The word is discussed in Shabbath 114 and explained to mean
‘learned.’ But, because in Jftkvaoth it is mentioned in connexion
with ceremonial purity, and because in Josephus the Essenes are
stated to have carried an ‘axe and shovel’ (B. J. ii. 8. 7, 9), and be-
cause moreover the Jewish historian in another place (V7é. 2) mentions
having spent some time with one Banus a dweller in the wilderness,
who lived on vegetables and fruits and bathed often day and night


1 Monatschr. pp. 32, 68. 3 See below, p. 166.
3 1b. p. 67. 6 Zeitschr. p. 485.
THE ESSENES. 133


| for the sake of purity, and who is generally considered to have been
_ an Essene; therefore Frankel holds these Banaim to have been Es-
_ genes. This is a specimen of the misplaced ingenuity which distin-
| gushes Frankel’s learned speculations on the Essenes, Josephus does


not mention an ‘axe and shovel,’ but an axe only (ὃ 7 ἀξιναριονῚ, Josephus
« misinter-


_ which he afterwards defines more accurately as ἃ spade (ὃ 9 τῇ preted.
᾿ σκαλίδι, τοιοῦτον γάρ ἐστι τὸ διδόμενον ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀξινίδιον τοῖς νεοσυσ-
. tarots) and which, as he distinctly states, was given them for the


purpose of burying impurities out of sight (comp. Deut. xxiii. 12-14).
Thus it has no connexion whatever with any ‘building’ implement.
And again, it is true that Banus has frequently been regarded as
an Essene, but there is absolutely no ground for this supposition.
