[59] The reason why he ate herbs and not bread, or the simple dish which the order generally took, is that, being bound by an oath to observe the practices of the brotherhood, he could only accept meals from those who lived according to the highest degree of purity (‏על טהרת חטאת‎), and who, as a matter of course, kept their meals according to this degree. But as such a mode of life was of very uncommon occurrence, the excommunicated Essene was obliged to live on herbs or vegetables which he had to pluck himself; for, according to the Talmud, plants are only then considered unclean when they are cut off and water is poured upon them (‏משהוכשרו לקבל טומאה משנתלשו‎). As for Josephus’ saying that he died a miserable death, and that he could only eat grass (ποιηφάγων), this is simply another instance of his exaggerating and colouring his subject. [60] The Pharisees, too, regarded ten persons as constituting a complete number for divine worship, held the assembling of such a number as sacred, and would not spit in their presence. (Comp. Berâchoth 51 a; Jerusalem Berachoth iii. 5; Aboth iii. 6.) [61] This is not peculiar to the Essenes; for the Pharisees, too, would not remove a vessel on the Sabbath (comp. Tosifta Succa, iii); and the orthodox Jews, to the present day, will not even carry a handkerchief on the Sabbath; they tie it round the body to serve as a girdle, so that it might not be said that they carry the weight of even so small a thing on the sacred day. Comp. also Mark xi, 16. [62] Neither is this peculiar to the Essenes; for not only did the Pharisees of old do the same (comp. Ioma 28, a); but the orthodox Jews of the present day wash after performing the duties of nature. [63] This division of the brotherhood into four classes, as well as the impurity contracted by the higher class when touching one who belonged to a lower class of purity, also existed among the Pharisees. (Vide supra, p. 7, note 1.) [64] Philo, too, speaks of this fact. (Vide supra p. 36.) [65] This is another instance of the anxiety of Josephus to make the different phases of Judaism harmonise with the Greek mode of thinking. [66] It is evident that Josephus, as an orthodox and pious Jew, cannot mean by εἱμαρμένη the Fatum of the Stoics, which was above the deities; but intends to convey thereby the idea of eternal counsels and predestination spoken of in the Bible. Indeed, elsewhere Josephus tells us distinctly that “the doctrine of the Essenes delights to leave all things to God” (vide infra p. 52); so that that which is in the one case ascribed to fate, is in the other ascribed to God. [67] No more regard is to be paid to this remark, that the Essenes are like the Pythagoreans, than to the assertion which Josephus makes afterwards that they are related in their manner of life to the Polistae, (vide infra p. 53), as his aim was to shew how much the Jewish sects resembled the Greek systems of philosophy. Comp. p. 41, note 21.