Sources: Philo of Alexandria, On the Contemplative Life (~30 AD) — the sole source.

The Therapeutae (“healers” or “servants of God,” from Greek therapeutai) are known from a single source: Philo’s On the Contemplative Life, which describes a community of Jewish ascetics near Alexandria at Lake Mareotis in Egypt. They lived as celibate men and women (one of the only celibate mixed-gender communities in ancient Judaism), spending six days in individual cells reading, writing, and allegorizing scripture, gathering on the seventh day for communal prayer. Every fiftieth day they held an all-night vigil with hymns, allegorical exposition of the Torah, and a sacred meal of bread, water, and salt. Philo presents them as the Jewish contemplative ideal in contrast to the Essenes’ active piety. Eusebius controversially interpreted Philo’s description as an account of early Christians — an interpretation modern scholars reject, but it shows how closely the Therapeutae’s practices resembled early Christian communal life. Their use of allegorical interpretation anticipates the Alexandrian Christian school (Clement, Origen). The absence of any mention of Temple worship, sacrifice, or pilgrimage suggests a form of Judaism entirely centered on the interior life and scriptural meditation — a prototype of later Jewish and Christian monasticism.