philo on the essenes

1 The Roman philosopher and naturalist Pliny the Elder agrees and seems to locate an Essene community at Qumran. In regard to the origin of the Essenes, neither Josephus nor Philo can give a specific date, but both make clear that the Essenian roots are incredibly ancient. They practiced an apocalyptic faith, looking back to the contributions of their "Teacher of Righteousness" and forward to the coming of tw… �_ � -��t�'�(,b �� @��f�;P{[Ig1T%օ�&�;��B��(��}Q ŕ0�D�$�Ȫ��j&��m`k�"!W�u%,�Ū�Y*�Z>q�. Both these theories are interpretations of the facts at hand. ��B޿�p� Philo noted that the Essenes were trained in piety, holiness, justice, domestic and civil conduct, and summarized their beliefs and practices under three headings, namely, love of God, love of virtue and love of men. Though the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls are not mentioned in the New Testament, they are described by Philo, Josephus, and Eusebius.With publication of the Essenes' own sectarian writings since the 1950s, however, they have become well known. There were about four thousand Essenes, according to the testimony of Philo and Josephus. stream Discussion between the Pharisees, Saddu… According to Josephus, they had customs and observances such as collective ownership, electing a leader to attend to the interests of th… DSS LINKS. The name given to this Jewish sect is said to be derived from the Greek ‘hosios’, which means ‘holy’. Their withdrawal into desert seclusion was in opposition to the ruling powers in the city and the Temple of Jerusalem. 4. ��,��iǊ��D�}��~��E7x3�/�m��]�_i��^�~��F�j�/X��7��~K9�5�fZ��>m͎��ff��-�C�C�ruļz3��6�R5��?du�`+�%��/��3=�s��(�� The foundational Modern Essene guidelines, as they did in historical times, include a focus on the great Torah Way of life and liberation, the weekly Shabbat practice, live-food veganism, reestablishing our place in the sacred planetary ecology, and no drug use. For this reason there are no young children among the Essenes. For centuries, both ancient writers and modern scholars read reports about the Essenes from writers such as Josephus, Philo, Pliny, Porphyry, and Jerome — the “classical sources” o… Modern scholarship has often associated the group Philo describes in Contempl. to theoretical inversigations of ethic questions. Philo distinguishes the Essenes from the Therapeuts by saying that the former were devoted to the "practical" life, while the latter proceeded to the higher stage of the "contemplative" life, and devoted themselves to still higher problems of. The Therapeutae shared with the Essenes a dualistic view of body and soul. What Philo says (quoted by Eusebius, Preposition Evan., VIII, 11), that among the Essenes "there are no youths or persons just entering on manhood, only men already declining towards old age," would indicate that the settlement at Engedi was an asylum for those who, having borne the burden and heat of the day, now retired to enjoy repose. 3 An Essene was, in fact, to show fidelity to all men, but specially to those in authority. Currently two theories exist in the academic world. 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. (78) 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: (79) and there is not a single slave 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 ordinances 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. X��'2C��(��?�`"�X�X20��~إ��(~�Ze16�1�K�D��M1 But if you read the classical sources on the Essenes by themselves, without the Dead Sea Scrolls in hand, you would probably reach the very opposite conclusion — that the Essenes werea Pythagorean group inclined towards pacifism. They apparently were scattered in communities throughout Palestine, although some evidence exists that they avoided the larger cities. They differ in the time and place that the Essenes originated. (84) 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. There is a portion of those people called Essenes, in number somewhat more than four thousand in my … HISTORY & RELIGION. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA ON THE ESSENES: A CASE STUDY ON THE USE OF CLASSICAL SOURCES IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE QUMRAN-ESSENE HYPOTHESIS JOAN E. TAYLOR The issue of whether the site of Kh. �r��nGV��ұ��s�ַ�G�L(Y�!�HhЦ8�81_a�p�UH:�i}�3�k Many of the Essene groups appear to have been celibate, but Josephus speaks also of another "order of Essenes" that observed the practice of being engaged for three years and then becoming married. Since the classical sources of Josephus, Philo, and Pliny represented the Essenes as a secretive, initiatory community given to the study of “mysteries” and the pursuit of esoteric practices, healing, and various forms of divination, it was not all that difficult to imagine the Essenes as playing a secret, hidden role in facilitating and orchestrating public and political events from behind the … More on this later. There are three major accounts of the Essenes in Josephus. Both men had personal knowledge of the ancient Essenes; thus, what they tell us has a high degree of credibility. Josephus and Philo -- as well as several other ancient writers including Pliny the Elder -- are in consensus on two points in regard to the origin of the Essenes: 2 0 obj XII. “The Dead Sea Scrolls community, who are probably Essenes, were led by a high priestly leadership, who are thought to be the descendants of the "legitimate" high priestly lineage, which the Hasmoneans ousted.”2The Essenes were a humble service-oriented group. 