God, the Lord of all created things, is praised and blessed in the mouths of all the living. His power and goodness fill the universe; wisdom and intelligence are round about Him. He exalts himself above the angels, and beams in glory upon his chariot-throne. Interceding goodness and rectitude are before His throne, loving-kindness and mercy before his majesty. Benign are the luminaries which our God has created. He has formed them in wisdom, intelligence, and understanding; He has endowed them with power and strength, to bear rule in the midst of the world. Filled with splendour and brightness, their glory illuminates all the world; rejoicing in rising and joyous in setting they perform with awe the will of their Creator. They give praise and glory to His name, joy and song to the memory of His kingdom. He called the sun, and light rose; He saw and shaped the form of the moon. Praise Him all ye heavenly hosts; ascribe glory and majesty to Him ye seraphim, ophanim, and holy angels. These, as Rappaport rightly remarks, are some of the remains of the ancient prayer used by the Essenes. It will be seen that these hymns of praise contain not only thanksgiving for the renewal of the light, to which Josephus refers, but they also refer to the mysterious cosmogony (‏מעשה בראשית‎) and theosophy (‏מעשה מרכבה‎), as well as to the angels which played such an important part among this brotherhood. [85] 1835.—The difficulty of reading Rabbinical Hebrew in which Rappaport’s profound remarks are written, must have prevented Gfrörer from seeing what this erudite Jewish critic had written on the Essenes; for, although the second edition of vol. i. part 11 of his Critical History of Primitive Christianity, containing an account of the Essenes, appeared in 1835, yet he positively states “that the Essenes and the Therapeutae are the same sect and hold the same views” (p. 299). According to him, the development of Essenism is as follows. In the third century before Christ, the Jews in Alexandria formed societies according to the Pythagorean model, and thus originated the sect called the Therapeutae, from these Egyptian Therapeutae again Essenism developed itself in Palestine about 130 B.C. Hence Essenism is the channel through which the Alexandrian theosophy was first transplanted into Palestinian soil. The reason why the Essenes kept their doctrines secret is that the Palestinian priests were hostile to this foreign importation, and persecuted those who received this contraband. Accordingly, the relationship of Pythagorism, Therapeutism and Essenism, to use Gfrörer’s own figure, is that of grandmother, mother and daughter. “So perfect is the agreement between the Therapeutae and the Essenes, that it even extends to their names. For the word Ἐσσαῖνς according to the most correct etymology, is derived from the Syro-Chaldaic verb ‏אסא‎ which denotes to cure, to nurse, and hence is