This argument alone, independently of historic authority, ought, we think, to suffice to set aside the ill-grounded belief of many that the Essenes were _necessarily_ an early Christian sect. Their holding certain doctrines in common with Christians, such as the immortality of the soul and man’s spiritual responsibility to and equality before God, is no more a proof that they were followers of Christ, than the holding of similar doctrines by Socrates and Plato would prove these philosophers to have been believers in a religion which was unknown till near four centuries after their death. Dr. Neander’s account of the Essenes is, that they were a society of pious Jews, who, disgusted with the cant and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and wearied with the trials of the outward and of the inward life, had withdrawn themselves out of the strife of theological and political parties, at first, apparently (according to Pliny the Elder), to the western side of the Dead Sea, where they lived together in intimate connection, partly after the fashion of the monks of later days, and partly like mystical orders in all periods have done. From this society other smaller ones afterwards proceeded, and spread themselves all over Palestine. They employed themselves in the arts of peace, such as agriculture, pasture, handicraft works, and especially in the art of healing according to the simple but unerring ways of Nature. Dr. Neander thinks it also probable that they imagined themselves supernaturally illuminated in their search into Nature’s secrets and use of her powers; and that their natural knowledge and art of healing assumed, moreover, a sort of religious or theosophic character, since they professed to have peculiar prophetic gifts. Comparing this account with what we know of similar sects in our own time--with the Mormons, for instance, or with the Shakers, or with the White Quakers of Dublin--it seems probable enough. It is the way of all such enthusiasts to run from one extreme to another. Despising the Pharisees for their hollowness and canting adherence to mere traditional and ceremonial law, in which the _letter_ was everything and the _spirit_ nothing, the Essenes went right into the opposite extreme, and almost sacrificed the outer to the inner man. They believed firmly in the immortality of the soul and in future rewards and punishments; they were absolute predestinarians; they observed the seventh day with peculiar strictness; they held the traditions of the Old Testament in great reverence, but only as mystic writings which they expounded allegorically; they sent gifts to the Temple, like other Jews, but offered no sacrifices; they admitted no one into their society till after a three years’ probation; they lived in a state of perfect equality, except that they paid great respect to the aged and to their priests; they considered all secular employments ungodly and immoral, except agriculture and the trades and occupations connected with it.