Christianity
Philo on the Essenes
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Monday, November 23, 1998
Philo on the Essenes.
Another account of the Essenes by Philo of Alexandria (born in Alexandria in 20 BC and died about 60 AD; probably an Essenian Jew himself) written about 20 AD broadly matches Josephus’s but sometimes he disagrees and occasionally adds something new. Thus, he says that only mature men were admitted. He agrees with Josephus that the Essenes lived all over Judaea but maintains that they preferred to live in villages not towns. They avoided towns because of the contagion of evils rife within them. The sick and elderly were cared for—the scrolls tell us that the infirm and the sick were already spiritually saved under the guardianship of the angels of holiness.
Josephus tells us they practise husbandry but Philo enlarges saying they are farmers, shepherds, cowherds, beekeepers, artisans and craftsmen, but they did not make weapons, would not engage in commerce and were no sailors. They rejected slavery, believing brotherhood to be the natural relationship of men but that it had been spoiled by covetousness. Though they read a great deal they were not interested in philosophy in general but only morals. They ignored the weather and never used it as an excuse not to work. They returned from work rejoicing, as if they had been partying all day.
Contentment of mind they regarded as the greatest of riches. They make no instruments of war. They repudiate every inducement to covetousness. None are held as slaves, but all are free, and serve each other. They are instructed in piety and holiness, righteousness, economy, etc. They are guided by a threefold rule—love of God, love of virtue, and love of mankind. Of their love of God they give innumerable demonstrations, which is found in their constant and unalterable holiness throughout the whole of their lives, their avoidance of oaths and falsehoods, and their firm belief that God is the source of all good, but of nothing evil. Of their love of virtue they give proof in their contempt for money, fame, and pleasures, their continence, easy satisfying of their wants, their simplicity, modesty, etc. Their love of man is proved by their benevolence and equality, and their having all things in common, which is beyond all deception. They reverence and take care of the aged, as children do their parents. They do not lay up treasures of gold or silver but provide themselves only with the necessities of life.
Paul afterwards, in the same spirit, advises, “Having food and raiment, therewith be content”. Note also the threefold rule of the Essenes. Christians like to think that the great revelation that came to the world via Christ was love but here we find it is the central belief of an old Jewish sect, and curiously, one which Jesus shows every indication of having been a member of. Funny or what?
Philo, Every Virtuous Man is Free 12:75
Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which countries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits. There is a portion of those people called Essenes, in number somewhat more than four thousand in my opinion, who derive their name from their piety, though not according to any accurate form of the Greek dialect, because they are above all men devoted to the service of God, not sacrificing living animals, but studying rather to preserve their own minds in a state of holiness and purity.
These men, in the first place, live in villages, avoiding all cities on account of the habitual lawlessness of those who inhabit them, well knowing that such a moral disease is contracted from the associations with wicked men, just as a real disease might be from an impure atmosphere, and that this would stamp an incurable evil on their souls. Of these men, some cultivating the earth, and others devoting themselves to those arts which are the result of peace, benefit both themselves and all those who come into contact with them, not storing up treasures of silver and of gold, nor acquiring vast sections of the earth out of a desire for ample revenues, but providing all things which are requisite for the natural purpose of life.
For they alone of almost all men having been originally poor and destitute, and that too rather from their own habits and ways of life than from any real deficiency of good fortune, are nevertheless accounted very rich, judging contentment and frugality to be in great abundance, as in truth they are.
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.
Least of all is a single slave found 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 laws 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. 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.
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.
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 their synagogues, as they called these places,and there they sit according to their age in classes, the younger sitting under the elder, and listening with eager attention in becoming order.
Then one, indeed, takes up the holy volume and reads from it, and another of the men of the greatest experience comes forward and explains what is not very intelligible, for a great many precepts are delivered in enigmatical modes of expression, and allegorically, as the old fashion was, and thus the people are taught piety, and holiness, and justice and economy, and the science of regulating the state, and the knowledge of such things as are naturally good, or bad, or indifferent, and to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong, using a threefold variety of definitions, and rules, and criteria, namely, love of God, love of virtue, and love of mankind.
