"Single is every living creature born, Single he passes to another world, Single he eats the fruit of evil deeds, Single, the fruit of good; and when he leaves His body like a log or heap of clay Upon the ground, his kinsmen walk away; Virtue alone stands by him at the tomb, And bears him through the dreary, trackless gloom." (Ibid.) CHAPTER XXXVII. WHY CHRISTIANITY PROSPERED. We now come to the question, Why did Christianity prosper, and why was Jesus of Nazareth believed to be a divine incarnation and Saviour? There were many causes for this, but as we can devote but one chapter to the subject, we must necessarily treat it briefly. For many centuries before the time of Christ Jesus there lived a sect of religious monks known as Essenes, or Therapeuta; these entirely disappeared from history shortly after the time assigned for the crucifixion of Jesus. There were thousands of them, and their monasteries were to be counted by the score. Many have asked the question, "What became of them?" We now propose to show, 1. That they were expecting the advent of an Angel-Messiah; 2. That they considered Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah; 3. That they came over to Christianity in a body; and, 4. That they brought the legendary histories of the former AngelMessiahs with them. The origin of the sect known as Essenes is enveloped in mist, and will probably never be revealed. To speak of all the different ideas entertained as to their origin would make a volume of itself, we can therefore but glance at the subject. It has been the object of Christian writers up to a comparatively recent date, to claim that almost everything originated with God's chosen people, the Jews, and that even all languages can be traced to the Hebrew. Under these circumstances, then, it is not to be wondered at that we find they have also traced the Essenes to Hebrew origin. Theophilus Gale, who wrote a work called "The Court of the "Numerous bodies of ascetics (Therapeuta), especially near Lake Mareotis, devoted themselves to discipline and study, abjuring society and labor, and often forgetting. it is said, the simplest wants of nature, in contem plating the hidden wisdom of the Scriptures. Eusebius even claimed them as Christians; and some of the forms of monasticism were evidently modeled after the Therapeuta." (Smith's Bible Dictionary, art. "Alexandria." Gentiles" (Oxford, 1671), to demonstrate that "the origin of all human literature, both philology and philosophy, is from the Scriptures and the Jewish church," undoubtedly hits upon the truth when he says: "Now, the origination or rise of these Essenes (among the Jews) I conceive by the best conjectures I can make from antiquity, to be in or immediately after the Babylonian captivity, though some make them later." Some Christian writers trace them to Moses or some of the prophets, but that they originated in India, and were a sort of Buddhist sect, we believe is their true history. Gfrörer, who wrote concerning them in 1835, and said that "the Essenes and the Therapeuta are the same sect, and hold the same views," was undoubtedly another writer who was touching upon historical ground. The identity of many of the precepts and practices of Essenism and those of the New Testament is unquestionable. Essenism urged on its disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The Essenes forbade the laying up of treasures upon earth.' The Essenes demanded of those who wished to join them to sell all their possessions, and to divide it among the poor brethren.' The Essenes had all things in common, and appointed one of the brethren as steward to manage the common bag. Essenism put all its members on the same level, forbidding the exercise of authority of one over the other, and enjoining mutual service. Essenism commanded its disciples to call no man master upon the earth. Essenism laid the greatest stress upon being meek and lowly in spirit.' The Essenes commended the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemaker. They combined the healing of the body with that of the soul. They declared that the power to cast out evil spirits, to perform miraculous cures, &c., should be possessed by their disciples as signs of their belief. The Essenes did not swear at all; their answer was yea, yea, and nay, nay. When the Essenes started on a mission of mercy, they provided neither gold nor silver, neither two coats, neither shoes, but relied on hospitality for support." The Essenes, though repudiating offensive war, yet took weapons with 1 Comp. Matt. vi. 33; Luke, xii. 31. 2 Comp. Matt. vi. 19-21. Comp. Matt. xix. 21; Luke, xii. 33. xli, 6; xiii. 29. Comp. Matt. xx. 25-28; Mark, ix. 35-37; I. 42-45. Comp. Matt. xxiii. 8-10. 7 Comp. Matt. v. 5; xi. 29. * Comp. Mark, xvi. 17; Matt. x. 8; Luke, ix. 1, 2; x. 9. Comp. Matt. v. 34. 10 Comp. Matt. x. 9, 10. them when they went on a perilous journey.' The Essenes abstained from connubial intercourse.' The Essenes did not offer animal sacrifices, but strove to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which they regarded as a reasonable service.' It was the great aim of the Essenes to live such a life of purity and holiness as to be the temples of the Holy Spirit, and to be able to prophesy.