Essenes. X��'2C���(����?�`"�X�X20��~إ��(~�Ze16�1�K�D���M1 Translated by C.D.Yonge (1854) We do not know for certain where the movement originated. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA ON THE ESSENES: A CASE STUDY ON THE USE OF CLASSICAL SOURCES IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE QUMRAN-ESSENE HYPOTHESIS JOAN E. TAYLOR The issue of whether the site of Kh. Qumran, on a plateau by the Dead Sea, was occupied by Essenes during the late Second Temple period continues to divide scholars. But in their view this natural relationship of all men to one another has been thrown into disorder by designing covetousness, continually wishing to surpass others in good fortune, and which has therefore engendered alienation instead of affection, and hatred instread of friendship; (80) and leaving the logical part of philosophy, as in no respect necessary for the acquisition of virtue, to the word-catchers, and the natural part, as being too sublime for human nature to master, to those who love to converse about high objects (except indeed so far as such a study takes in the contemplation of the existence of God and of the creation of the universe), they devote all their attention to the moral part of philosophy, using as instructors the laws of their country which it would have been impossible for human mind to devise without divine inspiration. 1 He tended to idealize the Essenes and accommodate their ideas and lives to his Greek readers. %��������� There were about four thousand Essenes, according to the testimony of Philo and Josephus. 1, where city-dwelling is mentioned). The main distinction between the Therapeutae and the Essenes is that the latter were anti-intellectual, while “wisdom,” Philo says, was the main objective of the Therapeutae. The name given to this Jewish sect is said to be derived from the Greek ‘hosios’, which means ‘holy’. ��Z@(��-P� ݟCď���xB_���h,�8�!�9���}!��3eWhgy��|)�x�ǜCq�j�$�N���Kq=����i�sr��8�ֺ�CqڬW�_;z�n1rS���‰�Xr��֯M0E�R� �5�~���L��nl�o���ݚbj�=�w���v��qgȢ��3)iur%���AZ|�1���[�٧B�A�g��+AD�I�u{������% More on this later. According to Josephus, they had customs and observances such as collective ownership, electing a leader to attend to the interests of th… to theoretical inversigations of ethic questions. According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, the Essenes were indeed celibate. DSS LINKS. Philo noted that the Essenes were trained in piety, holiness, justice, domestic and civil conduct, and summarized their beliefs and practices under three headings, namely, love of God, love of virtue and love of men. 2. ���,������iNJ�����D�}���~���E7x3�/�m��]�_i���^�~���F�j�/X����7��~K9�5�fZ���>m͎���ff��-�C�C�ruļz3��6�R5�������?du�`+�%��/����3=�s���(�� stream (81) Now these laws they are taught at other times, indeed, but most especially on the seventh day, for the seventh day is accounted sacred, on which they abstain from all other employments, and frequent sacred places which are called synagogues, and there they sit according to their age in classes, the younger sitting under the elder, and listening with eager attention in becoming order. There are three major accounts of the Essenes in Josephus. Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life by the Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert-dwelling Therapeutae. 3 An Essene was, in fact, to show fidelity to all men, but specially to those in authority. DEAD SEA SCROLLS. The Therapeutae shared with the Essenes a dualistic view of body and soul. Since the classical sources of Josephus, Philo, and Pliny represented the Essenes as a secretive, initiatory community given to the study of “mysteries” and the pursuit of esoteric practices, healing, and various forms of divination, it was not all that difficult to imagine the Essenes as playing a secret, hidden role in facilitating and orchestrating public and political events from behind the … 1 The Roman philosopher and naturalist Pliny the Elder agrees and seems to locate an Essene community at Qumran. Essene, member of a religious sect or brotherhood that flourished in Palestine from about the 2nd century bc to the end of the 1st century ad. For centuries, both ancient writers and modern scholars read reports about the Essenes from writers such as Josephus, Philo, Pliny, Porphyry, and Jerome — the “classical sources” o… The Life of the Essenes. According to Pliny, there was an Essene settlement between Jericho and ʿEin Gedi on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Steve Mason argues that the texts of Josephus cannot be relied upon to support the conclusion that the Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the inhabitants of Qumran. (89) And a proof of this is that, though at different times a great number of chiefs of every variety of disposition and character, have occupied their country, some of whom have endeavoured to surpass even ferocious wild animals in cruelty, leaving no sort of inhumanity unpractised, and have never ceased to murder their subjects in whole troops, and have even torn them to pieces while living, like cooks cutting them limb from limb, till they themselves, being overtaken by the vengeance of divine justice, have at last experienced the same miseries in their turn: (90) others again having converted their barbarous frenzy into another kind of wickedness, practising an ineffable degree of savageness, talking with the people quietly, but through the hypocrisy of a more gentle voice, betraying the ferocity of their real disposition, fawning upon their victims like treaherous dogs, and becoming the causes of irremediable miseries to them, have left in all their cities monuments of their impiety, and hatred of all mankind, in the never to be forgotten miseries endured by those whom they oppressed: (91) and yet no one, not even of those immoderately cruel tyrants, nor of the more treacherous and hypocritical oppressors was ever able to bring any real accusation against the multitude of those called Essenes or Holy [Greek: essaiOn E hosiOn]. Every good man is free. They also furnish us with many proofs of a love of virtue, such as abstinence from all covetousness of money, from ambition, from indulgence of pleasures, temperence, endurance, and also moderation, simplicity, good temper, the absence of pride, obedience to the laws, streadiness, and everything of that kind; and, lastly, they bring forward as proofs of the love of mankind, goodwill, equality