The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
Page 11
Thou hast upheld me with certain truth;
Thou hast delighted me with Thy Holy Spirit
and [hast opened my heart] till this day ...
The abundance of (Thy) forgiveness is with my steps
and infinite mercy accompanies Thy judgement of me.
Until I am old Thou wilt care for me;
for my father knew me not
and my mother abandoned me to Thee.
For Thou art a father
to all [the sons] of Thy truth,
and as a woman who tenderly loves her babe,
so dost Thou rejoice in them;
and as a foster-father bearing a child in his lap,
so carest Thou for all Thy creatures.
(IQH XVII [formerly IX], 32-6)
Whether the average Essene actually succeeded in fulfilling his high ideals, we cannot of course know: experience past and present has shown that paths to sanctity devised by organized religion are beset with snares. As has been noted earlier (pp. 31-2 on 4Q477), in some individual cases, moral shortcomings were actually recorded. But there can be no doubt of the sectaries’ intention. The aim of a holy life lived within the Covenant was to penetrate the secrets of heaven in this world and to stand before God for ever in the next. Like Isaiah, who beheld the seraphim proclaiming ‘Holy, holy, holy’, and like Ezekiel, who in a trance watched the winged cherubim drawing the divine throne-chariot, and like the ancient Jewish mystics who consecrated themselves, despite official disapproval by the rabbis, to the contemplation of the same throne-chariot and the heavenly Palaces, the Essenes, too, strove for a similar mystical knowledge, as one of their number testifies in a description of his own vision of the ministers of the ‘Glorious Face’.
The [cheru]bim prostrate themselves before Him and bless. As they rise, a whispered divine voice [is heard], and there is a roar of praise. When they drop their wings, there is a [whispere]d divine voice. The cherubim bless the image of the throne-chariot above the firmament, [and] they praise [the majes]ty of the luminous firmament beneath His seat of glory. When the wheels advance, angels of holiness come and go. From between His glorious wheels there is as it were a fiery vision of most holy spirits. About them, the appearance of rivulets of fire in the likeness of gleaming brass, and a work of ... radiance in many-coloured glory, marvellous pigments, clearly mingled. The spirits of the living ‘gods’ move perpetually with the glory of the marvellous chariot(s). The whispered voice of blessing accompanies the roar of their advance, and they praise the Holy One on their way of return. When they ascend, they ascend marvellously, and when they settle, they stand still. The sound of joyful praise is silenced and there is a whispered blessing of the ‘gods’ in all the camps of God.
(4Q405 20, ii-22)
3 WORSHIP IN THE COMMUNITY OF THE COVENANT
In addition to the worship of God offered through a life of holiness, the Qumran sectary had more particularly to perform the ritual acts prescribed by Moses in the correct manner and at the right times. The earthly liturgy was intended to be a replica of that sung by the choirs of angels in the celestial Temple.
To judge from the many references to it, the time element both calendric and horary was crucial. The Community Rule lays down that the Community was not to ‘depart from any command of God concerning their times; they shall be neither early nor late for any of their appointed times, they shall stray neither to the right nor to the left of any of His true precepts’ (IQS 1, 13-15). This injunction asks for exact punctuality in regard to the two daily moments of prayer meant to coincide with and replace the perpetual burnt-offering sacrificed in the Temple at sunrise and sunset (Exod. xxix, 30; Num. xxviii, 4), but it demands in addition a strict observance of the sect’s own liturgical calendar.
He shall bless Him [with the offering] of the lips at the times ordained by Him: at the beginning of the dominion of light, and at its end when it retires to its appointed place; at the beginning of the watches of darkness when He unlocks their storehouse and spreads them out, and also at their end when they retire before the light; when the heavenly lights shine out from the dwelling-place of Holiness, and also when they retire to the place of Glory; at the entry of the (monthly) seasons on the days of the new moon, and also at their end when they succeed to one another ...
