Bernard Hauff was not obedient to authority. He did not accept the dogmas of the experts.

Who Lies Sleeping?

Essene Life and Beliefs 3

Essene Monastic Life

Abstract

Each year, at the annual renewal of the covenant held at Pentacost, the wilderness chaste brotherhood (called priests and levites) and the village Essenes (called people and Israelites) congregated in the desert for a covenant renewal ceremony. New members were admitted to be instructed by the Master, when they would hear the Essene interpretation of the law of Moses and commit themselves to it. They were taught they were living in the last days (End Time) and that strict adherence to the law was essential to enter God’s kingdom or, as the Scrolls more often called it, “house” or “sanctuary”. Those who were saved were those who held fast to the community’s rules, followed the law, listened to the righteous teacher and confessed before God. The life and beliefs of the Essenes.

Essene Monastic Life

From the Community Rule we discover the rules the members of the Monastic Community were required to live by and they agree remarkably with Josephus. Monastic Essenes were to:

be admitted to the Community only after a lengthy procedure
obey the Laws of Moses—indeed vow to be “Zealous for the Law” …“until there shall come the prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (apparently suggesting that three people were expected, the prophet, the Priestly Messiah and the Kingly Messiah, but it seems the two messiahs at least were the same person)
hold their property in common under the control of a “custodian of property”
bathe daily in holy water
eat each day a sacred meal and pray together
be ruled by a Community Council which shall “preserve the faith in the land with steadfastness and meekness and shall atone for sin by the practice of justice and by suffering the sorrows of affliction”
maintain total self-control—members were fined if they showed anger
organise themselves in a strict hierarchy of members and speak only in order, keeping silent when others are speaking and respecting the wishes of the majority
follow meticulously the appointed times which is to say the official schedules and solar calendar
separate from the ungodly
follow liturgy precisely.

The complicated procedure for admission was as follows.

Appear before the full congregation to be examined by the Master of the whole sect for suitability. On acceptance swear to follow the Community’s interpretation of the Law of Moses—any transgression to be punished by expulsion, enter a long period of instruction by the Master in the rules of the community
appear for a second time before the congregation for acceptance as a novice, on acceptance spend a year as a novice regarded by members still as impure and not worthy of the sacred meal
appear for the third time before the congregation, on acceptance leave all possessions with the bursar who would keep them distinct from the possessions of the Community, complete a second year as a novice still unable to partake of the drink of the congregation
submit yet again for examination and if accepted enter fully the congregation allowing all possessions to be taken into the Community and partaking fully of the sacred meal
love God and each other and hate the wicked (but leave it to God to punish them).

The last of these rules was really the most important one. In Mark 12.28-12:34 a scribe asks Jesus to say what was the greatest commandment. For all Jews the greatest commandment is to love God, and Jesus’s answer is in the Shemah (Deut 6:4-5) which pious Jews recite every day:

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

Note that “The Lord is one”, denies the Trinity. Since he was asked for one only, Jesus curiously gives a second commandment, to love your neighbour, from Leviticus 19:18—exactly matching the Essene rule except that the part about hating enemies is omitted. The Damascus Rule has:

They shall love each man his brother as himself; they shall succour the poor, the sick and the needy.

The Essenes were a brotherhood, so the meaning here is that they should love those who were members of it, and care for the weak. Gentiles are excluded. The quotation from Leviticus 19:18 in full reads:

Thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people but shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

showing that it applies to Jews specifically. The “children of thy people” are the Jews. Neighbour is not used in the sense of any neighbour and once it is recognized that Jesus was an Essene it is plain that he could only have meant a Jewish neighbour.

And Rabbi Hillel, when challenged to teach the Torah as succinctly as possible, offers it in the form:

What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow. This is the whole law.

Hillel called it the great practical principle.

