(printed p. 305 — Book III)
Those things by which opponents weaken what has been confirmed above appear weighty. In this question about the Christianity of the Essenes, eight especially important arguments arise which suggest that they were not Christians.
The first is this: in Philo’s narration about the theoretic Essenes there is no mention of Christ the Lord and Savior, none of the Gospel,
[margin: Christian continuities claimed; Chapter XVIII begins with eight objections.]
(printed p. 306)
nor of Christian matters of that kind. I answer that Philo, since he was a man and had very much of human weakness, had also been somewhat captivated by the conversations of Saint Peter, into whose presence he came at Rome in the time of Claudius, as Eusebius reports in book 2 of the History, chapter 16, and whose friendship, as Saint Jerome says in his catalogue, he had enjoyed. He certainly admired and followed with favorable goodwill the wondrous virtue of those Essenes who were Christians.
Yet, since he was a Jew and had resolved also to die in the Judaism in which he had been born, or at least in that unbelief, because he was a man of such authority among the Jews that he did not wish to withdraw openly, he deliberately wished to wrap Christ the Lord, his Gospel, the sacraments, and similar matters in silence. He therefore wrote in such a way that, since he called them neither Christians nor Jews, because of the similarity of the name and of certain rites, which are treated in the second objection, Jews would think them Jews; because of all the other things, Christians would recognize them as Christians; and because of both, Gentiles would judge them to be either. If they judged them Christians, he wished that granted to truth and to his love for these people. If they judged them Jews, he desired that the opinion of the Gentiles, who often did not distinguish Jews from Christians, should not be diminished, and he greatly desired the whole matter to be conceded to the glory of his own nation. Saint Jerome
[margin: Serarius’s answer: Philo admired Christians but concealed explicit Christian language.]
(printed p. 307)
says in On Ecclesiastical Writers, under Saint Mark: “Philo, most eloquent among the Jews, seeing at Alexandria the first Church still Judaizing, wrote a book about their way of life as though in praise of his own nation.”
If, however, he had named the sacred mysteries of Christ the Lord and of our faith, he would indeed have done what ought to have been done and the duty of a good man; but he would have condemned his own obstinacy in unbelief, and would have placed Christian philosophers before the philosophers of his own people, whom he wished to be considered the best and most excellent of all. Neither pleased him; neither did self-love and the love of empty praise permit.
But he promises truth at the beginning of the book. He does indeed promise it, yet in such a way that he says he will add nothing to the praises of those about whom he writes, not that he will subtract nothing. This subtraction, however, he covers with an honorable excuse: that their virtue was greater than all eloquence. But Eusebius, book 2 of the History, chapter 15, says that the whole discipline of those Essaeans was set out. The word “whole” must be taken conveniently as referring to the principal heads of their morals, not to their faith or every single institution.
And since some at times suspect that Philo became a Christian, as they do Seneca, about whom I have spoken elsewhere in my Paul, I shall add from the place where Saint Augustine praised him earlier. Augustine says that Philo “tried to interpret some things, not for understanding Christ, in whom
[margin: Jerome on Philo; Philo’s promised truth; Augustine invoked against making Philo Christian.]
(printed p. 308)
he did not believe, but so that from this it might appear all the more how much difference there is between referring all things to Christ, for whose sake they were truly spoken, and pursuing any conjectures whatever with any keenness of mind apart from him.” And afterward: “To recall something from the same Philo: when he wished the ark of the flood to be understood as constructed according to the pattern of the human body, he went through all its parts as though member by member. Since he consulted with great subtlety even the rules of numbers, all things fittingly occurred to him which did nothing to hinder the understanding of Christ, because in a human body that Savior of the human race also appeared; yet they did not compel that understanding, because it is a human body and of other human beings too. But when he came to the door which was made in the side of the ark, every conjecture of human ingenuity failed. Yet in order to say something, he dared to believe, to say, and to write that the lower parts of the body, through which urine and dung are discharged, were signified by that door. It is no wonder that, not finding the door, he erred in this way. But if he had passed over to Christ, the veil removed, he would have found the sacraments of the Church flowing from the side of that man; for since it was foretold, ‘they shall be two in one flesh,’ therefore in the ark certain things are referred to Christ and certain things to the Church, which whole is Christ. So also in the other interpretations of figures, throughout the whole text of divine Scripture one may consider and compare the senses of those who understand Christ there with those of people who try to twist them away from Christ to anything else at all.”
