Therapeutae
The
Therapeutae (meaning "healers" to Philo, "servants" to the
Pseudo-Dionysius) and
Therapeutridae (the female members of the sect) were an early pre-Christian
coenobitic order that the Hellenized Jewish writer
Philo of Alexandria knew from personal experience were established on a low hill by the
Lake Mareotis close to
Alexandria, the capital of
Ptolemaic Egypt. Other communities of Therapeutae were widely established in other regions, Philo understood, for "this class of persons may be met with in many places, for both Greece and barbarian countries want to enjoy whatever is perfectly good." (Philo, para.)
Philo described the Therapautae in the beginning of the
1st century AD in
De vita contemplativa ("On the contemplative life"), written
ca. AD 10. By that time, the origins of the Therapeutae were already lost in the past, and Philo was even unsure about the etymology of their name, which he explained as meaning either physicians of souls or servants of God. The opening phrases of his essay establish that it followed one that has been lost, on the active life. Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life by the
Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert-dwelling Therapeutae.
They lived chastely with utter simplicity; they "first of all laid down temperance as a sort of foundation for the soul to rest upon, proceed to build up other virtues on this foundation" (Philo). They were dedicated to the contemplative life, and their activities for six days of the week consisted of
ascetic practices, fasting, solitary prayers and the study of the scriptures in their isolated cells, each with its separate holy sanctuary, and enclosed courtyard: "the entire interval from dawn to evening is given up by them to spiritual exercises. For they read the holy scriptures and draw out in thought and
allegory their ancestral philosophy, since they regard the literal meanings as symbols of an inner and hidden nature revealing itself in covert ideas" (Philo, para. 28). In addition to the Pentateuch, the Prophets and Psalms they possessed arcane writings of their own tradition, including formulae for numerological and allegorical interpretations.
They renounced property and followed severe discipline: "These men abandon their property without being influenced by any predominant attraction, and flee without even turning their heads back again". (Philo, para. 18) They "professed an art of healing superior to that practiced in the cities" Philo notes, and the reader must be reminded of the reputation as a healer
Saint Anthony possessed among his 4th-century contemporaries, who flocked out from Alexandria to reach him.
On the seventh day the Therapeutae met in a meeting house, the men on one side of an open partition, the women modestly on the other, to hear discourses. Once in seven weeks they meet for a night-long vigil after a banquet where they served one another, for "they are not waited on by slaves, because they deem any possession of servants whatever to be contrary to nature. For she has begotten all men alike free" (Philo, para.70) and sing antiphonal hymns until dawn.
The practices described by Philo were considered as early as
Eusebius of Caesarea as one of the first models of Christian monastic life. Eusebius was so sure of his identification of
Therapeutae with Christians that he deduced that Philo, who admired them so, must have been Christian himself, not knowing the date of Philo's essay, and Christian readers still believed that this must have been so until the end of the 18th century . Like the first Christian hermits of the Egyptian desert, they were hermits, or
anchorites, rather than living communally, as later Christian monastic communities would do. "The semianchoritic character of the Therapeutae community, the renunciation of property , the solitude during the six days of the week and the gathering together on Saturday for the common prayer and the common meal, the severe fasting , the keeping alive of the memory of God, the continuous prayer , the meditation and study of Holy Scripture were also practices of the Christian anchorites of the Alexandrian desert" (Scouteris).
Various formative influences on the Therapeutae have been conjectured. The
Book of Enoch and
Jubilees exemplify the Hebrew tradition for the mystic values of numbers and for allegorical interpretaions, without having to reach to
Zoroaster or
Pythagoreans. In particular, the similarities between the Therapeutae and
Buddhist monasticism, a tradition earlier by several centuries, combined with Indian evidence of Buddhist missionary activity to the
Mediterranean around
250 BC (the
Edicts of Ashoka), have often been pointed out.
*
Abbey*
Monasticism*
Christian monasticism*
Testament of Job*
Philo Judaeus, The Contemplative Life excerpts (in English)
*
The Therapeutae and Christianity*
Buddhism and the Therapeutae*
Dr Constantine Scouteris, "The Therapeutae of Philo and the Monks as Therapeutae according to Pseudo-Dionysius": comparing the Therapeutae with the
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
