The Seven Witnesses and the Essenes

This is how he gives baptism to the people he has taught by word of mouth, saying something like this to those he has taken in: “If, my children, anyone has had intercourse with an animal of any kind, or with a male, or with a sister, or with a daughter, or has committed adultery, or has been sexually immoral, and wants to have his sins forgiven — then from the moment he listens to this book, let him be baptized a second time in the name of the Great and Most High God and in the name of his Son, the Great King. Let him be purified and cleansed by baptism, and let him call on those seven witnesses that are written down in this book to witness for him: heaven, and water, and the holy spirits, and the angels of prayer, and oil, and salt, and earth.” [a]

These are the astounding mysteries of Elchasai — the unutterable and powerful secrets he hands on to the disciples he counts worthy of them. And that lawless man is not satisfied with these. In front of two and three witnesses he sets his seal on his own wicked practices, putting it this way again: “Again I say: you adulterers and adulteresses, you false prophets — if you want to turn back and have your sins forgiven you, then as soon as you listen to this book and are baptized a second time with your clothes on, peace will be yours, and a share with the righteous.”

And since we have said that these people resort to spells for those bitten by dogs and for other accidents, we will set those out as well. Elchasai’s formula runs like this: “If a rabid and raging dog, with a spirit of destruction in it, bites any man or woman or boy or girl, or mauls them or so much as touches them, let that person run within the same hour, clothes and all, and go down to a river or to a spring wherever the water is deep. Let him be dipped with all his clothing on, and let him make his prayer to the Great and Most High God with faith in his heart, and then let him call the seven witnesses written down in this book to witness, like this: ‘See, I call heaven to witness, and the water, and the holy spirits, and the angels of prayer, and the oil, and the salt, and the earth. I testify by these seven witnesses that I will sin no more, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor do anyone an injustice, nor be greedy, nor be driven by hatred, nor be scornful, nor take pleasure in any wicked act.’ So when he has said these words, let him be baptized with all his clothing on, in the name of the Great and Most High God.”

On a great many other matters too he talks nonsense. He prescribes these same sentences for people wasting away with consumption, and says they should be dipped in cold water forty times over seven days; and he orders the same treatment for people possessed by demons. What matchless wisdom! What spells, gorged with power! Who would not be astonished at such force of words? [e]

But since we have said that they also bring in the fraud of astrology, we will prove it from their own formularies. Elchasai speaks like this: “There are wicked stars of ungodliness. This has now been said to you, devout ones and disciples: beware the power of the days when these stars are in command, and do not set your hand to the beginning of any undertaking during the days they rule. And do not baptize a man or a woman during the days when these stars have power, when the moon comes out from among them and courses the sky and travels along with them. Beware of the whole time up to the day when the moon passes out from these stars, and then baptize and begin every work of yours. Beyond that, honor the day of the sabbath, since that day is one of those on which the power of these stars prevails. Take care, though, not to begin your work on the third day from a sabbath. For when three years of the reign of the emperor Trajan have been completed once more, counting from the time he brought the Parthians under his own rule — when, I say, three years have been completed — war breaks out among the ungodly angels of the northern constellations, and for that reason all the kingdoms of ungodliness are thrown into confusion.”

Since he thinks it unreasonable that mysteries as mighty and unspeakable as these should be trampled underfoot, or handed over to many people, he advises that they be kept safe like costly pearls. He puts it this way: “Do not repeat this account to everyone, and guard these instructions carefully, because not all men are faithful and not all women are straightforward.” [h]

Books with teachings like these in them were never shut away in shrines by the wise men of Egypt, nor did Pythagoras, that sage of the Greeks, hide them there. For if Elchasai had happened to be alive back then, what need would there have been for Pythagoras, or Thales, or Solon, or the wise Plato, or the rest of the Greek sages either, to become pupils of the Egyptian priests, when they could have got hold of wisdom of this quality from Alcibiades, that astonishing interpreter of the wretched Elchasai?

What we have said, then, so that the madness of these people may be known, should be enough for anyone in his right mind. It has not seemed worth quoting more of their formularies, since there are a great many of them and they are ridiculous. But since we have not passed over the practices that have sprung up in our own day, and have not kept quiet about the ones current before our time, it seems right — so that we may work through every system of theirs and leave nothing untold — to state the customs of the Jews as well, and the differences of opinion among them; for I think these are all that is still left for us to consider. And when I have broken silence on these matters, I will go on to the demonstration of the Teaching of the Truth, so that after this long, hard argument against all the heresies we may press on devoutly toward the crown of the kingdom, and believe the truth, and not be shaken.

At the start there was only one way of life among the Jews. One teacher was given them by God, namely Moses, and one law by this same Moses; there was one desert region and one Mount Sinai, since it was one God who made the laws for these Jews. But afterward, once they had crossed the river Jordan and had received the conquered country by lot, they tore the law of God apart in one way and another, each man inventing a different interpretation of what God had said. In this way they raised up teachers for themselves, invented teachings of a sectarian kind, and went on advancing further into divisions. [k]

It is the differences among these Jews that I now propose to explain. They have been split for a long time now into a great many sects, but I intend to set out the chief ones, and anyone with a taste for study will easily come to know the rest for himself. They divide into three kinds. The followers of the first are the Pharisees, of the second the Sadducees, and the rest are the Essenes.

The Essenes practice a more devoted way of life. They are full of love for one another, and they are self-controlled. They turn away from every act of unrestrained desire, and cannot bear even to hear of things of that kind. They give up marriage — but they take other people’s boys, and in that way get children of their own. They lead these adopted children into the observance of their own particular customs, and so bring them up and press them to learn the sciences. They do not, however, forbid them to marry, though they refrain from marriage themselves. Women they will not admit, even women inclined to take up the same way of life, since they have no confidence in women in any respect whatever.

