THERAPEUTÆ,1 a Greek Word which signifies a Servant of God. This is also the Name of a kind of Sect among the Hebrews, of whom Philo has described the way of living, in his Book of a Contemplative Life. Many of the ancient Fathers have thought2 that they were Christians, and that Philo, observing their admirable Manner of Life, had a mind that his Nation should have the credit of them. They differed from the Essenians in this, that the Therapeutæ addicted themselves selves to a Contemplative Life, and the Essenians to an Active Life. Here is a short Account of the Way of living of the Therapeutæ, which served for a Model to the ancient Monks, both of the East and West: They relinquished their Estates, their Parents, and sometimes their Country; they fled from Cities and the Concourse of Men, and dwelt in the Country in separate Cells, the better to preserve their Solitude; but not at any great Distance, that they might defend themselves from Thieves, and keep up a Society. Their Houses or Cells were very plain, and had nothing but what was necessary. There was a little Oratory, destin’d to Prayer and Exercises of Piety. There were Therapeutæ in several Parts of the World, but chiefly in Egypt, about the Lake Mæris.
Philo describes them in this manner: “ Philo de vitâ contemplat.They are called Therapeutæ, and such “ Women as adhere to the same Institutions are called Therapeutidæ. This “ Name perfectly agrees with them, in “ both its Significations, of Curing and “ of Worshipping: For they are really “ Physicians, not of the Body, which is “ the Object of the vulgar Medicine, “ but of the Soul, the Distempers of “ which they cure, which are much more “ stubborn and difficult than those of the “ Body. These Distempers of the Soul “ are Love of Pleasure, Concupiscence, “ Discontent, Fear, Covetousness, Profuseness, Injustice, and a multitude of “ other criminal Passions. In the other “ sense of the Word Therapeutæ, they “ are true Worshippers and Servants of “ God: That wonderful Being, better “ than Good itself, simpler than Unity, “ and older than Unity itself: They worship and serve him, according to the “ Rules of Nature, and the holy Constitutions of the sacred Books.
“ Those that embrace this Institution, “ do it not out of Custom, to follow a “ Fashion, or out of Complaisance to “ those that exhort them to it; but by a “ Motive of seraphick and heavenly Love, “ that casts them into a kind of Enthusiasm, like that which seizes the Bacchanals and Corybantes at the Celebration “ of their Mysteries. And this Enthusiasm keeps Possession of them till they “ arrive at the State of Contemplation to “ which they aspire. Then, considering “ themselves as already dead to the “ World, and thinking only upon a happy Immortality, they give up all their “ Goods to their Children or Relations; “ or, if they have none, they make a vo- “ luntary Cession of them to their Friends and Acquaintance. Then, being disingaged from all Incumbrances, they fly without once looking behind them, leaving their Brethren, Children, Wives, Fathers, Mothers, and other Relations. They avoid also their old Friends and Countrymen, that nothing may retain them, or incline them to forsake the way of Life they have chosen. “ If they leave behind a City or Habitation, it is not to seek another, like those Slaves that only change their Masters, but not their Condition. For all Cities and Countries; even those that are governed by the best Laws, to them are full of Tumult and Hurry, which are things that are insupportable to such as have but once tasted the Blessing of true Wisdom. “ The greatest part of the Therapeutæ have their Abode about Alexandria, and the chief of them almost all retire to an Eminence which they have near the Lake Mæris, a very secure and convenient place, and where the Air is very good. Hither they come from all Parts, as to their common Country. The Houses they have here are built with the utmost Simplicity, having regard only to two things, to defend themselves from the Cold in Winter, and from the Heat of the Sun in Summer. They are not so near each other as in Cities; for that would not be agreeable to such as seek only Solitude; nor so far from one another but that they may see one another sometimes, and converse about the Duties of their Condition, and assist one another when Robbers would assault them. “ Every one has his little Oratory, which they call Semneion, or Monasterion, set apart for Meditation and the Exercises of Piety. Nothing enters into this sacred Place that is not of use for the Support of the Body; no Furniture to be seen there, except the Law, the Divine Oracles, Books that contain Hymns and Instructions relating to the Knowledge of God and of Piety. Their Mind is always taken up with the Presence of God; so that even when asleep their Dreams have no other Object but the Perfections and Excellencies of God, and their whole Discourse and Reasoning is upon this Divine Philosophy. “ They constantly pray twice a-day, Morning and Evening. At Sun-rising they implore the Blessing of God for that Day, that he would enlighten them, and warm their Souls with his heavenly Light. At Evening they pray that their Souls may be disengaged from the Senses and sensual things, that by a compleat Recollection of themselves they may be prepared for the Discovery of Truth. They have among them several ancient Writings of the Heads of their Sect, which are the Monuments of that Allegorical Knowledge they make their Study, and which they endeavour to imitate.”
