THE ESSENES WHO CHANGED CHURCHIANITY

Transcribed here, verbatim, from an article first appearing in the
November, 1959 issue of
“The Mystic Light”
RAYS FROM THE ROSE CROSS

The Essenes Who Changed Churchianity
Enid S. Smith, Ph. D.

PART 1

Centuries before the Christian Era, the Essenes, in their great mystic Order with branches in many parts of the then known world, aspired, as their chief object in life, to the perfecting of their members in all righteousness that they might be worthy of God to bring into the world the Great Messiah. According to the records, esoteric and exoteric, Jesus was born within their Order, was trained by them during the “hidden years of his life” in their various branches and centers in Palestine, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Tibet, and elsewhere, and finally sent out by them “to effect a moral and religious revolution.”

So, in the fullness of time came the epoch-making discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves of the kirbet Qumran district giving these facts. According to the wisdom of the Essenes, there is no such thing as chance in God’s universe––all things are determined by plan or destiny, and all come to pass in the regular time for them, nothing occurring that was not foreordained. Thus declare the masters of the art of living who produced a group of people that excelled in righteousness and in the development of “the gifts of the spirit,” and in the attainment of cosmic consciousness, more than any of their successors.

It is recorded that no prophecy of theirs ever failed. This accuracy meant their survival in the days of Herod the Great, and their being excused from taking the hated oaths, even the oath of allegiance. History tells us that a certain Essene, one Menahem, who was celebrated not only for his uprightness but for his foreknowledge of the future, met Herod one day when he was a schoolboy and addressed him as “King of the Jews.” Herod thought that Menahem did not know him and was jesting. But Menahem smiled, clapped him on the back, and said, “Thou wilt, nevertheless, be king and will begin thy reign happily, for God has found thee worthy of it. Remember Menahem’s words. This assurance will be salutary for thee when thou wilt love justice and piety toward God and equality toward thy citizens. However, I know that thou will not be such a one, for I can perceive it all. Thou wilt obtain an everlasting reputation, but thou wilt forget piety and justice, which will not be concealed from God, for He will visit thee in His wrath for it toward the end of thy life.” Herod paid little heed to the Essene’s prophesy at the time, as he was a commoner and had no idea that he could be made king; but it occurred as predicted.

Again, another Essene, one day in the temple surrounded by his pupils whom he had initiated into the apocalyptic art of foretelling the future, one Judas, history tells us, saw Antigonus pass. Judas prophesied a sudden death for him at a definite hour on a certain day, in a very special place––all of which occurred as predicted.

The great Jewish historian, Josephus, living in the first century A.D. was among the Essenes for a year or more, gave the intricate details of their lives and their work, of their belief in reincarnation, the resurrection and communication with angels. He knew they studied such subjects also as astrology, numerology, phrenology, prophesy, vegetarianism and health, healing, prayer and meditation, among many others. The Essenes believed that man should study great sacred books of humanity, all the great contributions to culture, for they knew they all teach the “same ageless wisdom, and that the only seeming contradictions would come through the one-sidedness of the followers who attempted to interpret them. The object of knowledge was not to give a few facts to the individual, but to open to him sources of universal truth. As the student reads, the words of truth create in his thinking body powerful vibrations and currents of thought that touch with the thinking body of the great Master who gave them birth––this was all well known to these mystics. Later, at the periods of great need and confusion, when the existing way of life and the social order was threatened, Masters such as Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, and Jesus brought new horizons and hope to humanity.

Strange to narrate, because a prophesy of Josephus, the historian, saved his life at the time of the Jewish uprising against the Romans and when he appointed Governor of Galilee, the Roman general Vespasian made resistance hopeless. Josephus fled, but was brought before Vespasian who would have sent him to Nero to be destroyed had the historian not prophesied that his captor, Vespasian, would become Emperor of Rome––which came true as predicted.

The reason the great historian Pliny says that the Essenes are “ageless, of dateless antiquity” and affirms that “they existed thousands of years before” his time is that the Essenes not only claim Mosaic origin for their Brotherhood, but state that some of them had an even earlier beginning, going back to the time of Abraham and before. Some historians identify them with the mystic Shepherd Kings that ruled over Egypt some 2000 years B.C. They later passed through the wilderness into Syria and into a country afterward known as Judea, where they entered a city called Salem, and where much later, Melehisedek bestowed upon Abraham the mystic rites of the Order to be known as the Essenes. Ewald’s Jewish History, among other histories, notes that “the Essenes, or people who left the great community to live the holy life were to be found in Israel from the remotest times, and were formerly known as “Nazarites.” Thus they were known in the Book of Judges and in the Book of Kings as the “School of the Prophets,” and in Maccabean times as “Hasidees.” The Order did not call themselves “Essenes,” which meant the “expectant ones”––this was a name given by others. They were also called “Friends,” “The Pure and Silent Ones,” “The Miracle Workers,” “Champions of Virtue,” “Nazarenes,” “Therapeutes,” “Healers,” “The Mystics of the White Clothing,” the third group of Jewry whose salutation was “Peace be unto you.”

