mountainman

Just a minute. The term was used by the pagans consistently for centuries before, during and after the 1st century. Why should the author of "VC" be permitted to subvert the original purpose and meaning of this pagan term? Because of the respect the Church has for "Philo"? The Church propaganda was to get rid of the pagan church and the pagan therapeutae from the memory of antiquity. Looks like they almost succeeded.







The pagan's coined and used the term long before the author of "VC". The author of "VC" borrowed the term from a long history of pagan usage. The question of why "Philo's" therapeutae should be confused with the therapeutae of other gods must return to the question of why "philo" used this term. If he had instead written this was a group of therapeutae HOBBITS we would not be having this discussion.

mountainman

For about a generation covering the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century a whole bunch of German professors (including Harnack) were content to date the text as a 4th century forgery on the basis that the monastic movement in Egypt was UNEVIDENCED before that epoch.

Thinking about this, and not having their arguments before me, they may have omitted the appearance of the Manichaean monastery movement in the mid 3rd century. There were apparently Manichaean monasteries in Egypt (until Diocletian destroyed them in c.290's CE) and in Rome (which apparently were still there when Constantine rolled into town c.312 CE)

Sheshbazzar

Given the subject of this discussion, all Philo would had have written in "VC" even one time is 'these Jews'.

Instead he praises them, but always distances 'them'. Never once is what 'they' are doing 'our practice'.
There is no 'we' to be found, or these are 'our kinsmen', but invariably it is a -distant- and unidentified someone else 'Theraputae', an -alienated- some other group that is doing these things Philo describes.

Philo is telling us over and over and over that his own religious practices are NOT those of 'these' Theraputae.

As I posted earlier, the phrasing of "VC" literally shouts in paragraph after paragraph; 'The practices of -these- 'Theraputae' are NOT ours.'

mountainman

There has been a thread devoted to this question:

In which century does the earliest evidence of the Greek LXX appear?

We have a couple of fragments of greek dated only by palaeographical assessment to the period BCE, and some from the 1st century CE. This evidence is not convincing.

The LEGEND of its BCE origins is preserved by Eusebius via Josephus (again) and supported by Eusebius via Anatolius of Alexandria, whom Eusebius claims is the Bishop of Laodiciea.

In a revised edition 2002 of ARIUS: Heresy & Tradition, Rowan Williams revises his previous opinions on Anatolius, with the summary: "The suggestion that Anatolius, Iamblichus' teacher, is to identified with the Christian Bishop Anatolius of Laodicaea ... is a conjecture regarded very skeptically indeed by several well qualified judges." p.262

Eusebius was engaging in identity theft. The identies of a significant number of theologians in the apostolic lineage of Plato (i.e. Platonists) were stolen by Eusebius and used for the names of his lineage of Christian Bishops.

And since spin asked what I have been doing in all the years he had me on his Ignorance List
I took the time April 2011 to write an essay on this:

A Pageant of Christian Identity Frauds masquerade in the Academy of Plato

The Christians have subverted the history of the Platonists and the therapeutae.

The propaganda was directed at writing the pagans (and the Greek intellectual tradition) out of history.

The consistent theme is that Plato got his "gnosis" [knowledge] from Moses: "Socrates' critical questioning ... menace to the state".

These famous people (and of course the therapeutae) of antiquity were "OUR GUYS". [or Jewish]

The Christian regime and Christian intellectual tradition was after all a successful regime and intellectual tradition.

See The Closing Of The Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (or via: amazon.co.uk)

aa5874

Again, 'VC' was NOT forged by the Church. 'VC' does NOT contain anything about Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Four Gospels, the Pauline letters, and the Bishops of Rome.

We know exactly what the Church wrote or manipulated whether wholly or in part.

This is a partial list-- The Epistles of Ignatius, the Clement letter to the Corinthians, The Epistle of Polycarp, Irenaeus' "Against Heresies", Tertullian's "Against Marcion", Tertullian's "On the Flesh of Christ", Tertullian's "Prescription Against the Heretics", Origen's "Against Celsus" and "Church History".

There was NO Jesus cult in the 1st century so writers of the Church merely made false claims about the Therapeutae in the writings of Philo.

This very same pattern of false claims can be seen in the forgeries in Josephus and Tacitus.

stephan huller

the nuthouse

mountainman

Well at least the nuts have stimulated discussion.

From your own blog: Therapeutae = Simeonites (Part One)

the myth house

is that near the forgery mill?



HYPOTHESIS:

The therapeutae were the first Christian or Jewish monastic community in Egypt?



Some questions


Weren't the therapeutae all over the empire?

Wouldn't that make them the first monastic community all over the empire.

But the Egyptian monastic community movement belongs to the 4th not the 1st century.

Hence we are left with a paradox.

How could the author of "VC" have portrayed a monastic community in Egypt (or indeed all over the empire) from the 1st century?

mountainman

FFS spin stay with the OP and the evidence.

Resolve the paradoxes presented

spin

I was getting to Shesh's presuppositions which prevent him from any reasoned analysis of the therapeutae (or any other Jewish issue of scholarly significance), meaning that his insistence in the matter has no weight.

We have total denial of the Jewishness of the therapeutae from some and the total marginalization of their Jewishness by Shesh.

I don't know if the therapeutae's apparent weirdness is a reflection of reality or of Philo's needs or a mixture of both (we have no perspective), but Philo indicates that they are in fact Jewish and accept very Jewish notions of Philo's god, the prophets, the escape from Egypt across the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam.

The pentacontad reckoning intimates that they accept feasting for the first fruits, but, when seen with the indications from the Temple Scroll, they celebrate around the calendar the various first fruits, which according to the torah (eg Ex 23:19a), are to be offered to their god. Some of the various first fruits are delineated in Num 18:12, oil, wine and wheat, while Lev 2:14 talks of the first fruits of corn, the very ones mentioned by the Temple Scroll. Each of these first fruits have to be presented to god, but they become ready at different times of the year. Hence separate feasts.

Shesh can attempt to marginalize the therapeutae, but it seems to be analogous with the attempted marginalization of the writers of the DSS, who were Jewish, but, to some professors of faith, somehow beyond the pale.

aa5874

Your repetitive claim is just a load of BS.

There is NO mention whatsoever that the Therapeutae were Jews or of Jewish origin in "On the Contemplative Life".

The words 'Jew' or 'Jewish' are NOT in the Text and only once we find the word 'Israelite' and it refers to Moses and the crossing of the Red Sea.

It is illogical that only Jews studied Hebrew Scripture because that is exactly how we have the Jesus cult.

Christians writers of the Jesus cult did study Hebrew Scripture and even argued that the Jewish religion was abolished by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God predicted by the prophets.