With them Temperance was esteem’d the Foundation of all Virtues. They neither eat nor drank till after the Sun was set: Some of them eat but once in three Days, others once in six Days. Their Food was only Bread, to which those that were more nice added a little Salt and Hyssop. They drank nothing but Water: Their Cloaths were very plain; in Winter they wore a thick Gown, in Summer a thinner Habit. They avoided Vanity in every thing, as being the Daughter of Lying. They prayed twice a-day, Morning and Evening: The rest of their Time they employed in Reading and Meditation. Their Reading was only in holy Books, which they explained in an allegorical manner; in which they followed the Examples of the first Chiefs of their Sect. They composed Hymns and Songs of different Measures: They thought continually on God, and even while they slept they had pious Dreams.
On the Sabbath-day they assembled in a common Oratory, divided into two Parts by a Wall of two or three Cubits high, that the Women might be parted from the Men, and might hear Instruction without being seen. There they sat in Order, according to every one’s Age, with their Hands hid, the Right Hand upon their Breast, and the left below. The eldest, and most knowing, stood up and spoke to them: His Aspect was modest, his Voice moderate, his Discourse solid, but without Ornament: All heard in Silence, and shewed their Sentiments only by some Signs of the Head and Eyes. Their chief Festival was that of Pentecost: Then they assembled, all cloathed in White, to pray and eat together chearfully. The Feast began by a Prayer, after which they sat down at a Table upon Hassocks of Rushes, the Women on the Left Hand, and the Men on the Right. They kept so strict a Silence there, that none of them durst so much as take his Breath with any Vehemence. In the mean time some one proposed a Question out of the Holy Scripture, and explained it at leisure in a plain manner, but mystically and allegorically.
After which they served up their Food, which was levened Bread, with Salt and Hyssop; with cold Water for the young and robust, and warm Water for the tender and aged. After the Repast, they rose up all together in the middle of the Room, and made two Choirs, one of Men, and the other of Women, and sung several Canticles to the honour of God, sometimes all together, and sometimes alternatively; and in the mean time they danced, and appeared as if transported, complying with the Sense and Words of the Song. Lastly, they unite in one Dance, in Imitation of that of the Israelites at their coming out of the Red-Sea. Thus they passed the whole Night before the Pentecost; and in the Morning at Sun-rising, they lifted up their Hands to Heaven, and intreated the Lord to make known his Truth to them: After which each returned into his own Cell, and began his usual Exercises.
Those that have thought that the Therapeutæ were Christians, were chiefly moved by these following Reasons. The Therapeutæ quitted their Estates, Brothers, Children, Fathers, and all their Relations, to have Leisure for Contemplation, and to unite themselves the more closely to God. They had several Books of the Elders, and the Heads of their Sect, wherein the Scriptures were explained allegorically: They were dispersed over several Parts of the World: They lived in common, had Priests, Deacons, Virgins, Monasteries, or Semneia, a sacred and mystical Table, assembled themselves by Night, for the singing of Hymns, prayed towards the East, read and explained the sacred Books of the Old Testament in an allegorical manner; composed Hymns, and sung them by Night to the honour of God: They assembled on the seventh Day to entertain one another with Discourses of Piety, and to pay their Worship to the Lord in common. Their Churches, or the Places of their Assembling, agree with the Form of the Churches of the ancient Christians: The Women were there apart from the Men, being separated by a Wall of three Cubits: They kept the fifty Days from Easter to Pentecost; their Life was severe, private, retired, humble; they lived in Fasting and Abstinence.
All these Marks agree to the Christians, and the Collection of all these Circumstances can agree to no other Sect, either Jewish or Pagan. Philo, speaking of their Holy Table, expresses himself in an obscure manner, because the primitive Christians were very studious to conceal this Mystery. However, what was served up upon this Table he calls the most holy and the most sacred of all Aliments. He says presently after, that this holy Food was leavened Bread, and Salt mingled with Hyssop: He speaks of the Privilege that the Chief of this Feast possessed to handle and administer these sacred Things; the Deacons brought the Tables; the first Christians used only portable Wooden Tables, for the Celebration of their Holy Mysteries. This Custom was still subsisting in the time of St. Athanasius, and was continued in many Cities and Villages of Egypt down to the Fifth Century, as Sozomen informs us.
