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

and the lustral waters in which he participates have a higher degree of purity (καὶ καθαρωτέρων τῶν πρὸς ἁγνείαν ὑδάτων μεταλαμβάνει, § 7).’

      ‘It is a custom to wash after it, as if polluted by it (§ 9).’

      ‘And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner (τοῦ ἀρίστου). And the Lord said unto him: Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter. … Ye fools … behold all things are clean unto you (Luke xi. 38–41).’

      ‘Racked and dislocated, burnt and crushed, and subjected to every instrument of torture … to make them eat strange food (τι τῶν ἀσυνήθων) … they were not induced to submit (§ 10).’

      ‘Exercising themselves in … divers lustrations (διαφόροις ἁγνείαις … ἐμπαιδοτριβούμενοι, § 12).’

      Avoidance of strangers.

      Connected with this idea of external purity is the avoidance of contact with strangers, as persons who would communicate ceremonial defilement. And here too the Essene went much beyond the Pharisee. The Pharisee avoided Gentiles or aliens, or those whose profession or character placed them in the category of ‘sinners’; but the Essene shrunk even from the probationers and inferior grades of his own exclusive community. Here again we may profitably compare the sayings and doings of Christ with the principles of this sect.

      ‘And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with the publicans and sinners they said unto the disciples, Why eateth your Master with the publicans and the sinners. …’ (Mark ii. 15 sq.; Matth. ix. 10 sq., Luke v. 30 sq.)

      ‘They say … a friend of publicans and sinners (Matth. xi. 19).’

      ‘The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them (Luke xv. 2).’

      ‘They all murmured saying that he was gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner (Luke xix. 7).’

      ‘Behold, a woman in the city that was a sinner … began to wash his feet with her tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet. … Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself saying, This man, if he had been a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him; for she is a sinner (Luke vii. 37 sq.).’

      ‘And after this purification they assemble in a private room, where no person of a different belief (τῶν ἑτεροδόξων, i.e. not an Essene) is permitted to enter; and (so) being by themselves and clean (αὐτοὶ καθαροὶ) they present themselves at the refectory (δειπνητήριον), as if it were a sacred precinct (§ 5).’

      ‘And they are divided into four grades according to the time passed under the discipline: and the juniors are regarded as so far inferior to the seniors, that, if they touch them, the latter wash their bodies clean (ἀπολούεσθαι), as if they had come in contact with a foreigner (καθάπερ ἀλλοφύλῳ συμφυρέντας, § 10).’

      In all these minute scruples relating to ceremonial observances, the denunciations which are hurled against the Pharisees in the Gospels would apply with tenfold force to the Essenes.

      (iii) Asceticism.

      (iii) If the lustrations of the Essenes far outstripped the enactments of the Mosaic law, so also did their asceticism. I have given reasons above for believing that this asceticism was founded on a false principle, which postulates the malignity of matter and is wholly inconsistent with the teaching of the Gospel^[500]. But without pressing this point, of which no absolutely demonstrative proof can be given, it will be sufficient to call attention to the trenchant contrast in practice which Essene habits present to the life of Christ. He who ‘came eating and drinking’ and was denounced in consequence as ‘a glutton and a wine-bibber’^[501], |Eating and drinking.|He whose first exercise of power is recorded to have been the multiplication of wine at a festive entertainment, and whose last meal was attended with the drinking of wine and the eating of flesh, could only have excited the pity, if not the indignation, of these rigid abstainers. And again, attention should be directed to another kind of abstinence, where the contrast is all the more speaking, because the matter is so trivial and the scruple so minute.

      ‘My head with oil thou didst not anoint (Luke vii. 46).’

      ‘Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head (Matt. vi. 17).’

      ‘And they consider oil a pollution (κηλῖδα), and though one is smeared involuntarily, he rubs his body clean (σμήχεται τὸ σῶμα, § 3).’

      And yet it has been stated that ‘the Saviour of the world … showed what is required for a holy life in the Sermon on the Mount by a description of the Essenes^[502].’

      Celibacy.

      But much stress has been laid on the celibacy of the Essenes; and our Lord’s saying in Matt. xix. 12 is quoted to establish an identity of doctrine. Yet there is nothing special in the language there used. Nor is there any close affinity between the stern invectives against marriage which Josephus and Philo attribute to the Essene, and the gentle concession ‘He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.’ The best comment on our Lord’s meaning here is the advice of St. Paul^[503], who was educated not in the Essene, but in the Pharisaic school. Moreover this saying must be balanced by the general tenour of the Gospel narrative. When we find Christ discussing the relations of man and wife, gracing the marriage festival by His presence, again and again employing wedding banquets and wedded life as apt symbols of the highest theological truths, without a word of disparagement or rebuke, we see plainly that we are confronted with a spirit very different from the narrow rigour of the Essenes.

      (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]. |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.