Note 471 — Chapter V · PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE ESSENES

Dr Kohler, apparently a Rabbi of New York, gives other particulars of the Essenic initiation, including a song describing Heaven and Hell. This he takes from the Testament of Job described by him in the Festschrift called Kohut’s Semitic Studies, Berlin, 1897, pp. 265 sqq. Among other things, he thinks the initiate was told that Satan was the cosmocrator, or ruler of the world, and that the sacred girdle was an amulet which would enable him both to defy Satan’s snares, and to see the wonders of the world of angels. But I do not see that he brings forward any proof that either this book or what he calls the whole Job literature is attributable to the Essenes.