Note 93 — THE ESSENES.

1856.—So convincing was Frankel’s Treatise, that Graetz, who published the third volume of his masterly History of the Jews in 1856, in which he gives an elaborate account of this brotherhood, remarks:93 “I completely accept these results about this sect being based upon critical investigation, and shall only add a few supplementary points by way of illustration.”94 The additions consist of a very able analysis of Philo’s reputed Treatise entitled De Vita Contemplativa, showing that it is spurious, and of an attempt to show that the Essenes were perpetual Nazarites (‏נזירי עולם‎). His remarks are as follow—“There were great masses of Nazarites in the post-exile period (Tosifta Nasir, c. iv.; Babbi Berachoth, 48 a; 1 Macc. ii. 49; Joseph. Antiq. xviii. vi.), but they were of a different character to those of the Biblical period; they were Nazarites for the whole life (Nasir 4 a.) The Mishna presupposed their existence; the magical in Nazaritism, which was connected with the growing of the hair in the Nazarites of the Bible, gradually recedes into the back ground or loses its significance altogether; whereas the Levitical, the guarding against defilement, appears more and more in the foreground among the life-long Nazarites. The Essenes then were such Nazarites as represented in private life the highest priestly consecration. The connection between the Nazarites and Essenes has already been indicated in obscure passages in the Talmud, that one consecrated himself to be a perpetual Nazarite if he simply wished to be a Nazarite in order that he might be able to preserve the secrets of disgraceful family circumstances. (Tosifta Nasir, b. i. 6; Kidushim 71 a.)95