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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Christianity (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08) |
 | | The spirit of the Essenes was intensely national; except in the matter of worship in the Temple, they were ultra-Jewish in their observance of external forms, ablutions, the Sabbath, etc., and their mode of life and discouragement of marriage were essentially anti-social. |
 | | Harnack himself owns that Christ had no relations with this rigoristic sect, as was shown by His mixing freely with sinners, etc. (Das Wesen des Christenthums, Lect. |
 | | But Christianity did not reject anything in Judaism that was of permanent value, and so the Jewish converts on the day of Pentecost could not have felt that they were abjuring their ancient faith, but rather that they were then for the first time entering upon the full understanding of it. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/03712a.htm (8737 words) |
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