The Essenes were an ancient sect whose origins and practices are shrouded in mystery. A lot
of the scholarly writings on the essenes have missed out key points that I would like to
highlight. Most concentrate on which faith to bucket them into rather than understanding
the philosophies that they lived by. I want to draw parallels between the philosophy of
the essenes, and other groups that flourished across the world in those times - Specifically
vedantic hinduism, greek neoplatonism, gnosticism and some aspects of Buddhism.
The aim as always is to establish the unity that existed among various philosophical groups
whose basis was an ancient knowledge. The essence of this enlightenment can be summarized
by the following points
- The acknowledgement of the presence of an immortal soul (in each human) and an emphasis
on the fact that the human soul, the self, actually is a part of (ultimate reality).
In every human is a spark of the divine. - An individuals actions (called Karma in
eastern faiths) cause the soul to go through cycles of birth and death. This is due to
ignorance of its reality. - Realizing the illusory nature of material
world and the oneness that underlies it all) is the means to liberation
Whatever little we know of the essenes come from the writings of Philo, Josephus, Pliny
and the dead sea scrolls. All of them acknowledged the fact that the essenes existed as an esoteric
minority sect for a long period of time. Now most of these writings were made around the
first century of the common era. Geographically at this time the Essenes were distributed
in Roman Judea - particularly along the shores of the dead sea.
But before we talk about the writings, let us try to get an idea of the religio-political
context to that area before the times that these records were written down and the events
that happened in the centuries that followed. This is very important and, of course, pretty
interesting.
After the death of Alexander the great in 323 BC two successor states emerged. One was
the Selucid Empire and the other was Ptolemaic Egypt. Before we move on we need to understand
that Alexander himself was tutored by Aristotle who was influenced heavily by plato. Elsewhere,
we covered that Plato who was inspired by thinkers such as pythogoras and socrates who
believed in the existence of an immortal human soul that due to ignorance is caught in an
endless cycle of transmigration. Greek faith was not just pagan or pantheistic. The underlying
philosophy was deeper. Coming back to history.
The selucidian empire had Selucia (in modern day iraq) as the initial capital and later
moved to Antioch (in modern day turkey). Alexandria was the capital Ptolemaic Egypt. Both these
empires vied to control the area that was the Kingdom of Israel.
The selcucids and the pltolemiacs were not isolated Kingdoms. In around 305 BC the Selucian
emperor Seleucus engaged in a confrontation with the powerful Indian king Chandragupta
Maurya. It ended with a marriage treaty Chandragupta being given vast territories that span modern
day Afghanisthan. Scholars also believe that Chandragupta married the daughter of Seleucus.
The selcuids like greeks believed in the platonic philosophies. In the years that followed,
there was a lot of eastern knowledge (Buddhism/Vedantic Hinduism) that filtered into the area as well.
Trade existed and in fact King Ashoka's rock edicts talks about how medicinal herbs were
supplied to other parts of the world - Under the edict "care for man and animals" it describes
the Greek king Antiochus II and his neighbours as some of the receipients". This was around
260 BC.
Alexandria is much more interesting. Alexandria had long been under ptolemaic kingdom and the philosophy there was already syncretized
with the ancient egyptian faith. The Serapium built during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes
was dedicated to God Serapis
who was considered by most scholars
to be an greco-egyptian diety.
On the Egyptian side, Serapis was considered to be a syncertizations.
of ancient egyptian dieties Osiris and Apis. Even in the worship of Serapis there is a very interesting link.
There are a lot of similarities between Serapis
and the Hindu God Shiva.
Serapis is regarded as a self-existent and self-created god, the first manifesting deity
similar to the way Shiva is described in the shiva purana. Gnostics considered Serapis
to be the godhead. Shiva is considered to be the manifestation of the all pervading
reality, the Bramman. Every individual self is part of this all pervading reality.
Serapis is associated with the serpent. The serpent on Shiva’s neck represents the endless
cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The symbolism was again one of reincarnation. A symbol of
metempsychosis. Just as the serpent sheds its skin so also the self sheds its body and
reincarnates into a new one. But we will
revisit this later.
Both these empires (the selucid and the ptlemaics) vied to control the area that was the Kingdom
of Israel. In fact, the Judaic texts 1,2 maccabes talks about a Jewish uprising against the
greeks in reaction to greek customs being imposed on them. According to the narrative,
Selucidian emperor Antiochus IV invaded the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, and then captured
Jerusalem. Mattathias A Jewish priest upset with the imposition of Greek customs on Israel
calls for a revolt against the Seleucid empire. His three sons begin a military campaign in
a few years (In 165 BC), the temple is freed and reconsecrated. This happened in the year
165 BC. By the year 25 BC both the selucids and ptolemaic kingdoms had disintegrated with
many areas conquered by Rome. Now, Roman faith though it absorbed from Greek polytheism and
other faiths did not lay an emphasis on the presence of a soul or its transmigration as
much as the greek neoplatonists did. Only a few even alluded to this and it was not
mainstream.
The centuries that followed also saw the destruction of libraries that housed ancient knowledge.
The decline and destruction of the library of Alexandria are well documented. The daughter
library - the Serapeum of Alexandria that housed many ancient documents, was plundered
and demolished in 391 AD under a decree issued by Coptic Christian Pope Theophilus of Alexandria.
