mountainman

The only article that I have found by searching (both via google and within JSTOR) is Coneybeare's English translation of "VC".

Would you or anyone else be able to point me to his (1898??) argument / thesis which would appear to have been accepted by all modern scholarship?

Thanks.

stephan huller

600 posts and this is the best you can do? Of course there were proselytes in Philo's Alexandrian community. There might well have been proselytes among the Therapeutae. Why not? But a proselyte to Judaism has died to his former life. The proselytes had left their gods, their nations, their families, indeed their lives, to join themselves to the God of Israel. That's the end to the pagan gods. Left outside the door.

stephan huller

I find it hard to reconcile someone writing a master's thesis on Heidegger and the slavish devotion you display to an insignificant New Age thinker. Would it be possible for us to have a discussion about Heidegger by private message or outside of the forum? I just can't believe this is a graduate student or better. Heidegger is great thinker and deserving of serious attention. Acharya S - not so much. It just doesn't make sense.

mountainman

We are not discussing the Jewish Empire rather the Roman Empire.

The Roman gods (adopted from the Greek gods) were not left outside the door between 000-325 CE.

Most certainly c.324/325 CE spelled the end to the pagan gods.

At that time they were certainly left outside the door.

But NOT before!!!




The therapeutae were known and acknowledged to be a prestigious pagan group within the Roman Empire.

The Roman Emperors almost without exception SPONSORED the maintenance and construction of pagan (Asclepian) temples within which this group operated. The archaeological evidence corroborates the existence of the pagan therapeutae by the truckload.

OTOH outside of the Eusebian preserved "VC" (which may not have been authored by Philo - see above and respond to the stated CLAIMS for this possibility) we have absolutely NO EVIDENCE for a Jewish group who called themselves the therapeutae.

We all understand that the authority of scholarship (following Conybear c.1898) on the basis that "VC" was authored by Philo assume that there was a Jewish group with the same name. Your continual repetition that the therapeutae were Jewish indicates that you do not understand the arguments here being presented.

aa5874

Your inference does not make sense. In "On the Contemplative Life" there is no mention of Jesus, Nazareth, John the Baptist, the Messiah, the miracles of Jesus, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the great commission of the resurrected Jesus and the Ascension.

There is NO statement in 'VC' that the Therapeutae worship men as Gods and Non-Apologetic sources CONFIRM that there was NO story of Jesus in the 1st century. See the works of Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius.

There is no trace of the Gospels in the 1st century--NONE.

It makes sense to infer that the Therapeutae in 'VC 'were NOT Jews or of Jewish origin since Philo did NOT ever state that there were Therapeutae who were Jews that lived Judea as he did with the Essenes.

Philo claimed there were thousands of Essenes that were Jews but NOT one Therapeutae was identified or acknowledged to be a Jew.

Philo's Every Good Man is Free The Therapeutae in 'VC' lived in Egypt, originated from many places and MODELED their sect after Non-Jewish writings.

stephan huller

Oh now it is 'the therapeutae' like there is just one thereapeutai group. So deceptive, cunning and wicked. You know very well that there were many different attendants of various gods in antiquity. I could see misleading and misrepresenting for some financial gain. But what is the payoff here? Crazy.

mountainman

The main therapeutae group - the "tall poppies of the pagan therapeutae groups - were the therapeutae of Asclepius and this group was in full operation in the epoch BCE and continued to be the favoured group of the Roman Emperors until Constantine destroyed their temples and scattered them to the four winds.

The ORIGINAL therapeutae were pagan well before Philo was born.


Bullshit. The term therapeutae is a pagan term.

Whoever authored "VC" either borrowed or stole it.

The therapeutae of Asclepius were since BCE the "physicians of the body and the soul" and it is from these people that we get the word therapeutic. See the OP. The statistically dominant and socially prestigious therapeutae served in the healing temples of Asclepius. Do you not know this?


The payoff is a better understanding of ancient history and how that history has been corrupted by the early Christian monotheistic state church.

stephan huller

Oh so there was one therapeutai group and then the Jews in Alexandria said 'hey let's be therapeutai.' So the same thing must be true with the 'pagan word' hiereus. For you it must stand to reason that there was an original hierei community - why not pick a pagan god out of a hat - and then the Alexandrian Jews 'stole' the idea from the pagans.

><

Genius. Pure genius.

Toto

Sorry I missed an opportunity to shoot this down.

Eusebius used the text of VC to argue that the Therapeutae were Christians, but he had to distort the text in order to do so. This argues against VC being a Christian fabrication. It is too early, it does not use Christian themes, and a Christian forger would have done a much more convincing job, or at least worked in some themes that were important to Christians.

tanya

Well written, well done, many thanks for your many useful comments, both within this thread, and on the forum itself.