Results of this investigation.
From the preceding investigation it will have appeared how little Frankel has succeeded in establishing his thesis that ‘the talmudical sources are acquainted with the Essenes and make mention of them constantly[383].’ We have seen not only that no instance of the name Essene has been produced, but that all those passages which are supposed to refer to them under other designations, or to describe their practices or tenets, fail us on closer examination. In no case can we feel sure that there is any direct reference to this sect, while in most cases such reference seems to be excluded by the language or the attendant circumstances[384]. Thus we are |Philo and Josephus our main authorities.| obliged to fall back upon the representations of Philo and Josephus. Their accounts are penned by eye-witnesses. They are direct and explicit, if not so precise or so full as we could have wished. The writers obviously consider that they are describing a distinct and exceptional phenomenon. And it would be a reversal of all established rules of historical criticism to desert the solid standing-ground of contemporary history for the artificial combinations and shadowy hypotheses, which Frankel would substitute in its place.
Frankel’s depreciation of them is unreasonable, and explains nothing.
But here we are confronted with Frankel’s depreciation of these ancient writers, which has been echoed by several later critics. They were interested, it is argued, in making their accounts attractive to their heathen contemporaries, and they coloured them highly for this purpose[385]. We may readily allow that they would not be uninfluenced by such a motive, but the concession does not touch the main points at issue. This aim might have led Josephus, for example, to throw into bold relief the coincidences between the Essenes and Pythagoreans; it might even have induced him to give a semi-pagan tinge to the Essene doctrine of the future state of the blessed (B.J. ii. 8. 11). But it entirely fails to explain those peculiarities of the sect, which marked them off by a sharp line from orthodox Judaism, and which fully justify the term ‘separatists’ as applied to them by a recent writer. In three main features especially the portrait of the Essenes retains its distinctive character unaffected by this consideration.
(i) The avoidance of sacrifices is not accounted for.
(i) How, for instance, could this principle of accommodation have led both Philo and Josephus to lay so much stress on their divergence from Judaic orthodoxy in the matter of sacrifices? Yet this is perhaps the most crucial note of heresy which is recorded of the Essenes. What was the law to the orthodox Pharisee without the sacrifices, the temple-worship, the hierarchy? Yet the Essene declined to take any part in the sacrifices; he had priests of his own independently of the Levitical priesthood. On Frankel’s hypothesis that Essenism is merely an exaggeration of pure Pharisaism, no explanation of this abnormal phenomenon can be given. Frankel does indeed attempt to meet the case by some speculations respecting the red-heifer[386], which are so obviously inadequate that they have not been repeated by later writers and may safely be passed over in silence here. On this point indeed the language of Josephus is not |The notices of Josephus and Philo considered.| quite explicit. He says (Ant. xviii. 1. 5) that, though they send offerings (ἀναθῆματα) to the temple, they perform no sacrifices, and he assigns as the reason their greater strictness as regards ceremonial purity (διαφορότητι ἁγνειῶν ἃς νομίζοιεν), adding that ‘for this reason being excluded from the common sanctuary (τεμενίσματος) they perform their sacrifices by themselves (ἐφ’ αὑτῶν τὰς θυσίας ἐπιτελοῦσι).’ Frankel therefore supposes that their only reason for abstaining from the temple sacrifices was that according to their severe notions the temple itself was profaned and therefore unfit for sacrificial worship. But if so, why should it not vitiate the offerings, as well as the sacrifices, and make them also unlawful? And indeed, where Josephus is vague, Philo is explicit. Philo (II. p. 457) distinctly states that the Essenes being more scrupulous than any in the worship of God (ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα θεραπευταὶ θεοῦ) do not sacrifice animals (οὐ ζῶα καταθύοντες), but hold it right to dedicate their own hearts as a worthy offering (ἀλλ’ ἱεροπρεπεῖς τὰς ἑαυτῶν διανοίας κατασκευάζειν ἀξιοῦντες). Thus the greater strictness, which Josephus ascribes to them, consists in the abstention from shedding blood, as a pollution in itself. And, when he speaks of their substituting private sacrifices, his own qualifications show that he does not mean the word to be taken literally. Their simple meals are their sacrifices; their refectory is their sanctuary; their president is their priest[387]. It should be added also that, though we once hear of an Essene apparently within the temple precincts (B.J. i. 3. 5, Ant. xiii. II. 2)[388], no mention is ever made of one offering sacrifices. Thus it is clear that with the Essene it was the sacrifices which polluted the temple, and not the |Their statements confirmed by the doctrine of Christian Essenes.| temple which polluted the sacrifices. And this view is further recommended by the fact that it alone will explain the position of their descendants, the Christianized Essenes, who condemned the slaughter of victims on grounds very different from those alleged in the Epistle to the Hebrews, not because they have been superseded by the Atonement, but because they are in their very nature repulsive to God; not because they have ceased to be right, but because they never were right from the beginning.
It may be said indeed, that such a view could not be maintained without impugning the authority, or at least disputing the integrity, of the Old Testament writings. The sacrificial system is so bound up with the Mosaic law, that it can only be rejected by the most arbitrary excision. This violent process however, uncritical as it is, was very likely to have been adopted by the Essenes[389]. As a matter of fact, it did recommend itself to those Judaizing Christians who reproduced many of the Essene tenets, and who both theologically and historically may be regarded as the lineal |The Clementine Homilies justify this doctrine by arbitrary excision of the Scriptures.| descendants of this Judaic sect[390]. Thus in the Clementine Homilies, an Ebionite work which exhibits many Essene features, the chief spokesman St. Peter is represented as laying great stress on the duty of distinguishing the true and the false elements in the current Scriptures (ii. 38, 51, iii. 4, 5, 10, 42, 47, 49, 50, comp. xviii. 19). The saying traditionally ascribed to our Lord, ‘Show yourselves approved money-changers’ (γίνεσθε τραπεζῖται δόκιμοι), is more than once quoted by the Apostle as enforcing this duty (ii. 51, iii. 50, xviii. 20). Among these false elements he places all those passages which represent God as enjoining sacrifices (iii. 45, xviii. 19). It is plain, so he argues, that God did not desire sacrifices, for did He not kill those who lusted after the taste of flesh in the wilderness? and, if the slaughter