(printed p. 294 — Book III)
Nearly all the innovators deny that they were Christians, but the chief deniers are the Magdeburg Centuriators, century 1, book 2, chapter 3; Junius against Bellarmine, book 2, On Monks, chapter 5; and Joseph Scaliger in the second edition of On the Correction of Times, twice, first in the prolegomena and then in book 6. Those, however, who adhere to the judgments of the ancients, as is fairer, more readily say that they were Christians: Matthew Galenus in his book On the Origin of Monasticism, Baronius in volume 1, Bellarmine in the cited place, and Gretser in the first and second apologies for the life of our blessed father Ignatius.
In order that the truth of this very obscure question may shine out more clearly and lucidly, the torch of a threefold distinction must be applied. First, the Essenes are either, as has been said thus far, practical or theoretic. Next, they are considered either before the sacred preaching of Christ the Lord and the Apostles or after it. Third and finally, the same Essenes are viewed according to the images set forth earlier either by Philo or by Josephus. I therefore state three conclusions.
First, the practical Essenes, before the preaching of Christ the Lord
[margin: Chapter XVII begins; Serarius lists opponents and supporters, then introduces a threefold distinction.]
(printed p. 295)
and the holy Apostles, were, as was proved above; and yet, both as they are described by Philo and as they are described by Josephus, they were not Christians. The same could also be said of the theoretic Essenes, depicted by Philo alone, if any such had existed then. This is clear from the very force of the words, provided that the name “Christian” is taken in its proper and customary sense, not in that sense in which all who ever had true faith in God are sometimes called Christians, as Eusebius discusses in book 1 of the History, chapter 4. For before Christ the Savior and the Apostles announced the sacred Gospel to the peoples, there was neither the discipline nor the name of Christians.
Second, of the practical Essenes, who, as has already been established, are the same in Josephus and Philo, very many after the preaching of Christ the Lord and the Apostles did indeed embrace the saving faith of Christ the Lord, but not all. The first part seems to me most strongly confirmed on the very day of Pentecost in Acts 2. The latter part is proved as follows. First, Philastrius, Nilus, and Suidas, cited above on another occasion, testify to it. Next, Josephus in book 2 of the Jewish War, chapter 12, says that in the Jewish war against the Romans many of the Essenes were tortured with the most exquisite punishments, as was cited above in number 48. For in that war, which was the divine penalty for Christ the Lord wickedly slain by the Jews, Christians neither gave any assistance
[margin: Conclusion I completed; conclusion II begins on practical Essenes after Christian preaching.]
(printed p. 296)
nor were they entangled in its calamities and massacres. Saint Epiphanius testifies to this in heresies 29 and 30, and Eusebius in book 3 of the History, chapter 5, when he reports that, warned by an oracle of Christ the Lord himself, they migrated from Judea elsewhere, especially to Pella. Yet before that war it is clear from Philo, who lived before it, that the Essenes had been harassed and afflicted by others.
Third, Eusebius himself, from whom almost the beginning of this whole dispute comes, always refers those practical Essenes back to the Jews. In the cited eighth book of the Evangelical Preparation, while discussing the excellence and virtue of the Mosaic law and people, he introduces those Essenes as an example and testimony, and clearly divides the whole nation of the Jews into two parts: one that lived according to the common and ordinary meaning received from the laws, and another that pursued the higher philosophy and the contemplation of the things signified in the laws. Of this latter part he adds that it is the race of Jewish philosophers. He also adds that their manner of life was held in the highest admiration by very many outsiders; and that among native Jewish writers, besides others, the two easily foremost of all, Josephus and Philo, rescued the glory of those Essenes from oblivion.
Fourth, when the same Eusebius wishes to bring forth from Philo’s Apology the passages I have already promised above,
[margin: Christians’ flight to Pella; Eusebius treats practical Essenes as Jewish philosophers.]
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he himself gives this heading: concerning the life of virtue among the ancient philosophers of the Jews. Here not only the phrase “among the Jews” is to be noted, but also “anciently.” When he is about to produce another testimony from the other book, On the Freedom of the Good Man, he notes that Philo is still speaking of the same people of whom he had spoken in the previous heading. And in that book Eusebius cites no praise at all of the theoretic Essenes.
Third, the theoretic Essenes seem all to have been Christians. This is asserted, first, by the most ancient and best authors: Eusebius in book 2 of the History, chapters 15, 16, and 17, and in the letter to Marinus preserved by Cedrenus; Saint Epiphanius, heresy 29; Saint Jerome in On Ecclesiastical Writers, twice, under Saint Mark and under Philo; Cassian, book 2 of the History, chapter 5; Sozomen, book 1, chapter 12; the Venerable Bede in the preface to Saint Mark; and Nicephorus, book 2, chapter 15.
Second, that there were any Essenes of this sort before the evangelizing of Christ the Lord is neither testified nor even hinted in any way by Philo or Josephus, although these theoretic Essenes had not a few things in common with the practical Essenes, as is clear from the institutions of both.