Jesus gives both commandments together as if they were one. Josephus in Antiquities says John the Baptist taught righteousness toward men and piety towards God, bracketing the two together and also notes this as Essene practice. In the scroll fragments we find that the community’s notion of piety meant loving God’s name—piety towards God is another way of saying loving God. Essene teaching, the teaching of the Baptist and the teaching of Jesus are the same. Both the Epistle of James and the Qumran texts associate piety with poorness and meekness and they and the gospels declare that wealth is not compatible with righteousness.

Jesus’s Pharisaic inquisitor agrees that these principles are more important than burnt offerings, an expression of Pharisaic opposition to the Sadducees whose emphasis was on ritual rather than piety. Pharisees accepted sacrifice only as a token of sincere repentance. The Damascus Rule quotes Proverbs 15:8 as Essene belief:

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, but the prayer of the just is as an agreeable offering.

The agreement over the burnt offerings is significant in that both Pharisees and Essenes consider temple ritual alone is insufficient for entry to God’s kingdom. Pharisee and Essene have united against the Sadducees.

Jesus concludes by telling the scribe that he is not far from the kingdom of God. The scribe was righteous but not an Essene. He had to repent sincerely and be baptized to be one of the elect. Mark normally runs down Pharisees yet here he leaves a good impression. It all leads you to think it must come from genuine tradition. Because Mark was the first gospel, written while the church was still evolving, the treatment of the story is liberal. It was edited in later gospels to temper this praise and leave no credit to the Pharisee.

However, the way it is presented in Luke 10:25-28 sounds more authentic in that it is all in the mouth of the Pharisee. The Pharisee does not ask Jesus what the first commandment is, but asked him how he could inherit eternal life—meaning enter the kingdom. Jesus did not tell him but asked the scribe to explain what was written in the law. It is the scribe that answers Jesus’s question in the rabbinic fashion to be expected and Jesus compliments him. It all fits in better, which might be Luke’s literary skill, but the original question is better in this context than Mark’s rather phony sounding one. Thus it avoids the problem of getting two answers from one question, because the question was not simply what was the first commandment, the answer to which any Jew would know, as we noted above.

In Luke, the phrase about burnt offerings is missing, possibly because Luke is not using the incident to run down the Sadducees but as a link to the likable but bogus parable of the good Samaritan which continues the theme of neighbourliness. The parable is bogus because the hero is made into a Samaritan to represent gentiles, fulfilling one of Luke’s aims—to render Jewish teaching suitable for non-Jews. The original story might have been a genuine parable but we shall dismiss it as uncertain. The logic of the sequence of priest then Levite is that the next along the road should be an Israelite, a lay Jew, not a Samaritan, the castes of society in the Jewish theocracy below Levite being Israelites and proselytes. In this context, the lay Jew implies an unpious Jew, a publican, a man of the land, a backslider. The parable depicted the layman, the simple of Ephraim as more neighbourly to the downtrodden and more righteous than the priesthood, the acknowledged rulers of God’s kingdom. It could have been a Nazarene parable directed at the Jewish nobility, the Sadducees. Luke’s extension of the story into the tale of the good Samaritan was a distortion of the evangelist to prove that one’s best neighbour need not be a Jew for Christianity to prosper.

Essenes were to be admitted to the Community only after a lengthy procedure, but evidently Jesus, and before him John the Baptist, had decided there was not enough time for a probation period because of the imminence of God’s visitation. Normally, initiation was at least three years but the day of vengeance could happen at any time, such were the portents. So Jesus would have started his ministry believing that the kingdom was due within three years.

When admitted fully into the new covenant, the priests blessed the elect with a prayer for God to preserve the new sectaries from evil:

May God bless you with all good and preserve you from all evil. May God lighten your heart with life-giving wisdom and grant you eternal knowledge. May God raise his merciful face towards you for everlasting bliss.

All priestly blessings were concluded with calls of Amen, Aramaic for “quite so” or “truly” or “verily”, as it is often translated in the gospels. The curses of Satan and apostates by the Levites which followed were similarly concluded with cries of “Amen”, “Amen”. In John’s gospel Jesus is depicted idiosyncratically saying, “Verily”, “Verily”, just as the Essene liturgy required.

