Note 75 — THE ESSENES.

“But hear the Sadducee’s nonsense (comp. ibid., p. 42): he rejects the sacrificial and altar services, as repulsive to the Deity, and as things which, according to the meaning of the fathers and the Mosaic law, were never offered to the Lord in a worthy manner. Yet he says that we must pray with our faces to Jerusalem, where the sacrificial altar and the sacrifices have their place. He rejects the eating of animal flesh which is common among the Jews, and other things; nay, even the sacrificial altar and the sacrificial fire, as being foreign to the Deity. The purifying water, he says, is worthy of God, but the fire is unworthy, because of the declaration of the prophet: ‘Children, go ye not there to see the fire of the sacrifices, for ye err; yea, it is already an error to think such a thing.’ ‘If you look at the fire very closely,’ says he, ‘it is still far off. Moreover, go ye not to look at the sacrificial fire, but go ye rather to the doctrine of the water.…’ There is much more of such idle talk to be found among the Ossenes.”75