----- Original Message -----
From: "orion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 7:17 AM
Subject: orion V2001 #67
>
> orion Tuesday, January 8 2002 Volume 2001 : Number 067
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 11:25:13 EST
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: orion-list Definition of Essenes (and Suidas)
>
> Dear George,
>
> I wrote:
>
> > "one would have to provide credible evidence that Epiphanius or the
> > Suidas had accurate knowledge of the Essenes. Indeed, this is also a
> > requirement for Josephus, Philo and Pliny ..."
>
> And let me add:
> One can't simply assume that any ancient reference to the Essenes is
> accurate - even in the case of Josephus, etc. I'm not saying the possibility
> that the Suda presents authentic is to be automatically excluded, just that
> it needs to be argued, and appears on the surface to be unlikely, given that
> it dates c. 1000 CE. Epiphanius, also a late witness, seems only slightly
> less unlikely as a source of useful information.
>
> You replied (in part):
>
> > I think it is rather far-fetched that the Suidas editor(s) deliberately
> > INVENTED the story of the Rechabite origins of the Essenes.
>
> I don't believe the author of the Suda invented the tradition linking
> the Essenes and the Rechabites. Rather, they relied here (as throughout the
> Suda) on older literary sources. In my opinion the tradition grew as follows:
> (1) Christian sources starting with Eusebius noted the semblance between >
Philo's Therapeutae and Essenes and the Christian monastic tradition (which >
began a century or two after the apparent demise of the Essenes); these
> Church Fathers (incorrectly) speculated / theorized / decided that the
> Essenes were proto-Christian aescetics based on the similarity. This is
> already known to a certainty.
I'd like to know your source for that view. It could be a powerful tool
in seeing what shaped the Torah post 70 CE.
> (2) At some later point some church father also (incorrectly) speculated
> / theorized / decided that the semi-aescetic Rechabites also belonged in the
> ascetic "lineage" and made them the ancestor of the Christian-Essenes,
> based solely on their description in Jer. 35. This is my hypothesis.
> (3) Centuries later the Suda draws on that last-mentioned (unidentified)
> church father as fact.
Ah so. . .
> (4) Centuries later certain (unidentified) scrolls researchers drew on
> the Suda as (possible) fact. ;-)
> The trick is identifying (2). The fact that the alleged Rechabite origin
> of the Therapeutae-Essene(-Christians) is known no Jewish source
> (Josephus, Pliny), no Classical author (Pliny), and no Christian source
> (Eusebius, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nyssa, Sozomen) down to c. 400
> is best explained by the Rechabite theory first being proposed sometime
> 400-1000 CE.
> My best educated guess, based on reading D. Rudin's _Philo in Early
> Christian Literature: A Survey_ (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993),
> especially pp. 227-231, is that it was John Cassian (c. 360-435 BCE), whose >
book De institutis coenobiorum creatively (and incorrectly) traced the
> history of the monastic Cenobite order of Egypt at least as far back as
> Mark's church in Egypt. I'd like to see if he mentioned the Rechabites, but
> I haven't been able to get hold of it locally. If not John Cassian, perhaps
> some other even lesser-known writer on the history of Christian aescetics,
> IMO. That some fairly late church father made the intuitive connection via
> Jer. 35 seems to me reasonable and accounts for the fact that the Rechabite
> origin of the Therapeutae was not known to Josephus, Philo, or any other
> actual contemporaries of the Essenes.
Interesting, but Jer. 35 is not known for certain before 900 CE is it?
It wasn't at Qumran or am I wrong?
> The alternative is that some unknown source (c. 400-1000 CE?)
> somehow discovered that the Essenes (c. 25 BCE, maybe 100 BCE)
> originated with the Rechabites (c. 500 BCE). How this discovery was first
> made at such a late date seems inexplicable to me - unless by creative
> exegesis from Jer. 35.
Again, what mss. of Jer. 35 do we have that would allow such being
done.
Perhaps I'm skating on very thin ice - a local hazard this year.
> (Or, if this fact was known all along, how does one explain that all Jewish,
> gentile, and Christian sources missed this detail until at least 400 CE?)
>
> Best regards,
> Russell Gmirkin
Cheers,
Tom Simms
For private reply, e-mail to "Tom Simms" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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