It is a point of honour with them to obey their elders, and a majority; for instance, if ten sit together, one will not speak if the nine desire silence.
They are careful not to spit into the midst of the company or to the right, and are stricter than all Jews in abstaining from work on the seventh day; for not only do they prepare their food on the day before, to avoid kindling a fire on that one, but they do not venture to remove any vessel or even to go to stool.
On other days they dig a trench a foot deep with the skalis[1]—such is the purpose of the hatchet which they present to new members on admission[2]—and wrapping their mantle about them, that they may not offend the rays of the deity,[3] sit above it. They then replace the excavated soil in the trench. For this purpose they select the more retired spots. And though this secretion of bodily impurity is a natural function, they make it a rule to wash themselves after it, as if defiled. The Four Grades of Essenes—their Endurance of Persecution
They are divided, according to the duration of their discipline, into four grades;[4] and so far are the junior members inferior to the seniors, that the latter, if but touched by the former, bathe themselves, as though they had been polluted by contact with an alien.
- ↑ Usual meaning "a hoe"; Lightfoot tr. "spade."
- ↑ See p. 152 above.
- ↑ i. e. the sun-god, to whom they pray (see above and cf. Lightfoot, Col., p. 85 note 2).
- ↑ As Lightfoot (Col. 363, note) points out, the passage must be read in connexion with the account of the admission to the order (above). A comparison shows that the two year period there mentioned comprises "the period spent in the second and third grades, each extending over a year. After passing through these three stages in three successive years, he enters upon the fourth and highest grade, thus becoming a perfect member."
