Note 54 — THE ESSENES.

This custom has its origin in the extension of a Mosaic law. The hosts of the Lord are commanded in Deut. xxiii 13, 15 , to have spades among the martial instruments in order to bury therewith their excrements without the camp, and thus to keep themselves pure from every pollution, and to be a holy camp, because the Holy One of Israel dwells in the midst thereof. Now as the Essenes strove to be, in a pre-eminent sense, the spiritual hosts of the Lord, every one of them was obliged to have this spade in order to guard their sacred camp from defilement. For this reason the apron was also given to cover their nakedness in their numerous baptisms, and thus to keep their thoughts from dwelling upon anything which might lead to impurity; whilst the white garment was the symbol of their holiness. This, however, was not peculiar to the Essenes, as the Talmud tells us that when any one applied to become a member of the Pharisaic order (‏חבר‎), he had to pass through a noviciate of twelve months, at the expiration of which he received a sort of garment called ‏כנפים‎, and having duly qualified himself in this stage, he was afterwards admitted to the holier lustrations (‏מקבלין לכנסּים ואחר כד מקבלין לטהרות‎). (Comp. Tosifta Demai e. 11; Jerusalem Demai ii. 3; Babylonian Becharoth 30, 6). ↑