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Who Lies Sleeping?

Christian and Essene Common Features 1

The Essenes as proto-Christians

Abstract

The Essenes held assemblies and congregations, words translated as “church”. Jesus says, “tell it to the church” (Matthew 18:17) before there was a Christian church. We infer that Jesus was an Essene. Essenes also had bishops, deacons, elders, priests, disciples, scriptures, gospels, epistles, psalms, hymns, mystery, allegory, and so on, long before Christianity. Both communities used the same phraseology. Christ and his apostles had nothing to originate with respect to doctrines, precepts, church polity, or ecclesiastical terms. The Essenes and Christians could not have existed at the same time as separate institutions, they were too similar. The latter must have emerged from the former. There are differences, particularly those indicated in Christian documents, though some were later changes by the gentile Church. Others are genuine because Nazarenes were a variety of Essenes. Notes on the common features between Essenes and Christians

The Essenes as proto-Christians

Ministers preach in their pulpits every Sunday that the religion and morality taught and practised by Jesus Christ was without a parallel or precursor because it was divinely inspired and unique to Jesus. None of these claims is well founded.

Christianity is not unique when compared with Essenism and, though the origin of the Essenes is still not certain, they existed in 150 BC, in the days of Jonathan Maccabaeus, thus pre-dating Christianity by some two hundred years at least. With the Pharisees and Sadducees they made up the three main Jewish sects written about by Josephus. There are differences between the Essenes and Christians but they have arisen because Christianity evolved beyond the point reached by the Essenes of the Scrolls and the classic writers.

Nevertheless so much remained the same that the identity of the two sects at root cannot be denied by rational people. Essenism was the same system in spirit and essence as the Judaean Christianity of the Jerusalem Church which therefore taught the doctrines and moral precepts of the Essenes. Inevitably Christianity growing in a gentile rather than a Jewish medium later came to differ from its parent.

Christian writers said quite clearly that Essenism and Christianity were the same religion, the former name being used at an earlier period. Eusebius, a standard ecclesiastical writer of the fourth century, asserts in his History of the Church:

Those ancient Therapeuts (Essenes) were Christians, and their ancient writings were our gospels.

A father of the church asserts the Essenes originated the Christian religion. Ask why then our modern day clerics vehemently deny it.

In Matthew 18:17, Jesus clearly says, “tell it to the church” before Christians claim there was a church. The Essenes, held assemblies and congregations, words translated as “church”, leaving us to infer that Jesus and his disciples were Essenes. Essenes had not only churches, but bishops, deacons, elders, priests, disciples, scriptures, gospels, epistles, psalms, hymns, mystery, allegory, and so on, long before Christianity. Christ and his apostles had nothing to originate, either with respect to doctrines, precepts, church polity, or ecclesiastical terms—all being established for them long before. The Essenes and Christians could not have existed at the same time as separate institutions—they were too similar. The latter must have emerged from the former.

Josephus says, the Essenes were scattered far and wide, and were in every city, being quite numerous in Judaea in his time, but he makes no reference to any sect or religious order by the title of Christian. Christianity not yet have been called by that name, or Josephus was still unaware of the change.

He and the other classic writers tell us Essenes had a high appreciation of the inspired law of God, an apparent difference from Christianity explained by the transfer of Essenism to gentiles. The highest aim of their lives was to become fit temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19), to perform cures especially spiritual cures and to be spiritually qualified as forerunners of the messiah. They strove to be like the angels of heaven. They taught the duty of mortifying the flesh and the lusts thereof. They avoided impure contact with the heathen and the world’s people and lived apart from the world, being in numbers about four thousand. There were no rich and poor or masters and servants amongst them. They lived peaceably with all men, until they became convinced that God wanted them to fight for His kingdom. Total silence was observed while eating. A solemn oath was required on becoming a member of the secret order, whereupon they scrupulously avoided oaths. Admission to the order required three things:

Love of God
Merciful justice to all Jews, avoidance of the wicked, and assistance to the righteous
Purity of character, which implied love of truth, hatred of falsehood, and strict observance of “the mysteries of godliness” to outsiders—heathens and publicans.