Accordingly, the sacred volumes present an infinite number of instances of the disposition devoted to the love of God, and of a continued and uninterrupted purity throughout the whole life, of a careful avoidance of oaths and of falsehood, and of a strict adherence to the principle of looking on the Deity as the cause of everything which is good and nothing of which is evil. 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.
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. 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?
For whatever they, after having been working during the day, receive for their wages, that they do not retain as their own, but bring it into a common stock, and give any advantage that is to be derived from it to all who desire to avail themselves of it. And those who are sick are not neglected because they are unable to contribute to the common stock, inasmuch as the tribe have in their public stock a means of supplying their necessities and aiding their weaakness, so that from their ample means they support them liberally and abundantly, and they cherish respect for their elders, and honour them and care for them, just as parents are honoured and cared for by their loving children, being supported by them in all abundance both by their personal exertions and by innumerable contrivances.
13. Such diligent practices of virtue does philosophy, unconnected with any superfluous care of examining into Greek names render men, proposing to them as necessary exercises to train them towards its attainment, all praiseworthy actions by which a freedom, which can never be enslaved, is firmly established.
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.
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.
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 (Essaion)or Holy (Hosion). But everyone being subdued by the virtue of these men, looked up to them as free by nature, and not subject to the frown of any human being, and have celibrated their manner of messing together, and their fellowship with one another beyond all description in respect of its mutual good faith, which is ample proof of a perfect and very happy life.Philo, Every Good Man is Free, 12:75-91, Trans C.D.Yonge
Philo, Hypothetica 11:1
1 Multitudes of his disciples has the lawgiver trained for the life of fellowship. These people are called Essenes, a name awarded to them doubtless in recognition of their holiness. They live in many cities of Judea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members.
2 Their persuasion is not based on birth, for birth is not a descriptive mark of voluntary associations, but on their zeal for virtue and desire to promote brotherly love.
3 Thus no Essene is a mere child nor even a stripling or newly bearded, since the characters of such are unstable with a waywardness corresponding to the immaturity of their age, but full grown and already verging on old age, no longer carried under by the tide of the body nor led by the passions, but enjoying the veritable, the only real freedom.
4. This freedom is attested by their life. None of them allows himself to have any private property, either house or slave or estate or cattle or any of the other things which are amassed a and abundantly procured by wealth, but they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common.
5. They live together formed into clubs, bands of comradeship with common meals, and never cease to conduct all their affairs to serve the general weal.
6. But they have various occupations at which they labour with untiring application and never plead cold or heat or any of the violent changes in the atmosphere as an excuse. Before the sun is risen they betake themselves to their familiar tasks and only when it sets force themselves to return, for they delight in them as much as do those who are entered for gymnastic competitions.
7 For they consider that the exercises which they practice whatever they may be are more valuable to life, more pleasant to soul and body and more lasting than those of the athlete in as much as they can still be plied with vigour when that of the body is past its prime.
8. Some of them labour on the land skilled in sowing and planting, some as heardsmen taking charge of every kind of cattle and some superintend the swarms of bees.
9. Others work at the handicrafts to avoid the sufferings which are forced upon us by our indispensable requirements and shrink from no innocent way of getting a livelihood.
10. Each branch when it has received the wages of these so different occupations give it to one person who has been appointed the treasurer. He takes it and at once buys what is necessary and provides food in abundance and anything else which human life requires.
11. Thus having each day a common life and a common table they are content with the same conditions, lovers of frugality who shun expensive luxury as a disease of both body and soul.
12. And not only is their table in common but their clothing also. For in winter they have a stock of stout coats ready and in summer cheap vests, a so that he who wishes may easily take any garment he likes, since what one has is held to belong to all and conversely what all have one has.
13. Again if anyone is sick he is nursed at the common expense and tended with care and thoughtfulness by all. The old men too even if they are childless are treated as parents of a not merely numerous but very filial family and regularly close their life with an exceedingly prosperous and comfortable old age; so many are those who give them precedence and honour as their due and minister to them as a duty voluntarily and deliberately accepted rather than enforced by nature.
