The Essenes
Essenes and Pharisees both trace
their roots to the orthodox leaders of Maccabean times who stood their ground
against Hellenism. Pharisees maintained a strict orthodoxy within the framework
of historical Judaism. They maintained their separation from defilement, but not
from the Jewish community itself. Even though the Tabernacle worship was conducted
by Sadducees, the Pharisees esteemed it a basic part of their religious
inheritance. While the Pharisee might hold himself aloof from "sinners", he
lived among them and coveted their esteem.
A more extreme reaction against the influences which tended
to corrupt Jewish life was taken by the sect which the ancient writers Philo,
Josephus, and Pliny call the Essenes. They seemed to have lived for the most
part in monastic communities such as the one which maintained headquarters at
Qumran, near the northwest corner of the Dead Sea.
In seeking to explain Judaism to the Greek-speaking world,
Josephus spoke of three "philosophies"-those of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and
the Essenes. The term "Essene" seems to have had quite an elastic usage,
including various groups of monastically minded Jews who varied among themselves
in certain of their practices. Pliny says that the Essenes avoided women and did
not marry, but Josephus speaks of an order of marrying Essenes. The excavations
at Qumran indicate that women were enrolled in the Qumran community.
Ancient writers speak favorably of the Essenes, who lived a
life of rigor and simplicity. Members of the community studied Scripture and
other religious books. Each Essene was required to perform manual labor in order
to make the community self-supporting. Community of goods was practiced, and
strict discipline was enforced by an overseer. Those groups which renounced
marriage adopted boys at an early age in order to inculcate and perpetuate the
ideals of Essenism. Slavery and war were repudiated.
The Essenes welcomed proselytes, but the novice was required
to undergo a period of strict probation before he could become a full-fledged
member. Numerically the Essenes were never large. Philo says that there were
four thousand of them, and Pliny speaks of a community north of En Gedi,
corresponding to the Qumran area. That there were other settlements is clear,
for we are told that all members of the sect were welcome in any of the Essenes
colonies.
Nothing certain is known of the early history of the sect
for, like all reform movements, it traces its origins back to remote times. Philo
states that Moshe-(Moses) instituted the order, and Josephus says that they existed
"ever since the ancient times of the fathers." It is certain that the Essene
movement was at one time an extreme protest against the corruptions which were
apparent in pre-Messianic Judaism, and that ultimately many members withdrew
from the Palestinian community life and sought spiritual purification in places
such as the Qumran area.
Regarding themselves as the only true, or pure
Yisrael, the
Essenes refused to cooperate with what they believed to be the corrupt religious
observances at the Jerusalem Tabernacle. The carefully regulated life at the Essene
center seems to have served as a substitute for the Tabernacle in the eyes of pious
Essenes. The strictness of Essene discipline and the rigidity with which the Law
was enforced are stressed by all who write about them. Josephus says that
they were stricter than all Jews in abstaining from work on the Shabbat
(Sabbath) day. A
passage in the Damascus Document (which seems to be Essene in origin) says that
it is unlawful to lift an animal from a pit on the Shabbat day. Such a view was
considered extreme even by legalistic Pharisees (cf. MattitYahu-(Matthew) 12:11).
The absence of Essenes from the main streams of Jewish life
doubtless accounts for the fact that they are not mentioned in the New Covenant
or in the Jewish Talmud. Although the high morality of the Essenes teaching and
practice of YAHSHUA was diametrically opposite to the legalism and asceticism of
the Essene teaching. Although the Essenes considered that contact with a member
of their own group of a lower order was ceremonially defiling, YAHSHUA did not
hesitate to eat and drink with "publicans and sinners" (MattitYahu 11:19;
Luka-(Luke) 7:34).
Although obedient to the Mosaic Law, YAHSHUA had no sympathy with those who made
the Law a burden instead of a blessing. The Shabbat, according to YAHSHUA was
made for man, and it is lawful to do good on the Shabbat day (MattitYahu 12:1-12;
Markus-(Mark) 2:23-28; Luka 6:6-11; 14:1-6).
YAHSHUA denounced abuses in the Tabernacle and prophesied its
destruction, but HE did not repudiate the Tabernacle services. HE came to Jerusalem
for the great Jewish feasts, and after HIS resurrection, disciples still made
their way to the Tabernacle at the hour of prayer (cf. Ma'aseh- Shlichim-(Acts) 3). While asceticism and
monasticism early gained a foothold in Messianic thinking, Messianic in its
earliest period was in no sense an ascetic movement. The ministry of YAHSHUA was
largely to the "common people" who were rejected by Pharisee and Essene alike,
YAHSHUA was not ashamed to associate with the people of HIS generation that the
self-righteous called HIM a winebibber, a friend of Publicans and sinners
(MattitYahu
11:19).