Note 86 — THE ESSENES.

1835.—The difficulty of reading Rabbinical Hebrew in which Rappaport’s profound remarks are written, must have prevented Gfrörer from seeing what this erudite Jewish critic had written on the Essenes; for, although the second edition of vol. i. part 11 of his Critical History of Primitive Christianity, containing an account of the Essenes, appeared in 1835, yet he positively states “that the Essenes and the Therapeutae are the same sect and hold the same views” (p. 299). According to him, the development of Essenism is as follows. In the third century before Christ, the Jews in Alexandria formed societies according to the Pythagorean model, and thus originated the sect called the Therapeutae, from these Egyptian Therapeutae again Essenism developed itself in Palestine about 130 B.C. Hence Essenism is the channel through which the Alexandrian theosophy was first transplanted into Palestinian soil. The reason why the Essenes kept their doctrines secret is that the Palestinian priests were hostile to this foreign importation, and persecuted those who received this contraband. Accordingly, the relationship of Pythagorism, Therapeutism and Essenism, to use Gfrörer’s own figure, is that of grandmother, mother and daughter. “So perfect is the agreement between the Therapeutae and the Essenes, that it even extends to their names. For the word Ἐσσαῖνς according to the most correct etymology, is derived from the Syro-Chaldaic verb ‏אסא‎ which denotes to cure, to nurse, and hence is nothing but a literal translation of θεραπευτὴς.”86