Chapter III. Porphyry on the Illustrious Philosophy of the Jews in Ancient Times

ALSO in the fourth book of the same treatise Porphyry narrates concerning the same people such things as the following:

[PORPHYRY] [1] ‘The Essenes then are Jews by birth, but united among themselves even more closely than the rest of the Jews.

‘They abhor pleasures as wickedness, and regard self-control and resistance to the passions as virtue. Marriage they disdain for themselves, but choose the sons of others while still easily moulded towards learning; and regarding them as their kindred, impress them with their own moral dispositions: thus without destroying marriage, and the succession of the race thereby produced, they guard themselves against the wantonness of women.

‘They despise riches, and there is among them a wonderful community of goods, so that it is impossible to find any one exceeding others in wealth. For they have a law that those who eater the sect give up their substance to the common fund of the order, so that among them all there is seen neither humiliation of poverty nor excess of wealth; but every one’s possessions being mixed up together, they all have one property like brothers.

‘Oil they consider a defilement, and if any one be anointed against his will, he has his body wiped: for they think it becoming to have a dry skin, and always to wear white.

‘The superintendents of their common interests are elected, and they are severally chosen for their offices by the whole body. They have no one city of their own, but a number of them make their abode in each city, and their means are mutually thrown open to those of the sect who have come from elsewhere; and they are received as familiar friends by those whom they have never seen before: for which reason when they travel they bring nothing with them for expenses.

‘They change neither robe nor sandals before they are altogether ragged, or worn out by time. They neither buy nor sell anything, but each gives what he has himself to the man that wants it, and receives from him in return what is useful to him: and even without this return there is no hindrance to their getting a share from whomsoever they will.

‘With regard to the Deity, however, their piety is of a peculiar kind. For they utter no common words before the sun has risen, but address to him certain prayers handed down by their fathers, as if entreating him to rise. After this they are dismissed by the superintendents to the crafts known to each, and after working vigorously till the fifth hour they then assemble again in one place, and having girded themselves with loin-cloths, so proceed to wash their body with cold water.

‘After this purification they meet in a building of their own, in which none of another sect is permitted to join them; but being themselves purified, they come into the dining-room as if entering some holy place. And when they have quietly taken their seats, the baker sets loaves in a row before them, and the cook sets before each a single dish of one kind of meat. Then the priest first says a prayer over the food, as being pure and clean, and it is unlawful for any to taste the food before the prayer. And when they have finished the meal he again offers a prayer, and thus they honour God both at the beginning and at the end.

‘Then they lay aside their robes as holy, and turn to work again till evening; when they come back and sup in like manner, the guests sitting down with them, if there happen to be any present.

‘And neither clamour nor tumult ever profanes their house, but in conversation they give way in turn to each other; and to those outside the silence of those within seems like some awful mystery. The cause of this is their constant sobriety, and their limitation of food and drink to the satisfying of hunger.

‘To those who desire to join the sect admission is not immediately granted, but for the space of a year while one remains outside they prescribe the same mode of life, and give him a shovel, an apron, and a white robe. And when in this period he has given proof of self-control, he approaches more nearly to their mode of life, and partakes of the purer waters for ablution.

‘He is not, however, admitted as yet to the life of the community. For after the proof of his endurance his moral disposition is tested by two more years, and, if found worthy, he is then enrolled in their company.

‘But before he touches the common food, they make him swear tremendous oaths: first that he will reverently worship God, then that he will observe justice towards men, and will harm no man either of his own will or under command, but will always hate the unjust and succour the righteous; that he will show fidelity to all, but especially to those in power, for it is not without God’s will that the government is acquired by any man: also that, if he be himself a ruler, he will never be insolent in using his authority, nor outshine his subjects in dress or any excessive adornment: that he will always love the truth, and expose liars; keep his hands clear of theft, and his soul of unholy gain; and will neither hide anything from the members of the sect, nor disclose any secret of theirs to others, though any one should press him by violence even unto death.

‘In addition to this, he swears that to no one will he impart their doctrines otherwise than he himself received them, and will abstain from, robbery, and will guard with equal care the books of their sect, and the names of the angels.

‘Such are the oaths; and those who are found guilty and expelled, perish by a miserable fate. For being bound by their oaths and by their customs, they cannot partake of the food which other men have, but eating grass and wasting away by famine, they thus perish. So for this reason they have taken compassion upon many in the extremity of their distress, and received them back, considering that they had suffered punishment enough for their offences in being thus tortured to death.

‘The shovel they give to those who intend to be members of the sect, because they do not themselves sit down without having dug a trench a foot deep, and covered themselves with their cloak, so as not to insult the eyes of God. And so great is their simplicity and sparingness in regard to food, that they do not need to ease nature on the seventh day, which they are accustomed to keep for singing hymns to God and for rest.

‘From this asceticism they have acquired so great endurance, that though they be racked and wrenched and burned, and pass through all the instruments of torture, in order to make them blaspheme their Lawgiver, or eat some unaccustomed food, they cannot endure to do either.

‘And this they clearly showed in the war against the Romans: since they cannot endure either to fawn on their tormentors, or to shed tears, but smiling in the midst of their pains, and bantering those who applied the tortures, they cheerfully gave up their lives with the hope of receiving them again. For indeed this opinion is firmly fixed among them, that though their bodies are perishable, and their material substance not lasting, their souls remain for ever immortal; and coming from the subtlest ether, drawn down by some natural force, they become entangled with the body, but when they are released from the bonds of the flesh they then rejoice, as if delivered from long bondage, and are borne up aloft.

‘From such a mode of life then, and from their training in truth and piety, there are naturally many among them, who even foreknow the tilings to come, as being brought up among sacred books, and various purifications and utterances of the prophets: and they seldom, if ever, go wrong in their predictions.’

This was the testimony of Porphyry, drawn probably from ancient records, both to the piety and the philosophy of the persons aforesaid, in the fourth book of his careful work On Abstinence from Animal Food.