Will thy riches suffice?" margin "Will thy cry avail?" which the American Standard Revised Version adopts as the text); also by tsaphan, "to hide," "to conceal" (Job 23:12, the King James Version "I have esteemed the words of his mouth," the Revised Version (British and American) "treasured up"); qalah, "to be light," is translated "lightly esteemed" (1 Samuel 18:23, "I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed"), also qalal, same meaning (1 Samuel 2:30, "They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed"). In the New Testament, hegeomai, "to lead out," is used in the sense of "counting honorable," etc. (Philippians 2:3 the Revised Version (British and American) "counting"; 1 Thessalonians 5:13; perhaps Hebrews 11:26, but the Revised Version (British and American) has simply "accounting"); krino, "to judge," is used in the sense of "to reckon" (Romans 14:5 twice); also logizomai, "to reckon" (Romans 14:14, the Revised Version (British and American) "accounteth"); hupselos, "high," "exalted," is rendered "highly esteemed" in Luke 16:15 the King James Version, but in the Revised Version (British and American) "exalted"; exoutheneo, "to think nothing of," is translated "least esteemed" (1 Corinthians 6:4 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "of no account").

The following changes in the Revised Version (British and American) are of interest: for "He that is despised and hath a servant, is better than he that honoreth himself and lacketh bread" (Proverbs 12:9), "Better is he that is lightly esteemed"; for "Better is he than both they, which hath not yet been" (Ecclesiastes 4:3), "Better than them both did I esteem him," margin "Better than they both is he"; for "Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay" (Isaiah 29:16), "Ye turn things upside down!" (margin, "Oh your perversity!"), "Shall the potter be esteemed (the English Revised Version "counted") as clay," etc.--in this connection a forcible assertion of the necessary possession of knowledge by the Creator of man.

W. L. Walker

Esther

es'-ter ('ecter, akin to the Zend tstara, the Sanskrit stri, the Greek aster, "a star," Esther):

Esther was a Jewish orphan, who became the queen of Xerxes, in some respects the greatest of the Persian kings. She was brought up at Susa by her cousin Mordecai, who seems to have held a position among the lower officials of the royal palace. Vashti, Xerxes' former queen, was divorced; and the most beautiful virgins from all the provinces of the empire were brought to the palace of Susa that the king might select her successor. The choice fell upon the Jewish maiden. Soon after her accession a great crisis occurred in the history of the Jews. The entire people was threatened with destruction. The name of Esther is forever bound up with the record of their deliverance. By a course of action which gives her a distinguished place among the women of the Bible, the great enemy of the Jews was destroyed, and her people were delivered. Nothing more is known of her than is recorded in the book which Jewish gratitude has made to bear her name.

Change of Name:

The change in the queen's name from Hadassah hadacah, "a myrtle," to Esther, "a star," may possibly indicate the style of beauty for which the Persian queen was famous. The narrative displays her as a woman of clear judgment, of magnificent self- control, and capable of the noblest self-sacrifice.

See ESTHER, BOOK OF.

John Urquhart