The Essenes were an exclusive society, distinguished from the rest of the Jewish nation in Palestine by an organization peculiar to themselves, and by a theory of life in which a severe asceticism and a rare benevolence to one another and to mankind in general were the most striking characteristics. They had fixed rules for initiation, a succession of strictly separate grades within the limits of the society, and regulations for the conduct of their daily life even in its minutest details. Their membership could be recruited only from the outside world, as marriage and all intercourse with women were absolutely renounced. They were the first society in the world to condemn slavery both in theory and practice; they enforced and practised the most complete community of goods. They chose their own priests and public office-bearers, and even their own judges. Though their prevailing tendency was practical, and the tenets of the society were kept a profound secret, it is perfectly clear from the concurrent testimony of Philo and Josephus that they cultivated a kind of speculation, which not only accounts for their spiritual asceticism, but indicates a great deviation from the normal development of Judaism, and a profound sympathy with Greek philosophy, and probably also with Oriental ideas. At the same time we do our Jewish authorities no injustice in imputing to them the patriotic tendency to idealize the society, and thus offer to their readers something in Jewish life that would bear comparison at least with similar manifestations of Gentile life. There is some difficulty in determining how far the Essenes separated themselves locally from their fellow-countrymen. Josephus informs us that they had no single city of their own, but that many of them dwelt in every city. While in his treatise _Quod omnis_, &c., Philo speaks of their avoiding towns and preferring to live in villages, in his "Apology for the Jews" we find them living in many cities, villages, and in great and prosperous towns. In Pliny they are a perennial colony settled on the western shore of the Dead Sea. On the whole, as Philo and Josephus agree in estimating their number at 4000 (Philo, _Q.O.P.L._ S 12; Jos. _Ant._ xviii. 1, S 5), we are justified in suspecting some exaggeration as to the many cities, towns and villages where they were said to be found. As agriculture was their favourite occupation, and as their tendency was to withdraw from the haunts and ordinary interests of mankind, we may assume that with the growing confusion and corruption of Jewish society they felt themselves attracted from the mass of the population to the sparsely peopled districts, till they found a congenial settlement and free scope for their peculiar view of life by the shore of the Dead Sea. While their principles were consistent with the neighbourhood of men, they were better adapted to a state of seclusion.