virtues preached two or three centuries later by Jesus, practiced by a few Christian ascetics, and gradually abandoned, and even entirely forgotten by the Christian Church. The _initiated_ nazars had ever held to this rule, which had to be followed before them by the adepts of every age; and the disciples of John were but a dissenting branch of the Essenes. Therefore, we cannot well confound them with all the nazars spoken of in the _Old Testament_, and who are accused by Hosea with having separated or consecrated themselves to _Bosheth_ בשת (see Hebrew text); which implied the greatest possible abomination. To infer, as some critics and theologians do, that it means to separate one’s self to _chastity_ or continence, is either to advisedly pervert the true meaning, or to be totally ignorant of the Hebrew language. The eleventh verse of the first chapter of Micah half explains the word in its veiled translation: “Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, etc.,” and in the original text the word is _Bosheth_. Certainly neither Baal, nor Iahoh Kadosh, with his _Kadeshim_, was a god of ascetic virtue, albeit the _Septuaginta_ terms them, as well as the _galli_--the perfected priests--τετελεσμένους, the _initiated_ and the _consecrated_.[193] The great _Sod_ of the _Kadeshim_, translated in _Psalm_ lxxxix. 7, by “assembly of the saints,” was anything but a mystery of the “_sanctified_” in the sense given to the latter word by Webster. The Nazireate sect existed long before the laws of Moses, and originated among people most inimical to the “chosen” ones of Israel, viz., the people of Galilee, the ancient _olla-podrida_ of idolatrous nations, where was built Nazara, the present Nazareth. It is in Nazara that the ancient Nazorïa or Nazireates held their “Mysteries of Life” or “assemblies,” as the word now stands in the translation,[194] which were but the secret mysteries of initiation,[195] utterly distinct in their practical form from the popular Mysteries which were held at Byblus in honor of Adonis. While the true _initiates_ of the ostracised Galilee were worshipping the true God and enjoying transcendent visions, what were the “chosen” ones about? Ezekiel tells it to us (chap. viii) when, in describing what he saw, he says that the _form_ of a hand took him by a lock of his head and transported him from Chaldea unto Jerusalem. “And there stood seventy men of the senators of the house of Israel.... ‘Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients ... do in the dark?’” inquires the “Lord.” “At the door of the house of the Lord ... behold there sat women weeping for Tammuz” (Adonis). We really cannot suppose that the Pagans have ever surpassed the “chosen” people in certain shameful _abominations_ of which their own prophets accuse them so profusely. To admit this truth, one hardly needs even to be a Hebrew scholar; let him read the _Bible_ in English and meditate over the language of the “holy” prophets.