The fact that the Pharisees and Sadducees so often figure in the pages of the New Testament, while the Essenes are never mentioned, might plausibly be interpreted to show that the New Testament emanated from the side of the Essenes. So far as concerns the Epistle of St James this interpretation would probably be correct. That work contains the doctrine common to the Essenes with Plato, and suggestive of Persian Dualism, that God is the author of good only. There are also certain obvious points of resemblance between the Essenes and the early Christians. Both held property in common; both had scattered communities which received guests one from the other; both avoided a light use of oaths; both taught passive obedience to political authority. The list might be enlarged, but it would not necessarily prove more than that the early Christians shared in the ideas of their age. Christianity was to some extent a popularization of Essenism, but there is little reason for believing that Jesus himself was an Essene. De Quincey's contention that there were no Essenes but the early Christians is now a literary curiosity. The original sources of our knowledge of the Essenes have been mentioned at the beginning of this paper; the best modern discussions of them are to be found in such works as Zeller's _Philosophie der Griechen_, vol. iii.; Ewald, _Geschichte d. V. Israel_, iii. 419-428; Reuss, _La Theologie chretienne au siecle apostolique_, i. 122-131; Keim, _Life of Jesus of Nazara_, vol. i.; Lightfoot on the Colossians; Lucius, _Der Essenismus in seinem Verhaltniss zum Judenthum_; Wellhausen, _Israelitische und judische Geschichte_; Ed. Schurer, _The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ_, div. ii. vol. ii. S 30. The copious bibliography in Conybeare's edition of Philo's _De vita contemplativa_ bears upon the Essenes as well as upon the Therapeutes. For a specially Jewish view of the Essenes see Kohler's article in the _Jewish Encyclopaedia_. They are there regarded as being "simply the rigorists among the Pharisees." But we are also told that "the Pharisees characterized the Essene as 'a fool who destroyed the world.'" (T. K.; St G. S.) ESSENTUKI, a watering-place of south Russia, in the government of Terek, 11 m. by rail W. from Pyatigorsk; altitude, 2096 ft. Its alkaline and sulphur-alkaline mineral waters, similar to those of Ems, Selters and Vichy, are much visited in summer. The climate shows great variations in temperature. Pop. (1897) 9974. ESSEQUIBO, or ESSEQUEBO, one of the three settlements of British Guiana, taking its name from the river Essequibo. (See GUIANA.)