Philo's Description of the Essenes

From the Hypothetica

Moreover Palestine and Syria - countries inhabited by a large part of that most populous nation, the Jews - are not devoid of exemplary wisdom and virtue. A segment of those people are called Essenes, whose number I reckon to be somewhat more than four thousand, and whose derives from their piety, though not according to any accurate form of the Greek dialect. They are above all men devoted to the service of God, who do not sacrifice living animals, but rather strive to preserve their own minds in a state of holiness and purity. In the first place, they live in villages, avoiding all cities on account of the habitual lawlessness of their inhabitants, well knowing that moral illness is contracted from associating with wicked men just as physical disease can be from an unclean atmosphere, and that this would stamp their souls with an incurable evil. Some of them cultivate the earth, and others devote themselves to the arts which flow from peace, benefitting both themselves and all those who come into contact with them. They do not store up treasures of silver and of gold, nor acquire vast sections of the earth out of a desire for large profits, but provide all that is requisite for the natural purpose of life. Uniquely among all men, having begun as poor and destitute, rather from their own habits and ways of life than from any real deficiency of good fortune, they are nevertheless accounted very rich, judging them abundantly content in their frugality - as in truth they are.

Among them you will find no makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets, or breastplates, or shields; no makers of arms or any activity connected with war, or even to any of those peacetime occupations which are easily perverted to wicked purposes. They are utterly ignorant of all traffic, and all commercial dealings, and all navigation, but they repudiate and keep aloof from everything which can possibly afford any inducement to covetousness. Nor is there a single slave among them, but they are all free, aiding one another with a reciprocal interchange of services; and they condemn masters, not only as unjust, inasmuch as they corrupt the principles of equality, but as impious too, because they destroy the ordinances of nature, which created them all equally, and brought them up like a mother, as if they were legitimate brethren, not only in name but in reality and truth.

In their view this natural relationship of all men to one another has been thrown into disorder by scheming covetousness, continually wishing to surpass others in good fortune, which has therefore engendered alienation instead of affection, and hatred instread of friendship. Therefore, leaving to the word-catchers the logical part of philosophy, as in no way needed for acquiring virtue, and natural philosophy they leave to those who love to converse about high objects, as being too sublime for human nature to master, (except insofar 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 side of philosophy, taking as their guide the laws of their nation which no human mind could have devised without divine inspiration.

Now they are taught these laws at other times, but especially on the seventh day, for the seventh day is counted as sacred, when they abstain from all other employments, and visit sacred places called synagogues, and there they sit according to their age in groups, the younger sitting below the elder, and listening in good order and with eager attention. One of them takes up the holy volume and reads from it, then another of the most experienced men comes forward and explains whatever is not very clear, for a great many precepts are delivered in enigmatic modes of expression, and allegorically, as was the fashion of old. In this way 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 by nature good or bad or indifferent, and to choose what is right and avoid what is wrong, using a threefold set of distinctions and rules and criteria, namely, love of God, love of virtue, and love of mankind.

The sacred volumes offer an infinite number of instances of the disposition devoted to loving God, and of continued, uninterrupted purity throughout the whole life, of a careful avoidance of oaths and of falsehood, and of strict adherence to the principle of seeing the Deity as the cause of everything which is good and nothing that is evil. They also give us many instances of love of virtue, such as abstinence from all covetousness regarding money, from ambition and indulging in pleasures, temperence, endurance, moderation, simplicity, good temper, the absence of pride, obedience to the laws, streadiness, and everything of that kind. Finally, they bring forward as instances of the love of mankind, goodwill, indescribable equality and fellowship, about which it is not unreasonable to say a few words.

Firstly, there is no one who owns a house so absolutely as his own private property that it does not in some sense also belong to everyone. For besides their living together in companies, the house is open to all those who share their views, who come to them from other quarters. Their store-room is shared by them all and their expenses are all in common, since they all eat at a common table. Indeed there is no other people among which you can find the same house owned in common, the sharing of a single style of living, and a sharing of the same table more thoroughly established than among this tribe. Is not this very natural? After working throughout the day, whatever they receive as wages they do not retain as their own, but bring it to a common purse, for the benefit of all who desire to avail themselves of it. So those who are sick are not neglected because they are unable to contribute to the common purse, inasmuch as the tribe have in their public purse a means of supplying their needs and helping their weakness, 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, abundantly supported by them both by their personal exertions and by much planning.

Their philosophy, unconnected with any superfluous care of examining into Greek names, renders them capable of such diligent practice of virtue, proposing to them as vitally necessary all praiseworthy acts by which an unquenchable freedom is firmly established. The living proof is there, though at different times many chiefs of all sorts of disposition and character have occupied their country, some of whom have tried to surpass even ferocious wild animals in cruelty, and doing all kinds of inhumanity and regularly murdering whole troops of their subjects and even tearing them to pieces alive, like cooks cutting them limb from limb, until the oppressors were overtaken by the vengeance of divine justice, and at last underwent the same miseries in their turn. Still others turned their barbarous frenzy into another kind of wickedness, practising unspeakable savagery, talking with the people quietly, but hiding the ferocity of their real disposition under the hypocrisy of a more gentle voice, fawning on their victims like treacherous dogs, and causing them irremediable miseries, 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 they oppressed. But none, even of those immoderately cruel tyrants or of the treacherous and hypocritical oppressors, was ever able to bring any real accusation against the many who are called Essenes or Holy [Greek: e)ssaiwn h) o(siwn]. All were subdued by the virtue of these men, and looked up to them as free by nature, and not subjected by the frown of any human being, for they have celebrated their shared table and their indescribable fellowship with one another in mutual good faith, which is ample proof of a perfect and very happy life.
End.