[margin: Augustine’s comparison of Philo’s allegory with Christian interpretation.]
(printed p. 309)
Thus far Saint Augustine.
The second argument: these men observed Jewish ceremonies, namely Sabbaths and Sabbaths of Sabbaths, that is, Pentecosts or fiftieth days. I answer that not a few of the earliest Christians, especially those who came to the faith from the Jews, were accustomed still to retain some Jewish ceremonies. Thus Saint Paul circumcised Timothy in Acts 16:3. He himself took the vow of the Nazaraeans and, on its account, wore his hair uncut, which at the end of that temporary vow he cut in Cenchreae, Acts 18:18. Thus Saint James, prince of the Christian Essaeans, says to Saint Paul himself in Acts 21:20: “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law. Therefore do this which we tell you. We have four men who have a vow upon themselves. Taking these, sanctify yourself with them and spend on them, so that they may shave their heads.” And an Apostle obeyed an Apostle. For in verse 26, “Paul, taking the men, on the next day purified with them and entered the temple, announcing the completion of the days of purification until an offering should be made for each one of them.”
And Saint Jerome had just said the same, that the Alexandrian Church seen by Philo was Judaizing. Eusebius, in the cited book, chapter 16, says that those Essenes preserved still most of the customs of the ancients in a more Jewish manner. Yet someone might reasonably suspect that Philo, in Jewish language, described Christian
[margin: Second objection: Jewish ceremonies; answer from early Jewish-Christian practice.]
(printed p. 310)
Sabbaths, that is, Lord’s days, and the forty-day fast, which many once began from Quinquagesima, and Christian vigils, and sacred Pentecost. Eusebius indicates this in chapter 17, when he refers Philo’s fasts and Pentecost to those exercises which, he says, we customarily complete in fastings, all-night vigils, and attentions to divine words on the feast of the Savior’s Passion. In this way all of Junius’s claims about the superstitions of the Essenes vanish, in the place indicated at number 32, as do Scaliger’s claims about Sabbaths in the prolegomena to On the Correction of Times and about baptisms in book 6.
There is, however, another answer about these matters. Philo never ascribes daily washing to the theoretic Essenes, much less does Josephus, who, as I said above, treated only the practical Essenes. And indeed if each of them had attributed it to both, that daily baptism should not therefore be taken in the manner in which it was practiced by those heretics who were called Hemerobaptists from it, as is clear from Saint Epiphanius, book 1, heresy 17, and in the letter to Acacius and Paul, but in the manner in which it was used by the Jews in daily and votive purifications, and by Saint Paul in Acts 21:26.
From this Junius also says ineptly and falsely in number 36 that those contemplative Essenes were inhabitants around Lake Mareotis for this reason, that they might have convenience for their washings, with Philo and Epiphanius as authorities. But neither gives the reason why they lived by that lake; rather, this reason is completely
[margin: Sabbaths as Lord’s days; fasts, vigils, Pentecost, and washing/baptism objections.]
(printed p. 311)
omitted. We have heard other reasons from Philo himself earlier, especially since, as I said, he attributes no such washings to them. Scaliger is most inept when he says that, because they were daily bathers, they were the authors of new baptism for the Donatists.
The third argument: Philo himself, at the beginning of the book On the Contemplative Life, says that the theoretic Essenes were Jews. Scaliger in the prolegomena and Junius in number 28 indeed assert that he says this. Scaliger says: “That they were not Christians, but merely Essenes, Philo shows at once at the beginning of the book.” Junius, however, in order not simply to affirm a falsehood as Scaliger does, argues in this way: Philo had treated Jewish Essenes in the earlier book; therefore the other kind of Essaeans, which Philo says at the beginning of the later book that he is going to set forth, is Jewish. But the consequence is denied, and this whole matter has been explained above.