(IQS IX, 26-x, 4)
To understand the peculiarity of Essenism in this respect, a few words need to be said about the calendar followed by non-sectarian Judaism. Essentially, this was regulated by the movements of the moon; months varied in duration from twenty-nine to thirty days and the year consisted of twelve months of 354 days. Needless to say, such a lunar year does not correspond to the four seasons determined by the movements of the sun in terms of solstices and equinoxes. The shortfall of about ten days between the lunar and the solar years was therefore compensated for by means of ‘intercalation’, i.e. by inserting after Adar (February/March), the twelfth month of the year, a supplementary ‘Second Adar’ at the end of every thirty-six lunar months.
The Qumran sect rejected this seemingly artificial system and adopted instead a chronological reckoning, probably of priestly origin, based on the sun, a practice attested also in the Book of Jubilees and 1 Enoch, and fully laid out in the remains of a series of calendrical documents (4Q320-30). The outstanding feature of this solar calendar was its absolute regularity in that, instead of 354 days, not divisible by seven, it consisted of 364 days, i.e. fifty-two weeks precisely. Each of its four seasons was thirteen weeks long divided into three months of thirty days each, plus an additional ‘remembrance’ day (IQS x, 5) linking one season to another (13 x 7 = 91 = 3 x 30 + I). In tune in this way with the ‘laws of the Great Light of heaven’ (IQH XII, 5) and not with the ‘festivals of the nations’ (4QpHos=4Q171 11, 16), Qumran saw its calendar as corresponding to ‘the certain law from the mouth of God’ (IQH xx [formerly XII], 9). Its unbroken rhythm meant furthermore that the first day of the year and of each subsequent season always fell on the same day of the week. For the Essenes this was Wednesday, since according to Genesis i, 14-19, it was on the fourth day that the sun and the moon were created. Needless to add, the same monotonous sequence also implied that all the feasts of the year always fell on the same day of the week: Passover, the fifteenth day of the first month, was always celebrated on a Wednesday; the Feast of Weeks, the fifteenth day of the third month, always on a Sunday; the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, on a Friday; the Feast of Tabernacles, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, on a Wednesday, etc. This solar calendar with its eternal regularity cannot of course stand up to the astronomical calculation of 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 48 seconds to the year, but the Scrolls so far published give no indication of how the Essenes proposed to cope with this inconvenience, or whether indeed they were even aware of it.
One practical consequence of the sect’s adherence to a calendar at variance with that of the rest of Judaism was that its feast-days were working days for other Jews and vice versa. The Wicked Priest was thus able to travel (journeys of any distance being forbidden on holy days of rest) to the ‘place of exile’ of the Teacher of Righteousness while he and his followers were celebrating the Day of Atonement (cf. above, p. 55). In fact, it is likely that the persecutors of the sect deliberately chose that date to oblige the sectaries to attend to them on what they considered to be their ‘Day of Fasting’ and ‘Sabbath of repose’, and thus ‘confuse them and cause them to stumble’. The same sort of story is told in the Mishnah of the Patriarch Gamaliel II, who endeavoured to humiliate Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah by sending him the following instruction: ‘I charge you that you come to me with your staff and your money on the Day of Atonement according to your reckoning’ (Rosh ha-Shanah II, 9).
Another peculiarity of the liturgical calendar of the Community, attested in the Temple Scroll, was the division of the year into seven fifty-day periods - hence the name pentecontad calendar - each marked by an agricultural festival, e.g. the Feast of New Wine, the
Feast of Oil, etc. A similar system is mentioned by Philo in connection with the Therapeutae in his book, On the Contemplative Life. One of these festivals, the Feast of the New Wheat, coincided with the Feast of Weeks and was for the Essenes/Therapeutae also the principal holy day of the year, that of the Renewal of the Covenant, the importance of which is discussed above (p. 44). From the Book of Jubilees, where, as has been said, the same calendar is followed, it is clear that Pentecost (the Feast of Weeks), together with the Feast of the Renewal of the Covenant, were celebrated on the fifteenth day of the third month (Jub. VI, 17-19; cf. also 4Q266 fr. II ii; 270 fr. 7 ii). An outline of the ceremony performed on this holy day, with its confession of sin and its blessings and curses, is preserved in the Community Rule (IQS I, 16-11, 25; cf. also 4Q280, 286-7). The sectaries assemble for the service in strict hierarchical order: the priests first, ranked in order of status, after them the Levites, and lastly ‘all the people one after another in their Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties and Tens, that every Israelite may know his place in the Community of God according to the everlasting design’ (IQS 11, 22-3). Blessing God, the priests then recite his acts of loving-kindness to Israel and the Levites recall Israel’s rebellions against him. This recognition of guilt is followed by an act of public repentance appropriate to a community of converts.
