Selumiel was the first to resume the discourse. “You remarked,” said he to Helon, “that the Essenes are Jewish Pythagoreans; and there are in truth many points of resemblance between them. Both practise community of goods, both hold in abhorrence every kind of effeminacy and voluptuousness, both love white garments, forbid to take an oath, drink only water, pay extraordinary reverence to old age, enjoin silence for a stated time upon their novices, offer only unbloody sacrifices, and teach that destiny is supreme and uncontroulable in human affairs. They agree besides in this, that both believe the soul alone to be immortal; while the Sadducees deny that any thing of man is imperishable, and the Pharisees maintain the resurrection of the body. This coincidence in so many remarkable points may give us a clue to the common source of their doctrines and institutions. Pythagoras is said to have been in Babylon at the time of our captivity, and Zerdusht to have known Israel on the banks of Chebar—may not these both have drawn from the same source as our Essenes? For my own part, I consider the Essenes to be those who have preserved the original knowledge of divine things in the greatest purity. Hence it is that they so zealously observe the law, that they keep the sabbath with peculiar sanctity, that they consider agriculture as the most honourable of all occupations, that they hold Moses in the highest veneration, and endeavour to observe the precepts of the law with unusual strictness, directing their attention to its inward fulfilment in the heart, rather than the outward act of conformity to its commands. Of their mode of life you shall judge for yourself, when we visit their village; their heroic deeds in war are known from the recent history of our country.” Helon’s attention and interest were very powerfully excited, but the last warning of the old man of the temple resounded in his ears, and to interrupt the panegyrics of Selumiel, he asked him, “Can you tell me when they made their first appearance, and what is their origin?” “Some,” said Selumiel, “suppose them to descend from Jonadab, the son Rechab, who lived before the captivity; others, from those who fled into the desert with Judas Maccabæus, during the oppression of the Syrian kings; while others deduce them from Egypt, and from some of its sects of heathen philosophers. I hold them, however, to be of very high antiquity.”