. . .Therapeutes and Essenes regarded themselves as [59]physicians, and, above all, physicians of the soul. It is accordingly by no means improbable that they too honoured the God of their sect under this name.18 We, moreover, read in a Parisian magic-papyrus recently found and published by Wessely (line 3119 et sq.): “I exort thee by Jesus the God of the Hebrews.” The words are found in an ostensibly “Hebrew Logos” of that papyrus, the tone of which is quite ancient, moreover shows no trace of Christian influence, and is ascribed by the transcriber to “the Pure,” under which name, according to Dieterich, the Essenes or Therapeutes are to be understood.19 The Jessaes or Jessenes (Jessaioi) named themselves after Jesus, or after “the branch from the root of Jesse.”20 They were closely connected on one side with the Essenes and on the other side with the Jewish sect of the Nazarenes or Nazoraes (Nazoraiori), if they were not absol. . . Read More