We have strayed! We have [disobeyed!] We and our fathers before us have sinned and acted wickedly in walking [counter to the precepts] of truth and righteousness. [And God has] judged us and our fathers also; but He has bestowed His bountiful mercy on us from everlasting to everlasting.
(IQS I, 24-11, 1)
After the confession, the priests solemnly bless the converts of Israel, calling down on them in particular the gifts of wisdom and knowledge :
May He bless you with all good and preserve you from all evil! May He lighten your heart with life-giving wisdom and grant you eternal knowledge! May He raise His merciful face towards you for everlasting bliss!
(IQS II, 2-4)
This paraphrase of the blessing of Israel which God commanded Moses to transmit to Aaron and his sons in Numbers vi, 24-6, and which recalls the fourth of the daily Eighteen Benedictions of traditional Judaism, is accompanied by a Levitical curse of the party of Belial and a special malediction directed by both priests and Levites at any sectary whose conversion may be insincere:
Cursed be the man who enters this Covenant while walking among the idols of his heart, who sets up before himself his stumbling-block of sin so that he may backslide! Hearing the words of this Covenant, he blesses himself in his heart and says, ‘Peace be with me, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart’...
(IQS II, 11-12)
The Cave 4 sources of the Damascus Document depict also the ritual of dismissal from the Community. The Priest overseeing the Congregation, addressing God, declares:
Thou hast cursed those who transgress (the boundary) but we maintain it.
Thereupon ‘the dismissed man shall leave and whoever eats from what is his or greets the man who has been dismissed, and agrees with him, ... his judgement shall be complete’ (4Q266 fr. 11 I ii; 270 fr. 7 ii).
Each benediction and curse is approved by the whole congregation with a twice repeated ‘Amen’.
The ceremony of the Renewal of the Covenant seems to be the only rite described in any detail in the Community Rule and the Damascus Document, but as the Essenes laid so much emphasis on the full and punctilious observance of the Law of Moses it may be taken for granted that they did not omit the many other basic acts of Jewish religion and worship. The fact that the Community Rule is satisfied simply to state without any specification that a single deliberate transgression of the Mosaic Law would entail irrevocable expulsion from the sect implies that the elite sectaries subject to this rule did not need detailed guidance: they were supposed to be fully versed in the Torah. Legislation addressed to less well-trained members, contained in the Damascus Document and in the Temple Scroll, is more discursive. Circumcision, for example, which was certainly practised, is mentioned in connection with female uncleanness after childbirth when Leviticus xii, 3 is cited in passing (4Q266 fr. 6 ii). It is also referred to figuratively in the context of severing the ‘foreskin of the evil inclination’ (IQS v, 5), or possibly and by implication as the ‘Covenant of Abraham’ mentioned in connection with (Gentile) man-servants (CD XII, II; XVI, 6). The laws of purity were also assuredly essential to the sect, and some practical guidance is given in IIQTS XLVI-LI, 4Q274-84, and MMT. The dietary laws are dealt with in the Damascus Document, MMT and the Temple Scroll. For instance, the eating of ‘live creatures’ (e.g. larvae of bees, fish and locusts) is declared to be prohibited in CD XII, 11-15. MMT states that a live animal foetus must be slaughtered before becoming fit for consumption (4Q396 frs. 1-21). Further laws appear in the Temple Scroll XLVII-XLVIII. Josephus also remarks that an Essene was forbidden to eat food prepared by people not belonging to the brotherhood (War 11, 143).
On three other topics, the Qumran sources are less taciturn: ritual ablutions, Temple worship and the sacred meal. Discussed already as part of the life of the sect, it remains now to consider the doctrinal significance of these rites.
