Sacrificing Josephus to Save Philo: Cesare Baronio and the Jewish Origins of Christian Monasticism

Abstract

Edward Gibbon can hardly be accused of displaying credulity in his famous chapter on the rise of Christianity in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.Under a fac ¸ade of mock reverence, he cast doubt on the many miracles of the early Church.Yet for all his scepticism, Gibbon still took as 'probable' the conversion to Christianity of the therapeutae, a Jewish sect, who 'changed their name, preserved their manners, adopted some new articles of faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian ascetics.' 1 According to the Jewish philosopher Philo (our only source), the therapeutae, though primarily based around Lake Mareotis near Alexandria, could be found 'in many places in the inhabited world.' 2 The Christian appropriation of this first-century group began with the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea in the early fourth century and continued into the Reformation period and beyond.3 In the process, they were appropriated not only as early Christians but transformed into monastics as well.A first version of this note was delivered at the Reception of Josephus seminar in the spring of 2014.The author would like to thank all those present for their questions and suggestions, as well as Anthony Grafton and the convenors, Joanna Weinberg and Martin Goodman, for their invaluable comments on later versions of this text.

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