ESSENI. — A Jewish religious association that existed in Palestine from approximately 150 B.C. to A.D. 70.
They are mentioned by Pliny, Philo, and Josephus (especially in Bell. Iud., II, 8, 2–13), who, rightly, is preferred by critics. There is no mention of them in the New Testament or in the Talmud; the Fathers depend on the three preceding authors. The etymology of the name is uncertain; it is interpreted as “silent ones” by M.-J. Lagrange and others, but more commonly as “pious” (from the Aramaic ḥāsaijā, whence the two Greek forms 'Εωργοί [Pliny, Josephus] and 'Εωαίος [Philo and Josephus four times]).
The e. were Ḥasidim who, around 150 B.C. (cf. Antiq. Iud., XVIII, 1, 2; XIII, 11, 2), in order to realize their strictly religious program, separated from the Pharisees and withdrew into genuine coenobitic communities. Their principal characteristics were: communal life (dwelling, possessions, all earnings, prayers, meals, clothing, etc.); unconditional obedience to the superior of the coenobium, who directed everything and everyone and was the administrator of the community; celibacy (“gens in qua nemo nascitur”: Pliny); and manual labor, assigned each day by the superior—ordinarily agriculture, but also other trades, for everything needed by the community. Commerce was forbidden, as a source of greed.
The sick and the elderly were carefully supported by the community. Members could take money from the common treasury to assist the needy; but if relatives were involved, they had to obtain the superior’s permission. They observed legal purity, going much farther than the Pharisees. They wore white; their modest and frugal food was prepared by priests, who before and after the meal (eaten in silence) recited prayers and gave the blessing. Any other food was considered impure; and so was any contact not only with outsiders but even with novices. Ablutions were consequently numerous: baths taken with a girdle around the limbs before eating and after contracting any impurity. Their horror of impurity might explain their celibacy (cf. Lev. 16, 16–18), although Josephus gives as its reason their distrust of women, whom they regarded as unfaithful spouses (Bell. Iud., II, 8, 2, § 120 ff.). They took special precautions in relieving themselves (Bell. Iud., II, 8, 9, § 148; cf. Deut. 23, 13–15); they carried observance of the Sabbath to an extreme, on which it was forbidden to relieve the aforementioned needs (ibid., § 147). All this explains why the coenobia were scattered along the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley, far from inhabited areas. In some cities and in Jerusalem itself (beside the gate called that of the e.), they had houses for lodging members passing through.
They had a particular veneration for the Tōrāh and for Moses. Students of ancient traditions, they seem to have written many of the apocryphal books. Various critics attribute to them the Book of Henoch and the Assumption of Moses; others add the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Ascension of Isaiah. Among the manuscripts discovered in the Judaean desert in 1947 is a manual of discipline, or initiation ritual, belonging to a Jewish sect that E. L. Sukenik identifies with the e. (cf. Revue biblique, 56 [1949], pp. 201, 583–85, 593 ff., 609).
On the Sabbath they devoted themselves to reading and explaining the sacred books. Practical people, they placed morality first. “The e. allow themselves to be guided by the rules of piety, justice, and private and social law... They submit to three rules... love of God, love of virtue, and love of human beings, expressed in benevolence, impartiality, and the community of goods” (Philo). They had absolute confidence in divine Providence and complete submission to its designs (Antiq. Iud., XIII, 5, 9). They cultivated and developed angelology (Bell. Iud., II, 8, 7).
Admission to the organization took place only after a “novitiate” of three years; only then was a person who had proved reliable incorporated into it, after solemnly swearing to be faithful to the community’s rules and not to reveal its secrets, even under threat of death (Bell. Iud., II, 8, 7). They accepted children, whom they educated according to the sect’s ideal (loc. cit., 8, 2). In the time of Jesus they numbered approximately 4,000. Characteristics, on the other hand, contrary to every Jewish mentality were: exclusion of bloody sacrifice (perhaps because of Is. 1, 11; Os. 6, 5); prohibition of every oath; turning toward the sun in prayer instead of toward Jerusalem (cf. Ex. 8, 16); and belief in the preexistence of souls and, if they were righteous, in their return, as soon as they had left the prison of the body, to the stars from which they had descended.
The origin of Essenism therefore cannot be recognized as lying exclusively in post-exilic Judaism (E. Stapfer, Z. Frankel, H. Grütz, H. Derenbourg, A. Geiger, W. Clemens, etc.); an external influence seems evident. It has been sought unsuccessfully in Pharisaism (A. Hilgenfeld, J. Lightfoot; cf. L. de Grandmaison), and with still greater improbability in distant Buddhism; more commonly, and rightly, in the Greek world, specifically in Pythagoreanism (already Josephus, Bell. Ind., II, 8, 11; Antiq. Ind., XV, 10, 4; E. Schürer, E. Zeller, M.-J. Lagrange, L. Marchal). Thus it was a combination of the predominant Jewish element with Pythagoreanism: “in concern for bodily purity and holiness, and for purifications; in the simple, austere life, free from every sensual pleasure; in the high esteem (if not in the complete requirement) of celibacy; in the use of white clothing; in the rejection of oaths and bloody sacrifices; in the orientation of the person praying; in the precaution of concealing from sight what is impure; in the dualistic conception of the relations between soul and body” (L. Marchal, col. 1127 ff.).
The influence of the e. on Judaism is indemonstrable, and even more so their influence on Christianity (cf. L. de Grandmaison, I, p. 253; L. Marchal, cols. 1128–31).
Studies: H. Leclercq, Cénohitisme, III, Monachisme juif, in DACL, II, cols. 3058–75; W. Bauer, s. V. in Pauly-Wissowa, Suppl., IV, cols. 386–430; L. Marchal, s. V. in DBs, II, cols. 1109–32; E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, II, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1898, pp. 356–84; E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, III, II, 4th ed., Tübingen 1903, pp. 307–77; I. Lévy, La légende de Pythagore, de Grèce en Palestine, Paris 1927, pp. 264–88; M.-J. Lagrange, La gnose mandéenne et la tradition évangélique, in Revue biblique, 34 (1927), pp. 321–49, 481–515; id., La Judaïsme avant Jésus-Christ, 2nd ed., Paris 1931, pp. 307–30, 385, 425 ff.; J. de Grandmaison, Jésus-Christ, I, 6th ed., ibid. 1931, pp. 252–54; U. Holmeister, Historia oestatis Noel Testament, Rome 1932, pp. 211–25; J. Bonsirven, Le Judaïsme palestinien, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1935, pp. 63–67. Francesco Spadafora