This liturgy was probably observed each year at the annual renewal of the covenant held at Pentacost. On that occasion, the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS 2:19) tell us that the wilderness chaste brotherhood (called “priests” and “levites”) and the village Essenes (called “people” and “Israelites”) congregated in the desert for a covenant renewal ceremony. New members were admitted to be instructed by the Master (1QS 1:7) when they would hear the Essene interpretation of the law of Moses and commit themselves to it. They were taught they were living in the last days (End Time) (4Q174 1:2,12,15,19) and that strict adherence to the law was essential to enter God’s kingdom, or “house” or “sanctuary.” Those who were saved were those who held fast to the community’s rules, followed the law, listened to the righteous teacher and confessed before God.

The various rules of the community prescribe punishments for infringements of the rules. Essenes were to be truthful, righteous and just that they might do as Jeremiah had commanded—seek God with their entire heart and soul. The Community Rule declares that the men of perfect holiness, each with his neighbour, shall walk according to these rules. They had to practise what was good and what was just, love one another, and share with each other their knowledge, powers and possessions.

The constant emphasis Essenes placed on being righteous or just leads one to believe that the title “the Just” or “the Righteous” actually denotes an Essene just as a Sikh is customarily called Singh. There were other men among the Jews who were good men, but it was the prime objective of the Essenes, so their leading men were often given that title. In studying the New Testament, it is a fair bet that anyone described as righteous or just, or given one of those titles is an Essene. Hebrew scholar, Millar Burrows, one of the translators of the sectarian Scrolls of Qumran, believes that the saintly Onias the Rainmaker, also called Onias the Just, who was stoned to death in about 65 BC was an Essene. The leader of the Jerusalem Church, James the Just, so-called the brother of the Lord, seems on this basis also to have been an Essene. Essenes were respected as righteous men up until the war with Rome, but their righteousness was not merely exemplary behaviour but taking the right attitude toward the land of Judaea. They were righteous because they were uncompromising in their disapproval of foreign rule!

Essenes could not transgress one word of the law of Moses—Jesus said not one jot or tittle (Mt 5:18). The punishment was expulsion and shunning by every member unless the transgression was inadvertent when the member could be readmitted after two years.

They had to live, eat and pray together and own only limited personal possessions, everything else being held by the community under the control of a custodian of property. This reflects Nazarene practice as we know from Acts. Lying in matters of property such as concealment of personal possessions was punished by partial expulsion for a year and a cut in rations. But in Acts 5:1-10 two converts are apparently killed for doing this, showing that their true crime was far worse. Expulsion was the punishment for rebelling against the leadership of the community or for slandering them. The Community Rule has:

Whoever has slandered the congregation shall return no more. Whoever has murmured against the authority of the Community shall be expelled and shall not return.

Expulsion was death as far as the sectaries were concerned. Their oath was to do only what their Mebaqqer permitted. A conscientious Essene would die if expelled. The deaths in Acts, however, are quick ones, carried out by God in the presence of Peter—in short, by Peter! The two in Acts probably committed treason, betraying the sect to the authorities for money. Neither the Essenes nor the Nazarenes could have had any legal powers of execution. That is not to say that they would not have killed, but they would only have done it according to the rule of God as they perceived it. The scrolls state that no one was allowed to condemn a fellow according to the law of the gentiles—the punishment being death. Ananias and Sapphira must have tried to betray the community to the gentiles and this is why Peter struck them down.

Monastic Essenes had to bathe daily in holy water and eat each day a sacred meal of bread and wine. They were to keep meticulously the appointed times of the solar calendar prescribed in the Book of Jubilees. They had to maintain total self-control—members were fined if they showed anger toward each other (unless it was ritualized). No one was allowed to be ill-tempered or stubbornly obtuse and could not bear malice from one day to the next. Disagreements between the sectaries were to be expressed truthfully and openly, and heard humbly and charitably. If a disagreement were serious then the plaintiff had to publicly rebuke his tormentor before he could take his complaint before the full congregation to be judged. To indicate correct procedure the Damascus Rule quotes Leviticus 19:18 and 19:17:

You shall not take vengeance against the children of your people, nor bear rancour against them… You shall rebuke your companion and not be burdened by sin because of him.

