Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

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DCHindley
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Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by DCHindley »

Header (in case it is too long) Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Judas' 4th Philosophy, Therapeutae

This is about as good as I'm going to be able to do today. It should be almost every meaty statement about Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, 4th Philosophy and Therapeutae that I could find in the writers Philo, Josephus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius or Eusebius. If you find any passages I may have missed (not off-hand comments mentioning a group in passing, but meat and potato stuff), please let me know so I can add to the table.

Hindley, David C
Philo
Philo
Josephus
Josephus
Hippolytus
Epiphanius
Eusebius
(c)2018 De vita contemplative (On a Life of Contemplation) Quod omnis probus liber sit (That Every Good Man is Free) Wars of the Jews Antiquities Refutation of all Heresy Panarion (sects 1-46) Church History
Pharisees None None 2:162-163; 166a 13:172a, 288, 297a, 298c; 18:12-15 9.23b-24a sect 16 4.22.7 "Pharisees"
Sadducees None None 2:164-165; 166b 13:173a, 297b-298b; 18:16-17 9.24b sect 14 4.22.7 "Sadducees"
Essenes None 1:75-91 2:119b-161 13:172b; 18:18-22 9.13-20, 22-23 sect 10 4.22.7 "Essenes"
4th Philosophy or Judas the Galilean None None 2:118 18:4-10, 23-25; 9.21? "Other Essenes" known as Zealots and Sicarii & adherents No Lord but God None 1.5.6 Judas the Galilean; 4.22.7 "Galileans"
Therapeutae 1:1-90 None None None None Discussed in sect 29 Nazoreans (they are "really" Christians as described in Acts) 2.17.3-24 (They are really Christians as described in Acts)

What's weird about Philo is that he never even mentions the words "Pharisee" or Sadducee." He describes Essenes in a separate book from that in which he describes the Therapeutes. They are distinct groups to him.

What's weird about Epiphanius is, well, everything. Now a couple of Philo's treatises seem to have been circulated in several versions, usually smaller subjects get split off, so there could have been a book Epiphanius had read that dealt with Ἐσσαίων, which he thinks is functionally equivalent to .

This will be filled out as I go.

Enjoy :popcorn:

DCH

Edit 1/6/18: Corrected errors as I noted them.
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DCHindley
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by DCHindley »

Heeere we go!

A big fat PDF full of goodness. I don't recommend trying to print this though (65 pages)!

The translations are the "usual" (that means, free, except for the investment in machine and software) but readable. I left some fragments out but nothing, I believe, important, and yeeaaah, these can be trumped up (sorry JohnT) by connecting the dots. For some reason I keep thinking I left something out, though. I know I had a table comparing the sources for the 4th philosophy angle, and I thought that it covered at least Josephus.

Guess I'll have to look harder. In the meantime ...
DCH
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John T
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by John T »

"...John, the Essene, to the toparchy of Thamma; Lydda was also added to his portion, and Joppa and Emmaus." War (II, 567)

John the Essene was a military commander during the first Jewish revolt.

Sincerely,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by DCHindley »

John T wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2018 6:47 am "...John, the Essene, to the toparchy of Thamma; Lydda was also added to his portion, and Joppa and Emmaus." War (II, 567)

John the Essene was a military commander during the first Jewish revolt.
Hi John,

Having been reading, obviously, the passages I have been collecting together on these folks, there seems to be a disconnect between Josephus' various descriptions of Essenes or of folks who were associated with the term. One of them treated Herod with gentle affection, and predicted he would be a king one day, when Herod was still a young private citizen. Later, when the prediction came true, Herod remembered the incident and as a result, held the members of that sect in high regard and never gave them any trouble. While saying that they objected to military service in principal, they also carried swords/arms when they traveled, as a precaution against "robbers." In most of the places, the Essenes are sort of serene peace-niks, where in others they can be ferocious, as in the case of John the Essene. The guy was pretty intense. He is a stand-out opposite to the usual type.

I did note that there was one place where Josephus said that the Essenes lived so righteously (in the form of self-discipline to the smallest degree) that no one had ever been able to press any sort of charges against any one of them or the group as a whole. It may not have been so much a lack of plotting against governments than their dogged application, in lock-step unison, of a veil of silence regarding the business of their sect, so no snitching to save one's skin, or making a deal that required breaking ones word or oath. As a result, "when they do assume positions of governance" (or something like that), they were highly valued for their high level of service. Looks like John was one of these exceptions, and perhaps this was what Josephus meant when he made that aside about Essenes who participated in government.

Gotta put my head back into work ... taking a couple hours of personal time on account of freezing rain making travel for work too unsafe.

DCH
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by Ben C. Smith »

DCHindley wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:24 pm Heeere we go!

A big fat PDF full of goodness. I don't recommend trying to print this though (65 pages)!

The translations are the "usual" (that means, free, except for the investment in machine and software) but readable. I left some fragments out but nothing, I believe, important, and yeeaaah, these can be trumped up (sorry JohnT) by connecting the dots. For some reason I keep thinking I left something out, though. I know I had a table comparing the sources for the 4th philosophy angle, and I thought that it covered at least Josephus.

