Philo on the Therapeutae

Philo’s On the Contemplative Life remains our only source on the Jewish ascetic group known as the Therapeutae, which seems to have been based primarily around Alexandria. This group has often been associated with the Essenes and at times also with early forms of Christianity, due to their ascetic lifestyle and their allegorical approach to biblical interpretation. Philo describes the Therapeutae as ascetic healers of the soul who withdraw to their own solitude and community to pursue “the vision of the Existent” and a deeper—mainly allegorical—understanding of sacred Jewish texts, and to compose hymns to God. Their solitary, celibate, and meditative lifestyle centered mainly on their philosophical pursuits, although on Sabbaths they would gather as a community. Every forty-nine days, they gathered to celebrate the fiftieth day and to hear their leader teach, to share a spartan feast of bread seasoned with salt and hyssop, and to sing.

The Therapeutae shunned slavery, believing that all people are born free and that “ownership of servants is entirely against nature” (On the Contemplative Life 11.70). Philo emphasizes that women (Therapeutrides) were members of this group, “most of them aged virgins,” which he suggests was a choice they made of their own free will out of “their ardent yearning for wisdom” (On the Contemplative Life 8.68). As a rule, Philo associates the higher reasoning faculties of philosophers with men, such that his acknowledgment of the voluntary life of chastity and devotion to wisdom practiced by Therapeutrides is exceptional in his work.