14 Furthermore they eschew marriage because they clearly discern it to be the sole or the principal danger to the maintenance of the communal life, as well as because they particularly practice continence. For no Essene takes a wife, because a wife is a selfish creature, excessively jealous a and an adept a beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing him by her continued impostures.
15. For by the fawning talk which she practises and the other ways in which she plays her part like an actress on the stage she first ensnares the sight and hearing, and when these subjects as it were have been duped she cajoles the sovereign mind.
16. And if children come, filled with the spirit of arrogance and bold speaking she gives utterance with more audacious hardihood to things which before she hinted covertly and under disguise, and casting off all shame she compels him to commit actions which are all hostile to the life of fellowship.
17. For he who is either fast bound in the love lures of his wife or under the stress of nature makes his children his first care ceases to be the same to others and unconsciously has become a different man and has passed from freedom into slavery.
18 Such then is the life of the Essenes, a life so highly to be prized that not only commoners but also great kings look upon them with admiration and amazement, and the approbation and honours which they give add further veneration to their venerable name.Philo, Hypothetica 11:1
Pre-Christian Ascetics
The “Therapeutae”, described by Philo of Alexandria in his tract, De Vita Contemplativa (On the Contemplative Life), sought to deny the senses to find a pure spirituality. Ascetics like this, he said, could be found throughout the Greek world, but he says they abounded in Egypt. The name, “Therapeutae”, was a Greek cultic term for worshippers, particularly of an Hellenistic Egyptian god, Serapis. An association of this god, on an inscription in Delos, calls its members “Therapeutae”. Another sanctuary of Therapeutae to Serapis has been found in Magnesia. This will explain the emperor Hadrian’s odd remark, “The Christians and the worshippers of Serapis are the same. Those devoted to Serapis call themselves the bishops of Christ”. Eusebius, in the fourth century AD, concurred, regarding Philo’s book as referring to a Christian order, and it certainly influenced Christianity. According to Moshe Weinfeld, the rules regulating the Essene community and its admission of new members are essentially those found in Hellenistic and Roman religious groups, though later attempts were made to find scriptural justification for them.
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. They refused to drink alchohol and, for six days a week, meditated upon God in solitary confinement, interpreted the scriptures and composed and read their own sectarian writings. Also “they composed songs and hymns to God”. Every seventh day they assembled together in worship for an hortation, men and women, most of whom were aged virgins, separated by a wall. They held the Jewish feast of Pentecost, not Passover, as their chief feast. Then they gathered together again for an hortation, to sing songs, old and new, and dance in worship.
Philo: From Fordham’s Ancient History SourcebookI
The deliberate intention of the philosopher is at once displayed from the appellation given to them: for with strict regard to etymology, they are called therapeutae and therapeutrides, either because they profess an art of medicine more excellent than that in general use in cities (for that only heals bodies, but the other heals souls which are under the mastery of terrible and almost incurable diseases, which pleasures and appetites, fears and griefs, and covetousness, and follies, and injustice, and all the rest of the innumerable multitude of other passions and vices, have inflicted upon them), or else because they have been instructed by nature and the sacred laws to serve the living God, who is superior to the good, and more simple than the one, and more ancient than the unity with whom, however, who is there of those who profess piety that we can possibly compare? Can we compare those who honor the elements, earth, water, air, and fire? to whom different nations have given names, calling fire Hephaestus, I imagine because of its kindling, and the air Hera, I imagine because of its being raised up, and raised aloft to a great height, and water Poseidon, probably because of its being drinkable, and the earth Demeter because it appears to be the mother of all plants and of all animals.
II
The therapeutic sect of mankind, being continually taught to see without interruption, may well aim at obtaining a sight of the living God, and may pass by the sun, which is visible to the outward sense, and never leave this order which conducts to perfect happiness. But they who apply themselves to this kind of worship, not because they are influenced to do so by custom, nor by the advice or recommendation of any particular persons, but because they are carried away by a certain heavenly love, give way to enthusiasm, behaving like so many revelers in bacchanalian or corybantian mysteries, until they see the object which they have been earnestly desiring.