The historian Philo agrees with Pliny as to the Essenes being ageless, “being a unique people, more admirable than any other in the world,” and says the “members of the brotherhood were called ‘Champions of Virtue.’” Strabo mentions the Essenes in Heliopolis, Egypt, “with whom Plato and Eudoxus consulted.” Solinus affirms that “The Essenes who differ from all other peoples in their marvelous constitution (being vegetarians and living, many of them, to be over 120 years of age) and, according to my opinion have been appointed by divine Providence for this mode of life. They renounce money, connubial pleasures, and yet are the richest of all men.”

It should be noted that, while many of the Essenes were celibate, men and women, and that some of the settlements were for men only (monasteries), others were communities where each family had its own house and garden, made its contributions to the community as a whole and went to the general assembly buildings for certain rites and ceremonies. Women were associate members. Those who did not marry, brought up orphans for the Essene community. Children were placed under a ten year period of prescribed study. At age of twenty years they were eligible for membership, admission following upon satisfactorily passing a public examination in required subjects and on giving acceptable evidence of sound moral character.

Epiphanius, famous church historian of the fourth century, in speaking of the Essenes, and their contributions to humanity, declared that “Jesus joined the Essenes, and that the Order in connection with their healings sometimes used a Book of Remedies attributed to King Solomon.

Other historians such as Eusebius, Porphyry, Origen, Jerome, the Talmud, Midrashism, the Bible, among numerous and sundry accounts, speak of the Essenes.

Among representative modern historians is Dean Humphrey Prideaux, who declares in his book on the descendants of the Essenes, Old and New Testaments Connected, that the Essenes antedated the Holy Scriptures, and condemned slavery, fermented liquids, all flesh foods, war, and the making of warlike instruments, and anticipated the true spirit of Christianity and the higher philosophy of the twentieth century.

Dr. Graetz in his book, The History of the Jews, says “The Essenes first proclaimed the kingdom of heaven,” that John the Baptist lived the life of a Nazarite, belonging to the Essenes, and took up his abode with the other Essenes near the waters of the Jordan, awaiting penitents, who when baptized joined the Essenic Order.

The historian Ginsberg, in his book The Essenes, Their History and Doctrine. says: “The purpose of Jesus, the Essene, was to effect a great moral revolution. From the age of twelve to thirty he was in the Essene colonies and conceived the plan which he intended to carry out. There he was educated until he was sent out by the Order.”

Likewise, a most painstaking historical research, that by A. A. Schultz on the Essenes, compiled from the numerous records of the Literary and Philosophic Society of Liverpool in 1896, finds the above statements confirmed in documents written in Hebrew, Aramaic. and Greek.

The Free Masons find pure Christianity in Essenism and consider the ‘Brethren of the Seamless White Robe, or Mystic Order of Essenes, to be the most important fraternity in the world.”

Among many of the modern accounts that state Jesus and many of our New Testament characters were Essenes, is that of Frederick II in a letter to d’Alembert, dated October 17,1770. The philosopher-king wrote, “Jesus was plainly an Essenian; he was imbued with the morality of the Essenes, a ood part of which stems from Zeno.”

Students of the Christian Mysteries have always known that Joseph and Mary, parents of Jesus; and Elizabeth and Zachariah, parents of John the baptist, were associated with the Community of the new Covenant, sometimes called :The Alliance,” and came under the influence of “The Elect,” as the Essenes regarded themselves by virtue of what they really knew to be their divine historic assignment. They had transcended barriers that divided classes, races, and religions, and had incorporated the best of many religions within their own Order. Something of Zoroastrianism could be found in the Essene daily salute to the Sun, possibly the Great Sun Spirit, or Cosmic Being that shone within the radiant physical Sun, the Being of Light, as the time would come when this cosmic Individuality would take human form and become the Light of the World. Also, the Essene Gospel of John bears witness to the Solar Logos, the Light of the World.

