The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1946 made the word “Essene” known to the world at large. Two thousand years ago, a brotherhood of holy men and women was formed. They lived in a community together and nurtured the seeds of Christianity and Western Civilization. The Beginning of the Essene Nazarean Path is Love and Goodness. The Essenes were persecuted, but brought people forward who would change the world and turn the course of history. The Essenes founded Christianity, essentially. Its founders were St. Ann, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus, John the Evangelist, and many unknown others.

Essene Prayer

Said by the Virgin Mary

Within the Most High, my soul blossoms,

Leaps for joy at the sight of the ascendant path.

What is on high came to meet what is below,

And the Most High has impregnated my soul through his radiant look.

Out of all the generations, mine is blissful,

For the Almighty did great things for me;

He impregnated my soul.

Holy is his name, through the centuries runs his blessing

For those who, because of love, remain faithful to Him.

The Essenes were a Jewish sect, thought by some scholars to have collected the Dead Sea Scrolls. At Ein Gedi, an oasis in southern Israel, 28 dwellings were discovered, possibly the home of the ancient Essenes. On the site was found a mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath. They survived by working the fields of the oasis. The Essenes flourished from the second century B.C. to the time when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. They were a tightly knit group of men and women who practiced communal ownership of property. This site was found to have one person dwellings that measured six by nine feet. Communal living was the likely reason for three stoves discovered in the kitchen. When the site was excavated, a complete lack of animal bones was noted. The Essenes were vegetarians, observed the Sabbath, did not swear and abstained from intoxicants and meat. Their diet consisted of raw fruits, grains and vegetables along with cooked bread.

The similarities between Essenism and Christianity are numerous. “Seek first the kingdom of God” was the aim of the Essenes (Matthew 6:33, Luke, 12:31). Sell possessions and give to the poor (Matthew, 6:33). They turned away from riches (Matthew, 6:19-21). As John would write about Christianity, “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren.” (I John 3:14). Essenes and Christians lived in Jerusalem in communities where each person had a common interest in the community’s possessions. Some biblical scholars believe that the Essenes and the early Christians were one and the same people.

They lived in the villages surrounded by a low wall. They cultivated gardens and nature. Essenes were organized in a hierarchy. They lived pious lives in tune with the rhythms of the seasons, recognizing days of celebration, and dining with visitors. Other lived in the city, and their homes were used as inn and hospital. Healing the sick, hospitality for travelers needing a room, this was the Essene way. Being very well organized, the Essenes traveled the roads and spread the news throughout the lands, countryside and other countries. In their extensive travels, the Essenes could easily have come into contact with and be influenced by religions from the East, like Jainism or Buddhism.

Other Essenes lived in monastery-schools situated precisely at particular sites. They believed that these particular places were in resonance with the knowledge of the land of light and with the doors that exist between it and the earth. The Essenes who lived in these monastery schools were usually unmarried. Single women were in the Essene Community as well.

Jesus taught that when a group of people gather together freely around a divine idea and begin to work on themselves in the direction of this idea, then, if there are enough of them, they carry within themselves all of humanity and they can bring into the world the divine idea and allow it to evolve. From the Essenes’ work emanated a communal, spiritual strength, like a sun in the soul of humanity and the earth. This sun, in turn, works throughout time to attract the divine idea and to bring it to life within the reality of the earth. And God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so.”

Genesis 1:29-30 The Essenes took gardening seriously!

What Is a Gnostic?

Stephan Hoeller states in an online interview at www.gnosis.org (1989) that the Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity so that the following characteristics may be considered normative for all Gnostic teachers and groups in the era of classical Gnosticism:

1.As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created. This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.

2.A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a more positive role than the leader). In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God. The universe is a vast prison for man. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code. Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality. Within each natural man is an “inner man,” a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.

What affects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.

Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams.

Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition, but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information, but a modification of the sensate being.

The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.

Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man. In Christianity As Mystical Fact: The Essence Of Christianity (1972), Rudolf Steiner writes about Gnostic experience and Jesus; “One thing was clear to all Gnosis: one must come to terms with the idea of Jesus as a personality… Divinity was taken from human personality and must be recovered in one way or another. It must be possible to find it again in Jesus. The mystic was dealing with a degree of divinity within himself, and with his own earthly material personality… Gnosis and all subsequent Christian mysticism represent the effort in one way or another to lay hold of that God and to apprehend Him directly in the soul… It is the gulf between knowledge and belief, between cognition and religious feeling. This gulf does not exist for a mystic in the old sense of the word… A mystic of this kind does not wish to recognize a perfect God, but he wishes to experience the divine life. He wishes to become divine himself; he does not wish to gain an external relationship to the Godhead.” It is of the essence of Christianity that its mysticism in this sense starts with an assumption. The Christian mystic seeks to behold divinity within himself, but he must look to the historical Christ as his eyes do to the sun; just as the physical eye says to itself, By means of the sun I see what I have power to see, so the Christian mystic says to himself, I will intensify my innermost being in the direction of divine vision, and the light which makes such vision possible is given in the Christ who has appeared. He is, and through this I am able to rise to the highest within myself. In this the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages show how they differ from the mystics of the ancient Mysteries.