Originally Posted by mountainman

Conybeare himself - the expert opinion which appears to have been followed by all the modern Biblical Scholar experts - makes this comparison.

Originally Posted by Toto

The rules of this forum are based on the idea that everyone has to be treated with respect, and that the truth will prevail through reasoned dialogue. But it doesn't seem to be working.

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

I can't help but wonder. Did Conybeare anywhere flat out state that the Therapeutae absolutely were 'Jewish'?

Originally Posted by Conybeare

P.292


It is time to return to the consideration of the treatise itself. An important point arises in connexion with the words at 474. 35
TroXXa^oC \MV ovv TTJS olKovnevrjs e'crri TO yevos, K.r.X. Are we to suppose that therapeutae of the same type as that which Philo
proceeds to describe, were found all over the inhabited world ? or was the one settled on the Lake Mareotis, to which the best
persons resorted from all quarters, the only one ?

I think the truth may lie between the two suppositions. There may have been
such societies in several of the great Jewish communities scattered round the Mediterranean, e.g. in Cyprus, Corinth, Tarsus,
Colossae, Antioch. Rome, Smyrna and elsewhere. But in the Alexandrian centre of which they were all offshoots, the members may
have been more strict in their discipline, more severe in their asceticism.


.... Alexandria was the centre from which the influences productive of such congregations had radiated, and the focus
to which members of them were wont to return as often as they could. That there were many such societies elsewhere,
is quite credible, if we bear in mind the wide dissemination all round the Mediterranean of Greek Judaism, and the
widespread propaganda of the religion which, in Philo's day, had been in progress for at least two centuries.

We have Philo's assurance that not only the barbarian by which in such a context he means his own race [l] ,
but the Greeks also, shared in this perfect good ; and such centres of seclusion may have originally been founded
for the sake of the Gentile converts, whom it was important to alienate from their old surroundings, lest they should
relapse into infidelity [2]

[2] And, I may add, the allegorizing of the Pentateuch, which was the chief occupation of the members of these guilds,
was especially necessary in relation to educated Gentile converts, who would need to find Plato over again in the
writings of Moses. The gross anthropomorphism of the O. T. also entailed some allegorizing, if it was not to shock
an educated Greek. Without it the Jewish missionary could hardly hope to win from Greeks an acceptance of the Pentateuch.

The passage 474. 18-24, seems especially to refer to converts; for there was little or no risk to a born Jew in associating
with his family and countrymen. And in this connexion it should be remarked that the terms Therapeute and Suppliant, which
in this treatise he applies KCIT f^ox^v to his ascetics of wisdom, are in the rest of his works used indiscriminately of
all the children of Israel, born and adoptive alike s . I do not attach much weight to the objection that we meet with no
allusions in ancient literature to these ascetic Jewish societies so widely disseminated. Such an objection can hardly weigh,
except with those who grotesquely imagine that all the literary records of every kind belonging to the first century B. c.
and to the first A. D. have come down to us intact, and that we therefore possess an exhaustive knowledge of all the forms
of creed and cult which there were during two centuries more pregnant of religious revivals and new beginnings than any which
have followed.



p.294


XXXVI. The use of the terms ev KTJTTOIS KCU fiovayplois is, as I have pointed out in my note upon 474. 30,
an indication that Philo assimilated the Therapeutic settlement to the philosophic retreats of the Epicureans, Pythagoreans, and other aipco-cis of the time.

Originally Posted by Toto

You are making this too much of a post modern thing. Conybeare was a rationalist who was the first to actually examine the evidence thoroughly. His analysis was persuasive - he didn't have any sort of control over perception other than by pointing out the facts.

Originally Posted by Conybeare

Lucius' hypothesis that the D. U. C. is a fourth century forgery, rests
on a series of false assumptions.

70. That (i) Monachism needed apologists at the beginning of the fourth
century.

71. That (2) Philo was, during the third and fourth centuries, an authori-
tative writer in the eyes of the Christians.

72. That (3) an apology for fourth century monasticism could be inter-
polated among Philo's writings, and deceive Eusebius as early as A. D. 315.
Evidence of MSS. and versions proves the D.U.C. to be far older than that date.

73. Lucius falsely assumes (4) that the D. U. C. was ' written under Philo's
name,' whereas there is in it no other clue to its Philonean authorship than
its tone and style.

74. (5) The D. U. C. as a defence of monasticism is full of heretical or
impossible features, e. g. (a) water for wine in the Eucharist ; (/3) recumbent
position at Eucharist ; (7) anti-Christian Sabbatarianism ; (5) presence of
women in monasteries.



XVI DE VITA CONTEMPLATIVA.

75. Summary of the absurdities involved in Lucius' theory.

76. Lucius fails to see that the holy banquet was no more than the
Pentecostal meal, and

77. Pretends that it was the Christian Eucharist, and celebrated on a
Sunday.

78. His mistranslation of 5ia k-nra e@5ofj.a8ojv. Examples of such a use.

79. His discovery of an Eucharist in the D. U. C. rests on a misunder-
standing of the entire text. The material preliminaries of the Pentecostal
meal.

80. The spiritual preliminaries.

81. Lucius confounds Ttava^iararov with navayiov,

82. And perverts the meaning of the passage 484. 21.

83. 84. The passages pronounced by him to be unphilonean may all be
paralleled out of Philo.

85. The relation of the D. U. C. to the Q. 0. P. L. does not bear out Lucius'
argument.

86. Neither is the Judaism of the Therapeutae any other than Philo'a
Judaism.

87. The picture of Roman luxury in the D. U. C. best agrees with the reign
of Augustus, and not at all with the end of the third century.

88. The female Therapeutae. The attitude in prayer.

89. The argument 'a silentio' advanced by Lucius. The silence of
Josephus admits of explanation.

90. The silence of Strabo, Pliny, and Porphyry of no import.

91. General worthlessness of arguments ' a silentio.'

Originally Posted by mountainman

I have taken a few notes from Conybeare's treatise and present below what I can see atm as the most relevant to this question.