Jesus teaches the same (Mt 18:15-17).

The monks had to organize themselves in a strict hierarchy of members and speak only in order, keeping silent when others were speaking and respecting the wishes of the majority. They had to follow liturgy precisely.

Above we saw the Community Rule’s instruction that members had to swear to hate the Sons of darkness for all eternity. Rich people were regarded as deceitful and wicked, and the Essenes were to keep apart from ungodly and wicked men whom they were obliged to hate with everlasting hatred. The Damascus Rule specifies that they should:

separate from the sons of the pit and shall keep away from the unclean riches of wickedness acquired by vow or anathema or from Temple treasure; they shall not rob the poor of His people, make of widows their prey and of the fatherless their victim… They shall love each man his brother as himself and succour the poor, the needy and the stranger.

They were to love their brother Essenes as themselves but not all men—most of them they hated as wicked. Riches are wicked, the poor are venerated, widows should not be robbed of their mites nor orphans exploited. The language is very much the language of Jesus, but Christians in setting up a universal religion, omitted the qualifications—a brother was not any man. The pit is one of the three snares of Belial discussed below and represents riches, so the sons of the pit are the wealthy—mainly Sadducees. The poor are subtly distinguished from the poor of His people. The poor is a name for themselves, whereas the poor of His people are the poor of the children of Israel—God’s children. In the final sentence the poor, the needy and the stranger all stand for fellow Essenes, brothers who they have to love as themselves.

The Community Rule also emphasizes separation from the wicked, citing Exodus 23:7, “Keep thou far from a false thing”. The verse continues, “and the innocent and righteous slay thou not, for I will not justify the wicked”. Isaiah 2:22 is also quoted, “Cease ye from man, whose breathe is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of”. This is in a passage in which God is saying what punishments he will mete out to wicked men. Yet Essenes were not to take it upon themselves to punish the ungodly. That was God’s job and, in the Community Rule, the blessing of God, which the Master has to recite at the various watches, says:

I will pay no man the reward of evil. I will pursue him with goodness. For judgement of all the living is with God and it is he who will render to man his reward.

In practice this is stronger than turning the other cheek. It was not for men to punish anyone who had wronged them for it is up to God alone to punish, but nor was the recommended course as indifferent as simply turning another cheek—pursuit with goodness was needed. Hatred of the ungodly was required but no one could judge another man with a view to handing out punishment. He had to pursue him with goodness.

All this sounds odd in the light of the War Scroll and many other texts but it was a command which applied only until God set about purging the world of the wicked on the day of vengeance when the perfect would become agents of God’s vengeance, and it was a rule which would not have applied to gentiles in any case—it applied only to Jews. The gentiles had to be driven from the land irrespective of individual personal qualities. The net effect was that initiates of the Essene order had to hate the wicked but could do nothing about it until God indicated the appointed time.

The Essene language of extremes of love and hate is partly caused by the absence of comparative elements in Aramaic. Comparatives needed circumlocutions and so were not often used and shades of grey or degrees tended to be viewed as opposite poles. With inadequate ways of expressing ideas, ideas and thoughts similarly become polarised—love the righteous, hate the sinners! Jesus said no man can serve two masters (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13) but must love one and hate the other. This is hardly practical advice, but is typically Essene, and doubtless partly conditioned by the practicalities of Aramaic speech and thought.

The temple of Herod with its unclean Sadducaic priests was disregarded by the sectaries living in separation in the monastery at Qumran, though the village Essenes still used the Jerusalem temple in the normal way. The Community Rule commands that:

the men of the community shall be set apart as a house of holiness for Aaron and those who walk in perfection shall be joined as a holy of holies and as a house of community for Israel. The council of the community will be established in the truth as an eternal planting—a holy house for Israel and a foundation of the holy of holies for Aaron. It shall be a witness to truth at the judgement, when the Elect, by God’s will, shall atone for the land and pay to the wicked their recompense.