* Many other comparisons might be made, but these are sufficient to show that there is a great similarity between the two. These similarities have led many Christian writers to believe that Jesus belonged to this order. Dr. Ginsburg, an advocate of this theory, says: "It will hardly be doubted that our Saviour himself belonged to this holy brotherhood. This will especially be apparent when we remember that the whole Jewish community, at the advent of Christ, was divided into three parties, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and that every Jew had to belong to one of these sects. Jesus, who, in all things, conformed to the Jewish law, and who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, would therefore naturally associate himself with that order of Judaism which was most congenial to his holy nature. Moreover, the fact that Christ, with the exception of once, was not heard of in public until his thirtieth year, implying that he lived in seclusion with this fraternity, and that though he frequently rebuked the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, he never denounced the Essenes, strongly confirms this conclusion." The facts as Dr. Ginsburg calls them—which confirm his conclusions, are simply no facts at all. Jesus may or may not have been a member of this order; but when it is stated as a fact that he never rebuked the Essenes, it is implying too much. We know not whether the words said to have been uttered by Jesus were ever uttered by him or not, and it is almost certain that had he rebuked the Essenes, and had his words been written in the Gospels, they would not remain there long. We hear very little of the Essenes after A. D. 40, therefore, when we read of the "primitive Christians," we are reading of Essenes, and others. The statement that, with the exception of once, Jesus was not heard in public life till his thirtieth year, is also uncertain. One of the early Christian Fathers (Irenæus) tells us that he did not begin 1 Comp. Luke, xxii. 26. 2 Comp. Matt. xix. 10-12; I. Cor. viii. Comp. Rom. xii. 1. 4 Comp. L. Cor. xiv. 1, 39. The above comparisons have been taken from Ginsburg's "Essenes," to which the reader is referred for a more lengthy observation on the subject. Ginsburg's Essenes, p. 24. 7" We hear very little of them after A.D. 40; and there can hardly be any doubt that, owing to the great similarity existing between their precepts and practices and those of primitive Christians, the Essenes as a body must have embraced Christianity." (Dr. Ginsburg, p. 27.) to teach until he was forty years of age, or thereabout, and that he lived to be nearly fifty years old.' "The records of his life are very scanty; and these have been so shaped and colored and modified by the hands of ignorance and superstition and party prejudice and ecclesiastical purpose, that it is hard to be sure of the original outlines." The similarity of the sentiments of the Essenes, or Therapeutæ, to those of the Church of Rome, induced the learned Jesuit, Nicolaus Serarius, to seek for them an honorable origin. He contended therefore, that they were Asideans, and derived them from the Rechabites, described so circumstantially in the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah; at the same time, he asserted that the first Christian monks were Essenes." Mr. King, speaking of the Christian sect called Gnostics, says: "Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before (their time) in many of the cities of Asia Minor. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as Mystæ,' upon the establishment of a direct intercourse with India under the Seleucida and the Ptolemies. The colleges of Essenes and Megabyzae at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curetes of Crete, are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic." Again: "The introduction of Buddhism into Egypt and Palestine affords the only true solution of innumerable difficulties in the history of religion." Again: "That Buddhism had actually been planted in the dominions of the Seleucida and Ptolemies (Palestine belonging to the former) before the beginning of the third century B. C., is proved to demonstration by a passage in the Edicts of Asoka, grandson of the famous Chandragupta, the Sandracottus of the Greeks. These edicts are engraven on a rock at Girnur, in Guzerat." Eusebius, in quoting from Philo concerning the Essenes, seems to take it for granted that they and the Christians were one and the same, and from the manner in which he writes, it would appear that it was generally understood so. He says that Philo called them "Worshipers," and concludes by saying: "But whether he himself gave them this name, or whether at the beginning they were so called, when as yet the name of Christians was not everywhere published, I think it not needful curiosity to sift out." 1 This will be alluded to in another chapter. 2 It was believed by some that the order of Essenes was instituted by Elias, and some writers asserted that there was a regular succession of hermits upon Mount Carmel from the time of the prophets to that of Christ, and that the hermits embraced Christianity at an early period. (See Ginsburgh's Essenes, and Hardy's Eastern Monachism, p. 358.) King's Gnostics and their Remains, p. 1. 4 Ibid. p. 6. King's Gnostics, p. 23. Eusebius: Eccl. Hist., lib. 2, ch. xvii. |