is so commonly done, the statements of our authorities as to the antiquity of the Essenes. This common source we may believe with Lightfoot to have been the Persian religion, which we know to have profoundly influenced that of Israel, independently of the Essenes.
The fact that the Pharisees and Sadducees so often figure in the pages of the New Testament, while the Essenes are never mentioned, might plausibly be interpreted to show that the New Testament emanated from the side of the Essenes. So far as concerns the Epistle of St James this interpretation would probably be correct. That work contains the doctrine common to the Essenes with Plato, and suggestive of Persian Dualism, that God is the author of good only. There are also certain obvious points of resemblance between the Essenes and the early Christians. Both held property in common; both had scattered communities which received guests one from the other; both avoided a light use of oaths; both taught passive obedience to political authority. The list might be enlarged, but it would not necessarily prove more than that the early Christians shared in the ideas of their age. Christianity was to some extent a popularization of Essenism, but there is little reason for believing that Jesus himself was an Essene. De Quincey’s contention that there were no Essenes but the early Christians is now a literary curiosity.
The original sources of our knowledge of the Essenes have been mentioned at the beginning of this paper; the best modern discussions of them are to be found in such works as Zeller’s Philosophie der Griechen, vol. iii.; Ewald, Geschichte d. V. Israël, iii. 419-428; Reuss, La Théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique, i. 122-131; Keim, Life of Jesus of Nazara, vol. i.; Lightfoot on the Colossians; Lucius, Der Essenismus in seinem Verhältniss zum Judenthum; Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte; Ed. Schürer, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, div. ii. vol. ii. § 30. The copious bibliography in Conybeare’s edition of Philo’s De vita contemplativa bears upon the Essenes as well as upon the Therapeutes. For a specially Jewish view of the Essenes see Kohler’s article in the Jewish Encyclopaedia. They are there regarded as being “simply the rigorists among the Pharisees.” But we are also told that “the Pharisees characterized the Essene as ‘a fool who destroyed the world.’” (T. K.; St G. S.)
ESSENTUKI, a watering-place of south Russia, in the government
of Terek, 11 m. by rail W. from Pyatigorsk; altitude,
2096 ft. Its alkaline and sulphur-alkaline mineral waters,
similar to those of Ems, Selters and Vichy, are much visited
in summer. The climate shows great variations in temperature.
Pop. (1897) 9974.
ESSEQUIBO, or Essequebo, one of the three settlements
of British Guiana, taking its name from the river Essequibo.
(See Guiana.)
ESSEX, EARLS OF. The first earl of Essex was probably
Geoffrey de Mandeville (q.v.), who became earl about 1139,
the earldom being subsequently held by his two sons, Geoffrey
and William, until the death of the latter in 1189. In 1199
Geoffrey Fitzpeter or Fitzpiers (d. 1213), who was related to
the Mandevilles through his wife Beatrice, became earl of Essex,
and on the death of Geoffrey’s son William in 1227 the earldom
reverted for the second time to the crown. Then the title to
the earldom passed by marriage to the Bohuns, earls of Hereford,
and before 1239 Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1275) had been recognized
as earl of Essex. With the earldom of Hereford the
earldom of Essex became extinct in 1373; afterwards it was
held by Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, a son of
Edward III. and the husband of Eleanor de Bohun; and from
Gloucester it passed to the Bourchiers, Henry Bourchier (d.
1483), who secured the earldom in 1461, being one of Gloucester’s
grandsons. The second and last Bourchier earl was Henry’s
grandson Henry, who died early in 1540. A few weeks before
his execution in 1540 Thomas Cromwell (q.v.) was created earl
of Essex; then in 1543 William Parr, afterwards marquess of
Northampton, obtained the earldom by right of his wife Anne,
a daughter of the last Bourchier earl. Northampton lost the
earldom when he was attainted in 1553; and afterwards it
passed to the famous family of Devereux, Walter Devereux,
who was created earl of Essex in 1572, being related to the
Bourchiers. Robert, the 3rd and last Devereux earl, died in
1646. In 1661 Arthur Capel was created earl of Essex, and the
earldom is still held by his descendants.
ESSEX, ARTHUR CAPEL, 1st[1] Earl of (1632–1683),
English statesman, son of Arthur, 1st Baron Capel of Hadham
(c. 1641), executed in 1649, and of Elizabeth, daughter and
heir of Sir Charles Morrison of Cashiobury in Hertfordshire,
was baptized on the 28th of January 1632. In June 1648, then
a sickly boy of sixteen, he was taken by Fairfax’s soldiers from
Hadham to Colchester, which his father was defending, and
carried every day round the works with the hope of inducing
Lord Capel to surrender the place. At the restoration he was
created Viscount Malden and earl of Essex (20th of April 1661),
with special remainder to the male issue of his father, and was
made lord-lieutenant of Hertfordshire and a few years later of
Wiltshire.[2]
He early showed himself antagonistic to the court, to Roman Catholicism, and to the extension of the royal prerogative, and was coupled by Charles II. with Holles as “stiff and sullen men,” who would not yield against their convictions to his solicitations. In 1669 he was sent as ambassador to King Christian V. of Denmark, in which capacity he gained credit by refusing to strike his flag to the governor of Kronborg. In 1672 he was made a privy councillor and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He remained in office till 1677, and his administration was greatly commended by Burnet and Ormonde,[3] the former describing it “as a pattern to all that come after him.” He identified himself with Irish interests, and took immense pains to understand the constitution and the political necessities of the country, appointing men of real merit to office, and maintaining an exceptional independence from solicitation and influence. He held a just balance between the Roman Catholics, the English Church and the Presbyterians, protecting the former as far as public opinion in England would permit, and governing the native Irish with firmness and moderation. The purity and patriotism of his administration were in strong contrast to the hopeless corruption prevalent in that at home and naturally aroused bitter opposition, as an obstacle to the unscrupulous employment of Irish revenues for the satisfaction of the court and the king’s expenses. In particular he came into conflict with Lord Ranelagh, to whom had been assigned the Irish revenues on condition of his supplying the requirements of the crown, and whose accounts Essex refused to pass. He opposed strongly the lavish gifts of forfeited estates to court favourites and mistresses, prevented the grant of Phoenix Park to the duchess of Cleveland, and refused to encumber the administration by granting reversions. Finally the intrigues of his enemies at home, and Charles’s continual demands for money, which Ranelagh undertook to satisfy, brought about his recall in April 1677. He immediately joined the country party and the opposition to Danby’s government, and on the latter’s fall in 1679 was appointed a commissioner of the treasury, and the same year a member of Sir William Temple’s new-modelled council. He followed the lead of Halifax, who advocated not the exclusion of James, but the limitation of his sovereign powers, and looked to the prince of Orange rather than to Monmouth as the leader of Protestantism, incurring thereby the hostility of Shaftesbury, but at the same time gaining the confidence of Charles. He was appointed by Charles together with Halifax to hear the charges against Lauderdale. In July he wrote a wise and statesmanlike letter to the king, advising him to renounce his project of raising a new company of guards. Together with Halifax he urged Charles to summon the parliament, and after his refusal resigned the treasury in November, the real cause being, according to one account,[4] a demand upon the treasury by the duchess of Cleveland for £25,000, according to another “the niceness of touching French money,” “that makes my Lord Essex’s squeasy stomach that it can no longer digest his employment.”[5]