Note here that the elect were to atone for the land, and pay the wicked their recompense at the judgement day. Atoning for the land refers to the occupation of Judaea by the gentiles, and of other Jewish lands by the puppet Herodians, who were all to receive retribution. Essenes were not just pacifist monks as Josephus implied.

A house for Aaron is, of course, a temple, Aaron being Moses’s brother and priest of Israel who might enter the holy of holies. Since the community was a temple and the temple was the most substantial building in the land, the sectaries were fond of solid architectural metaphors like, “It shall be the tested wall; the precious cornerstone; its foundation will not shake or become displaced”. In the Master’s song blessing God of the Community Rule we find:

He has joined their assembly to the sons of heaven, to be a council for the community, a foundation for the building of holiness, and eternal plantation throughout all ages to come.

Evidently the new covenanters considered themselves to be joined to heaven already—the foundation of heaven on earth—God’s bridgehead for the coming kingdom.

Daniel tells us that there is a god that revealeth secrets, who maketh known what is to come to pass. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, a “stone” destroys the four great kingdoms of the dream. Later in Daniel the four kings are replaced by the saints of the Most High, an Essene name for themselves, who take the kingdom and possess it for “ever, even for ever and ever”. The everlasting kingdom therefore replaces the earlier four earthly kingdoms and must therefore be on earth. Essenes expected heaven and earth to unite to form a perfect and incorruptible earth.

The Qumran Community regarded itself as a living temple, an image found in John 2:21: “He spake of the temple of his body”, and used by Paul (1 Cor 3:16-17). In 1 Peter 2:5 the Christian church was to be a spiritual temple in which spiritual sacrifices are made. Each believer is described as a “living stone” in this spiritual temple and the chief corner stone is Jesus (Eph 2:20), the whole growing to become a living temple to the Lord—purely Essene.

If the community council was a holy of holies for Aaron and a temple for Israel, it seems that the council at Qumran was an alternative temple for all Essenes. The monastic Essenes did not live in the buildings of Qumran but in caves nearby and a tented city which would have provided for a transient as well as a permanent population. The Essenes of the villages had cause to visit as pilgrims.

The Essenes aimed to be perfect. Yet they could not be sanctimonious about it. An absolute requirement was to be meek and humble. Their hymns and writings reminded them constantly that they were wicked and sinners, that they had disobeyed God and strayed from his precepts. They were unworthy and must try constantly to be perfect—by the grace of God they would succeed. The Community Rule orders, “None of the saints shall lean upon works of vanity”, and, as if to counter any grand ideas the sectaries might get from hearing the Master’s blessing of God several times a day the Master goes on to say:

I belong to wicked mankind, to the company of ungodly flesh. Mankind has no way, since judgement is with God and perfection of way is out of His hand. All things come to pass by His knowledge and He establishes things by His design and without Him nothing is done.

If they showed any such failings, they fell down the rankings at their yearly assessment and might be expelled altogether. These requirements of humility are the origin of the humble and gentle Jesus, meek and mild. For those who tried with all their heart, God was bountifully merciful. Note that in the preface of John we find:

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made,
John 1:3

an identical sentiment to the final sentence above. The author of the fourth gospel is using an Essene song without even mentioning the Essenes—unless they were the Nazarenes.

Furthermore, in Numbers 12:3, “the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth”. For the Essenes, Moses was the priest, prince and prophet, the first messiah sent by God—and they were sure that the expected messiah could be no less. Thus all Essenes had to be meek toward each other—but not toward the men of darkness.

Essenes vowed to be zealous for the law “until there shall come the prophet and the messiahs of Aaron and Israel”, apparently suggesting that three people were expected, the prophet, the priestly messiah and the princely messiah. In fact, they expected one man to embody all three roles like Moses.