It is very surprising that the Essenes, whose exemplary Virtues elicited the unbounded admiration of even the Greeks and Romans, and whose doctrines and practices contributed so materially to the spread of Christianity, should be so little known among intelligent Christians. The current information upon this remarkable sect or order of Judaism, to be found in ecclesiastical histories and Cyclopædias, is derived from the short notices of Philo, Pliny, Josephus, Solinus, Porphyry, Eusebius, and Ep

“No maker of arrows, darts, spears, swords, helmets, breastplates, or shields—no manufacturer of arms or engines of war, nor any man whatever who makes things belonging to war, or even such things as might lead to wickedness in times of peace, is to be found among them. 25 Traffic, innkeeping, or navigation, they never so much as dream of, because they repudiate every inducement to covetousness. There is not a single slave to be found among them, for all are free, and mutually serve each other.

1587–1643.—Our learned countryman, Dr. Thomas Godwyn occupies the next position. In his interesting and erudite volume, entitled Moses and Aaron : which was first published in London 1625, Godwyn devotes the twelfth chapter of the first book to the Essenes. The etymology of this name he takes to be the Syriac ‏אסא‎ to heal , to cure diseases , and submits that they were called Essenes = θεραπευται physicians , because they cultivated the study of medicine. His summary of their doctrines and prac

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