went on a perilous journey; Christ enjoined his disciples to do the same thing (Luke xxii. 36). Christ commended that elevated spiritual life, which enables a man to abstain from marriage for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, and which cannot be attained by all men save those to whom it is given (Matt. xix. 10–12; comp. also 1 Cor. viii.); so the Essenes who, as a body, in waiting for the kingdom of heaven (‏מלכות השמים‎) abstained from connubial intercourse. The Essenes did not offer animal sacrifices, but strove to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which they regarded as a reasonable service; the Apostle Paul exhorts the Romans to do the same. (Rom. xii. 1). It was the great aim of the Essenes to live such a life of purity and holiness as to be the temples of the Holy Spirit, and to be able to prophesy: the apostle Paul urges the Corinthians to covet to prophesy (1 Cor. xiv. 1, 39). When Christ pronounced John to be Elias (Matt. xi. 14), he declared that the Baptist had already attained to that spirit and power which the Essenes strove to obtain in their highest stage of purity. [7] It will therefore hardly be doubted that our Saviour himself belonged to this holy brotherhood. This will especially be apparent when we remember that the whole Jewish community, at the advent of Christ, was divided into three parties, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes, and that every Jew had to belong to one of these sects. Jesus who, in all things, conformed to the Jewish law, and who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, would therefore naturally associate himself with that order of Judaism which was most congenial to his holy nature. Moreover, the fact that Christ, with the exception of once, was not heard of in public till his thirtieth year, implying that he lived in seclusion with this fraternity, and that though he frequently rebuked the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, he never denounced the Essenes, strongly confirms this conclusion. There can be no difficulty in admitting that the Saviour of the world, who taught us lessons from the sparrows in the air, and the lilies in the field, and who made the whole realm of nature tributary to his teachings, would commend divine truth wherever it existed. But whilst Christ propounded some of the everlasting truths which were to be found less adulterated and practised more conscientiously among the Essenes than among the rest of the people, he repudiated their extremes. They were ascetics; he ate and drank the good things of God (Matt., xi. 19). They considered themselves defiled by contact with any one who practised a lower degree of holiness than their own; Christ associated with publicans and sinners, to teach them the way to heaven. They sacrificed the lusts of their flesh to gain spiritual happiness for themselves; Christ sacrificed himself for the salvation of others.