Where can we find any other Sect, but that of the Christians, which in Philo’s Time was every where dispersed, as he says of the Therapeutæ? If this Sect was different from that of the Christians, what is become of it? How came it to be unknown to St. Paul and the other Apostles? If the Therapeutæ were an ancient Sect of the Jews, how came it to pass that Philo did not take notice of their Antiquity, and that Josephus has not mentioned them? If Philo, to whom only they were known, has forbore to call them Christians, ‘twas because at that time this Name was not grown familiar in Egypt. The Fathers who have maintained that they were Christians only knew it by Tradition, or by those Characters of Resemblance that they found between the Doctrines and Actions of the Therapeutæ, and those of the first Faithful. The Word Monastery, apply’d from the Beginning to the Habitations of the solitary Christians in Egypt, and also known among the Therapeutæ; those Cells or Monasteries standing upon an Eminence beyond the Lake Mæris; that is to say, upon the Mountain of Nitria, celebrated in the History of our Solitaries, as well as in Vid. Pallad. Lausiac. c. 7.the Description that Philo has given us of the Therapeutæ, supply us still with a further Proof, that the Monks are the Successors of the Therapeutæ, and that the Habitations of these are passed to the other by way of Succession. For is it probable that the Jews would yield them up to the Christians, or that the Christians, who were persecuted down to the fourth Century, should be able to get Possession of them under their Persecutions?
Eusebius, Cassian, and the Patriarch Methodius, have asserted, that St. Mark built Monasteries in Egypt. It must be acknowledg’d that the Name and Profession of Monks, such as we find it at present, was not known at the time of the Apostles: But there is reason to believe that when those ancient Writers spoke of Monasteries, they had nothing else in view but the Habitations of the Therapeutæ, built, or rather set up by the Advice of St. Mark Bishop of Alexandria. If we should refuse to the Therapeutæ the Name of Monks, we cannot, however, avoid owning that they forsook all things, according to the Advice of Jesus Christ, and lived in common, after the Model of the first Faithful at Jerusalem. And certain it is, that the Monastick Life soon followed after this first Institution of living in common, of which there were Examples already, before the Retirement of St. Anthony, that is, before the Year 271; because this Year, when St. Anthony withdrew into the Desart, he there met with an old Athanas. in vitâ Anton. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. 2. c. 17. Hieron. de Scriptoribus Eccles. in Marco. Epiphan. Hæres. 29.Man who made profession of the Monastick Life.
Eusebius was the first among the Fathers who applied to the Christians what Philo had delivered concerning the Therapeutæ. St. Jerome has followed Eusebius: St. Epiphanius went still farther, and thought that all that Philo has said, not only of the Therapeutæ, but also of the Essenians, whom he calls Jesseans, is to be understood of the Christians. Cassion, at the End of his Prologue to the Institutes, and Book II. C. 5. affirms, that the Monasteries of the Christians in Egypt were founded even in the Apostolical Times, and by St. Sozom. l. 2. c. 18.Mark himself. Sozomen believes that the Therapeutæ of Philo were Jews converted to the Faith of Jesus Christ, who gave rise to that Solitary Life which afterwards came to be so much in Vogue in Egypt. Photius acknowledges that the Monasteries Phot. 104. 105.of the Therapeutæ, and the Life they led there, became a Pattern to the Monks. He takes notice that some were of opinion that Philo had embraced Christianity, and that at Rome being acquainted with St. Peter, he made the Elogium of the first Christians of Egypt, the Disciples of St. Mark, the Pupil of this Apostle, and his Successor in the Chair of Alexandria.
Therefore the Christianity of the Therapeutæ is a thing founded upon the Authority and Testimony of several of the ancient Fathers, on the Agreement of Times and Places, and upon the Characters of the Lives of the Therapeutæ, compared with the Manners of the first Christians. It appears to have been a prevailing Opinion in the Church for several Ages, though of late it has been called in question; and these are some of the Reasons that have been advanced to the contrary.
