1860.—A necessarily brief but interesting article on the Essenes, written by the able Mr. Westcott, appeared in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. The writer wisely availed himself of the labours of Frankel and Jost, and properly traced the origin of the brotherhood to the Chassidim. His fear, however, lest any shining virtues in the Essenes might be thought by some to pale some of the brightness of the Sun of Righteousness, prevented him from appreciating the true character of this order, as well as from seeing that they paved the way to Christianity. 1863.—Graetz again, in the second edition of the third volume of his History of the Jews, in which he has an additional chapter on the Rise and Progress of Christianity, goes to the other extreme, and maintains that “Jesus simply appropriated to himself the essential features of Essenism,” [101] and that primitive Christianity was nothing but an offshoot from Essenism. 1862.—Of the article on the Essenes in Dr. Alexander’s valuable edition of Kitto’s Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, being written by me, I can do no more than say that it embodies the substance of this Essay. 1863.—The description of the Essenes in the new edition of Dean Milman’s History of the Jews, gives a very imperfect idea both of the development and morality of this brotherhood. [102] The learned Dean seems to be wholly unacquainted with the researches of Frankel and Graetz on this subject. He, however, rightly rejects the notion that Essenism had its origin in Pythagorism. 1847.—After the above was printed, I found a notice of the Essenes in Hirschfeld’s work on the Hagadic Exegesis, in which he submits that the name Essene may be derived from the Greek ἦθος manners, morality, virtue, that though the Essenes had several things in common with the Therapeutae, yet there was a great difference between the two sects, and that the former rested more on the Bible and on Judaism. Still he affirms that “some Neo-Platonic, Pythagorean and Persian ideas found their way among the Essenes, and brought with them some practices and institutions which this brotherhood mixed up with the Jewish views of religion, and amongst which are to be classed their extension of the laws of purification, &c.” Hirschfeld, moreover, maintains that, “like the Alexandrians, but only from a different standpoint, the Essenes aimed to reconcile religion with science.” As this opinion has already been discussed in this Essay, it is needless to repeat the objections against it. [103] NOTES