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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: Essenes
Essenesĕs'ēnz, members of a small Jewish religious order, originating in the 2d cent. B.C. The chief sources of information about the Essenes are Pliny the Elder, Philo's Quod omnius probus liber, Josephus' Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, and (possibly) the Dead Sea Scrolls. The sect consisted of adult males and celibacy was encouraged. The Essenes lived as a highly organized community that held possessions in common. Ceremonial purity entailed scrupulous cleanliness, the wearing of only white garments, and the most strict observance of the Sabbath. The Essenes believed in the immortality of the soul. Their practice, common among many Jewish groups, of purification through ritual immersion may have been a significant influence on the development of the rite of baptism in the early Christian church. They condemned slavery and prohibited trading because it led to covetousness and cheating; they avoided luxury, abhorred untruthfulness and forbade oaths, with the one exception of the oath a new member took after two years of probation. In this oath, the member pledged piety toward God, justice to men, honesty with fellow Essenes, preservation of the sect's secrets, and proper transmission of its teachings. The Essenes subsisted by pastoral and agricultural activities and handicrafts; they avoided the manufacture of weapons. There is evidence of Persian and Hellenistic influences in the sect's thought. The Essenes' belief in several Messiahs is thought by some to have been a major influence in the development of Christianity. The sect ceased to exist sometime in the 2d cent. A.D.

See D. Howlett, The Essenes and Christianity (1957); A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran (tr. 1961, repr. 1967); M. A. Larson, The Essene Heritage (1967); G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls (1978); P. R. Davies, Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (1987).

Wikipedia search results for: Essenes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Essenes were a Jewish religious group that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE that some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests. Being much fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees the Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to asceticism, voluntary poverty, daily baptisms, and abstinence from worldly pleasures, including marriage. Many separate but related religious groups of that era shared similar mystic, eschatological, messianic, and ascetic beliefs. These groups are collectively referred to by various scholars as the "Essenes." Josephus records that Essenes existed...more »
Columbia Encyclopedia search results: Essenes
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  • Essen

    Essen, city (1994 pop. 622,380), North Rhine–Westphalia, W Germany, on the Ruhr River. The major industrial center of the Ruhr district, it was the seat of the famous Krupp steelworks. Essen i...

  • Bergius, Friedrich Karl Rudolf

    Bergius, Friedrich Karl Rudolf, 1884–1949, German chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Leipzig, 1907. In 1910, Bergius set up a laboratory to carry out his research and in 1914 transferred the operation to...

  • Krupp

    Krupp, family of German armament manufacturers. The family settled in Essen in the 16th cent. The core of the great Krupp industrial empire was started by Friedrich Krupp, 1787–1826, who built...

  • Bruyn, Barthel Bartholomaeus

    Bruyn, Barthel Bartholomaeus, 1493–1555, German Renaissance painter, active in Cologne from 1515. Known especially for his portraits, which combine Northern realism with Italian-inspired monum...

  • Therapeutae

    Therapeutae [Gr.,=worshipers], Jewish monastic order living on the shore of Lake Mareotis, Egypt, about the 1st cent. A.D. They led an ascetic life devoted to solitary prayer and study of the ...

  • asceticism

    Asceticism, rejection of bodily pleasures through sustained self-denial and self-mortification, with the objective of strengthening spiritual life. Asceticism has been common in most major wor...

  • Dead Sea Scrolls

    Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient leather and papyrus scrolls first discovered in 1947 in caves on the NW shore of the Dead Sea. Most of the documents were written or copied between the 1st cent. B.C....

  • North Rhine–Westphalia

    North Rhine–Westphalia, Ger. Nordrhein-Westfalen, state (1994 pop. 17,759,000), 13,111 sq mi (33,957 sq km), W central Germany. Düsseldorf is the capital. The state is bounded by Belgium and t...

  • celibacy

    Celibacy, voluntary refusal to enter the married state, with abstinence from sexual activity. It is one of the typically Christian forms of asceticism. In ancient Rome the vestal virgins were ...

  • Ruhr

    Ruhr, region, c.1,300 sq mi (3,370 sq km), W Germany; a principal manufacturing center of Germany and formerly known as one of the world's greatest industrial complexes. In the 1980s the coal ...

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