The fourth argument: there are some things in Philo which present a greater antiquity for those Essaeans than allows their beginning to be derived from Christ the Lord or from the evangelizing of the Apostles. For first, they are said to pursue their ancestral philosophy. What ancestral and inherited philosophy is there except the Jewish? Second, they always have among themselves writings of ancient men, the founders of the sect, who left many monuments of the ideas contained in allegories. Who are those ancients whose commentaries are among them, unless Jews and Essenes of earlier ages? Eusebius, in book 2 of the History, chapter 17, thinks they are the Apostles,
[margin: Third and fourth objections: Jewish identity and apparent antiquity.]
(printed p. 312)
Evangelists, and Prophets. For he says that allegorical explanations of this sort were made by them, such as we see published by Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews and in certain other writings. But two things stand in the way. One is that the Apostles and Evangelists were not ancients in the age of Philo, who spoke with Saint Peter and saw Saint Mark, as was said above. The other is that those who wrote those commentaries are called not only ancients, but also leaders and founders of this sect, and authors of many monuments. Thus, if by “ancients” we wish to understand the Prophets, we must confess that those Essenes existed in the prophetic ages; but if we understand the Apostles and Evangelists, we must maintain that very many works were composed by them through allegories. Where, then, are these works? Who has read, seen, or heard of anything of this kind?
Third, among these Essaeans women of the same sect are said to have been therapeutic women, most of them aged virgins. But how could there have been virgins so old in Philo’s time if they had not taken up the purpose of virginity before the saving Passion of Christ the Lord? For from that Passion to the first year of the emperor Claudius there is not even a full decade. Add now as many years as you wish while Philo later wrote that book, and remember that, as I said above and as Baronius says in volume 1, Philo was, if not earlier than the most blessed birth of Christ the Lord, certainly not much
[margin: Objections from ancient commentaries and aged virgins.]
(printed p. 313)
later than it. How, then, were those virgins aged? If this institution of virginity began before the Passion of Christ the Lord, then this kind of Essenes already existed before.
I answer the first point: the ancestral philosophy is the Jewish philosophy, namely the one contained in Moses and the Prophets, whose chief head the Lord explained to the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. To the second: those ancient commentaries are the writings of ancient Essenes who, although they were practical Essenes, can in some sense be called founders or authors of the theoretic Essenes. For Josephus shows that books of this sort existed also among those practical Essenes. And if Elijah and Elisha are rightly sometimes called founders of our monks, as we recently heard from Saint Jerome, why can the old Essenes not be called leaders of those later ones? Hence Saint Jerome, when describing cenobites to Eustochium, says: “Such persons Philo, imitator of the Platonic style, reports; such persons Josephus, the Greek Livy, reports in the history of the second Jewish captivity.” The beginnings of all things are imperfect. Christ the Savior brought perfection, and the holy Apostles expressed it in life and word. Yet by “founders” one could also understand their chief men, presidents, or overseers.
To the third: these aged virgins seem to have belonged to the number of those who, either by the old institution of the practical Essenes or by some other pious, perhaps even civil, plan,
[margin: Serarius’s answer: Jewish Scripture, older practical Essene writings, and delayed marriage.]
(printed p. 314)
had postponed marriage; afterward, when they heard the commendation of sacred virginity which Christ the Lord chiefly instituted and the Apostles propagated, they resolved to preserve perpetual celibacy.
The fifth argument: Saint Jerome, in the letter to Eustochium, as he was cited a little earlier, does not distinguish the Essenes of Philo from those of Josephus. I answer that he speaks generally. It has already been said above that some Philonian Essenes are the same as the Josephian. Further, Saint Jerome says nothing else than that the Essenes whom each writer expressed in his style are similar to our cenobites, not that they are altogether the same.
The sixth argument: the theoretic Essaeans think that domination is contrary to nature and not to be endured. But this doctrine is false, since all power is from God, Romans 13. I answer that not every domination is repudiated by them, but that old and most bitter domination among the Gentiles, which raged unworthily and, so to speak, altogether tyrannically against the labor and life of slaves. This can be understood from the words cited earlier and from the book Every Good Man Is Free, from the book against Flaccus, and from the book On the Embassy to Gaius. “He who had rejected all clemency from his soul,” he says, “and despised all laws, since he demanded that his own lust be taken as law, was abolishing whatever laws existed anywhere,
[margin: Fifth and sixth objections: Jerome’s wording and domination/slavery.]