They endured suffering for righteousness’ sake, with rejoicings, and even sought it. Josephus says they regarded the body as a prison for the soul and desired the time to come to escape from it. In this Josephus was either wrong or was deliberately misleading or Christian editors had altered the original because the Essenes believed in bodily resurrection into God’s kingdom. However, the body was a purified uncorruptible body and evidently they believed the soul was alive somewhere until it could rejoin its body in the everlasting kingdom. They recognized eight different stages of spiritual growth and perfection:

Bodily purity
Celibacy
Spiritual purity
The suppression of anger and malice, and the cultivation of a meek, lowly spirit
The attainment of perfect holiness
Becoming fit temples for the Holy Ghost
The ability to heal physically but especially spiritually and raise the dead, meaning saving the lost sheep of the Jewish people from eternal death outside God’s kingdom
Becoming forerunners of the Messiah.

Finally, they took a solemn vow to exercise piety toward God and justice toward all men, to hate the wicked, assist the good to keep clear of theft and unrighteous gains, to conceal none of their mysteries of godliness from each other, or disclose them to others. They were to walk humbly with God, shun bad society, forgive their enemies, sacrifice their passions, and crucify the lusts of the flesh. They disregarded bodily suffering and even gloried in martyrdom, preaching and singing to God amid their sufferings. They wore their clothes until they became ragged. Their food consisted of bread and water, and wild roots and fruits of the palm tree. They enjoined their duty, not only of forgiving their enemies, but of seeking to benefit them, and of even blessing the destroyer who took life and property. Such was the religion, such the moral system, such the devout piety and such the practical lives of the Essenian Jews, a religious sect which flourished in Alexandria and Judaea before the birth of Christ and was plainly replaced in history by Christianity.

Clearly, Essenism and Christianity are strikingly alike in their essential features. The former system contains nearly every important doctrine and precept of the Christian religion. Ask why these two religions should be of such similar character. Ask why it should not be quite simply that Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaean Essenism. Indeed, ask why we are not driven to that conclusion. Both:

are alike, and Essenism is much the older system
religions are an outgrowth of Judaism
were known and taught in Judaea and in Alexandria.

Neither Josephus living in Judaea nor Philo in Alexandria speak of Christianity, yet both describe a remarkably similar religion in doctrines and moral precepts which they call Essenism. The gospel writers, claiming to describe the events which led to the foundation of Christianity, tell us of two of the three main sects of Judaism, the one which they miss out being the Essenes. Yet they describe a sect which Josephus does not mention called the Nazarenes, the very sect which later became called the Christians.

Does this not suggest that Essenism was another name for Christianity but that it had not yet changed its name—an event which happened, not in Judaea so much as when the sect escaped into the Roman Empire at large? Gibbon in Decline and Fall thought so.

We are driven to the conclusion that Christianity was derived from Essenism. What then was the significant difference? It was that Christianity grew among gentiles while Jewish Christians remained Essenes. Tacitus in 104 AD is the first of the three hundred writers of that era that makes any mention of Christianity, Christ, or a Christian. This was a decade after Josephus’ last book. Until then the name Christianity had not yet been widely recognised as something different from the Jewish original. Around 100 AD the new name, Christianity, which had been coined a few decades earlier, came into widespread use to distinguish gentile Essenes from Jewish Essenes.

We still find Christians desperately denying the obvious:

The Essenes did not believe in the resurrection of the physical body but believed in a spiritual resurrection, and omit from their creed the Trinity and Incarnation doctrine, and therefore they could not have been the originators of the Christian religion.

Philo seemed to be expecting a messiah and he spoke of the incarnate word. As for the doctrine of the Trinity, we have the authority of Eusebius that they taught this doctrine too. So that it is not true that they did not recognise these two prime articles of the Christian faith, the Incarnation and Trinity doctrines.

Some modern Christians assert that the Essenes not only omitted to teach these doctrines, but that, on the other hand, they taught other doctrines not taught in the Christian New Testament. This is not unlikely. The Christian religion frequently changed its doctrines to fit the circumstances throughout its history. How this fits with the doctrine of an infallible word of God, is anybody’s guess but Christians have never been inquisitive types.

