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The '''Essenes''' or '''Hasideans''' ('''Hasidæans''' or '''Assideans''', Greek ''asidaioi'') were a [[Jewish]] religious party which commenced to play an important role in political life only during the time of the [[Maccabean wars]], although it had existed for quite some time previous. They are mentioned only three times in the [[books of the Maccabees]].

== Account in Maccabees==
In [[I Macc.]] ii. 41 it is related that at the commencement of the war, after a number of Maccabeans in the recesses of the desert had allowed themselves to be slain on the [[Shabbat|Sabbath]] without offering any resistance, [[Mattathias]] and his followers decided to fight on the Sabbath in case of necessity. Thereupon a company of Hasidæans joined them, "mighty men of Israel,... such as were voluntarily devoted unto the law." In the second passage (I Macc. vii.) it is stated that [[Alcimus]] succeeded in persuading [[Demetrius I Soter|Demetrius]], the newly elected king of [[Syria]], to appoint him high priest instead of [[Judas Maccabeus]]. Whereupon it is said (verses 12-14): 

{{quotation|Then did there assemble unto Alcimus and [[Bacchides (general)|Bacchides]] a company of scribes, to require justice. Now the Assideans [Ἀσιδαῖοι] were the first among the children of Israel that sought peace of them: For, said they, one that is a priest of the seed of Aaron is come with this army, and he will do us no wrong.}} 

They were mistaken, however, since Alcimus later caused sixty of them to be put to death. In the parallel passage, on the other hand ([[II Macc.]] xiv.), Alcimus describes the political situation of the Jews to Demetrius as follows: "Those of the Jews that be called Assideans, whose captain is Judas Maccabeus, nourish war, and are seditious, and will not let the realm be in peace" (II Macc. xiv. 6).

The name "Hasidæans" occurs frequently in the [[Psalms]], in the sense of "the pious," "saints" (xxx. 5 [A. V. 4], xxxi. 24 [23], xxxvii. 28). In [[Talmudic]] sources the Hasidæans appear as martyrs to their faith ([[Sanh.]] 10b), as unselfish and long-suffering ([[Abot]] v. 4, 13), as the "saints of former times" ("Ḥasidim ha-Rishonim"), as those who compose themselves inwardly for an hour before prayer ([[Berakhot (Talmud)|Ber.]] v. 1) and enjoy special honor at the [[Feast of Tabernacles]], on the day of the drawing of water ([[Suk.]] v. 4). To their party, which died out with [[Joshua Kaṭnuta]], [[Jose ben Joezer]] probably belonged ([[Soṭah]] ix. 15; [[Ḥag.]] ii. 7) In the [[Eighteen Benedictions]] God's blessing is called down upon them immediately after the [[Ẓaddiḳim]] ("'al ha-Ẓaddiḳim we'al ha-Ḥasidim"), and in later times they appear in general as the ideal representatives of [[Judaism]], so that "Ḥasid" has come to be a title of respect ([[Num. R.]] §§ 14, 227a, "Yacob he-Ḥasid"; comp. [[Tem.]] 15b; [[Ta'an.]] 8a).

== Party of the rebellion ==
From these sources have been developed the opinions, generally prevalent among scholars, that the Hasidæans were strongly religious [[ascetics]] who held strictly to the [[Halachah|Law]] and loved quiet, and who founded a society or sect that exercised considerable power and authority among the people, and that they were finally drawn into rebellion by [[Antiochus]]{{dn|date=November 2012}}, who began the war against the [[Demographics of Syria|Syrians]] and carried it to a triumphant conclusion. The Hasidæans thus became the chief impelling force in the Jewish struggle for independence ([[II Macc.]] xiv. 6).

== Different views ==
Concerning the political role of the Hasidæans in this war, [[Wellhausen]] has endeavored to prove that it was almost insignificant (''Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer,'' Greifswald, 1874). According to him they formed an independent association existing apart from the doctors of the Law (comp. I Macc. vii. 12), which attached itself to the [[Maccabeans]] after the latter had won their first success (I Macc. ii. 42), but which seized the first opportunity to make peace with [[Alcimus]] and thus left the Maccabeans in the lurch. The contradictory passage in [[II Maccabees]], according to which the Hasidæans were the chief force throughout the war, Wellhausen regards as a violently interjected protest against the true representation of them as found in [[I Maccabees]]. 

