St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon. J. B. Lightfoot

the one object of procreating children. Both wear only white garments and consider linen purer than wool. Washings and purifications are prescribed by both, though for the Essenes they have a yet higher significance as religious acts. Both prohibit oaths and (what is more) on the same grounds. Both find their social ideal in those institutions, which indeed the Essenes alone set themselves to realise—in a corporate life with entire community of goods, in sharply defined orders of rank, in the unconditional submission of all the members to their superiors, in a society carefully barred from without, into which new members are received only after a severe probation of several years, and from which the unworthy are inexorably excluded. Both require a strict initiation, both desire |Zeller’s theory.| to maintain a traditional doctrine inviolable; both pay the highest respect to the men from whom it was derived, as instruments of the deity: yet both also love figurative clothing for their doctrines, and treat the old traditions as symbols of deeper truths, which they must extract from them by means of allegorical explanation. In order to prove the later form of teaching original, newly-composed writings were unhesitatingly forged by the one as by the other, and fathered upon illustrious names of the past. Both parties pay honour to divine powers in the elements, both invoke the rising sun, both seek to withdraw everything unclean from his sight, and with this view give special directions, in which they agree as well with each other as with older Greek superstition, in a remarkable way. For both the belief in intermediate beings between God and the world has an importance which is higher in proportion as their own conception of God is purer; both appear not to have disdained magic; yet both regard the gift of prophecy as the highest fruit of wisdom and piety, which they pique themselves on possessing in their most distinguished members. Finally, both agree (along with the dualistic character of their whole conception of the world …) in their tenets respecting the origin of the soul, its relation to the body, and the life after death^[414]. …’

      Absence of distinctive Pythagorean features in the Essenes.

      This array of coincidences is formidable, and thus skilfully marshalled might appear at first sight invincible. But a closer examination detracts from its value. In the first place the two distinctive characteristics of the Pythagorean philosophy are wanting to the Essenes. The Jewish sect did not believe in the transmigration of souls; and the doctrine of numbers, at least so far as our information goes, had no place in their system. Yet these constitute the very essence of the Pythagorean teaching. In the next place several of the coincidences are more apparent than real. Thus |The coincidences are in some cases only apparent,| for instance the demons who in the Pythagorean system held an intermediate place between the Supreme God and man, and were the result of a compromise between polytheism and philosophy, have no near relation to the angelology of the Essenes, which arose out of a wholly different motive. Nor again can we find distinct traces among the Pythagoreans of any such reverence for the sun as is ascribed to the Essenes, the only notice which is adduced having no prominence whatever in its own context, and referring to a rule which would be dictated by natural decency and certainly was not peculiar to the Pythagoreans^[415]. When these imperfect and (for the purpose) valueless resemblances have been subtracted, the only basis on which the theory of a direct affiliation can rest is withdrawn. All the remaining coincidences are unimportant. Thus the respect paid to founders is not confined to any one sect or any one age. The reverence of the Essenes for Moses, and the reverence of the Pythagoreans for Pythagoras, are indications of a common humanity, but not of a common philosophy. And again the forgery of supposititious documents is unhappily not the badge of any one school. The Solomonian books of the Essenes, so far as we can judge from the extant notices, were about as unlike the tracts ascribed to Pythagoras and his disciples by the Neopythagoreans as two such forgeries could well be. All or nearly all that remains in common to the Greek school and the Jewish sect after these deductions is |and in others do not suggest any historical connexion.| a certain similarity in the type of life. But granted that two bodies of men each held an esoteric teaching of their own, they would secure it independently in a similar way, by a recognised process of initiation, by a solemn form of oath, by a rigid distinction of orders. Granted also, that they both maintained the excellence of an ascetic life, their asceticism would naturally take the same form; they would avoid wine and flesh; they would abstain from anointing themselves with oil; they would depreciate, and perhaps altogether prohibit, marriage. Unless therefore the historical conditions are themselves favourable to a direct and immediate connexion between the Pythagoreans and the Essenes, this theory of affiliation has little to recommend it.

      Twofold objection to this theory.

      And a closer examination must pronounce them to be most unfavourable. Chronology and geography alike present serious obstacles to any solution which derives the peculiarities of the Essenes from the Pythagoreans.

      (i) Chronological facts are adverse.

      (i) The priority of time, if it can be pleaded on either side, must be urged in favour of the Essenes. The Pythagoreans as a philosophical school entirely disappear from history before the middle of the fourth century before Christ. The last Pythagoreans were scholars of Philolaus and Eurytus, the contemporaries of Socrates and Plato^[416]. For nearly two centuries after their extinction we hear |Disappearance of the Pythagoreans.| nothing of them. Here and there persons like Diodorus of Aspendus are satirised by the Attic poets of the middle comedy as ‘pythagorizers,’ in other words, as total abstainers and vegetarians^[417]; but the philosophy had wholly died or was fast dying out. This is the universal testimony of ancient writers. It is not till the first century before Christ, that we meet with any distinct traces of a revival. In Alexander Polyhistor^[418], a younger contemporary of Sulla, for the first time we find references to certain writings, which would seem to have emanated from this incipient Neopythagoreanism, rather than from the elder school of Pythagoreans. And a little later Cicero commends his friend Nigidius Figulus as one specially raised up to revive the extinct philosophy^[419]. But so slow or so chequered was its progress, that a whole century after Seneca can still speak of the |Priority of Essenism to Neopythagoreanism.| school as practically defunct^[420]. Yet long before this the Essenes formed a compact, well-organized, numerous society with a peculiar system of doctrine and a definite rule of life. We have seen that Pliny the elder speaks of this celibate society as having existed ‘through thousands of ages^[421].’ This is a gross exaggeration, but it must at least be taken to imply that in Pliny’s time the origin of the Essenes was lost in the obscurity of the past, or at least seemed so to those who had not access to special sources of information. If, as I have given reasons for supposing^[422], Pliny’s authority in this passage is the same Alexander Polyhistor to whom I have just referred, and if this particular statement, however exaggerated in expression, is derived from him, the fact becomes still more significant. But on any showing the priority in time is distinctly in favour of the Essenes as against the Neopythagoreans.

      The Essene tenets more developed than the Neopythagorean.

      And accordingly we find that what is only a tendency in the Neopythagoreans is with the Essenes an avowed principle and a definite rule of life. Such for instance is the case with celibacy, of which Pliny says that it has existed as an institution among the Essenes per sæculorum millia, and which is a chief corner-stone of their practical system. The Pythagorean notices (whether truly or not, it is unimportant for my purpose to enquire) speak of Pythagoras as having a wife and a daughter^[423]. Only at a late date do we find the attempt to represent their founder in another light; and if virginity is ascribed to Apollonius of Tyana, the great Pythagorean of the first Christian century, in the fictitious biography of Philostratus^[424], this representation is plainly due to the general plan of the novelist, whose hero is intended to rival the Founder of Christianity, and whose work is saturated with Christian ideas. In fact virginity can never be said to have been a Pythagorean principle, though it may have been an exalted ideal of some not very early adherents of the school. And the same remark applies to other resemblances between the Essene and Neopythagorean teaching. The clearness of conception and the definiteness of practice are in almost every instance on the side of the Essenes; so that, looking to the comparative chronology of the two, it will appear almost inconceivable that they can have derived their principles from the Neopythagoreans.

      (ii) Geographical difficulties in the theory.

      (ii)