The Essenes were a progressive sect -- the first monastic Jews influenced by Buddhism in faraway Kashmir, which had a significant Jewish population (Jesus in India, Kersten Holger).
Elaine Pagels and her scholarship on the Lost Gospels has painted a much more sympathetic and sensible picture of original Christianity than the "Church Fathers" or secretive Vatican officials. What were the patriarchs hiding when they covered up the Buddhist-Christian connection?
BBC documentary examines the question, "Did Jesus Die?" At minute 25 it takes a very logical and grounded turn with surprising conclusions that demonstrate that the "Three Wise Men" were Buddhist monks who found Jesus (a tulku) and returned for him near puberty. They trained him in a Buddhist monastery (Hemis Gompa), and he spread the Buddhist philosophy, survived the crucifixion, and escaped back to a Jewish enclave in Kashmir, Afghanistan, where he died at the age of 80.
There had never been anything like celibate monasticism in Judaism. Lone hermits going into the desert was learned from the mystical East, influenced by Buddhist shamanism (shraman, "recluse" wandering asceticism) that ran counter to corrupt temple-priest craft (Brahmanism).
Inspiring Wisdom Quarterly follower M. Beguine is a Gnostic Christian following the tradition of the Apostolic Johannite Church. She is living out her religious vocation as a solitary recluse in private vows in the spirit of Mary Theotokos, Mary Magdalene, Brighid of Ireland, and Dorothy Day with special places of honor for Julian of Norwich and Hildegard von Bingen.
Her apostolate is mainly intercessory prayer and supporting and participating in her parish. Presently, she is in the process of adapting a hermitical Rule to Life (Vinaya) to her particular circumstances and conditions involving health and location.
She lives in a major urban area in a large high-rise apartment building rather than the common dream of many city dwellers, a more rural setting. She is excited to be at the beginning of a religious formation laying out the plans and structure of her chosen vocation. Read more about her adventure at (G)Nostic Nunnery.
(Gnostic Teachings) Why were ancient Christian texts buried -- and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi and other texts, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the 2nd century. "We have known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them - Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage, 1989).