Three words run through the scrolls like a thread of gold: knowledge, understanding, wisdom. The Damascus Document says that God loves knowledge, and that wisdom and understanding he has set before him. The Community Rule opens the Treatise on the Two Spirits with the words, from the God of knowledge comes all that is. The hymns thank God for understanding given to the poor one, and for knowledge of his mysteries. The same three words stand at the head of the book of Proverbs and recur through the wisdom tradition of Israel, and the sayings gospel of Thomas opens with the promise that whoever finds the meaning of these sayings will not taste death.
The fellowship's eighth teaching is that the Essene way has always been a way of knowing as well as of believing, and that the three words name three gifts of the mind which the student must seek together.
Knowledge
Knowledge is to see what is. It is the gift of accurate perception: of the text as it stands and not as one wishes it stood, of the body as it feels and not as one fears it feels, of the neighbor as he is and not as one has decided he is. The Essenes were relentless in pursuit of it. They copied the scriptures with a care that modern scholars still marvel at. They studied the properties of plants and stones. They examined every candidate three times and ranked every member yearly according to what he actually understood and did. They had no patience with vagueness.
The fellowship holds that a mystical way which despises knowledge is not mystical but sentimental. The one who will not read the text carefully, will not look at her own heart honestly, will not learn the facts of the matter, is not open to God. She is open only to her own wishes. Knowledge is the first discipline because without it the other two have nothing to work on.
Understanding
Understanding is to see how it fits. The Hebrew word comes from a root that means between: to understand is to see what lies between things, how this connects to that, what follows from what. The Essenes read the prophets with understanding in this sense, seeing in every verse a connection to their own time; the fellowship thinks they often saw connections that were not there, but we honor the hunger. The scrolls say the Teacher was given understanding of all the mysteries of the words of the prophets. The hymns speak of the member whose eyes have been opened to see wonderful mysteries.
Understanding is the gift that turns a heap of facts into a picture. The student who has read the history, the texts, and the teachings and still does not see how they fit has knowledge without understanding. The fellowship's practice for understanding is slow reading, the keeping of a notebook, and the discipline of asking, of every new thing learned, what it changes about the things already known.
Wisdom
Wisdom is to live accordingly. It is the gift that turns the picture into a life. The Hebrew word is used of craftsmen, of those who know not merely what wood is but how to make a table. The wise person is one who knows what is, sees how it fits, and acts rightly on it, so that her life itself becomes a kind of knowledge. The scrolls say the member shall walk in wisdom and in folly according to his portion of the two spirits, and the fellowship notes that walking is the verb. Wisdom is not thought. It is walked.
This is why the Essenes could rank members by understanding and deeds together, as if they were one thing. They were. A man who understood the Law and did not keep it did not, in the Essene view, understand it. The sayings gospel puts it as a parable: the kingdom is like a woman carrying a jar of meal who does not notice the handle has broken and the meal is running out behind her on the road, and arrives home to find the jar empty. Knowledge without wisdom is a jar with a broken handle.
Faith That Knows
Many students come to the fellowship from traditions where faith was set against knowledge, as if to know were to stop believing. The Essene way knows nothing of this. The member believed because he knew: knew the Law, knew the prophets, knew his own heart, knew the discipline that had changed him. His faith was the trust that what he had known in part he would know in full, that the God of knowledge who had opened his eyes to mysteries would open them further. Faith that refuses to know is not faith but fear dressed in faith's garment.
The fellowship therefore asks its students to study, and to study hard. Read the texts. Learn the history. Test the teachings against both. Doubt what does not hold. The God of knowledge is not threatened by a student with a question. The one who finds the meaning of these sayings, the gospel says, will not taste death. He did not say the one who memorizes them.
In Practice
Keep a notebook. At the Evening Watch, write one thing you learned today, one thing you understood newly, and one thing you did because of something you understood. Most nights one of the three will be blank. Over a year, the blanks will move, and you will see which gift you lean on and which you neglect. The path of study is built to exercise all three.