Christians followed in the tradition of Judaism, which changed even the name of its God from Elohim to Jehovah. Its leader and founder Abram was changed to Abraham, and his grandson and successor from Jacob to Israel. Jews most often changed their religions doctrines when they came in contact with nations teaching a different religion. They were inclined to imitate and borrow and thus effected important changes in their religion. For example, Israelites never had a doctrine of future punishment till after they were brought in contact with the Persians in Babylon who had long taught these doctrines. Even their national title was afterwards changed from Israelites to Jews.

The name of the Essenes had been changed previously from Hasidim to Essenes. Philo calls them Therapeutae, and Eusebins says the Therapentae were Christians. Doesn’t this settle the matter?

Essenes had their Exoteric and their Esoteric doctrines. The latter, which seems to have included the incarnation, atonement, trinity, and all the other standard eastern doctrines now included in the term Christianity, they never published to the world. Hence only their Exoteric doctrines have been noted. Christianity is merely a continuation of eastern beliefs as taught by the Essenian sect.

In summary, Christianity and the Essene sect have too many features in common for it to be chance.

They both believe in baptism. Vermes tells us the Community Rule ordained that the initiate “shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God” but only after “his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water”.
The earliest Christians “held all things common”—they were primitive communists. Yet the Community Rule states that all shall bring their “knowledge, powers and possessions” into the Community, that they shall “eat in common and pray in common” and that a new member’s property shall be “merged…to the Community”.
The early church in Jerusalem was led by the twelve apostles—still twelve even after Judas had died showing that the apostles were not particular persons but positions to be filled when vacant—fourteen or possibly fifteen apostles are mentioned in the gospels—of whom Peter, James and John had special responsibility. The Community was led by a Council of 12 people, apparently with three priests having special responsibility.
Both the Community and the first Christians were messianic—the Christians regarded Jesus as the Messiah. The Community had their “Teacher of Righteousness” with a similar history.
Both communities also use the same phraseology. Jesus said, “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”, an exact expression of the Community’s beliefs about itself for they called themselves “the Poor” and “the Meek” and they were preparing themselves to inherit the earth when God’s kingdom on Earth was created. Many other instances can be quoted especially from Matthew which was the one closest in language to the Aramaic.
Both communities originally cleaved rigidly to the Law of Moses and so, evidently did Jesus because he says in the Sermon on the Mount that he has not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil it and that “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the Law till all things be accomplished”.
If the confusion of the timing of the Last Supper in the Bible is anything to go by the calendar used by Jesus did not match the official Jewish one. The Community used a solar rather than the official lunar calendar which might have allowed Jesus and his disciples to have had their Passover meal a day earlier so that he was crucified before Passover started.
Both communities had an identical ritual meal. The Christian one supposedly specially instituted by Jesus at the last supper, the Community one laid down in the Community Rule in which the priest shall “bless the first fruits of the bread and new wine” after which the Messiah, who is present in spirit, or the Nasi, who is really present, extends his hand over the bread that they might begin.
Both communities referred to their leader as “Master”.
Both communities held an important gathering at Pentecost.

New Testament scholars believed John was the last of the gospels written and was strongly influenced by Persian religion and Platonic philosophy. From the scrolls, however, some scholars now take a different view—John follows the tradition of the Essenes. John has the conflict of Light and Darkness and expressions like, “the light of life”, “children of light”, “walking in darkness”, “the spirit of truth” and “eternal life” all of which occur in the Community Rule. John has:

And all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

The Community Rule has the following:

And by his knowledge everything has been brought into being. And everything that is, he established for his purpose; and apart from him nothing is done.

The scroll fragments prove to be messianic, make use of the same frequent scriptural quotations used in the New Testament books, have similar concepts of Righteousness, Piety, Truth, Justification, Works, the Poor, the Meek and use similar vocabulary. The Hebrew word “hesed” in the Qumran fragments is translated by traditional Qumran scholars as “Piety” but it can also be rendered as “Grace” which is the translation used in Paul’s epistles. Scroll words are Christian words.

Page Tags: Christians, Essenes, Proto-Christians, Scroll Language, Early Christian Documents, Zadokite, Gentiles, Jesus, Common Features, Christianity, Christians, Qumran, Messiah, Apocalypticism, Kingdom, Scrolls, Righteous, Righteousness, Teacher, Righteous One

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.