‘Tis said that all the Authors who have spoke of the Christianity of the Therapeutæ have only copied from Eusebius; they have laid this Foundation upon his Testimony and Authority, and have had no other Grounds for what they have advanced, but what we read in Philo. But the whole of what Philo has said will not amount to a Proof, that the Therapeutæ were Christians. This may be very well understood of some Sect of the Jews, that was more zealous and purer as to Opinions and Practices than the generality of that Nation. The Austerities, the Silence, the Retirement, the Contempt of Riches, that Continence that obtained among them, are not indubitable Marks of the Christian Profession. Many of the Heathens have lived in Retirement, disinterested, austere, continent. All the Therapeutæ did not oblige themselves to observe Celebacy and Virginity: It was only those whose Wives and Children would not be prevailed on to follow the same State of Life. The Vespers, the Observation of the Sabbath, and of the Day of Pentecost; the Hymns, and the allegorical Explications, are more of the Character of Jews than Christians. Deacons, or Ministers, are found in the Hebrew Assemblies, and in their Synagogues. The Mystical Repast of leavened Bread, and of Salt mingled with Hyssop, cannot be the Eucharist, in which always Wine, and never Salt or Hyssop, were made use of. And what Philo adds, that this Repast or Table was instituted out of a respectful Distinction for the Holy Table, placed in the Porch of the Temple, upon which only unleavened Bread was placed, with pure Salt; which still proves that this was a mere Jewish Ceremony.
The Word Monastery, or Semneion, cannot easily impose upon any one. The ancient Monks might have borrowed this Term from the Therapeutæ, as well as many other of their Practices, just as the Church has adopted many Jewish Terms and Customs. And yet we are not to conclude that she has adopted their Sentiments also.
To these general Reflections, derived from the Agreement which is found between the Therapeutæ and the Christians, it may be answered that they are not sufficient to prove the Therapeutæ to have been Christians: We must discover some Character among them that is peculiar to Christians, and which cannot agree to those of any other Religion: For example, either the Name of Christians, some Doctrine or Opinion that they can have received only from Jesus Christ, some particular Practice, which cannot be common with those of any other Religion.
As to what is suggested, that all these Marks centring in the Therapeutæ agree only to Christians, this may be disputed. For though this Concurrence of Tokens has something in it that is specious and imposing, yet if each taken in itself is doubtful and equivocal, it is impossible that being even united they can constitute a certain and decisive Proof. Besides, this Conformity between Christianity and Therapeutism becomes insufficient to shew that the Therapeutæ were real Christians, when it is found that they are different in important Articles, which cannot agree to Christians: For example, the Therapeutæ forsook their Country, their Estates, and Relations, and retired into Solitude: It is certain that this Mark does not agree to all Christians; not even to the primitive Christians, who lived together in Cities, in their own Houses, and with their Kindred, their Wives, and their Children. The Custom of abandoning Cities, and retiring into Wildernesses, did not obtain till a long time after Philo, and when the Therapeutæ were no longer heard of.
Philo owns that the Therapeutæ were dispersed into several Parts of the Earth, but especially that they were very numerous in Egypt. Can this mark out the Christians, who, as every one knows, were in much greater numbers in Palestine, and in Syria, than in Egypt, in the time of Philo? Besides, how could Philo, who was certainly a strict Jew, give such Commendations to the Therapeutæ if they had been Christians, seeing that the Christians were every-where hated by the Jews?
The Therapeutæ studied the Holy Scriptures, and such Writings as their Ancestors had left them, concerning the allegorical manner of explaining them. This agrees better to the Jews of Egypt than to the Christians, who in the time of Philo were but just beginning, and had no ancient Books, or allegorical Writings, and who never much applied themselves to this kind of Study; but, on the contrary, it was much in fashion among the Jews of Egypt, and Philo himself was a great Proficient in this way of explaining the Holy Scriptures. The Dances and Motions, with which the Therapeutæ concluded their Assemblies, hardly seem agreable to that Simplicity and Modesty which was the distinguishing Character of the first Believers.
From what we have said concerning the Therapeutæ, which is the Substance of what has been disputed pro and con, about their Christianity, we may, I think, fairly conclude, that the matter is very doubtful and problematical, and even that their Opinion who take them for Jews is the more probable of the two. The Reader may consult such Authors for his farther Satisfaction, who have expressly treated on this matter. See Philo, in his Book De vitâ Contemplativâ; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. 2. c. 27.; St. Jerome, of Illustrious Men, c. 8.; Epiphan. Hæres. 29. c. 5. Cassion, Instit. l. 2. c. 5. Sozom. l. 1. c. 12. F. Montfaucon, in his Observations upon Philo’s Book of the Comtemplative Life, and those that have wrote against his Opinion, to prove the Therapeutæ were not Christians.
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