The So-Called Therapeutae ofDe Vita Contemplativa: Identity and Character

Abstract

It has become quite common in scholarship to consider the community described by Philo inDe vita contemplativaas a specific Jewish group comprising contemplative Essenes or people somehow related to the Essenes. In this study, we shall explore the meaning of Philo's masculine and feminine designations, θεραπευταί and θεραπευτρίδες, and consider the possibility that these words referred not to the male and female members of one group that was part of a Therapeutae sect, but to individuals whom Philo understood as exemplary devotees of God. We shall also consider a few matters concerning the character of the group. Overall, this study seeks to call into question the assumption that, in hisDe vita contemplativa, Philo is describing an Essene community in Egypt.

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