1. Historical background.

Josephus, Philo and Pliny the Elder all refer to a group known as the Essenes. The name may derive from the Aramaic word hasen, whose Hebrew equivalent was hasidim, the pious ones. In 1 Maccabees 2:42, a text from the early days of the revolt against the Greek Empire, we first hear about a "congregation of the Hasidim (Assideans)... all of whom devote themselves to the Law." At first this pious group supported the Maccabean uprising.

Around 152 BC, the fourth Maccabee brother, Jonathan, was leading the revolt. He seized Jerusalem, refortified the Temple, and got himself appointed High Priest. The Maccabees (or Hasmonean, to use their formal name) were in fact a priestly family, but they did not belong to the line of Zadok, High Priest under David. Zadok's descendants had held the office whenever Israel was sovereign. Among the Hasidim, many supporters of the Zadokite line resented Jonathan's usurpation.

A Greek general tricked and murdered Jonathan in 142 BC. The sole survivor among the Maccabee brothers, Simon, took over the leadership. He managed to achieve full independence, ridding Jerusalem of the last Greek garrison. A popular assembly then decreed that Simon should be their leader "and high priest forever, until a faithful prophet should arise." (1 Macc. 14) Thus the assembly recognized Simon as the founder of a new high-priestly line.

Around this time, the Hasidic party split into two wings: the Pharisees and the Essenes. The former included a large number of lay people who at first sought a modus vivendi with the Hasmoneans. Other Hasidim, though, led by Zadokite priests, separated themselves from the main body of the Jews. They decided to avoid the Temple service for as long as the "Wicked Priest" and his descendants presided there. This "Wicked Priest" of the scrolls may have been Jonathan (so holds Vermes, pp. 35-36) or Simon (says Cross, pp. 141-156). 

The scrolls call the leader (apparently also the founder) of the Essenes "the Teacher of Righteousness."

(Hardly ever do the scrolls refer to a person or group by a name that has come down from non-Essene sources. Instead, the writers use code names. They saw contemporary events as fulfillments of biblical prophecy and preferred, therefore, to substitute biblical terms. The use of a code also separated those who were "in" from those who were "out": the saved from the damned, the children of light from the children of darkness.)

Ousted from the high priesthood, the Righteous Teacher and his companions took refuge in the desert, like other famous outlaws before them (Moses, David, Elijah). The period of Jonathan and Simon corresponds in time with the founding of the complex at Qumran. The commentary on Habakkuk from Cave 1 (11:4-8) reports that the Wicked Priest pursued the Righteous Teacher "to overwhelm him... at his house in exile."

(This attack, the scroll tells us, came on the Day of Atonement: that is, the Essene Yom Kippur, not the Hasmonean. The Essenes followed a calendar based on the solar circuit, whereas the Hasmoneans (and normative Judaism later) followed a calendar based on the cycles of the moon.)

2. Their Central Idea

Here then is one reason why the Essenes went into the desert of Judaea: for refuge. But there was also a deeper theological motive: They thought of themselves as the true Israel, and they expected God to renew the covenant, which had originally been made in the desert. They took to heart Isaiah 40:3,

(Manual of Discipline, Columns 8: 15 and 9:20. Since the Manual is a secular document, the scribes did not write out the name of God, putting four dots instead.)

The Essenes saw themselves as living in the desert to prepare a way for the Lord. They had already been there more than 150 years when John the Baptist appeared at the Jordan nearby, attracting the same verse from Isaiah (cf. Mark 1:2).

They expected the Lord to come soon. The Essenes were the first major Jewish group to advance the notion that the end time was near: that God was about to intervene directly in the world, defeat the forces of evil, and establish His order forever. Here is the debut of apocalyptic eschatology.

Elsewhere we have discussed the forces that gave rise to this idea. (See the Historical Background to the Sermon on the Mount.) Briefly: The divine covenant provided that if Israel worshipped God alone, renouncing idolatry, it would thrive (Deut. 11: 13-17). After the return from the Babylonian exile, the Jews no longer worshipped the idols of yore, such as Baal or Asherah. Yet things did not go well. The Hasmonean, initially welcomed as saviors, sometimes proved to be cruel despots, persecuting both the Pharisees and the Essenes. In addition, we have seen, they usurped the high priesthood. In 63 BC, the Romans exploited a conflict between two Hasmonean brothers and conquered the land. Once again the Jews were under foreign rule, although no longer worshipping idols! How to explain this? Was the covenant a fairy tale? Mere wishful thinking?

No! replied the Essenes. These are the times of tribulation foreseen by the prophets, the last desperate struggle by the powers of evil, the necessary and painful prelude to God's re-entry into history. His Messiah is about to appear and lead us to victory over the Sons of Darkness. And here we are, God's chosen Sons of Light, preparing the way.