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. Philo's project is to illustrate the active and contemplative philosophical lives by illustrations from Judaism that ultimately would prove how virtue is found within the community he represents. Translated by C.D.Yonge (1854) Every good man is free. The Essenes, interestingly, are not mentioned in the New Testament, or in rabbinic literature. According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, the Essenes were indeed celibate. (82) 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; (83) 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. In a later work, the Hypothetics, Philo again commented on the diligence and industry of the sect. (89) 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: (90) 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: (91) 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 or Holy [Greek: essaiOn E hosiOn]. (81) 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 sacred places which are called synagogues, and there they sit according to their age in classes, the younger sitting under the elder, and listening with eager attention in becoming order. The first theory claims that they were a group that originated in Israel. According to the former, the Essenes were one of the three main philosophical sects among the Jews, the other two being the Pharisees and the Sadducees, both of whom are mentioned in the New Testament . �:m��5Z{c�ޟ�&��ؔ_yw�W�7��A�!&��1�Ġ��a^��O��ȕر��.A)�X��~f3Ѭd��b�>�g�]|$2��7�.�/��_Nf't)�r�t��'��5�҅��y?��W�H̔b�f��7�ߧ%/�c��`�$W�B^%S�r��ZlׯA��`��bMR�� V��I[�U��!��-M�a�eoS�L|�)ߋ�X��)�uW=��G��Q��E�Q.X�鏣62K�C�8�O�z.��ct�ƅȨ6��R6��c��j[W�R�tX�a��`\�1?tg�8?�_�[w��ת��"-��|H��M�|%��u�n6|e�&�5?�X��,��Db�v��r�R��~��y��Ηl��O�h��w�H�R` �0��VA��C�w��jC8�z��gj(�+��]�l��]�WB�B6K\U��W⣷|�4��:�na>�m��vg��-�-D@��{�[O��P=o��W�У�XhW%�nL޻,i�SÈ �'T�ȅG Both the Essenes and the people of the Mareotic group are “attendants of God,” by Philo’s definition of philosophical excellence, but there are various features of Philo’s Mareotic group that are distinctively different from what he states about the Essenes: theirs was a contemplative rather than an active life, they are situated in a completely different place to the Essenes of Syria Palaestina, … Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life by the Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert-dwelling Therapeutae. The main distinction between the Therapeutae and the Essenes is that the latter were anti-intellectual, while “wisdom,” Philo says, was the main objective of the Therapeutae. Philo's second account of the Essenes: "The Essenes live in a number of towns in Judea, and also in many villages and in large groups. 1, where city-dwelling is mentioned). According to Moshe Weinfeld, the rules regulating the Essene community and its admission of new members are essentially those found in later Hellenistic and Roman religious groups. (85) 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; (86) 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? "No one," says Philo, "not even 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 or Holy." Philo, as the preserved fragments already show, has devoted the main point of his work to the discussion of such Jewish precepts as he could recommendto the obedience of a non-Jewish circle of readers, to whom the work is unmistakeably directed. The picture of the Essenes painted by Josephus and Philo is one of highly structured, peace-loving, predominantly agrarian and communal societies, who shunned cities in favor of small villages (but see Jos. Philo (second account) "The Essenes live in a number of towns in Judea, and also in many villages and in large groups. They do not enlist by race, but by volunteers who have a zeal for righteousness and an ardent love of men. Tabor denies that the Essenes were Pythagorean or pacifist. The Life of the Essenes. p. 136. religion and philosophy, and it is in this direction that we must look for the best in Gnosticism. As the work pursues For this reason there are no young children among the Essenes. Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish neo-platonic (more or less) philosopher who wrote in the first decades of the Christian era, gives the earliest accounts of the Essenes in his book Quod Omnis Probis Liber Sit and in the Apologia pro Judaeis. 