Therapeutae

The Therapeutae were a Jewish sect which flourished in Alexandria and other parts of the Diaspora of Hellenistic Judaism in the final years of the Second Temple period. The primary source concerning the Therapeutae is the account De vita contemplativa ("The Contemplative Life"), purportedly by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE). The authorship has been called into question because of the different stance on Greek philosophy of this work from that of other works that were written by Philo and because elsewhere Philo makes no mention of the Therapeutae although this article will refer to the author as Philo. The author appears to have been personally acquainted with them. The pseudepigraphic Testament of Job is possibly also a Therapeutae text, although this possibility is mostly based on the text being noticeably less misogynist than many other early apocryphal texts.

Philo records that they were "philosophers" (cf. I.2) and speaks specifically about a group that lived on a low hill by the Lake Mareotis close to Alexandria in circumstances resembling lavrite life (cf. III.22), and were "the best" of a kind given to "perfect goodness" that "exists in many places in the inhabited world" (cf. III.21). Philo was unsure of the origin of the name and derives the name Therapeutae/Therapeutides from Greek θεραπεύω in the sense of "cure" or "worship" (cf. I.2).

The term Therapeutae (plural) is Latin, from Philo's Greek plural Therapeutai (Θεραπευταί). The term therapeutes means one who is attendant to the gods although the term, and the related adjective therapeutikos carry in later texts the meaning of attending to heal, or treating in a spiritual or medical sense. The Greek feminine plural Therapeutrides (Θεραπευτρίδες) is sometimes encountered for their female members. The term therapeutae may occur in relation to followers of Asclepius at Pergamon, and therapeutai may also occur in relation to worshippers of Sarapis in inscriptions, such as on Delos. See Therapeutae of Asclepius.

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