Then, because of their anxious desire for an immortal and blessed existence, thinking that their mortal life has already come to an end, they leave their possessions to their sons or daughters, or perhaps to other relations, giving them up their inheritance with willing cheerfulness. Those with no relations give their property to their companions or friends, for it followed of necessity that those who have acquired the wealth which sees, as if ready prepared for them, should be willing to surrender that wealth which is blind to those who themselves also are still blind in their minds.
These men abandon their property without being influenced by any predominant attraction, and flee without even turning their heads back again, deserting their brethren, their children, their wives, their parents, their numerous families, their affectionate bands of companions, their native lands in which they have been born and brought up, despite the strong allure and attraction of a long familiarity. They depart, not to another city as those do who entreat to be purchased from those who at present possess them, being either unfortunate or worthless slaves seeking a change of masters rather than endeavoring to procure freedom (for every city, even that which is under the happiest laws, is full of indescribable tumults, and disorders, and calamities, which no one would submit to who had been even for a moment under the influence of wisdom). They take up their abode outside of walls, or gardens, or solitary lands, seeking for a desert place, not because of any ill-natured misanthropy to which they have learned to devote themselves, but because of the associations with people of wholly dissimilar dispositions to which they would otherwise be compelled, and which they know to be unprofitable and mischievous.
III
Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for both Greece and barbarian countries want to enjoy whatever is perfectly good. The greatest number of these men is in Egypt, in every one of the districts, or nomes, as they are called, and especially around Alexandria. From all quarters those who are the best of these therapeutae proceed on their pilgrimage to some most suitable place as if it were their country, which is beyond the Maereotic lake, lying in a somewhat level plain a little raised above the rest, being suitable for their purpose because of its safety and the fine temperature of the air.
For the houses built in the fields and the villages which surround it on all sides give it safety. The admirable temperature of the air proceeds from the continual breezes which come from the lake which falls into the sea, and also from the sea itself in the neighborhood, the breezes from the sea being light, and those which proceed from the lake which falls into the sea being heavy, the mixture of which produces a most healthy atmosphere.
The houses of these men thus congregated together are plain, just giving shelter in respect of the two things most important to be provided against, the heat of the sun, and the cold from the open air. They do not live near to one another as men do in cities, for immediate neighborhood to others would be a troublesome and unpleasant thing to men who desire and intend to pursue solitude. Neither do they live far from one another because of the fellowship which they desire to cultivate, and because of their wish to be able to assist one another if they should be attacked by robbers.
In every house there is a sacred shrine which is called the holy place, and the house in which they retire by themselves and perform all the mysteries of a holy life, bringing in nothing, neither meat, nor drink, nor anything else which is indispensable towards supplying the necessities of the body, but studying in that place the laws and the sacred oracles of God enunciated by the holy prophets, and hymns, and psalms, and all kinds of other things by reason of which knowledge and piety are increased and brought to perfection.
Therefore they always retain an imperishable recollection of God, so that not even in their dreams is any other subject ever presented to their eyes except the beauty of the divine virtues and of the divine powers. Therefore many persons speak in their sleep, divulging and publishing the celebrated doctrines of the sacred philosophy. And they are accustomed to pray twice a day, at morning and at evening. When the sun is rising entreating God that the happiness of the coming day may be real happiness, so that their minds may be filled with heavenly light. And when the sun is setting they pray that their soul, being entirely lightened and relieved of the burden of the outward senses, and of the appropriate object of these outward senses, may be able to trace out trust existing in its own consistory and council chamber. The interval between morning and evening, they devote wholly to meditation on and to practice virtue, for they take up the sacred scriptures and philosophy concerning them, investigating the allegories as symbols of some secret meaning of nature, intended to be conveyed in those figurative expressions.
They have also writings of ancient men, who having been the founders of one sect or another, have left behind them many memorials of the allegorical system of writing and explanation, whom they take as a kind of model, and imitate the general fashion of their sect. They do not occupy themselves solely in contemplation, but they compose psalms and hymns to God in every kind of meter and melody imaginable, which they of necessity arrange in more dignified rhythm. Therefore, during six days, each of these individuals, retiring into solitude by himself, philosophizes by himself in one of the places called monasteries, never going outside the threshold of the outer court, and indeed never even looking out.
