Note 38 — THE ESSENES.
Reading edition
“Towards the west [of the sea] and sufficiently distant from it, so as to escape its noxious exhalations (ab occidente litora Esseni fugiunt, usque qua nocent), are the Essenes. They are a hermitical society, marvellous beyond all others throughout the whole earth. They live without any women, without gratifying sensual desires, without money, and in the company of palm trees. Their ranks are daily made up by multitudes of new comers who resort to them; and who being weary of life, and driven by the surges of ill-fortune, adopt their manner of life. Thus it is that, through thousands of ages (per saeculorum millia),38 incredible to relate, this people prolongs its existence without any one being born among them: so fruitful to them are the weary lives of others.”