Note 102 — Part I

Fabre d'Olivet thinks this tradition had descended to the Essenes from Moses: "If it is true, as everything attests, that Moses left an oral law, it is amongst the Essenes that it was preserved. The Pharisees, who flattered themselves so highly on possessing it, only had its outward forms (apparences), as Jesus reproaches them at every moment. It is from these latter that the modern Jews descend, with the exception of a few real savants whose secret tradition goes back to the Essenes."--La Langue Hebraïque, p. 27 (1815).