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The writings of the New Testament illustrate, amongst many others, the following features of their character as a sect: their high repute, Jn. vii.48; Acts xxii.3; their regard for externals, while they disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, Mtt. xxiii.24; xii. 2,7; Mk. vii.1; Lk. vi.7; Jn. ix.16, &c.; their regard to tradition, Mtt. xv.2; Mk. vii.3; their scrupulous exactness of washings, tithes, alms, &c., Mtt. ix.14; xxiii. 15,23; Lk. xi.39 sq.; xviii.12; their excessive zeal in making proselytes171, Mtt. xxiii.15; their lax morality, Mtt. v.20; xv. 4,8; xxiii. 3, 14, 23,25; Jn. viii.7.

(c) The Essenes.

Though nowhere mentioned in the New Testament, the Essenes were a numerous body, amounting, according to Philo, to upwards of 4000. Dating, like the other sects already mentioned, from about the middle of the second century B.C., they formed a purely ascetic order, and dwelt far from the distractions of their age in the villages along the western shore of the Dead Sea, where they led a life of labour, abstinence, and meditation172.