The characteristic of the Essene creed is that all things are left in God’s hands. They hold that souls are immortal, and that the rewards[366] of righteousness are a prize worth a battle. Although they send dedicatory offerings to the Temple, their rites of purification when sacrificing are peculiar; they are consequently excluded from the precincts of the national shrine[367] and offer their sacrifices apart. In other ways they are most estimable men, whose whole energy is devoted to agriculture. In this particular they deserve more admiration than all professedly virtuous persons, because a habit which has never prevailed, even for a while, in any nation, whether Greek or barbarian, has been with them a long-established and uninterrupted custom. Their goods are in common, and the rich man enjoys no more of his possessions than he who owns nothing at all; this rule is followed by a body of men numbering over four thousand. Marriage and slavery they abjure, the latter as tending to promote injustice, the former as giving occasion for discord; they live by themselves and minister to each other’s needs. They elect good men to act as receivers of their revenues and of the produce of the soil, and priests as bakers and cooks. Their manner of life bears the closest resemblance in all points to that of the Dacian tribe known as the Polistæ.[368] The Zealots A fourth school was founded by Judas the Galilæan.[369] While they agree in all other respects with the Pharisees, its disciples have an ineradicable[370] passion for liberty, and take God for their only leader and lord. In their determination to call no man lord, they make light of enduring death in all manner of forms, and of penalties inflicted on their kinsmen and friends. Since, however, most of my readers have witnessed their unflinching endurance under such tortures, I need not dwell further upon it. My fear is not that anything which I might say of them will be thought incredible, but, on the contrary, that the narrative may fail to do justice to the fortitude with which they meet the agony of pain. It was the madness of this party which was the beginning of the afflictions of our nation, when [Sidenote: A.D. 64-66.] Gessius Florus, the governor, by wanton abuse of his authority, drove them in desperation into revolt from Rome.[371] Such are the various schools of Jewish philosophy.—_Ant._ XVIII. 1. 2-6 (11-25). Footnote 359: Gr. “we.” Footnote 360: § (54). Footnote 361: ὁ λόγος. Whiston, “follow the guidance of _reason_”; but ὁ λ. must, it seems, have the same meaning as in the corresponding opening sentences in the paragraphs on Sadducees and Essenes, (?) “doctrine” or “tenets.” Footnote 362: Text doubtful. Footnote 363: Another reading (κρᾶσιν for κρίσιν), “that there should be a blend between....” Footnote 364: Cf. § (43), p. 124. Footnote 365: Or “vows.” Footnote 366: Lit. “revenue.” Footnote 367: