(printed p. 230 — Book III)
Drusius, in his little book on the Hasidaeans, affirms that the Essenes were Pharisees, but in such a way that he wishes them first to have been called Hasidaeans, and then Pharisees, who later arose from them, on folios 5, 6, 16, 28, 32, 34, and 58.
But I think I have already sufficiently proved above that they were different from the Pharisees, since I have clearly shown that there were three Jewish sects, and indeed already in that ancient age of the Maccabees. Yet a further heap of reasons could be added against this opinion of Drusius; I include them, however, under these four heads.
First, because Drusius uses no reason for making this assertion, but only that one testimony of Gorionides, which I have already shown above to have been badly translated and explained by him. Second, if the doctrines and institutions of life of the Pharisees and the Essenes are compared with each other, some things will indeed occur that are either the same or similar, as also happens in a comparison of the Pharisees and Sadducees; nevertheless, different and dissimilar things will be found. Third, I shall show later that the Essenes are older than the Pharisees. Fourth, all the writers, Greek and Latin, whom I have so far been able to see, agree that they are different.
[margin: Drusius’s opinion. Serarius’s opposing view: the Essenes are not Pharisees.]
(printed p. 231)
Indeed, Suidas, who in setting out the decrees of the Essenes compiles the words of Flavius Josephus, writes that the Essenes were Jewish ascetics, differing beyond measure from the discipline of the Pharisees and scribes. Wolphius, one of the Lutherans, translated this as “differing diametrically from the Pharisees and scribes.” But it ought rather to have been translated “beyond measure.”
As for Drusius’s claim that the Essenes later arose from the Pharisees, it could perhaps deserve belief if he supplied any proof. But at present he merely says so. Indeed, on this very matter he is wholly uncertain. In question 47 he says that the wise men of Israel were in ancient times called Hasidaeans, whom a later age named Pharisees. In the preface to his Hasidaicus, folio 5, he says that the appellation of Pharisees is more recent, in the times of Alexander the Great, I think. On folio 34 he says: If this name, that of Pharisees, is more recent, namely than the age of the Maccabees, which is under discussion there. On folio 58 he says that he has no certainty whether there were Hessaeans in the time of Hyrcanus. A little later, on folio 59, he says that we ought not doubt that some from the kind of Essenes and solitaries were at Jerusalem before Alexander Jannaeus. If some Essenes were there before Alexander Jannaeus, and indeed at Jerusalem, when Antigonus, as I touched on earlier for another occasion, had reigned only a single year, then they also existed in the time of Hyrcanus. Therefore they existed before that disaster which Hyrcanus inflicted on the Pharisees. Yet on folio 62 Drusius conjectures that after that disaster the Essenes arose from the Pharisees. And on folio 32 he says: Concerning what origin the Hessaeans had,
[margin: The Essenes did not arise from the Pharisees. Drusius’s uncertainty is noted.]
(printed p. 232)
it is uncertain. In like manner, then, one may assert that the Pharisees were born from the Essenes; and both the name of division, from which the Pharisees are named, and other matters which will be set out below make this more plausible.