most rigid rule, obedient to their superiors; who gave up all their possessions, as well as

the earnings of their daily toil in the fields, or of their simple trades; who held all things

for the common benefit, entertained strangers, nursed their sick, and tended their aged as

if their own parents, and were charitable to all men; who renounced all animal passions,

eschewed anger, ate and drank in strictest moderation, accumulated neither wealth nor

possessions, wore the simplest white dress till it was no longer fit for use; repudiated

slavery, oaths, marriage; abstained from meat and wine, even from the common Eastern

anointing with oil; used mystic lustrations, had mystic rites and mystic prayers, an

esoteric literature and doct rines; whose every meal was a sacrifice, and every act one of

self-denial; who, besides, were strictly truthful, honest, upright, virtuous, chaste, and

charitable, in short, whose life meant, positively and negatively, a continual purification

of the soul by mortification of the body. To the astonished onlookers this mode of life

was rendered even more sacred by doctrines, a literature, and magic power known only to

the initiated. Their mysterious conditions made them cognisant of the names of Angels,

by which we are, no doubt, to understand a theosophic knowledge, fellowship with the

Angelic world, and the power of employing its ministry. Their constant purifications, and

the study of their prophetic writings, gave them the power of prediction;  139 the same

mystic writings revealed the secret remedies of plants and stones for the healing of the

body,140 as well as what was needed for the cure of souls.

It deserves special notice that this intercourse with Angels, this secret traditional

literature, and its teaching concerning mysterious remedies in plants and stones, are not

unfrequently referred to in that Apocalyptic literature known as the 'Pseudepigraphic

Writings.' Confining ourselves to undoubtedly Jewish and pre-Christian documents,141 we

know what development the doctrine of Angels received both in the Book of Enoch (alike

in its earlier and in its later portion142) and in the Book of Jubilees,143 and how the 'seers'

received Angelic instruction and revelations. The distinctively Rabbinic teaching on these

subjects is fully set forth in another part of this work.144 Here we would only specially

notice that in the Book of Jubilees145 Angels are represented as teaching Noah all 'herbal

remedies' for diseases,146 while in the later Pirqé de R. Eliezer147 this instruction is said to

have been given to Moses. These two points (relation to the Angels, and knowledge of

the remedial power of plants - not to speak of visions and prophecies) seem to connect

the secret writings of the Essenes with that 'outside' literature which in Rabbinic writings

is known as Sepharim haChitsonim , 'outside writings.'148 The point is of greatest

importance, as will presently appear.