This apocalyptic eschatology is the central idea of the Essene movement. It appears throughout their literature, but especially in their commentaries on the prophets and in the scroll the scholars have dubbed, The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. Remarkably, in his detailed discussion of the Essenes, Josephus fails to mention it. (Why?)

Apocalyptic eschatology contains a strong Hebraic element: the notion that God steers history toward salvation. The paradigm is the Passover story, in which He intervened to rescue His people from slavery in Egypt. In the same way (so the thinking went), now that our troubles have reached such a pitch, the Lord will re-enter history according to His predetermined plan, defeating the wicked and exalting the righteous. Thus the covenant will be fulfilled.

We can also find a Hebraic element in the strong distinction between holy and profane. The Essenes were led by priests, for whom the distinction was cardinal. In the First Testament, however, the profane does not appear as a force in its own right. Where must we look to find such a thing?

To Persian Zoroastrianism. It conceives the cosmos in terms of a struggle between light and darkness.

There was a major Jewish presence in Persia. Most of those exiled to Babylon had chosen to remain, forming a large community, including great scholars. Around the time of the Maccabean revolt, the Parthians expelled many, who swarmed into Palestine. It is no wonder, then, that Persian dualism became part of the mental and spiritual atmosphere.

With the Greek and Roman conquests, Plato's dualism of spirit and matter had also entered the region. Thus two dualistic systems converged on the "land bridge," meeting the Hebrew scriptures, which are not dualistic: they contain no mention of "this world" versus "another." (What is dualism?)

The Essenes, who already laid stress on the priestly distinction between sacred and profane, were especially open to dualism. We see the result, for example, in their doctrine of two spirits, from the Manual of Discipline:

If we experience reality in terms of a fundamental distinction between two realms, sending everything either upstairs or down, then what shall we do with sex? Shall it go to the realm of the spirit or to that of the flesh? It goes to the latter -- and so we find at Qumran, uniquely, Jewish celibates (though there were also Essenes who did marry). For these Jews, then, dualism overcame the divine command to be fruitful and multiply.

Likewise, the renunciation of creature comforts and egoistical greed suits men who wish to live already in the community of the spirit. The most pious among the Essenes gave all they had to the community and received from it what they required. There were Essene colonies, however, in the towns throughout Judaea, and not all members were purely communistic. Some gave up only a portion of their wages each month.

3. Essenes and Christians

The Essenes preceded the Christians by more than 150 years. They were "the bearers, and in no small part the producers, of the apocalyptic tradition in Judaism." (Cross, p. 198, his emphasis). From them the Christians may have inherited their apocalyptic eschatology. It is possible, however, that both groups drew from a common earlier tradition. (So Vermes, pp. 211-221.) Either way, it is now clear that Christian eschatology did not originate in a vacuum. Compare, for example, the following passages from 1 John with the doctrine of two spirits in the Manual of Discipline, quoted above:

The same dualistic eschatology produced a similar attitude toward marriage. It is good not to marry at all, said Paul, but better marry than burn. And why is it good not to marry at all? Because "the time has been shortened." (1 Corinthians 7:29. Cf. 1 Corinthians 7:1-8, Luke 20:34-36.)

In their attitude toward property, too, the early Christians were like the Essenes, probably for the same apocalyptic reasons (Acts 4:32-35).

This is not to say that there weren't momentous differences! Jesus taught people to love even their enemies, and early Christianity was an open society, persuading others to join. The Essenes taught hatred of the Sons of Darkness; they do not seem to have proselytized. Because of their priestly leadership, the Essenes laid a heavy stress on ritual law; in this they were stricter than the Pharisees. They had no doctrine of incarnation, and the notion of a crucified Messiah would probably have shocked them.

What is more, unlike the early Christians, the Essenes prepared for war.

4. Their End

Philo wrote that the Essenes refused to traffic in weapons, a statement that has led some to think they were pacifists. But if Philo was correct, he must have meant that they rejected the usual kind of war, for spoils or territory. God's final war was to be a different matter. The so-called War Scroll presents the line-up for battle against the Sons of Darkness. The latter are called by the code name "Kittim." In the Commentary on Habakkuk (VI, 5), they are said "to sacrifice to their standards and worship their weapons" (clearly a reference to the Romans). During the first revolt, in fact, one of the top Jewish generals was John the Essene. Josephus writes: "...our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them" (War II 8.10). The Romans did not behave this way toward those who did not resist them. Finally, archaeologists date the destruction of Qumran to 68 AD, in the midst of the Jewish revolt; within the blackened debris they discovered the iron arrowheads used by the Roman legions.

All these considerations point one way: the Essenes must have viewed the revolt against Rome as the war they had been waiting for. They went into it expecting God to intervene. He did not. The disappointment did not prevent other Jews in this land, sixty years later, from fomenting an even less feasible revolt under the false Messiah, Bar Kokhba.

© 2003 Near East Tourist Agency (NET)

Text © 2003 Stephen Langfur