Ascetics of yore

• Dead Sea Scrolls preservers
• Ancient sect
• Dead Sea monastics
• Monastics of yore
• Ascetic Jewish sect
• Ascetics of the second century B.C.
• Contemporaries of the Pharisees and Sadducees
• Ancient mystics

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Essene \Es*sene"\, n.; pl. Essenes . [Gr. ?, lit., physicians, because they practiced medicine, fr. Chald [=a]say[=a] to heal, cf. Heb. as[=a].] One of a sect among the Jews in the time of our Savior, remarkable for their strictness and abstinence.

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
The Essenes (in Modern Hebrew : , Isiyim ; Greek : Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, or Ὀσσαῖοι, Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi ) were a sect of Second Temple Judaism that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite ...