The Essenes were considered not only holy men (on account of their peculiar mode of life and visionary views), but they were also admired as workers of miracles. People hung upon their words and hoped for the removal of impending evils through their means. Some of the Essenes bore the reputation of being able to reveal the future and interpret dreams; they were reverenced yet more by the ignorant, on account of their miraculous cures of so-called "possessed" persons. The intercourse of the Judæans with the Persians had brought with it, together with a belief in the existence of angels, a superstitious belief in malicious demons (_Shedim_, _Mazikin_). Imbeciles were thought to be possessed by evil demons, who could only be exorcised by a magic formula; and all extraordinary illnesses were attributed to such demons, for which the advice of the wonder-worker, and not that of the doctor, was sought. The Essenes occupied themselves with cures, exorcisms, etc., and sought their remedies in a book (_Sefer Refuoth_) which was attributed to King Solomon, whom the nation considered as the master of evil spirits. Their curative remedies consisted partly in softly-spoken incantations and verses (_Lechis'ha_), and partly in the use of certain roots and stones supposed to possess magic power. Thus the Essenes united the highest and the lowest aims,--the endeavor to lead a pious life and the most vulgar superstitions. Their exaggerated asceticism and fear of contact with others of a different mode of life caused a morbidly unhealthy development among them. The more rationally-minded Pharisees paid them but little attention; they made sport of the "foolish Chassid." Although sprung from a common root, the more the Pharisees and Essenes developed, the more widely they diverged. The one party saw in marriage a holy institution appointed for the good of mankind, and the other an obstacle to a thoroughly religious life. The Pharisees recognized man's free will in thought and action, and consequently deemed him responsible for his moral conduct. The Essenes, on the contrary, confined to the narrow circle of their self-same, daily-repeated duties, came to believe in a sort of divine fatalism, which not only governed the destiny of mankind but also ruled the acts of each individual. The Essenes avoided the Temple, the worship practised there being framed according to the doctrines of the Pharisees and unable to satisfy their ideals. They sent their offerings to the Temple, and thus fulfilled the duty of sacrificing without being themselves present at the ceremony. With them, patriotism became more and more subordinate to the devotion they felt towards their own order, and thus by degrees they loosed themselves from the strong bands of nationality. There lay concealed in Essenism an element antagonistic to existing Judaism, unsuspected by friends or foes.