What did the Essenes believe in?

The Israeli Essenes (150 B.C. - A.D. 70) were in many respects the “monks” of the Jewish faith. They woke up to daily cold water “baptisms,” refrained from marriage, were perpetually celibate, refrained from any pleasure deemed “sensuous,” and they strictly observed the Sabbath. The believed in a “messiah,” although they are not mentioned in the Holy Bible. They believed that the body should be the ultimate temple of the Holy Spirit, and therefore adhered to rigid dietary restrictions. The Essenes also believed that poverty was the purest form of reverence to God. In order to join the Essenes, one had to cast all of their possessions into the common treasury of the order of the Essenes. Furthermore, the Essenes believed that there were “eight stages” that one had to pass through to achieve the “ultimate holiness”. These stages consisted of the following: 1) The outward purification of the body by baptisms, 2) Refraining from sexual intercourse, 3) The subsequent attainment of “inward purity,” 4) Renouncing anger and remaining humble, 5) The subsequent attainment of holiness, 6) Becoming a Temple of the Holy Spirit and prophesying, 7) The attainment of a level in which he could perform miracles and raise the dead, and 8) Becoming an emulation of Elias, and attaining the position of a forerunner to the “messiah”. Overall, the Essenes were the most self-restricting, and the least imposing of all of the Judaic sects during their respective time periods.