They despise wealth, and they do not hold back from sharing what they own with those who have nothing. No one among them enjoys any more property than another. Their rule is that a man coming forward to join the group must sell what he owns and hand the price of it over to the community; the head of the order receives the money and shares it out to all according to their needs. So there is no one among them in want. They do not use oil, and count being rubbed with it a defilement. There are appointed stewards to take care of everything they hold in common, and all of them always appear in white clothing. [n]

There is no one city of theirs; many of them settle in every city. If any member of the group is there from somewhere else, they treat everything as belonging to him in common, and men they have never met before they receive as though they were of their own household and family. They travel about their native country, and whenever they go on a journey they carry nothing except weapons. In their cities they also have a leader, who spends the money collected for the purpose on clothing and food for them. Their robe and its cut are modest. They do not own two cloaks or a second pair of shoes; when the ones in use wear out, they take others. They neither buy nor sell anything at all: whatever a man has he gives to the one who has not, and what he does not have he receives. [p]

They keep to an orderly routine, praying steadily from first light, and they do not speak a word until they have praised God in a hymn. Then each of them goes out and takes up whatever employment he pleases; and after working until about eleven in the morning they stop. Then they come together again in one place, tie linen cloths around themselves to cover their private parts, and in this state wash in cold water. Once they have been cleansed this way they go together into a single room — no one who holds a different opinion from theirs comes into the house — and they sit down to their meal. [r]

When they have taken their places in silence, they set out loaves in order, and next one sort of food to eat along with the bread, and each man receives enough of it for himself. No one tastes any of it before the priest says a blessing and prays over the food. After the meal he offers prayer a second time, and as at the beginning so at the end they praise God in hymns. Then they lay aside as holy the clothes they wore while eating together in the house — these are linen — take up again the clothes they left in the entrance hall, and hurry off to work they enjoy until evening. They eat supper in the same way as all that has been described.

No one ever raises his voice, and no other noisy sound is heard. They talk quietly, each yielding the conversation to the next in good order, so that the stillness of the men inside the house looks like some sort of mystery to those outside. They are unfailingly sober, and eat and drink everything by measure.

They all attend to the leader, and whatever orders he issues they obey as law. They are anxious that mercy and help should reach the oppressed. Above all they keep clear of rage and anger and every feeling of that kind, since they hold such things to be treacherous to a man. None of them is in the habit of swearing an oath; whatever a man says is held to be more binding than an oath, and anyone who does swear is condemned as not worth believing. They are diligent about the readings of the law and the prophets, and about any writing of the faithful as well. They also show the greatest curiosity about plants and stones, busying themselves rather with what these can do, and saying that such things were not created for nothing. [t]

To men who want to become disciples of the group they do not hand over their rules straight away; they test them first. For the space of a year they set the same food before the candidate, while he goes on living in a different house outside the Essenes’ own meeting place. And they give him a hatchet, the linen cloth, and a white robe. When that period is up, if he affords proof of self-control he comes nearer to the group’s way of living, and he is washed more thoroughly than before. Even then he does not yet eat with the Essenes. He must first furnish evidence of whether he is able to master himself — a man in this condition is on trial for two years — and when he has shown himself deserving, he is at last counted a member of the group. [v]

Before he is allowed to share a meal with them, though, he is bound under fearful oaths. First, that he will worship God. Next, that he will deal justly with men, that he will injure no one, and that he will not hate a man who injures him or is hostile to him, but will pray for such men. He swears as well that he will always come to the aid of the just, and keep faith with everyone, and above all with those who rule; for a position of authority, they argue, comes to no one apart from God. And if the Essene is himself a ruler, he swears that he will never at any time behave arrogantly in the exercise of power, or be disobedient, or take to any finery or greater display than their custom allows. He swears further to be a lover of truth and to rebuke the man who lies; not to steal; not to stain his conscience for the sake of dishonest gain; to hide nothing from members of the group, and to disclose nothing to outsiders, even if he should be tortured to the point of death. And on top of all the promises above, he swears to pass the teachings on to no one in any form other than the one in which he received them himself.

With oaths of this kind, then, they bind the men who come forward. If anyone is convicted of some sin, he is expelled from the order; and a man cut off in this way sometimes perishes by a horrible death. Since he is still bound by the oaths and rites of the group, he is not able to take the food that other people use; and so men who have been expelled sometimes destroy their bodies entirely by starvation. This is why, when it comes to the last, the Essenes at times take pity on many of them as they are on the point of death, judging that a punishment carried this far, right up to death, is penalty enough for such men. [y]

In their court decisions the Essenes are most exact and impartial. They deliver their judgments only when they have assembled together, a hundred of them at the very least, and the sentence they pass cannot be reversed. They honor the lawgiver next after God, and if anyone speaks against this framer of the laws he is punished. They are taught to yield obedience to rulers and to elders; and if ten of them are sitting in the same room, not one of them will speak unless it seems right to the other nine. They are careful not to spit out into the middle of the company, or to the right. [z]

About refraining from work on the sabbath day they are stricter than all other Jews. They not only prepare their food a day in advance, so as not to light a fire on the sabbath; they will not even move a utensil from one place to another that day, or relieve themselves — some will not so much as get up from the couch. On other days, when they want to relieve themselves, they dig a hole a foot long with the mattock — this is what the hatchet is that the leader gives to men when they first come forward to be admitted as disciples — and they screen the place on every side with their cloak, so as not to insult the rays of the sun. Then they put the dug-up soil back into the pit; and this is their practice, choosing the more out-of-the-way spots for it. When they have finished, they wash at once, as though the excrement had made them unclean.