wish people. This order combined the
earlier Egyptian Mysteries with the Mystic Doctrine of Pythagoras and
the philosophy of Plato. It was closely connected with the Jewish
Therapeutae of Egypt, and was the leading mystic order of the time.
Josephus, the eminent Jewish historian, writing of the Essenes, says:
"The opinion obtains among them that bodies indeed are corrupted, and
the matter of them not permanent, but that souls continue exempt from
death forever; and that emanating from the most subtle ether they are
unfolded in bodies as prisons to which they are drawn by some natural
spell. But when loosed from the bonds of flesh, as if released from a
long captivity, they rejoice and are borne upward." In the New
International Encyclopedia (vol. vii, page 217) will be found an
instructive article on "Essenes," in which it is stated that among the
Essenes there was a certain "view entertained regarding the origin,
present state, and future destiny of the soul, which was held to be
pre-existent, being entrapped in the body as a prison," etc. And in the
same article the following statement occurs: "It is an interesting
question as to how much Christianity owes to Essenism. It would seem
that there was room for definite contact between John the Baptist and
this Brotherhood. His time of preparation was spent in the wilderness
near the Dead Sea; his preaching of righteousness toward God, and
justice toward one's fellow men, was in agreement with Essenism; while
his insistence upon Baptism was in accordance with the Essenic emphasis
on lustrations." In this very conservative statement is shown the
intimate connection between the Essenes and Early Christianity, through
John the Baptist. Some hold that Jesus had a still closer relationship
to the Essenes and allied mystic orders, but we shall not insist upon
this point, as it lies outside of the ordinary channels of historical
information. There is no doubt, however, that the Essenes, who had such
a strong influence on the early Christian Church, were closely allied to
other mystic organizations with whom they agreed in fundamental
doctrines, notably that of Reincarnation. And so we have brought the
story down to the early Christian Church, at which point we will
continue it. We have left the phase of the subject which pertains to
India for separate consideration, for in India the doctrine has had its
principal home in all ages, and the subject in that phase requires
special tre