No doubt this thought of imitation had occupied John's mind.[1] The anchorite life, so opposed to the spirit of the ancient Jewish people, and with which the vows, such as those of the Nazirs and the Rechabites, had no relation, pervaded all parts of Judea. The Essenes or Therapeutae were grouped near the birthplace of John, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea.[2] It was imagined that the chiefs of sects ought to be recluses, having rules and institutions of their own, like the founders of religious orders. The teachers of the young were also at times species of anchorites,[3] somewhat resembling the _gourous_[4] of Brahminism. In fact, might there not in this be a remote influence of the _mounis_ of India? Perhaps some of those wandering Buddhist monks who overran the world, as the first Franciscans did in later times, preaching by their actions and converting people who knew not their language, might have turned their steps toward Judea, as they certainly did toward Syria and Babylon?[5] On this point we have no certainty. Babylon had become for some time a true focus of Buddhism. Boudasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed a wise Chaldean, and the founder of Sabeism. _Sabeism_ was, as its etymology indicates,[6] _baptism_--that is to say, the religion of many baptisms--the origin of the sect still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the Arabs call _el-Mogtasila_, "the Baptists."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first centuries of our era,[8] present to criticism the most singular problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have come down to us. We may believe, at all events, that many of the external practices of John, of the Essenes,[9] and of the Jewish spiritual teachers of this time, were derived from influences then but recently received from the far East. The fundamental practice which characterized the sect of John, and gave it its name, has always had its centre in lower Chaldea, and constitutes a religion which is perpetuated there to the present day. [Footnote 1: Luke i. 17.] [Footnote 2: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, v. 17; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix. 1 and 2.] [Footnote 3: Josephus, _Vita_, 2.] [Footnote 4: Spiritual preceptors.] [Footnote 5: I have developed this point elsewhere. _Hist. Gener. des Langues Semitiques_, III. iv. 1; _Journ. Asiat._, February-March, 1856.] [Footnote 6: The Aramean word _seba_, origin of the name of _Sabians_, is synonymous with [Greek: baptizo].]