110. Comp. generally, 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 230, 231.
111. Ber. v. 1; comp. with Vayyikra R. 2, ed. Warsh. t. iii. p. 5 a.
112. Here it deserves special notice that the Old Testament term Chasid, which the
Pharisees arrogated to themselves, is rendered in the Peshito by Zaddîq. Thus, as it were,
the opponents of Pharisaism would play off the equivalent Tsaddiq against the Pharisaic
arrogation of Chasid.
113. Such by-names, by a play on a word, are not unfrequent. Thus, in Shem. R. 5 (ed.
Warsh. p. 14 a, lines 7 and 8 from top), Pharaoh's charge that the Israelites were
Μψπ≅ιρ:νι 'idle,' is, by a transposition of letters made to mean that they were πορνοι.
114. It seems strange, that so accurate a scholar as Schürer should have regarded the
'national party' as merely an offshoot from the Pharisees (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 431), and
appealed in proof to a passage in Josephus (Ant. xviii. 1.6), which expressly calls the
Nationalists a fourth party, by the side of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. That in
practice they would carry out the strict Judaism of the Pharisees, does not make them
Pharisees.
This uncertainty as to the origin of the name of a party leads almost naturally to the
mention of another, which, indeed, could not be omitted in a ny description of those times.
But while the Pharisees and Sadducees were parties within the Synagogue, the Essenes
('Εσσανοι or 'Εσσαιοι> - the latter always in Philo) were, although strict Jews, yet
separatists, and, alike in doctrine, worship, and practice, outside the Jewish body
ecclesiastic. Their numbers amounted to only about 4,000.115 They are not mentioned in
the New Testament, and only very indirectly referred to in Rabbinic writings, perhaps
without clear knowledge on the part of the Rabbis. If the conclusion concerning them,
which we shall by-and-by indicate, be correct, we can scarcely wonder at this. Indeed,
their entire separation from all who did not belong to their sect, the terrible oaths by
which they bound themselves to secrecy about the ir doctrines, and which would prevent
any free religious discussion, as well as the character of what is know of their views,
would account for the scanty notices about them. Josephus and Philo,116 who speak of
them in the most sympathetic manner, had, no doubt, taken special pains to ascertain all
that could be learned. For this Josephus seems to have enjoyed special opportunities.117
Still, the secrecy of their doctrines renders us dependent on writers, of whom at least one
(Josephus) lies open to the sus picion of colouring and exaggeration. But of one thing we
may feel certain: neither John the Baptist, and his Baptism, nor the teaching of
Christianity, had any connection with Essenism. It were utterly unhistorical to infer such
from a few points of contact - and these only of similarity, not identity - when the
differences between them are so fundamental. That an Essene would have preached
repentance and the Kingdom of God to multitudes, baptized the uninitiated, and given
supreme testimony to One like Jesus, are assertions only less extravagant than this, that
One Who mingled with society as Jesus did, and Whose teaching, alike in that respect,
and in all its tendencies, was so utterly Non-, and even Anti- Essenic, had derived any part
of His doctrine from Essenism. Besides, when we remember the views of the Essenes on
purification, and on Sabbath observance, and their denial of the Resurrection, we feel
that, whatever points of resemblance critical ingenuity may emphasise, the teaching of
Christianity was in a direction opposite from that of Essenism. 118