Nothing is transmitted to us, about the Messianic expectations of the Essenes, and this mysterious fact is best explained by the supposition that their secret tradi tion referred to an incarnate Angel as the Messiah. This supposition is confirmed by the presumable Messianic expectations of John the Baptist or Essene. As such he could not reveal them, if He that should come,' the Tathagata of Buddhists (p. Was to be an incarnate Angel for the Essenes were bound by oath not to divulge their doctrines about angels. At the end of the Apostolic age the Essenes can be proved to have believed in Jesus as the angel-messiah, and Epiphanius asserts that they never changed their original doctrines (pp. 111 A special oath bound the initiated Essene not to communicate to any one their doctrines in any other way than he has received them.' Thus innova tions were excluded, and it becomes probable that the Essenes in the time of John expected an angel-messiah.