Josephus, as will be recalled, observes that the Essenes took a ritual bath twice daily before meals (cf. War 11, 129, 132). 4Q414- entitled ‘Baptismal liturgy’ - deals definitely with such a bathing ritual but the text is so mutilated that no readable translation is possible. As regards the bath itself, the Damascus Document adds that the minimum quantity of clean water required for a valid act of purification was to be the amount necessary to cover a man (CD x, 12-13). This is not of course an Essene invention, but typically, where the Mishnah prescribes a minimum of forty seahs (about 120 gallons), the sect’s teaching concentrates on the practical purpose of the Mishnaic rule, namely that ‘in them men may immerse themselves’ (Mikwaot VII, I), and eliminates the obligation of having carefully to measure out what that quantity should be. Of greater interest, however, is the theological aspect, with its insistence on a correlation between the inner condition of a man and the outer rite. The wicked, according to the Community Rule, ‘shall not enter the water ... for they shall not be cleansed unless they turn from their wickedness’ (IQS v, 13-14). True purification comes from the ‘spirit of holiness’ and true cleansing from the ‘humble submission’ of the soul to all God’s precepts.
For it is through the spirit of true counsel concerning the ways of man that all his sins shall be expiated ... He shall be cleansed from all his sins by the spirit of holiness ... and his iniquity shall be expiated by the spirit of uprightness and humility. And when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God.
(IQS III, 6-9)
The second issue has to do with the sect’s attitude towards the Temple and Temple sacrifice. While some Essenes, notwithstanding their vow of total fidelity to the Law of Moses, rejected the validity of the Sanctuary and refused to participate (temporarily) in its rites (cf. Philo, Omnis probus 75; Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, 19), they evaded the theological dilemma in which this stand might have placed them by contending that until the rededication of the Temple, the only true worship of God was to be offered in their establishment. The Council of the Community was to be the ‘Most Holy Dwelling for Aaron’ where, ‘without the flesh of holocausts and the fat of sacrifice‘, a ‘sweet fragrance’ was to be sent up to God, and where prayer was to serve ‘as an acceptable fragrance of righteousness’ (IQS VIII, 8-9; IX, 4-5). The Community itself was to be the sacrifice offered to God in atonement for Israel’s sins (IQS VIII, 4-5; 4Q265 fr. 7 ii).
Besides this evidence in the Community Rule, the equation of the Council of the Community with the Temple also appears in the Habakkuk Commentary (XII, 3-4) in a most interesting interpretation of the word ‘Lebanon’. Traditionally, ‘Lebanon’ is understood by ancient Jewish interpreters to symbolize ‘the T
emple’. For example, Deuteronomy iii, 25, ‘Let me go over ... and see ... that goodly mountain and Lebanon‘, is rendered in Targum Onkelos as, ‘Let me go over ... and see ... that goodly mountain and the Temple’. The Qumran commentator, explaining the Habakkuk text, ‘For the violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you’ (Hab. 11, 17), proceeds from the belief that the Council of the Community is the one valid Temple. He then sets out to prove it by directly associating Lebanon with the Council in the conviction that the traditional exegesis will be familiar to all his readers: Lebanon = Temple. Temple = Council of the Community, ergo Lebanon = Council of the Community.73
The symbolical approach of the sect to sacrificial worship may account for Essene celibacy (where it was practised). Sexual abstinence was imposed on those participating in the Temple services, both priests and laymen; no person who had sexual intercourse (or an involuntary emission, or even any physical contact with a menstruating woman) could lawfully take part. More importantly still, bearing in mind the central place occupied by prophecy in Essene doctrine, clear indications exist in inter-Testamental and rabbinic literature that a similar renunciation was associated with the prophetic state. Thus Moses, in order always to be ready to hear the voice of God, is said by Philo to have cleansed himself of ‘all calls of mortal nature, food, drink, and intercourse with women’ (Life of Moses 11, 68-9). Consequently, despite the attempt made by Philo and by Josephus to attribute the sect’s celibacy to misogyny, a more reasonable explanation would be that it was thought that lives intended to be wholly consecrated to worship and wholly preoccupied with meditation on prophecy should be kept wholly, and not just intermittently, pure.