An Historieal Aeeount of îeeus 17The Essenes wrote gnostic songs that must have stirred the
hearts of the people who sang and heard them too deeply for words
to express. A gnostic's life is like a ship in a storm, says one song.
In another, a gnostic is described as a traveller in a forest full of
lions, each having a tongue like a sword. At the beginning of the
path, a gnostic experiences distress like a woman in labour giving
birth to her first child. If he succeeds in enduring this distress, he
becomes illuminated by God's perfeet Light, Then he realises that
man is a vain and empty creature moulded of clay and kneaded
with water. Since he has passed through the crucible of suffering
and endured the limits of doubt and despair, he attains peace in
turmoil, joy in sorrow, and a new life of happiness in pain. Then he
finds himself enveloped in God's love. At this stage, with humble
thanks, he realises how he has been snatched from the pit, and
placed on a high plain. Walking there in the Light of God, he stands
ereet, unbending before the brute force of the world.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Serolls, only a little was
known about the Essenes. Pliny and [osephus.mention them, but
they were virluaIly ignored by later historians. Pliny describes them
as a race apart, more remarkable than any other in the world:
They have no women, they abjure sexuallove, they have
no money ... Their membership is steadily increasing
through the large number of people who are attraeted
to their way of life ... in this way, their race has lasted
for thousands of years though no one is born within il.Josephus, who started life as an Essene, writes that the Essenes
'believe that the soul (ruach) is immortal. It is a gift from God. God
purifies sorne for Himself, removing all blemishes of the flesh. The
person so perfeeted attains a holiness free of aIl impurities.'
These cave-dwellers continued to lead their life unaffeeted by
the wavesof conquerorswho hadalreadydestroyed theTemple of
Solomon once in 586 Be - and who were destined to do so again,
in 73 AD - and who had conquered the [ews so many times. Their
life in the wilderness was not an escape from the responsibility of
every Jew to struggle for the purity of his religion, and to free [u
dea from foreign aggression. Side by side with the daily prayers
and study of the Scrlptures, some of them were formed into an
efficient force which not only preached the guidance of Moses, but
WaS also ready to fight for the freedom to live in the way that their