So in 1945, 1947, and later dates, when the Dead Sea Scrolls, part of the Essene library, were discovered in the caves near their buried monastery in the Kirbet Qumran district, confirming much that only esoterically before was known by a few, the discovery was considered by great scholars to be epoch-making, the most vital and outstanding discovery within the past 2000 years. These scrolls bid fair to change what has been understood as Churchianity or Orthodoxy since the time of Constantine and the council of Nicea in 325 A. D., and the later dates of the various man made creeds that were added to the church. The Scrolls will restore the religion of the Master Jesus in its original form, which has been temporarily lost to the world.

A great day it was for the religion of the West when the Bedouin boy called “Mohammed the Wolf” was minding some goats near a cliff on the western shore of the Dead Sea, and climbing up after one that had strayed, noticed a cave he had not seen before and idly threw a stone into it. There was an unfamiliar sound of breakage. Frightened, the boy ran away, only to return a while later with another lad. Together they explored the cave. Inside they found several tall clay jars, among fragments of other jars. When they took off the bowl-like lids, a very bad smell arose, which came from dark oblong lumps that were found inside all the jars. When they got these lumps out of the cave, they saw they were wrapped up in lengths of linen and coated with a thick layer of black pitch or wax. They unrolled them and found long manuscripts, inscribed in parallel columns on thin sheets that had been sewn together. They wondered at the scrolls and carried them along as they moved, finally smuggling them with other goods out of Transjordan into Palestine to Bethlehem, where they were sold and finally reached the hands of scholars. More and more caves with scrolls were discovered, and the manuscripts sold, until by 1949 the Bedouins had received more than $87,000 for what they had found. Since then they have been cutting up the scrolls and selling them for $7.00 a square inch, until finally scholars have secured some policing and control over these valuable manuscripts.

Scholars have made various reports about the great significance of the scrolls. When Dr. Trevor sent off prints of columns from the Isaiah scroll to Dr. W. F. Albright of John Hopkins, one of the greatest living archeologists, he wrote back;
“My congratulations on one of the manuscript discoveries of all times.” Fixing the date around 100 B.C., he said; There can happily be not the slightest doubt in the world about the genuineness of the manuscript. The scrolls bid fair to revolutionize our approach to Christianity.”

The great French-Hebrew scholar Andre Dupont Sommer, professor of Semite languages at the Sorbonne in Paris, went to the Palestinian Museum at Jerusalem, handled and examined the scrolls that were 2,000 years old, and then said; “These texts give us immediate direct knowledge of the historical beliefs, and rites of the Essene sect; they bring out numerous and precise similarities between it and the early Christian church. Essenism as revealed in the scrolls had more than any other Judaic movement paved the way for Christianity. The scrolls have therefore cleared up one of the most captivating problems in the history of religions, that of the origin of Christianity.”

Later his remark that “the scrolls made Jesus seem like a reincarnation of the great Essene Teacher of Righteousness who lived about 100 years B.C.” aroused much controversy in France. This idea has been suggested by others,and would seem most probable under the circumstances. The Essenes followed the teachings of Melchizedec, Prince of Peace, whom Abraham met and talked with, and whom many consider an incarnation of Jesus, who said, “Before Abraham I am, and your father Abraham saw my day and rejoiced to see it.” So if the Master was an incarnation known as Melchizedec, there could be no reason why he could not be a later incarnation known as the Teacher of Righteousness, before he appeared as the Master Jesus.* (*The only former incarnation of Jesus mentioned in the Western Wisdom Bible Teachings is Solomon.)

Marie Harlowe, writing in Progressive World in 1957, says; “The uniqueness of Jesus is challenged by the discovery in the Essene scrolls of a prior individual of similar character. The Teacher of Righteousness was in striking parallel to the life and teachings of Jesus as related in the Christian Scriptures. He was a leader of the community; he had experienced special revelations. His folowers were the poor, who called themselves the ‘Elect of God.’”

This Teacher was, furthermore, at odds with the priests and was greatly persecuted by them. His doctrine concerned heaven and hell, and his most important ritual was a sacred feast or meal. He was condemned and put to death between 65-53 B.C.

The Essene scrolls, hidden in the caves, some of them doubtless as late as the last few days before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus in 70 A.D. to preserve them, possibly with the thought of returning later to remove them to a safe place, were some of them mentioned in our Bible, such as “The Assumption of Moses,” also a book mentioning an Enoch the seventh from Adam, who prophesied––among other records which the authorities of the orthodox church discarded as spurious and non-canonical. There were also books in which characters and teachings paralleled those of the Master Jesus, giving the sources of his information and learning which along with all references to such, the church made every effort to destroy entirely––but on a few occasions they bungled. Now, with the discovery of the Essene Scrolls, all has come to light.

Again, because of the authorities of the orthodox churches, whom certain scholars have consulted concerning the form in which this revolutionary religios knowledge should be presented to the public, there has been much delay in America. Some of the church authorities have suggested, after trying to discredit the facts, that they wait some fifty years or so, and let things adjust themselves slowly. But the laymen are vitally interested and demand more truth––they found some of it somewhere. They have learned that the originals of many of the books of our Bible are different from what we have.

Among the important scrolls found in the various caves are two of Isaiah, The Testament of Levi, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, many books of Enoch, The Zadokite Document, the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Document, the Apocalypse of Lamech (a section of Genesis), The Psalms of Thanksgiving, Hymns, the Habakkuk Commentary, The Apocrypha of Genesis, Targum of Job, The Wars of the Sons of Light, an Essene Apocalypse, among others. The documents discovered in 1947 belong to the State of Israel; those collected since 1949 belong to the State of Jordan and are in the Palestinian Museum in Jerusalem. Ten other caves and hundreds of other documents and fragments have been recently discovered.

Many of the Essene scrolls are written in Aramaic, this most ancient of all languages, according to the famous Syrian scholar, Dr. George M. Lamsa. It goes back to the Plain of Shinar, and the name derived from Aram, the youngest son of Shem. It will be remembered that Dr. Lamsa gave the Western World the Bible from the original Aramaic manuscripts, the Peshitta texts––in 1940 the New Testament, and in 1957 the Old Testament. This was a monumental task from the oldest surviving sources of the Bible, which were preserved in Turkey and Iran by the ancient Christians called Nestorians. They introduced Christianity into China under the name of the Luminous Doctrine in 631, in memory of which the Nestorian Monument was erected at Sianfu; likewise earlier, the Christians of St. Thomas, the Master’s disciple, were the Nestorians of India, holding truths now being discovered in the Essene scrolls.

Throughout all the scrolls, especially in the Habakkuk Commentary and the Manual of Discipline, the most important person is the Teacher of Righteousness, who came into conflict with a wicked priest-king and through whom he probably lost his life. The details have not yet been found, so the controversy continues. Many scholars using a fragment of the Commentary of Nahum, which speaks of the Lion of Wrath, in their surmise refer to Alerander Jannaeus, son of John Hyrcanus, as the most likely wicked priest-king, living as he did from 104 B.C. to 78 A.D. Josephus speaks of him, indicating the barbarous cruelty used by this wicked one which passes belief––it was so terrible that “it outraged the sensibilities of pious Jews who looked upon him as an utter desecration of their religion, their Temple and their Law.”

The historian speaks of the most interesting and almost unbelievable lemon-pelting incident, when Jannaeus was celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. He was standing at the high alter, the most sacred place in all Israel except the Holy of Holies, and was engaged in offering sacrifice to Yahweh, in one of Israel’s most sacred acts. The pent-up feeling of the populace demonstrated itself in the hurling of lemons at the wicked priest-king. The people had lemons with them as part of their votive offerings. The “Wicked Priest” of the scrolls, however, retaliated by slaying 6,000 of the most pious of his own people by way of revenge, and to impress the importance of his dignity and authority upon them. The Teacher of Righteousness denounced such a one. He may have incited the lemon-throwing incident, and he no doubt paid for it with his life, as he would have openly demanded that Israel’s high-priest king live up in some measure to the requirements of his office. In this and in many other respects he parallels the Master Jesus, who now in spirit and in truth, in a sort of second coming, is returning to us in his original self and teachings through the Essene Scrolls, after centuries of misrepresentation and distortion by worldly interests and man-made creeds.

* * * * *

“Jesus was educated by the Essenes and reached a very high state of spiritual development during the thirty years in which he used his body. It may here be said, parenthetically, that the Essenes were a third sect which existed in Palestine, besides the two mentioned in the New Testament––the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Essenes were an exceedingly devout order, widely different from the materialistic Sadducees and entirely opposite the hypocritical, publicity seeking Pharisees. They shunned all mention of themselves and their methods of study and worship. To the latter peculiarity is due the fact that almost nothing is known of them, and that they are not mentioned in the New Testament.”
––Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, p. 379.