of the anti-Pauline epistle commonly ascribed to him.

Of the early youth of Jesus, and of the circumstances which guided his
intellectual development, we know absolutely nothing, nor have we the
data requisite for forming any plausible hypothesis. He first appears
in history about A. D. 29 or 30, in connection with a very remarkable
person whom the third evangelist describes as his cousin, and who
seems, from his mode of life, to have been in some way connected with or
influenced by the Hellenizing sect of Essenes. Here we obtain our first
clew to guide us in forming a consecutive theory of the development of
Jesus' opinions. The sect of Essenes took its rise in the time of the
Maccabees, about B. C. 170. Upon the fundamental doctrines of Judaism it
had engrafted many Pythagorean notions, and was doubtless in the time of
Jesus instrumental in spreading Greek ideas among the people of Galilee,
where Judaism was far from being so narrow and rigid as at Jerusalem.
The Essenes attached but little importance to the Messianic expectations
of the Pharisees, and mingled scarcely at all in national politics.
They lived for the most part a strictly ascetic life, being indeed the
legitimate predecessors of the early Christian hermits and monks. But
while pre-eminent for sanctity of life, they heaped ridicule upon the
entire sacrificial service of the Temple, despised the Pharisees as
hypocrites, and insisted upon charity toward all men instead of the old
Jewish exclusiveness.

It was once a favourite theory that both John the Baptist and Jesus were
members of the Essenian brotherhood; but that theory is now generally
abandoned. Whatever may have been the case with John, who is said to
have lived like an anchorite in the desert, there seems to have been but
little practical Essenism in Jesus, who is almost uniformly represented
as cheerful and social in demeanour, and against whom it was expressly
urged that he came eating and drinking, making no presence of
puritanical holiness. He was neither a puritan, like the Essenes, nor a
ritualist, like the Pharisees. Besides which, both John and Jesus seem
to have begun their careers by preaching the un-Essene doctrine of the
speedy advent of the "kingdom of heaven," by which is meant the reign of
the Messiah upon the earth. Nevertheless, though we cannot regard Jesus
as actually a member of the Essenian community or sect, we can hardly
avoid the conclusion that he, as well as John the