On the seventh day they all come together to meet in a sacred assembly, and sit according to their ages with a grave demeanour, keeping their hands inside their garments, having their right hand between their chest and their dress, and the left hand down by their side, close to their flank. Then the eldest of them who has the most profound learning in their doctrines comes forward and speaks with steadfast look and with steadfast voice, with great powers of reasoning, and great prudence, not making an exhibition of his oratorical powers like the rhetoricians of old, or the sophists of the present day, but investigating with great pains, and explaining with minute accuracy the precise meaning of the laws, which sits, not indeed at the tips of their ears, but penetrates through their hearing into the soul, and remains there lastingly. All listen in silence to the praises which he bestows upon the law, showing their assent only by nods of the head, or the eager look of the eyes.
This common holy place to which they all come together on the seventh day is a twofold circuit, being separated partly into the apartment of the men, and partly into a chamber for the women, for women also, in accordance with the usual fashion there, form a part of the audience, having the same feelings of admiration as the men, and having adopted the same sect with equal deliberation and decision. The wall which is between the houses rises from the ground three or four cubits upwards, like a battlement, and the upper portion rises upwards to the roof without any opening, on two accounts. First so that the modesty which is so becoming to the female sex may be preserved, and second, that the women may be easily able to comprehend what is said, being seated within earshot, since there is then nothing which can possibly intercept the voice of him who is speaking.
IV
These expounders of the law, having first of all laid down temperance as a sort of foundation for the soul to rest upon, proceed to build up other virtues on this foundation, and no one of them may take any meat or drink before the setting of the sun, since they judge that the work of philosophizing is one which is worthy of the light, but that the care of the necessities of the body is suitable only to darkness, on which account they appropriate the day to the one occupation, and a brief portion of the night to the other. And some men, in whom there is implanted a more fervent desire of knowledge, can endure to cherish a recollection of their food for three days without even tasting it, and some men are so delighted, and enjoy themselves so exceedingly when regaled by wisdom which supplies them with her doctrines in all possible wealth and abundance, that they can even hold out twice as great a length of time, and will scarcely at the end of six days taste even necessary food, being accustomed, as they say that grasshoppers are, to feed on air, their song as I imagine, making their scarcity tolerable to them.
Looking upon the seventh day as one of perfect holiness and a most complete festival, they have thought it worthy of a most special honor, and on it, after taking due care of their soul, they tend their bodies also, giving them, just as they do to their cattle, a complete rest from their continual labors. They eat nothing of a costly character, but plain bread and a seasoning of salt, which the more luxurious of them do further season with hyssop. Their drink is water from the spring for they oppose those feelings which nature has made mistresses of the human race, namely, hunger and thirst, giving them nothing to flatter or humor them, but only such useful things as it is not possible to exist without. On this account they eat only so far as not to be hungry, and they drink just enough to escape from thirst, avoiding all satiety, as an enemy of and a plotter against both soul and body.
Tthere are two kinds of covering, one raiment and the other a house. Their houses are not decorated with any ornaments, but are run up in a hurry, being only made to answer such purposes as are absolutely necessary. Likewise, their raiment is of the most ordinary description, just stout enough to ward off cold and heat, being a cloak of some shaggy hide for winter, and a thin mantle or linen shawl in the summer. They practice entire simplicity, looking upon falsehood as the foundation of pride, but truth is the origin of simplicity, and upon truth and falsehood as standing in the light of fountains, for from falsehood proceeds every variety of evil and wickedness, and from truth there flows every imaginable abundance of good things both human and divine.
Source
From: Oliver J Thatcher, ed, The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co, 1907), Vol III: The Roman World, pp 355-369.
Scanned by: J S Arkenberg, Dept of History, Cal State Fullerton. Prof Arkenberg has modernized the text.
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© Paul Halsall, June 1998, halsall@murray.fordham.edu