beyond all power of description, and fellowship, about which it is not unreasonable to say a few words. Philo on the Essenes. M ost of what we know about the Essenes comes from the literature found at Qumran, known popularly as The Dead Sea Scrolls, and from the writings of the Jewish historian, Josephus, a Roman historian, Philo, and a few other Roman and Greek writers. In regard to the origin of the Essenes, neither Josephus nor Philo can give a specific date, but both make clear that the Essenian roots are incredibly ancient. Because they were convinced that they were the true remnant, these Qumran Essenes had separated themselves from Judaism at large and devoted themselves to personal purity and preparation for the final war between the "Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness." In a later work, the Hypothetics, Philo again commented on the diligence and industry of the sect. Philo agrees, calling the Essenes "the most ancient of all the initiates" with a "teaching perpetuated through an immense space of ages". Published in "The Works of Philo", Hendrickson, 1993. For this reason there are no young children among the Essenes. XIII. Many of the Essene groups appear to have been celibate, but Josephus speaks also of another "order of Essenes" that observed the practice of being engaged for three years and then becoming married. They do not enlist by race, but by volunteers who have a zeal for righteousness and an ardent love of men. Modern scholarship has often associated the group Philo describes in Contempl. Their withdrawal into desert seclusion was in opposition to the ruling powers in the city and the Temple of Jerusalem. The picture of the Essenes painted by Josephus and Philo is one of highly structured, peace-loving, predominantly agrarian and communal societies, who shunned cities in favor of small villages (but see Jos. Though the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls are not mentioned in the New Testament, they are described by Philo, Josephus, and Eusebius.With publication of the Essenes' own sectarian writings since the 1950s, however, they have become well known. Philo describes them as a wealthy people who gave up their property to relatives and lived, in a lonely country retreat outside Alexandria, a life of rigid asceticism. 2 0 obj Hellenistic Jewish synagogue fresco Moses being taken from the river Nile (85) In the first place, then, there is no one who has a house so absolutely his own private property, that it does not in some sense also belong to everyone: for besides that they all dwell together in companies, the house is open to all those of the same notions, who come to them from other quarters; (86) then there is one magazine among them all; their expenses are all in common, since they all eat in messes; for there is no other people among which you can find a common use for the same house, a common adoption of one mode of living, and a common use of the same table more thoroughly established in fact than among this tribe: and is not this very natural? 4. In this case, Bauer concluded that War 2.119-61 mainly borrows a lost description of the Essenes by Philo. The foundational Modern Essene guidelines, as they did in historical times, include a focus on the great Torah Way of life and liberation, the weekly Shabbat practice, live-food veganism, reestablishing our place in the sacred planetary ecology, and no drug use. Discussion between the Pharisees, Saddu… Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life by the Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert-dwelling Therapeutae. Josephus and Philo -- as well as several other ancient writers including Pliny the Elder -- are in consensus on two points in regard to the origin of the Essenes: %PDF-1.3 This description has been taken by many scholars as indicating that the Qumran sect whose library was found at the shor… But if you read the classical sources on the Essenes by themselves, without the Dead Sea Scrolls in hand, you would probably reach the very opposite conclusion — that the Essenes werea Pythagorean group inclined towards pacifism. This happened during the Hasmonean kings (The Palestine-origin theory.) (78) Among those men you will find no makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets, or breastplates, or shields; no makers of arms or any employment whatever connected with war, or even to any of those occupations even in peace which are easily perverted to wicked purposes; for they are utterly ignorant of all traffic, and of all commercial dealings, and of all navigation, but they repudiate and keep aloof from everything which can possibly afford any inducement to covetousness: (79) and there is not a single slave among them, but they are all free, aiding one another with a reciprocal interchange of good offices; and they condemn masters, not only as unjust, inasmuch as they corrupt the very principles of equality, but likewise as impious, because they destroy the ordinances of nature, which generated them all equally, and brought them up like a mother, as if they were legitimate brethren, not in name only, but in reality and truth. According to Philos, the label “Essene” was not their own. There is a portion of those people called Essenes, in number somewhat more than four thousand in my … "No one," says Philo, "not even immoderately cruel tyrants, nor of the more treacherous and hypocritical oppressors, was ever able to bring any real accusation against the multitude of those called Essenes or Holy." The New Testament does not mention them and accounts given by Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, and Pliny the Elder sometimes differ in significant details, XII. �:m����5Z{c�ޟ�&���ؔ_yw�W�7�����A�!&��1�Ġ����a^���O������ȕر���.A)�X��~f3Ѭd��b�>�g�]|$2��7�.�/�����_Nf't)�r�t��'��5�҅��y?��W�H̔b�f��7�ߧ%/�c��`�$W�B^%S�r��ZlׯA���`��bMR�� V���I[�U����!���-M�a�eoS�L|�)ߋ�X��)�uW=��G��Q���E�Q.X�鏣62K�C�8�O�z.��ct�ƅȨ6��R6��c��j[W�R�tX�a���`\�1?tg�8?�_�[w�����ת���"-���|H��M�|%��u�n6|e�&�5?�X��,���Db�v��r�R��~��y��Ηl���O�h�������w�H�R` �0����VA��C�w������jC8�z��gj(�+��]�l���]�WB�B6K\U���W⣷|�4��:�na>�m��vg��-�-D@���{�[O��P=o��W�У�XhW%�nL޻,i�SÈ �'T�ȅG �`�_���k��3��EC#�:�I|��S��?U�������TG�:��$���C���'f��lj��0F���?bf��[�(�:�`tg��S��}e��v����� ��`���Fl�f�z�f�A H�}n����������3��9( =��ʉ3�KlFo7R �U� �*���7\� ���l�5��"hI�x�? �r���nGV��ұ���s�ַ�G�L(Y�!�HhЦ8�81_a�p�UH:�i}�3�k
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