Third, when Josephus treats the practical Essenes, he carefully notes in book 2, chapter 12, that they were Jews by race. Was it not enough to have said that there were among the Jews three kinds of philosophers, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes? Or if that was not enough, why did he not likewise say that the Pharisees and Sadducees were Jews by
[margin: Conclusion III begins: Serarius argues the theoretic Essenes were Christians.]
(printed p. 298)
race? Why did he mark this especially concerning the Essenes, whose description he had begun, unless to distinguish them from the theoretic Essenes, very many of whom were not Jews by race?
Fourth, since this same kind of theoretic Essenes was so excellent, so distinguished, so heavenly and blessed, as we learned from Philo’s conclusion set forth above, and since it could have won the highest praise for the Jewish people among all, and since Josephus himself, as we saw above, so often gladly ran into, or rather ran forward to, mention and praise of the Essenes, why did he never say even a word about these people? Why did he not at least touch upon this division of the Essenes, that some were practical and others theoretic? For it is utterly false when Junius writes, in the chapter indicated above, number 29, that Josephus distinguishes those two kinds of Essenes as those who live in community and those who live as solitaries. Josephus nowhere did this. He divides only those whose discipline he explains, and who, as was shown above, were purely communal, into celibates and married men, not into cenobites and solitaries.
Fifth, Philo himself, when in the book On the Freedom of the Good Man he said that, just as among the Persians there were Magi and among the Indians Gymnosophists, so among the Jews there were Essenes flourishing with an extraordinary zeal for every virtue, why did he mention only the practical Essenes? Why did he praise only their discipline? Did not the description, or at least the mention, of the theoretic Essenes belong to the comparison with the wise or eminent men of other nations
[margin: Josephus’s silence about theoretic Essenes; correction of Junius on Josephus’s categories.]
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and to the whole argument of that book on the true freedom of the good man? For if someone says that Philo kept silent about them there because he wished to devote another whole book to their praises, that person will seem to say something, but in fact will have said nothing to the point. For when good authors decide to divide two kinds of a single matter, both otherwise belonging to the same subject, and to explain only one in one place and the other in another, they are accustomed to mention this in the earlier place, and either to state or at least to indicate why they wish to separate those kinds. Otherwise that separation would be extremely awkward, and the author who did otherwise would be considered little skilled in order, good writing, and method.
But Philo, whom we know was praised in an ancient encomium as a second Plato because of his learning and eloquence, neither depicts in words nor sketches with even one word in the book On the Freedom of the Good Man the theoretic Essenes, who were the freest of all. Nor does he indicate by a single syllable that he has decided to depict or outline them in some other place and book. Instead, he describes only the practical Essenes and is content with the praise of those who lived a social life. This is plainly because, when he wrote that book On Freedom, he did not yet know those theoretic and solitary men,
[margin: Serarius argues Philo would have named the theoretic Essenes in On Freedom if he had known them.]
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much less was he thinking of sounding out their praises on full pipes. But afterward, when he came to know them and admired and loved their virtue, he wished to devote an entire book to them. And because he had already discussed the Essenes in that book On Freedom, and now wished to discuss others beyond the opinion he had held in that earlier writing, he did what method advised a prudent and learned man to do: at the beginning of the later book, he now divided the race of the Essaeans into two parts, namely practical and theoretic, and said that he had discussed the former in the book he had written earlier, while in this later book On the Contemplative Life he would speak about the latter. Had he not done this, there would have been no connection of this later book with the earlier, nor any excuse for the writer himself as to why, contrary to every principle of method, he had scattered and torn apart parts so closely joined and so suitable to the same subject, unless he wished to bring forward that other very just excuse which I shall mention below: namely, that he had spoken before about Jews, but now was approaching Christian Essenes previously unknown to him.
Sixth, this too is by no means to be despised: in the book in which the same Philo contained his apology on behalf of the Jews, whether he wrote it before he knew the theoretic Essaeans or afterward - for since that book is not extant, I cannot determine this from elsewhere - he was content with praising only those Essaeans who had devoted themselves more to action than to contemplation,
[margin: Philo’s later book implies a new acquaintance with the theoretic Essenes.]
(printed p. 301)
because the theoretic Essenes were no longer Jews by religion, nor, with respect to a great part of them, by race.
Seventh, the practical Essenes are placed by both Josephus and Philo in Syria, Palestine, and Judea, and nowhere else; Pliny and Solinus hold the same view, as all these things have been shown above. Concerning the theoretic Essenes, however, Philo says the opposite: this kind of Essaeans exists in many regions of the world. I mean this kind of theoretic Essaeans, not the other kind, the practical, which was circumscribed by the boundaries of Syria and Judea alone, and diffused itself into other shores in no way at all except perhaps by fame and by some imitation among certain Gentiles, of whom something was said under Zamolxis.
