he sword and set up the
kingdom of God; it was with them that the final war against Rome began.
They were found in largest numbers in Galilee, where the scholasticism of
the scribes was not so dominating an influence as in Judea. Dr. Edersheim
has called them the nationalist party. In matters belonging strictly to
the religious life they followed the Pharisees, only holding a more
material conception of the hope of Israel.

12. Another development in Jewish religious life carried separatist
doctrines to the extreme. Its representatives were called Essenes, though
what the significance of the name was is no longer clear. Although they
were allied with the Pharisees in doctrine, they show in some particulars
the influence of Hellenistic Judaism. This is suggested not only by the
attention which Philo and Josephus give to them, but also by certain of
their views, which were very like the doctrines of the Pythagoreans. They
carried the pharisaic demand for separateness to the extreme of
asceticism. While they were found in nearly every town in Palestine, some
of them even practising marriage, the largest group of them lived a
celibate, monastic life near the shores of the Dead Sea. This community
was recruited by the initiation of converts, who only after a novitiate of
three years were admitted to full membership in the order. They were
characterized by an extreme scrupulousness concerning ceremonial purity,
their meals were regarded as sacrifices, and were prepared by members of
the order, who were looked upon as priests, nor were any allowed to
partake of the food until they had first bathed themselves. Their regular
garments were all white, and were regarded as vestments for use at the
sacrificial meals,--other clothing being assumed as they went out to their
work. They were industrious agriculturists, their life was communistic,
and they were renowned for their uprightness. They revered Moses as highly
as did the scribes; yet they were opposed to animal sacrifices, and,
although they sent gifts to the temple, were apparently excluded from its
worship. Their kinship with the Pythagoreans appears in that they
addressed an invocation to the sun at its rising, and conducted all their
natural functions with scrupulous modesty, "that they might not offend the
brightness of God" (Jos. Wars, ii. 8, 9). Their rejection of bloody
sacrifices, and their view that the soul is imprisoned in the body and at
death is freed for a better