his order; but when it is stated as a fact that he never rebuked the
Essenes, it is implying too much. We know not whether the words _said to
have been_ uttered by Jesus were ever uttered by him or not, and it is
almost certain that _had he_ rebuked the Essenes, and had his words been
written in the Gospels, _they would not remain there long_. We hear very
little of the Essenes after A. D. 40,[421:7] therefore, when we read of
the "_primitive Christians_," we are reading of _Essenes_, and others.

The statement that, with the exception of once, Jesus was not heard in
public life till his _thirtieth_ year, is also uncertain. One of the
early Christian Fathers (Irenaeus) tells us that he did not begin to
teach until he was _forty_ years of age, or thereabout, and that he
lived to be nearly _fifty_ years old.[422:1] "_The records of his life
are very scanty; and these have been so shaped and colored and modified
by the hands of ignorance and superstition and party prejudice and
ecclesiastical purpose, that it is hard to be sure of the original
outlines._"

The similarity of the sentiments of the Essenes, or Therapeutae, to those
of the Church of Rome, induced the learned Jesuit, Nicolaus Serarius, to
seek for them an honorable origin. He contended therefore, that they
were Asideans, and derived them from the Rechabites, described so
circumstantially in the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah; at the same
time, he asserted that the first Christian monks were Essenes.[422:2]

Mr. King, speaking of the _Christian_ sect called Gnostics, says:

"Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before
(their time) in many of the cities of Asia Minor. There, it is
probable, they first came into existence as 'Mystae,' _upon the
establishment of a direct intercourse with India under the
Seleucidae and the Ptolemies_. The colleges of _Essenes_ and
Megabyzae at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curetes of
Crete, _are all merely branches of one antique and common
religion, and that originally Asiatic_."[422:3]

Again:

"The introduction of _Buddhism_ into Egypt and Palestine
_affords the only true solution of innumerable difficulties in
the history of religion_."[422:4]

Again:

"That Buddhism had actually been planted in the dominions of
the Seleucidae and Ptolemies (Palestine belonging to the
former) before the beginning of the third century B. C., is