In Jesus’s time the Essene calendar was more in vogue than the newer one of the Jerusalem priesthood and was the one used at the Last Supper, as the theologian Pope Benedict XVI has intimated. But it is to Egypt we must look for the origins of our own exegesis. At Christmas we are reminded by the Gospel of Matthew that the child Jesus was taken to Egypt to escape the cruel Herod. This parallels the story of Moses. In addition, Matthew cites the prophet Hosea: ” Out of Egypt I called my Son”. One does indeed wonder how long Jesus spent in that country during his young life.
The ascetic sect of the Therapeutae arose in the first century after Christ among the Alexandrian Jews in Egypt. The cells of these recluses were situated on the farther shore of Lake Mareotis. Here they lived, men and unmarried women, shut up singly in their cells, giving themselves up to prayer and religious meditation. Thus Meander of Ephesus says of them:“The basis of their contemplations was an allegorical interpretation of scripture and they had old Theosophic writings which served to guide them in their more profound investigations of scripture. Bread and water constituted their only diet and they practised frequent fasting. They ate nothing until evening for, through contempt of the body, they were ashamed so long as sunlight was visible to take sensible nourishment to acknowledge their dependence on the world of sense. Many of them fasted for three or even six days in succession.”
Every Sabbath Day the Therapeutae came together and, as the number seven was particularly sacred to them, they held a still more solemn convocation once in every seven weeks. They celebrated on this occasion a simple love feast consisting of bread seasoned with salt and hyssop. Mystic discourses were then delivered and hymns which had been handed down from the old tradition were sung. Amidst choral music dances of mystic import were kept up late into the night. It was among the Therapeutae that the Essene exegesis developed from the prophetic to the mystical and thus scarcely surprising that they were more open to conversion to Christianity, especially after 70 AD. Most authors fix the background to the Epistle to the Hebrews as Alexandria. Certainly, whatever its geographical setting, in spirit it was addressed to the Essenes.
The Community of Righteousness made an extraordinary cult of angels and the Epistle begins with an affirmation of the superiority of the Word over the angels. The whole Epistle centres on the question of the true priest and indeed we have already seen that the Essenes expressed loyalty only to the line of Aaron as the true priests of Israel. They described themselves as Sons of Zadok, the Aaronite high priest who lived during the time of Solomon. They awaited two Messiahs who would reveal themselves in the last days; one of these would be a high priest, the Messiah of Aaron, and the other of the line of David, the Messiah of Judah, who would be subordinate to him. These doctrines would have provided the main difficulties for the Christian evangelists to the Therapeutae. For, if Jesus could be presented as the Davidic Messiah, he was not a descendant of Aaron and therefore could not be the priestly Messiah.
The purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews was to show that the functions of priestly and kingly Messiah could be expressed in one person. Since Melchisedec was at once a priest and king, it was expounded that the true Messiah need not belong to the line of Aaron, but was in fact a “priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (Hebrews 5:6). Such an exposition would appear necessary only to a community for whom the issue of the Aaronite priesthood was of central importance.
Discontent among the Jews in Palestine had continued unabated in the Dispersion and there was again serious rebellion in the reign of the Emperor Trajan during the period 115 to 118 AD. It is certain that the idea of two Messiahs continued among sections of the Jewish people until at least the second Jewish Revolt against the Romans in 132 to 135 AD under the Emperor Hadrian for coins at the time speak of El’ Azar the High Priest riding side-by-side with Bar Kochba, the Prince of Israel.
During these troubled times there lived in Alexandria one of the greatest of ancient scientists, who was at once an astronomer, mathematician and geographer. He was a native of Egypt called Claudius Ptolemaeus but today is known simply as Ptolemy. The account which Ptolemy gave of Ireland is the oldest known documentary evidence that exists of this island. Ireland and Britain were collectively known to Ancient Greek scholars as the Isles of the Pretani and from this word is developed both the Gaelic word “Cruthin” and the ancient Welsh word “Briton” for the inhabitants of these islands. Ptolemy was the first to record the name “Uluti” (Ulster) and he describes also such Cruthinic tribes as the Caledonians, to whom the Romans were to give the name “Picts”, in that region of Britain now known as Scotland.
It is known from Tertullian that there were Christians living in parts of the British Isles not reached by the Romans in the second century AD but it is equally certain that there were Christians living in Roman Britain itself at this time. Some of these may have been refugees from the southern part of Roman Gaul which is today known as France, where it is known that there was a colony at Lyons under a Bishop Pothinus. In the year 177 AD, during the reign of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, this colony was attacked and its bishop imprisoned. Before ministering to the Christians of Lyon the presbyter Irenaeus had studied in Asia Minor under Polycarp, who was Bishop of Smyrna and a pupil in his youth of the Apostle John.
To be continued
© Pretani Associates 2014