text: Despite their prohibition on swearing oaths, after a three-year probationary period, new members would take an oath that included a commitment to practice piety to God and righteousness toward humanity; maintain a pure lifestyle; abstain from criminal and immoral activities; transmit their rules uncorrupted; and preserve the books of the Essenes and the names of the angels. Their theology included belief in the immortality of the soul and that they would receive their souls back after death. Part of their activities included purification by water rituals which was supported by rainwater catchment and storage. According to the Community Rule, repentance was a prerequisite to water purification.
  Ritual purification was a common practice among the peoples of Judea during this period and was thus not specific to the Essenes. A ritual bath or mikveh was found near many synagogues of the period continuing into modern times. Purity and cleanliness was considered so important to the Essenes that they would refrain from defecation on the Sabbath.
  According to Joseph Lightfoot, the Church Father Epiphanius (writing in the 4th century CE) seems to make a distinction between two main groups within the Essenes: "Of those that came before his [Elxai, an Ossaean prophet] time and during it, the Ossaeans and the Nasaraeans."Part 18 Epiphanius describes each group as following:
  We do not know much about the canon of the Essenes, and what their attitude was towards the apocryphal writings, however the Essenes perhaps did not esteem the book of Esther highly as manuscripts of Esther are completely absent in Qumran, likely because of their opposition to mixed marriages and the use of different calendars.
  The Essenes were unique for their time for being against the practice of slave-ownership, and slavery, which they regarded as unjust and ungodly, regarding all men as having been born equal.