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438 ORIGIN, ANTIQUITY, AND
These Essenes* were strictly an ascetic or monastic frater-
nity. They had a perfect community of goods, and every one
admitted into their society lodged his whole property in a
common treasury. In their refectory they partook of the food
dealt out by their Servitor in perfect silence ; and so rigorous
were they in their observance of the Sabbath, that they would
neither kindle a fire, remove a vessel though it stood in their
way, or even ease themselves, till Shobbos, according to the
Hebrew phrase, was put out, or the Sabbath ended. To be
touched by any one not belonging to their sect, or for an old
man of their Order to be touched by a young person, they held
to be an impurity which required ablution. All domination
they held to be unjust, and inconsistent with the laws of nature,
who had produced all her sons in a state of equality. So
averse were they to war, that they would not suffer any of their
body to be employed in manufacturing military weapons, or
instruments of any kind. No one was admitted as a member
of this
fraternity, without passing through a course of preparatory
discipline out of the society for one year, and afterwards
approving his constancy by two years' regular attendance within
the college. After this, if he was judged worthy, he was receiv-
ed a sa brother, with a solemn oath to conform to the discipline
and observe the rules of the society, to guard its sacred books
and the names of the angels, and never divulge its mysteries.
What was meant, in the oath administered to the noviciate,
by guarding the angels, may be conjectured from the notion
which prevailed in the East, and in Egypt, concerning the
power of demons or angels over the affairs of the world. The
Essenes having adopted the visionary fancies of their Pagan
neighbours concerning these superior natures, imagined themselves
able, by the magical use of the names of angels, to perform
supernatural wonders, and that the due observance of
these mystical rites was the charge which they bound themselves
by oath to take of the sacred names of angels. Added
to this, they lived, or at least a certain number of them, in a
* We speak of the Jewish Order in Egypt. Other fraternities, under
various names, existed in almost every part of the ancient civilized world,
in many points similar in their institutions.