The desert community had a teaching so central that they put it near the front of their Rule, where a newcomer would meet it in his first year. It is called by scholars the Treatise on the Two Spirits, and the fellowship holds it to be the clearest statement of the Essene understanding of the human heart that has come down to us.
God, the treatise says, created humanity to rule the world and appointed for it two spirits in which to walk until the time of his visitation: the spirits of truth and of falsehood. From a spring of light come the generations of truth, and from a well of darkness the generations of falsehood. The Prince of Lights rules over all the children of righteousness, and the Angel of Darkness over all the children of falsehood. And then the sentence that makes the whole teaching: and because of the Angel of Darkness all the children of righteousness go astray, and all their sin and iniquity and guilt and rebellious deeds are under his dominion, according to the mysteries of God, until his end.
Read that again. The children of light go astray. The righteous sin. The darkness has dominion over the deeds of the very people who have chosen the light. This is not a teaching for the self-satisfied.
Two Spirits, One Heart
The Essene did not divide the world into good people and bad people. He divided the heart. Every human being, the treatise says, has a portion in both divisions, more or less, and walks in both wisdom and folly according to his inheritance. The struggle between the spirits is fought in the heart of each person, and God has set the two spirits in equal measure until the appointed end.
The fellowship finds this both terrible and liberating. Terrible, because there is no point at which one can say the struggle is over and the darkness defeated in oneself; the member of forty years must rise and choose exactly as the novice does. Liberating, because there is no point at which one can say the struggle is lost. The darkness in you is not evidence that you are of the darkness. It is evidence that you are human, and that the choice is still before you.
The Marks of the Spirits
The treatise lists the ways of each spirit. Of the spirit of truth: humility, patience, abundant compassion, eternal goodness, understanding, insight, mighty wisdom which trusts in all the deeds of God, a spirit of knowledge in every plan of action, zeal for just laws, a holy purpose with a steadfast mind, abundant kindness toward all the children of truth, a glorious purity which abhors every unclean idol, a humble conduct with prudence in all things, and faithful concealment of the mysteries of knowledge.
Of the spirit of falsehood: greed, slackness in the service of righteousness, wickedness and lies, pride and haughtiness, deceit and cruelty, abundant hypocrisy, impatience and much folly, zeal for insolence, abominable deeds in a spirit of lust, filthy ways in the service of impurity, a blaspheming tongue, blindness of eye and dullness of ear, stiffness of neck and heaviness of heart, so that a man walks in all the ways of darkness.
The fellowship reads these lists at the Evening Watch, not to accuse ourselves but to see ourselves. Which list did today belong to? Usually both. Where did one give way to the other, and why?
Choosing Each Morning
The community called itself the Sons of Light, and the fellowship uses the older and wider phrase, children of light, because the way is for women as much as men and for children as much as adults. But we hold the name as a choice and not a possession. One is not born a child of light. One is not made a child of light once for all by an oath or a washing. One becomes a child of light by choosing the light, and the choice is renewed each morning when the sun comes up.
This is why the fellowship keeps the Morning Watch. The ancient Essenes faced the dawn and asked that the sun might rise; the fellowship faces the dawn and asks that we may rise with it, that today the spirit of truth may have the greater portion in us. It is a small prayer. It has been enough for twenty centuries.
The War Within
One of the scrolls describes a final war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, with banners and trumpets and the order of battle, which God will end by his own hand. Some read it as a plan for an actual war. The fellowship reads it, as the mystics of every tradition have read such texts, as a picture of the war within. The banners are the virtues one raises. The trumpets are the hours of prayer. The enemy is not a nation but the Angel of Darkness in one's own heart, and the victory is God's, not ours, because no one defeats his own darkness by force of will alone.
The treatise ends with the promise that God will at the appointed time destroy falsehood forever, purify the human frame, and sprinkle upon it the spirit of truth like water for cleansing. Until then we walk in both. The fellowship takes comfort that even the holy ones of the desert, who gave up everything for the light, admitted in their Rule that they too went astray. We are in good company.
In Practice
At the Morning Watch, after the silence and before the communion, say in your own words: today I choose the light. Name one way you will choose it, small enough to be certain of doing. At the Evening Watch, ask whether you did it. If you did, give thanks. If you did not, give thanks that tomorrow is another morning, and go to sleep.