Abstract: The discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls, from 1947 onwards, did renew the issue of the origin of Christian asceticism ; in so far as the ways of life of the hermits and of the monks are connected one to the other, the knowledge of the Essenian community, where there is no place for property or for sexual intercourse, makes it possible to understand how the ideal of asceticism arose. One is particularly concerned with the phrase « Sons of covenant », which doesn’t occur in the Hebrew Bible, but is present in a verse of Ezekiel according to the Septuagint ; with this phrase, among other ones, the Essenians used to designate themselves. One is dealing with it up to the 4th century, when Aphrahat, the Persian Sage, is exhorting the Eastern Christians.