Guess I'll have to look harder. In the meantime ...

(Hindley, David C) Analysis of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, 4th Philosophy & Therapeutae in Philo, Josephus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius & Eusebius.pdf

DCH
I downloaded this within minutes of you posting it, I believe, but forgot to say thanks. So... thanks! :cheers:
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John2
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by John2 »

DC wrote:
... there seems to be a disconnect between Josephus' various descriptions of Essenes or of folks who were associated with the term. One of them treated Herod with gentle affection, and predicted he would be a king one day, when Herod was still a young private citizen. Later, when the prediction came true, Herod remembered the incident and as a result, held the members of that sect in high regard and never gave them any trouble. While saying that they objected to military service in principal, they also carried swords/arms when they traveled, as a precaution against "robbers." In most of the places, the Essenes are sort of serene peace-niks, where in others they can be ferocious, as in the case of John the Essene. The guy was pretty intense. He is a stand-out opposite to the usual type.
I see it as there having been some overlap between the Pharisees and Essenes, dating back as far as the Hasideans of the Maccabee era. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, for example, notes that:
Some scholars attribute the origins of the Pharisees and Essenes to the Hasideans.

https://books.google.com/books?id=P9sYI ... es&f=false


Most Pharisees were pro-Herodian peaceniks too, but some weren't. Josephus had joined the 66-70 CE war (as a general, no less), and one of the founders of the Fourth Philosophy was a Pharisee (Ant. 18.1.1), and Rabbi Akiba supported Bar Kokhba during the second revolt (for which he was castigated by other rabbis). Likewise some Essenes were also pro-war. I don't think the line between the Pharisees and Essenes was ... what's the word I'm looking for ... solid?
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by StephenGoranson »

John mentioned above (unlike Judah, Menahem, and Simon) may not have been an Essene. Abraham Schalit (in Namenwörterbuch zu Flavius Josephus, supplement to the Concordance edited by K.H. Rengstorf, Leiden, 1968, p.34, 46, 66) noted that Essa appears in Josephus as a variant reading for Gerasa, which, Schalit suggests, may indicate that John was not an Essene group member, but merely someone from Gerasa. "Vielleicht ist Essaios in B 2.567 als Ethnikon zu verstehen und mit Gerasenos identisch (vgl. Essa A 13.393 = 1 Gerasa). Dann waere 4 Johannes kein Essener gewesen!"
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by John T »

Eisenman claims that Hippolytus wrote that the Essenes consisted of four different groups within the Essene movement. That when Josephus referred to the Fourth School of Jewish Philosophy he was actually referring to the 4th branch of the Essenes. I haven't found a link to verify Esienman's source for his claim but he writes his source was found in the Nineteenth Century at Mount Athos Monastery in Greece and is clearly authentic.

The four branches of Essenes in simple terms.

1. Peace loving.
3. War like Zealot/Sicarii
2. Those who do not carry coins or look upon idols.
4. Those who would call no man Lord except the deity.

If true, in my opinion, John the Essene would be from the war group waiting for the Angle of the Lord to lead the zealots into victorious battle against the Kittim, according to the The War Scroll.

Of course, things did not turn out as planned for John the Essene.

Sincerely,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by DCHindley »

John T wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2018 4:45 pmEisenman claims that Hippolytus wrote that the Essenes consisted of four different groups within the Essene movement. That when Josephus referred to the Fourth School of Jewish Philosophy he was actually referring to the 4th branch of the Essenes. I haven't found a link to verify Esienman's source for his claim but he writes his source was found in the Nineteenth Century at Mount Athos Monastery in Greece and is clearly authentic.

The four branches of Essenes in simple terms.

1. Peace loving.
3. War like Zealot/Sicarii
2. Those who do not carry coins or look upon idols.
4. Those who would call no man Lord except the deity.

If true, in my opinion, John the Essene would be from the war group waiting for the Angle of the Lord to lead the zealots into victorious battle against the Kittim, according to the The War Scroll.

Of course, things did not turn out as planned for John the Essene.
Yes, you will find Hippolytus' description of Essenes in the PDF that had been uploaded previously.

I tried to color code the portion that seemed to be derived from Josephus' description of the 4th Philosophy in Cyan. Josephus said that the "no ruler but God" movement, which included not paying tribute to earthly rulers, were the hallmarks of the 4th Philosophy, which was very closely aligned, theologically, with the Pharisees.

The "Essene" characteristic of not wanting to enter gates with images over them seems best associated with Judas & Matthias, the two scholars who incited a crowd to tear down Herod's golden dedicatory eagle placed over the gate into the city, via the temple, in 7 BCE, but these two were not described as Essenes or 4th Philosophy advocates by Josephus. In fact, this action preceded the formation of the 4th Philosophy by almost a decade (6 CE).

Gotta run!

DCH
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Re: Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, 4th Ph, Therapeutae

Post by John T »

Sorry about that DCH.

I did not read your PDF before posting.
Clearly, it must be chalked full of tidbit morsels that I need to sample before posting again.

Sincerely,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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