i6o 



ORIGIN OF MONACHISM. 



pined out their days in aegyptian defarts, there leading 

 a lilent and painful life, for ferving the deity in fuller 

 compofure of fpirit. Thofe, on the other hand, who 

 dwelt in Judea and Paleftine, and whofe number 

 amounted to four thoufand perfons, bore implicitly the 

 yoke of the jewifh ceremonial. 



The EfTenes in general had no influence whatever on 

 the predominant religion and conftitution of the jews. 

 Probably this may be the reafon that they are never 

 once mentioned by Jefus, though by their fanctimo- 

 nipus ritual, which was partly of their own invention 

 and partly copied from the heathen philofophers, they 

 milled the imagination of feeble-minded men to take 

 a way to heaven which led directly from it. 



The Therapeutes, formed, like the EfTenes, a jewifh 

 feci:, that had its rife in JEgjpt They, like them, 

 after their return under Ptolemy Philadelphus, ferved 

 the God of their fathers in the plains of Judea. They 

 afterwards fpread themfelves far more numeroufly in 

 other countries, principally in iEgypt, and efpecially 

 in the city of Alexandria. Their doctrine and their 

 lives had a loftier and far more fanatical aim, and con- 

 fequently were far better calculated for this fultry me- 

 ridian ; for they departed much farther both from the 

 law of Moles and the dictates of found reafon. Replete 

 with unnatural infpirations and fuperftitious dreams, 

 they abandoned their wives, their children and pof- 

 feffions, and formed a fociety diftinct from the reft of- 

 mankind, living moflly on the celebrated mountains of 

 Nitria, the abode, in after times, of fo many chrifrian 

 fanatics. Here, while tfiey practifed the mofl rigid 

 exercifes of ah imaginary piety 3 they ftudied meta- 



phyfics, 



