16 Facts About Essenes

Essenes were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE.

Jewish historian Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, thousands lived throughout Roman Judaea.

The Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to voluntary poverty, daily immersion, and asceticism.

Essenes have gained fame in modern times as a result of the discovery of an extensive group of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are commonly believed to be the Essenes' library.

Pliny relates in a few lines that the Essenes possess no money, had existed for thousands of generations, and that their priestly class do not marry.

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Essenes relates the same information concerning piety, celibacy, the absence of personal property and of money, the belief in communality, and commitment to a strict observance of Sabbath.

Essenes further adds that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning – a practice similar to the use of the mikveh for daily immersion found among some contemporary Hasidim –, ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings.

Some modern scholars and archeologists have argued that Essenes inhabited the settlement at Qumran, a plateau in the Judean Desert along the Dead Sea, citing Pliny the Elder in support and giving credence that the Dead Sea Scrolls are the product of the Essenes.

Accounts by Josephus and Philo show that the Essenes led a strictly communal life—often compared to later Christian monasticism.

Many of the Essene groups appear to have been celibate, but Josephus speaks of another "order of Essenes" that observed the practice of being engaged for three years and then becoming married.

The Essenes chose not to possess slaves but served each other and, as a result of communal ownership, did not engage in trading.

Essenes were unique for their time for being against the practice of slave-ownership, and slavery, which they regarded as unjust and ungodly, regarding all men as having been born equal.

One theory on the formation of the Essenes suggests that the movement was founded by a Jewish high priest, dubbed by the Essenes the Teacher of Righteousness, whose office had been usurped by Jonathan, labeled the "man of lies" or "false priest".

Essenes will be great and will be called the son of the Most High.

John the Baptist has been argued to have been an Essene, as there are numerous parallels between John's mission and the Essenes, which is why he perhaps was trained by the Essene community.

Similar to the Essenes, it is forbidden for a Mandaean to reveal the names of the angels to a gentile.