Philo of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Having discussed the Essenes, who aspired to and labored hard at the practical life, excelling in it in every respect—or at least, to put it more moderately, in most respects—I will now, following the natural order of my subject, say what is fitting about those who embraced the contemplative life, adding nothing of my own for the sake of improvement, as all poets and prose writers are wont to do for lack of good material, but keeping strictly to the truth itself, before which I know that even the most eloquent speaker will fall silent. Yet I must still strive and contend; for the greatness of these men's virtue must not become a reason for silence among those who think nothing good deserves to be passed over quietly.
The very name reveals the purpose of these philosophers at once: they are rightly called Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, either because they profess a medicine superior to that practiced in cities—for that medicine heals only bodies, while this one heals souls gripped by harsh and hard-to-cure diseases, which pleasures and desires and griefs and fears, and greed and folly and injustice, and the countless multitude of other passions and vices, have inflicted upon them—or because they have been trained by nature and the sacred laws to serve Being itself, which is better than the Good and purer than the One and more primordial than the Monad. With whom is it worth comparing these people, among all who profess piety?
Is it with those who honor the elements as gods—earth, water, air, fire? Different peoples have given these different names: fire they call Hephaestus, I suppose, from its kindling; air they call Hera, from its being lifted up and raised on high; water perhaps Poseidon, because of its drinkability; earth Demeter, since she seems to be the mother of all plants and animals. But these names are inventions of sophists,
while the elements themselves are lifeless matter, incapable of motion on their own, laid before the Craftsman as material for every form and quality he shapes.
Or is it with those who honor the products of these elements—sun, moon, or the other stars, whether wandering or fixed, or the whole heaven and cosmos? But these too did not come into being of themselves, but by some craftsman of perfect knowledge. Or is it with the demigods?
That indeed is even worthy of mockery. For how could the same being be both immortal and mortal? Not to mention that the very origin of their birth is culpable, filled with adolescent lack of restraint, which people dare, impiously, to attach to blessed and divine powers—as though beings untouched by any passion and thrice-blessed had gone mad with lust for mortal women and consorted with them.
Or is it with those who honor carved images and statues? Their substance is stone and wood, until just recently completely shapeless, before stonecutters and woodcutters severed them from their natural continuity—stone and wood whose sister and kindred portions have become wash-basins and footbaths and other still less honorable things, which serve needs performed in darkness rather than in light.
As for the Egyptians, it is not even decent to mention them: they have brought irrational animals—not only tame ones but even the wildest of beasts—into divine honors, one from each region under the moon: among land animals the lion, among water animals the native crocodile, among the creatures of the air the kite and the Egyptian ibis.
And seeing these creatures being born, needing food, insatiable in their eating, full of excrement, venomous, man-eating, prone to every kind of disease, and perishing not only by natural death but often by violence, they prostrate themselves before them—tame beings before the untamed and unbroken, rational beings before the irrational, beings who claim kinship with the divine before creatures that could not even be compared to Thersites, rulers and masters before what is by nature subject and servile.
But let these people, since they infect not only their own countrymen but also their neighbors with such nonsense, remain forever untreated, blind in sight—the most necessary of the senses; I mean not the sight of the body, but that of the soul, by which alone truth and falsehood are recognized.
But let the race devoted to service, ever being taught to see, long for the vision of Being, and pass beyond the sun perceived by sense, and never abandon this station, which leads to perfect happiness.
Those who come to this service do so neither from habit, nor from anyone's advice or exhortation, but seized by a heavenly love, they become inspired like those who rave in Bacchic frenzy or Corybantic possession, until they see the object of their longing.
Then, because of their yearning for the immortal and blessed life, considering their mortal life already ended, they leave their property to sons or daughters or other relatives, willingly assigning it in advance as an inheritance, and to those who have no relatives, to companions and friends; for it was fitting that those who had readily received sight-giving wealth should yield the blind kind of wealth to those whose minds are still blind.
The Greeks celebrate Anaxagoras and Democritus, because, struck by a longing for philosophy, they let their estates become pasture for sheep. I too admire these men for having shown themselves superior to riches; but how much better are those who, instead of releasing their possessions to be grazed by cattle, correct the poverty of human beings—kinsmen or friends—and make the needy prosperous! For that act was thoughtless—not to call it madness, in speaking of men whom Greece admired—while this one is sober and carried out with careful judgment. It was superfluous wealth—
what more do enemies do than strip and cut down the timber of their opponents' land, so that, pressed by scarcity of necessities, they may yield? This is what Democritus and his circle did to their own kin, contriving for them a man-made want and poverty—not, perhaps, out of malice, but from failing to foresee and take account of what would benefit others.
How much better and more admirable, then, are these people, who, using no less impulse toward philosophy, preferred greatness of mind to negligence, and gave away their property as a gift rather than destroying it, so as to benefit both others and themselves—others by abundant means, themselves by the practice of philosophy! For the care of money and possessions consumes time; and it is good to be sparing of time, since, as the physician Hippocrates says, 'life is short, but the art is long.'