At that time the Serapium was a gathering place for Neoplatonist philosophers.
Neoplatonist philosophers like Hypathia were murdered by Chirstian mobs.
Coming back to the Essenes...The sources from the essenes come from Philo of Alexandria
(25 CE to 45 A.D.), and Flavius Josephus (born 37 A.D.) and Pliny the elder (23 to 79 CE.).
All of them were citizens of the the Roman empire. So according to them, what was the
philosophy of the Essenes.
Philo of Alexandria, (25 BCE to 45 AD.)
Philo provides the oldest written records of the essenes. Philo lived in Alexandria
in Egypt when it was a Roman province. Even at that time it was a gathering place for
Neoplatonist philosophers specifically at the serapium. Philo was a jewish philosopher.
Scholars view Philo as a philosopher who tried to harmonize Jewish scriptures with Greek
philosophy specifically platonic philosophy. Philo's is the oldest account we have of the
essenes.
Philo did visit Jerusalem and if the Essenes frequented the area he might have actually
met with a few Essenes. In his writings found in t “Every Good Man is Free,” Philo talks
about the Essenes and their practice.
Philo declares that their laws, which. differ radically from the Jewish laws, date from
Moses.
He states “There is a portion of those people called Essenes, in number somewhat more than
four thousand in my opinion, who derive their name from their piety, ...they are above all
men devoted to the service of God, not sacrificing living animals, but studying rather to preserve
their own minds in a state of holiness and purity.”
This is similar to renunciate sects found all over the world. Philo himself writes about
this. He states
"In India, too, there is the sect of the Gymnosophists, who, in addition to speculative philosophy,
diligently cultivate the ethical also, and have made their life an absolute ensample
of virtue He also says that they shunned big cities
preferring to live in small villages. The Essenes, says philo, were averse to storing
material wealth.”
So the Essenes clearly believed that an attachment to the material world was detrimental to progessing
on the spiritual plane.
The Essenes were completely a peace loving people. Philo says,
“Among those men you will find no makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets,
or breastplates, or shields; no makers of arms or any employment whatever connected
with war,”
There were no inequalities in the Essene society. The Essenes lived by themselves in communes
and did not have any notion of property ownership. From their meals to their clothes everything
was shared. Philo writes "there is not a single slave among them, but they are all free, aiding
one another” The first non-jewish source comes from Pliny
the Elder. He was a Roman and lived from AD 23 - 79. His accounts came after the accounts
of Philo. Pliny claims to have seen the Essene communes. He also describes them as renunciates
who are averse to the material world. He writes
On the west side of the Dead Sea, but out of range of the noxious exhalations of the
coast, is the solitary tribe of the Essenes which is remarkable beyond all the other tribes
of the whole world as it has no women and has renounced all sexual desire, has no
money, and has only palm trees for company. Day by day the throng of refugees is
recruited to an equal number by numerous accessions of persons tired of life and driven
there by the waves of fortune to adopt their manners. Thus, through thousands of ages
a race in which no one is born lives on forever- so prolific for their advantage is other men’s
weariness of life!
Now, Pliny’s description makes this look like a group of monks or sanyasis
that might have existed in other parts of the world where people could go and join
Now we turn to Josephus. Again, Josephus comes under some scrutiny for his intentions.
Josephus fought against the romans in the first roman jewish war but then eventually
after being captured he fully defected to the Roman side.
Josephus states time and again that the way of life practised by the Essenes was identical
to the followers of pythogoras.
According to Josephus, the Essenes believed that the soul is immortal.
After Josephus' account, and
After about year 70 CE there is no mention of the essenes.
Some scholars speculate that they might have become Ebionites or other similar early ascetic christian
sects. But remember that even Josephus and Pliny call the Essenes an very ancient sect
having been around for thousands of years. So it is highly unlikely that they adopted
a different view. Some who believe that Qumran (the site where the dead sea scrolls were
found) was the area where the Essenes primarily resided insist that they died when the complex
were destroyed by Roman armies.
A couple of hundred years later
Diocletan the Roman emperor had started the persecution of the manicheans
and other early christian groups
Now we come to the year 306
This was the year that Constantine took over as the Roman emperor. He was regarded as
the first emperor to embrace Christianity. He presided over the first council of nicea
a convention of christian bishops to create what they thought was a uniform christian doctrine. Soon,
gospels mentioning reincarnation or those that mentioned that everyone could be part
of the god energy i.e son of god were considered heresies. Towards the end of his reign Constantine
himself ordered the pillage and plunder of even Roman temples. Subsequent successors
like theodocius made Nicene Christianity the official state church of the Roman Empire.
Those sects that were thought to be heretical were heavily persecuted
Gnostics were heavily persecuted and put to death. We will go into more details in a later video. The essenes might have
been a target of this persecution as well.
So irrespective of what sect the essenes belonged to we can safely say that the essenes practiced
a faith that paralleled the ancient wisdom prevalent in Vedantic Hinduism, Buddhism,
Neoplatonism and other gnostic faiths. Unfortunately, like most of these other faiths, perversion of philosophy, destruction
of teachings and persecution of practictioners led to the demise of Essene wisdom.