Several modern scholars ([[Schürer]], [[Kautzsch]], and others) have agreed to this view, which had already been adopted in part by [[Georg Heinrich August von Ewald]] (''Geschichte des Volkes Israel,'' iv. 401). But even if the justice of this view were admitted, the origin and tenets of the Hasidæans would be no less obscure than before. [[Heinrich Grätz|Grätz]] (''Geschichte'' ii. 273) supposes them to have developed out of the [[Nazarene (sect)|Nazarenes]]. After the Maccabean victories, according to Grätz, they retired into obscurity, being plainly dissatisfied with [[Judas Maccabeus]], and appeared later as the order of the [[Essenes]]—a theory which is supported by the similarity in meaning between Ἐσσηνοά or Ἐσσαῖοι (= [[Syriac]] stat. absolute חסין, stat. emphat. חסיא, "pious") and "Ḥasidim" ("pious"), and which has as many advocates ([[Ferdinand Hitzig|Hitzig]], ''Gesch. des Volkes Israel''; [[Lucius]], ''Die Therapeuten'') as opponents ([[Levi Herzfeld]], ''Gesch. des Volkes Israel,'' and others). Others think that the [[Pharisees]] were developed from the Ḥasidim ([[Schürer]], ''Gesch.'' ii. 404; [[Moritz Friedländer]], ''Gesch. der Jüdischen Apologetik,'' pp. 316 et seq., 464 et seq.).

Since scholars have until recently started with the erroneous hypothesis that [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenism]] "took root only in the upper classes of society, the main body of the [Jewish] nation being wholly untouched by it" ([[Wellhausen]], ''Israelitische und Jüdische Gesch.'' p. 240), and that consequently the majority of the people at that time were "pious, and observers of the Law," it would be necessary, in order to account for the Hasidæans, to remove them from their "pious" surroundings and make of them a sect or society of "extra-pious," although the sources mentioned do not justify such a view. The συναγωγ σιδαίων of the [[books of the Maccabees]], upon which so much emphasis is laid, corresponds, as has already long been known, to the קהל חסידים of the Psalms, which means neither "sect" nor "society," but only "congregation," with no idea of party. The piety attributed to Ḥasidim in the [[Talmudic]] sources is not in any way abnormal or suggestive of sect ([[Lehmann]], in ''R. E. J.'' xxx. 182 et seq.). The supposition that they were a sect closely associated with the [[Soferim|scribes]], and related to them, rests only on the fact that the two classes are mentioned together in [[I Macc.]] vii. 12, 13; the genuineness of verse 13, however, has been questioned by [[Ferdinand Hitzig|Hitzig]] (''Gesch. des Volkes Israel,'' p. 417).

== Their position ==
Since [[Moritz Friedländer]]'s investigations (especially in ''Der Antichrist,'' Göttingen, 1901) have shown the great extent to which the [[Jews in Palestine]] and in the countries of the [[Jewish Diaspora|Diaspora]] fell away from [[orthodox Judaism]], even in the 3rd century B.C., the Hasidæans appear simply to have been those "pious" ones who remained true to the customs of their fathers. They lost ground, however, from day to day, as their prayer shows: "Help, Lord; for the Ḥasid ceaseth" (כי גמר חסיד: [[Psalms|Ps.]] xii. 2 [A. V. 1]). They were animated by a profound hatred for the foreign, [[Greece|Hellenic]] spirit, and for those of their Jewish brethren who were filled with it. In the [[Maccabean wars]] they came to an accounting with both. They seem by no means to have been peace-loving hermits or ascetics. Their sentiments and attitude are probably to be seen in Ps. cxlix.: 

{{quotation|Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the assembly of Ḥasidim... The Ḥasidim exult in glory: they sing for joy upon their beds. They have the high praises of God in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the nations, and punishments upon the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron: to execute upon them the promised judgment.}} 

This agrees with [[II Maccabees]], according to which the Hasidæans under [[Judas Maccabeus]] "continually stirred up war and rebellion, and would not let the country be at peace."

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

== Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography ==
*[[Jost]]{{dn|date=November 2012}}, Gesch. des Judenthums und Seiner Sekten, i. 199;
*[[Herzfeld]], Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. 357, 384, 395;
*[[Hamburger]], R. B. T. ii. 132;
*Ersch and Gruber, Encyc. section iii., part 32, p. 18;
*[[Heinrich Grätz]], Gesch. ii. 240-374; iii. 2, 7, 83, 99;
*[[Emil Schürer]], Gesch. i. 190, 203, 217; ii. 404;
*[[Wellhausen]], Israelitische und Jüdische Gesch. pp. 240, 277;
*[[Moritz Friedländer]], Die Gesch. der Jüdischen Apologetik, pp. 437 et seq.

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[[Category:Seleucid Jewish history]]