"The Essenes, who are worth discussing a little because of the connections or links that, in the minds of some, connect them to modern Freemasonry, were already famous as an institution almost two centuries before the spread of Christianity. As Josephus states, the Essenes were direct and legitimate children of the Jewish religion and probably the most select part of Phariseeism, because they did not limit themselves to the dry interpretation of the scriptures, but derived the rules of life from them, so that they were not a school, but an institution intended primarily to bring men together, moralizing them through work."