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; (80) 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. According to Philos, the label “Essene” was not their own. %PDF-1.3 Philo, who calls the Essenes "the holy ones," after the Greek ὅσιοι, says in one place (as quoted by Eusebius, "Præparatio Evangelica," viii. Not even adolescents or young men. (75) Moreover 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. Hellenistic Jewish synagogue fresco Moses being taken from the river Nile 2. We do not know for certain where the movement originated. Philo agrees, calling the Essenes "the most ancient of all the initiates" with a "teaching perpetuated through an immense space of ages". Philo on the Essenes. This happened during the Hasmonean kings (The Palestine-origin theory.) << /Length 4 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> Qumran, on a plateau by the Dead Sea, was occupied by Essenes during the late Second Temple period continues to divide scholars. (88) 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. 8. Published in "The Works of Philo", Hendrickson, 1993. Essenes. Because they were convinced that they were the true remnant, these Qumran Essenes had separated themselves from Judaism at large and devoted themselves to personal purity and preparation for the final war between the "Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness." 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 says in the former: ��Z@(��-P� ݟCď��xB_��h,�8�!�9��}!��3eWhgy��|)�x�ǜCq�j�$�N��Kq=��i�sr��8�ֺ�CqڬW�_;z�n1rS��Xr��֯M0E�R� �5�~��L��nl�o��ݚbj�=�w��v��qgȢ��3)iur%��AZ|�1��[�٧B�A�g��+AD�I�u{��% The seed of the Modern Essenes today was activated by Dr. Edmund Bordeaux Szekely in 1929. x�ݝk�Ǒ��h[��b�/�'��,�K��q# E�zW5�2�2��0 ��s��d�deeF��?��3y��`�׮�B�C ��R�C��ݫ��v�w�}yev�vz�?W�'�`J��s��gbv��v��o?��g0�ޙ��G�O��T�O�y��|��rYx��S��0�O.��507��~D}�]?��y��r��#&��#/�?O�y?��r�Ft�xm�U��:-�w�0�E�L�0��Y�y�f�B!D�[Hy�n��L�ݽ?��wS'��ؾ�9��n��y=�͚��l��㚪��1a~H��l��N�S�`Svk�nZ��;{��9m��'MN�cjf��9y�v�?3��P| ��|� �f��=�c?3[g��X��?v%�៺cf[��H�G��Q�蕕h�X��4��?,F��W�O�k��\��Z�+`瑻��yn�� .��Z��ق|�=��>_�#i^��NIf��WH�OX��:q��Uל?BBZ��B�v��:Т��S;o��H��o�hh��m�oW?�~��1�vү��`��7h�L��N��}�oДVoz��P')?�Lt�mm�F�䙩��΃w��D[��?�u��B��52�{�/��pnM�6�Ǵڪ� `��m��)[�Ms_X�yn�6m�.�߶��~ 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; (87) 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. %�� This description has been taken by many scholars as indicating that the Qumran sect whose library was found at the shor… with the Essenes, who embraced contemplation. The second, more common, the… DEAD SEA SCROLLS. What Philo says (quoted by Eusebius, Preposition Evan., VIII, 11), that among the Essenes "there are no youths or persons just entering on manhood, only men already declining towards old age," would indicate that the settlement at Engedi was an asylum for those who, having borne the burden and heat of the day, now retired to enjoy repose. Steve Mason argues that the texts of Josephus cannot be relied upon to support the conclusion that the Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the inhabitants of Qumran. Bauer's study is fascinating in many ways: for its record of pre-Qumran efforts to link the Essenes with other known texts, for example, and for its understanding of Pliny's remark about the place of the Essenes (1924: 390). According to Pliny, there was an Essene settlement between Jericho and ʿEin Gedi on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The accounts by Josephus and Philo show that the Essenes led a strictly communal life—often compared to later Christian monasticism. The latter work is lost but the Essene passage is quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea. XIII. J.W. Essene, member of a religious sect or brotherhood that flourished in Palestine from about the 2nd century bc to the end of the 1st century ad. M ost of what we know about the Essenes comes from the literature found at Qumran, known popularly as The Dead Sea Scrolls, and from the writings of the Jewish historian, Josephus, a Roman historian, Philo, and a few other Roman and Greek writers. 1 He tended to idealize the Essenes and accommodate their ideas and lives to his Greek readers. The New Testament does not mention them and accounts given by Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, and Pliny the Elder sometimes differ in significant details, �`�_��k��3��EC#�:�I|��S��?U��TG�:��$��C��'f��ǉ��0F��?bf��[�(�:�`tg��S��}e��v�� `��Fl�f�z�f�A H�}n��3��9( =��ʉ3�KlFo7R �U� �*��7\� ��l�5��"hI�x�? In this case, Bauer concluded that War 2.119-61 mainly borrows a lost description of the Essenes by Philo. The oldest accounts of Essenes we have come from Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 B.C.--50 A.D.): Quod omnis liber probus sit ( Every Good Man Is Free) and Hypothetica also called Apologia. The question, of course, is whether the Qumran community was in fact Essene. Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life by the Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert-dwelling Therapeutae. §124, and Philo Hypothetica 11. A more extensive treatment of the Essenes is found in the works of both Flavius Josephus and Philo of Alexandria. Philo was the greatest Jewish philosopher of that period. They do not enlist by race, but by volunteers who have a zeal for righteousness and an ardent love of men.
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