(printed p. 315)
as though they were superfluous. Among our people, however, they were considered not only among slaves but even among the lowest slaves, having obtained the Lord in place of a prince.” One who exercises oppressive and bitter domination of this kind is described in 1 Peter 5 as lording it over others, and in Jeremiah 7 and 22 as oppressing them.
The seventh argument: it seems possible to prove that the practical Essenes about whom Josephus speaks and the theoretic Essenes about whom Philo speaks were the same. First, both turn themselves in prayer toward the rising sun. Moreover, both abstained from sacrifices and for that reason were forbidden entrance to the temple. In addition, both cultivated perpetual chastity, with the exception of that one kind of practical Essenes discussed above.
I answer first that it can be granted that these things were common to both. In this way a clear explanation of that prayer toward the sun would be obtained from Philo, since at the beginning he teaches that the sun and other creatures are adored by the impious, not by these holy persons, and again at the end of the book he transmits the manner of their turning themselves toward that star. There would also be, in the practical Essenes, a kind of testimony concerning the carnal sacrifices of the old law: namely, that they were not of such importance that they necessarily had to be undertaken by all, and that spiritual sacrifices were much more excellent than they. This is the point of that question about the greatest of the commandments proposed to Christ the Lord by the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 22:36 and Mark 12:28, where Christ himself
[margin: Seventh objection begins: shared eastward prayer, sacrifice, and chastity.]
(printed p. 316)
approves the statement of the scribe who had questioned him, when he says in verse 33 that love of God and neighbor “is greater than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus our Lord and Savior strongly approves and praises that approval, for in verse 34, “seeing that he had answered wisely, he said to him: You are not far from the kingdom of God.” The same applies to the passage from Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” cited in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7.
Josephus also seems to have touched this same cause when he says that they did not make sacrifices, not because of a variety of purifications but because of the excellence of sanctifications, that is, of spiritual sacrifices. For Josephus likes to express some excellence by words related to this term. Therefore the old interpreter translated this passage of Josephus: “They do not perform sacred rites in the temple because they use holier ceremonies.” From this it is likely that the Pythagorean doctrine about gentle and bloodless victims arose, since Josephus earlier showed that the Pythagoreans were similar to the Essenes. Saint Ambrose must also be joined here, in his sixth letter, when he says: “We find a Pythagorean command proclaimed in the writings of some, by which he forbade his disciples to enter the common and customary road with the people. For since he derived his origin from the Jewish people, as most think, he also derived the precepts of his teaching from their discipline;
[margin: Spiritual sacrifices, Josephus on holier ceremonies, and Pythagorean parallels.]
(printed p. 317)
therefore he was deservedly considered great among the philosophers, scarcely finding an equal, as they say.” Thus Saint Ambrose, who also adds that Pythagoras read the sacred Scriptures.
But lest the Essenes seem to despise God’s temple or other sacrifices, they sent gifts or offerings to the temple itself, as Josephus says. If you ask why, then, they were excluded from the temple, as Josephus also reports there, this is more obscure to me than that I can state the cause with certainty. I suspect, however, that it happened because, although they did not despise it, they nevertheless seemed to despise it. Hence most of the wiser people both offered the customary sacrifices in the temple and did not omit the spiritual ones, as the Blessed Virgin did in Luke 2. From this there would finally be a splendid praise of perpetual chastity among the Israelites from antiquity, which seems also to borrow some proof from the celibacy of the Pythagoreans among the Getae and Dacians, about which there is a discussion in Strabo, book 7.
I answer second: from what has been said, the first and third points seem common to both kinds of Essenes; the second, however, pertains only to those practical Essenes who were in Judea. For Philo has related nothing about these sacrifices and the Jerusalem temple in connection with the theoretic Essenes.
The eighth and last argument is that, in the beginning of Philo’s book On Virtues, or On the Embassy to Gaius, the whole nation of the Jews or Israelites is called the suppliant people.
[margin: Temple offerings, possible exclusion, chastity, and the final objection from Philo’s title.]
(printed p. 318)
But the book in which the theoretic Essenes are treated is entitled not only On the Contemplative Life, but also On Suppliants. I answer first that this author freely ascribes a pious and honorable name to the Jewish nation, which he wanted to be most honored, for the reason indicated in the solution of the first argument. It can also be that in that book he calls the Jews suppliants because they had become suppliants to the emperor Gaius.