sentences:  68b).For the sake of communing with the upper world, the lower one was despised by the elect few who preserved the tradition of the gnosis and the apocalyptic mysteries.So did the followers of Obadiah Abu-Isa, the Isawites, and of Judah Yudghan, the Yudghanites, at the close of the 7th century and at the beginning of the 8th, the forerunners of the Karaites, and many prominent Karaites themselves lead ascetic lives; abstaining from meat and wine, and spending much of their time in meditation and devotion, partly in order to obtain a deeper knowledge of the Scriptures, partly as mourners over Jerusalem (see Shahrastani, "Book of Religions and Philosophical Sects," Haarbrücker's translation, i.