204 A History of Judaism
mouth to oaths, nor habitually utter the name of the Holy One; for as a
servant who is constantly under scrutiny will not lack bruises, so also
the person who always swears and utters the Name will never be
cleansed from sin. One who swears many oaths is full of iniquity.’ Philo
urged avoidance of oaths and vows wherever possible. Josephus states
that the Essenes avoided oaths altogether (although he also notes that
their initiation rite included ‘tremendous oaths’, so they were not per-
haps consistent).
Jesus is portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew as taking the same stance:
Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall
not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But
I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of
God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city
of the great King ... Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything
more than this comes from the evil one.
By contrast, both the Pharisees and the early rabbis assumed that vows
and oaths would be made (as envisaged in the Bible) and that what mat-
tered was scrupulous observance – hence the vehement accusation
attributed to Jesus:
Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is
bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is
bound by the oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the
sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘Whoever swears
by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on
the altar is bound by the oath.’ How blind you are! For which is greater,
the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the
altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and whoever swears by heaven,
swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.Against this background it is notable that the nazirite vow was evi-
dently common both in the diaspora and in Judaea throughout this
period, as we have seen in Chapter 7.^7
Some Jews in this period ascribed religious value to asceticism, of
which the nazirite vow was just one example, in its own right. The clear-
est expression of this attitude may be found in Josephus’ description of
a teacher named Bannus with whom he claimed to have lived for three
years as a teenager. Josephus wrote that he had discovered Bannus liv-
ing in the desert ‘wearing clothes [made] from trees, scavenging food
that grew by itself, and washing frequently for purification – with frigid