“”Angels and powers are in heaven!”, says Justin, thus bringing forth a purely kabalistic doctrine. The Christians adopted it from the Sohar and the heretical sects, and if Jesus mentioned them, it was not in the official synagogues that he learned the theory, but directly in the kabalistic teachings. In the Mosaic books, very little mention is made of them, and Moses, who holds direct communications with the “Lord God”, troubles himself very little about them. The doctrine was a secret one, and deemed by the orthodox synagogue heretical.
Josephus calls the Essenes heretics, saying: “Those admitted among the Essenes must swear to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself, and equally to preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels.” The Sadducees did not believe in angels, neither did the uninitiated Gentiles, who limited their Olympus to gods and demi-gods, or “spirits”. Alone, the kabalists and theurgists hold to that doctrine from time immemorial, and, as a consequence, Plato, and Philo Judaeus after him, followed first by the Gnostics, and then by the Christians.
Thus, if Josephus never wrote the famous interpolation forged by Eusebius, concerning Jesus, on the other hand, he has described in the Essenes all the principal features that we find prominent in the Nazarene. When praying, they sought solitude. “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet…and pray to thy Father which is in secret”, (Matthew 6:6). “Everything spoken by them, (Essenes), is stronger than an oath. Swearing is shunned by them.” (Josephus II., viii., 6). “But I say unto you, swear not at all…but let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay”, (Matthew 5:34-37).
The Nazarenes, as well as the Essenes and the Therapeutae, believed more in their own interpretations of the “hidden sense” of the more ancient Scriptures, than in the later laws of Moses. Jesus, as we have shown before, felt but little veneration for the commandments of his predecessor, with whom Irenaeus is so anxious to connect him.
The Essenes “enter into the houses of those whom they never saw previously, as if they were their intimate friends”, (Josephus II., viii., 4). Such was undeniably the custom of Jesus and his disciples. Epiphanius, who places the Ebionite “heresy” on one level with that of the Nazarenes, also remarks that the Nazaraioi come next to the Cerinthians, so much vituperated against by Irenaeus.
Munk, in his work on Palestine, affirms that there were 4,000 Essenes living in the desert; that they had their mystical books, and predicted the future. The Nabatheans, with very little difference indeed, adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and the Sabeans, and all of them honored John the Baptist more than his successor Jesus. The Persian Iezidi say that they originally came to Syria from Busrah. They use baptism, and believe in seven archangels, though paying at the same time reverence to Satan. Their prophet Iezed, who flourished long prior to Mahomet, taught that God will send a messenger, and that the latter would reveal to him a book which is already written in heaven from the eternity.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 