he world, the doctrine of the atoning sacrificial death of
Jesus by the blood of his cross, the doctrine of the Messianic antetype
of the Paschal lamb of the Paschal omer, and thus of the resurrection of
Christ Jesus, the third day, according to the Scriptures, these
doctrines of Paul can, with more or less certainty, be connected with
the Essenes. It becomes almost a certainty that Eusebius was right in
surmising that _Essenic writings have been used by Paul and the
evangelists_. Not Jesus, but Paul, is the cause of the separation of the
Jews from the Christians.[424:3]

The probability, then, that that sect of vagrant quack-doctors, the
Therapeutae, who were established in Egypt and its neighborhood many ages
before the period assigned by later theologians as that of the birth of
Christ Jesus, were the original fabricators of the writings contained in
the New Testament, becomes a certainty on the basis of evidence, than
which history has nothing more certain, furnished by the unguarded, but
explicit, unwary, but most unqualified and positive statement of the
historian Eusebius, that "_those ancient Therapeutae were Christians, and
that their ancient writings were our gospels and epistles_."

The Essenes, the Therapeuts, the Ascetics, the Monks, the Ecclesiastics,
and the Eclectics, are but different names for one and the self-same
sect.

The word "_Essene_" is nothing more than the Egyptian word for that of
which Therapeut is the Greek, each of them signifying "healer" or
"doctor," and designating the character of the sect as professing to be
endued with the miraculous gift of healing; and more especially so with
respect to diseases of the mind.

Their name of "_Ascetics_" indicated the severe discipline and exercise
of self-mortification, long fastings, prayers, contemplation, and even
making of themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, as did
Origen, Melito, and others who derived their Christianity from the same
school; Jesus himself is represented to have recognized and approved
their practice.

Their name of "_Monks_" indicated their delight in solitude, their
contemplative life, and their entire segregation and abstraction from
the world, which Jesus, in the Gospel, is in like manner represented as
describing, as characteristic of the community of which he was a member.

Their name of "_Ecclesiastics_" was of the same sense, and indicated
their being called out, elected, separated from the gener