heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle
breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean;
while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of
never-ceasing punishments. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have
followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to
their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls
of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables
relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion,
and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition,
that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue and
dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are bettered
in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of reward after their
death; and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are
restrained, by the fear and expectation they are in, that although
they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal
punishment after their death. These are the Divine doctrines of the
Essens [6] about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as
have once had a taste of their philosophy.

12. There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things
to come, [7] by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of
purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the
prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions.

13. Moreover, there is another order of Essens, [8] who agree with the
rest as to their way of living, and customs, and laws, but differ from
them in the point of marriage, as thinking that by not marrying they
cut off the principal part of human life, which is the prospect of
succession; nay, rather, that if all men should be of the same opinion,
the whole race of mankind would fail. However, they try their spouses
for three years; and if they find that they have their natural
purgations thrice, as trials that they are likely to be fruitful, they
then actually marry them. But they do not use to accompany with their
wives when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not many
out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity. Now the women
go into the baths with some of their garments on, as the men do with
somewhat girded about them. And these are the customs of this order of
Essens.

14. But then as to the two other orders at