But that kind of theoretic Essenes, when the most sacred and most auspicious Gospel of Christ the Lord began to be spread far and wide, and the sound of the Apostles began to go out into all the earth, at the same time immediately went out spread far and wide. I mean that the Essaean solitaries and cultivators of contemplation were at once carried and expanded into very many coasts and nations. They existed in Judea, Palestine, and Syria, where the first Christian churches were; in Egypt, and indeed, as Philo says, through all the several parts and districts which, as Strabo explains in book 17, were formerly called nomoi;
[margin: Geographic contrast: practical Essenes local, theoretic Essenes widespread with the Gospel.]
(printed p. 302)
they existed also in Greece, and they penetrated even barbarian nations. For Philo adds that it was fitting for the perfect good to be shared both by Greece and by the barbarian region itself. And not only Eusebius but also Saint Jerome noted this argument in his catalogue when he says of Philo: “he records that they existed not only there,” that is, in Egypt near Alexandria, “but also in many provinces.”
Eighth, the number of practical Essenes is almost fixed by both Philo and Josephus, since it was near four thousand. But no number of the theoretic Essenes is reckoned, nor is a number only a little greater than four thousand implied, since there were so many in all the parts of Egypt, and especially around Alexandria, and likewise in other parts of the world, among Greeks and barbarians, as has just been said.
Ninth, Philo himself indicates that this discipline of those Essaeans arose in his own time, when, according to Eusebius in book 2 of the History, chapter 17, he says: “this religion, or this mode of divine worship, began to contemplate with special excellence” that hidden meaning of the divine law. If that sect of those Essaeans had been ancient and already common among the Jews, how would he now say that it “began to contemplate,” and not rather “is accustomed to contemplate,” or certainly simply “contemplates”?
[margin: Jerome on many provinces; numbers of practical versus theoretic Essenes; Philo’s “began” argument.]
(printed p. 303)
But the name by which Philo, in the cited words, calls the sect of those same Essenes must also be observed: namely, “religion.” For that name almost signifies, if I may speak so, the highest kinds of worshiping the divine power, not any particular modes and rites within some one kind. For the phrase is used of the Israelite religion in Acts 26:5, and of the Christian religion; or, as it is called by Eusebius in book 2, chapter 17, the religion according to the Gospel. The three sects of the Jews themselves, though they are called by many names by Josephus and others, are nevertheless never, so far as I can sufficiently remember, called three religions.
From this it is clear how bold Junius is in falsehood. When Bellarmine had said that Philo was speaking of a discipline that had arisen in his own time, Junius says in the place cited, number 31, that this cannot be confirmed from Philo’s words by even the smallest point. Is that word “began” a small point, and not rather a lofty and illustrious column? “But,” he says, “in the earlier book he expressly affirmed the antiquity of the Essene sect, even by comparison with other philosophers.” Junius said this correctly about antiquity against Drusius, who does not want the Jewish Essenes to be ancient; but not against the new light of the Christian Essenes, which in Philo’s times began to pour out its first rays in Egypt and other regions of the world. For in Philo’s earlier book the discussion concerns practical Essenes, not theoretic Essenes, as has been repeated
[margin: Serarius stresses Philo’s word for “religion” and the significance of “began.”]
(printed p. 304)
more than once thus far. I should note, however, that at the beginning of this ninth argument I deliberately said that the cited words of Philo are read in Eusebius. For in the Paris Greek copy of Philo they are read almost in the way the interpreter translated above: that in the unseen mind the rational soul began to contemplate its own proper things with special excellence. In those words, indeed, the word “religion” itself is not present; yet that other principal word, “began,” remains.
Tenth, the same Philo said earlier that the sacred buildings of the practical Essenes were called synagogues, which are certainly proper to the Jews, as is clear from the Gospels. But to the theoretic Essenes, whom with the ancients I assert to have been Christians, he never attributes synagogues, but only semnea, holy places full of piety and gravity, as we saw earlier in its proper place.
Eleventh, the very name of these persons flowed down to later ages from the first beginnings of the Christian Church. Thus in the Areopagite, chapter 6 of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and in the letter he writes to Gaius the Therapeuta, the old interpreter renders the ascetic life in Trullan Canon 43 as the therapeutic life. So too the name of the solitaries is the name of monks, and monasteries still survive, despite all Lutherans and Calvinists.
Twelfth, their institutions also flowed down to later generations. Witness the renunciation of all property once customary among Christians, the fellowship of common life,
[margin: Synagogues versus semnea; therapeutic and monastic vocabulary; later Christian practices.]
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as in Acts 2 and 4, the sacred banquets which were once also called agapae, and vigils not undertaken because of the suddenness of some danger, like those I discussed on Judith 6:6, but fixed and ordinary vigils, of which there remains among us a trace in the eves of certain saints’ days, which we call Vigils. What of those fasts in Lent and all the severity before Easter? What of the hymns and their modulation, and what Eusebius, taking it from Philo himself, calls the final refrains? Others add perpetual chastity, the omission of the Jewish temple and of bloody sacrifices, prayers directed toward the east, and other similar things. These I pass over because of other matters still to be discussed, and I turn to those things which either are accustomed to be objected, or can be objected, against that opinion.