The strictest discipline was maintained, excommunication
following detection in heinous sins. Evidently the standard of character
was pure and lofty, since their emphasis on self-mastery did not end in
absurd extravagances. Their frugal food, simple habits, and love of
cleanliness; combined with a regard for ethical principles, conduced to
a high type of life. Edersheim remarks, "We can scarcely wonder that
such Jews as Josephus and Philo, and such heathens as Pliny, were
attracted by such an unworldly and lofty sect."
Some writers maintain that they were also worshipers of the sun, and
hence that their origin is to be traced to Persian sources. Even if so,
they seemed to have escaped that confused and mystical philosophy which
has robbed Oriental thought of much power in the realm of practical
life. Philo says, "Of philosophy, the dialectical department, as being
in no wise necessary for the acquisition of virtue, they abandon to the
word-catchers; and the part which treats of the nature of things, as
being beyond human nature, they leave to speculative air-gazers, with
the exception of that part of it which deals with the subsistance of God
and the genesis of all things; but the ethical they right well
work out."
Pliny the elder, who lived A.D. 23-79, made the following reference to
the Essenes, which is especially interesting because of the tone of
sadness and weariness with the world suggested in its praise of this
Jewish sect.
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