This, it seems to me, Homer also hints at in the Iliad, at the beginning of the thirteenth book, in these lines: 'the close-fighting Mysians and the noble mare-milking Hippemolgi, the milk-eating Abii, most just of men'—as though the pursuit of livelihood and money-making breeds injustice through inequality, while justice arises from the opposite choice, for the sake of equality, by which the wealth of nature is defined and prevails over the wealth found in empty opinions. When, then, they have parted with their possessions,
lured by nothing further, they flee without turning back, leaving behind brothers, children, wives, parents, throngs of relatives, circles of friends, the homelands in which they were born and raised—since what is familiar is a most powerful lure and enticement.
But they do not move to another city, as those unfortunate or badly enslaved persons do who ask to be sold by their owners, thereby procuring for themselves a change of masters, not freedom—for every city, even the best-governed, is full of countless disturbances and disorders that no one, once led by wisdom, would willingly endure—
but they make their dwelling outside the walls, pursuing solitude in gardens or lonely places, not out of some cultivated, harsh misanthropy, but because they know that mingling with people of unlike character is unprofitable and harmful.
This group exists in many parts of the inhabited world—for it was fitting that both Greece and the non-Greek world should share in the complete good—but it is most numerous in Egypt, in each of the so-called nomes, and especially around Alexandria.
The best of them, from every region, set out as though to their homeland, on a colony to a certain place that lies above Lake Mareia, on a somewhat low-lying hill, very conveniently situated, both for safety and for the mildness of the air.
Safety is provided by the farmhouses and villages lying round about; the mildness of the air by the continual breezes that rise both from the lake, which opens into the sea, and from the open sea nearby—the breezes from the sea being fine, those from the lake heavier, and their mixture producing a most healthful condition.
The houses of those who have gathered there are very plain, providing shelter only for the two most necessary purposes: protection from the scorching heat of the sun and from the cold of the air. They are neither close together, as in cities—for neighborliness is troublesome and displeasing to those who have devoted themselves to and pursue solitude—nor far apart, on account of the fellowship they cherish, and so that, if there should be a raid by bandits, they might come to one another's aid.
In each house there is a sacred room, called a shrine or monastery, in which, alone, they perform the mysteries of the sanctified life, bringing in nothing—no drink, no food, nor anything else needed for the body's requirements—but only the laws, and oracles delivered through prophets, and hymns, and the other things by which knowledge and piety are increased and brought to fulfillment.
They keep the memory of God ever present and never forgotten, so that even in their dreams nothing appears to them but the beauty of the divine virtues and powers; indeed many of them, dreaming, speak aloud in their sleep the celebrated teachings of their sacred philosophy.
Twice each day they customarily pray, at dawn and at evening: at sunrise asking for a good day - the truly good day, that their minds be filled with heavenly light - and at sunset that the soul, fully relieved of the crowd of the senses and sense-objects, might withdraw into its own council-chamber and senate-house and there track down the truth.
The whole stretch of time from morning to evening is for them a discipline. For as they read the sacred writings they practice their ancestral philosophy by way of allegory, since they regard the wording of the literal text as symbols of a hidden nature, one made evident through underlying meanings.
They also possess writings of ancient men who, as founders of this school of thought, left behind many records of the allegorical method; these they use as a kind of model, imitating the manner of that approach. So they do not merely study but also compose songs and hymns to God in all sorts of meters and melodies, which they necessarily set to rather solemn rhythms.
For six days each of them, living apart, pursues philosophy alone by himself in the aforementioned dwellings, not crossing the outer threshold nor even glancing out from a distance. But on the seventh days they come together as if to a common assembly and sit in rows according to age, in a fitting posture, hands kept inside the garment, the right hand between chest and chin, the left drawn back at the side.
Then the eldest and most experienced in their doctrines comes forward and speaks, with a composed look and a composed voice, using reasoning and good judgment - not putting on display cleverness of words as orators or the sophists of today do, but pursuing and expounding the precision found in the thoughts themselves, a precision that does not merely perch on the tips of the ears but travels through hearing into the soul and remains there firmly. All the others listen in silence, showing their approval only by nods of the eyes or the head.
This common sanctuary, to which they come together on the seventh days, is a double enclosure, one section set apart for the men, the other for the women's quarters; for the women too, by custom, join in listening, holding the same zeal and the same purpose.
The wall between the two chambers rises from the floor to a height of three or four cubits, built up like a breastwork, while the space above, up to the roof, is left open, for two reasons: so that the modesty proper to a woman's nature is preserved, and so that they, seated within earshot, may readily follow what is said,
with nothing blocking the speaker's voice from reaching them. Laying down self-control as a kind of foundation of the soul, they build the other virtues upon it. None of them would take food or drink before sunset, since they judge that philosophy is worthy of the light, but the body's necessities belong to darkness; hence they have assigned the day to the one and a small portion of the night to the other.
Some of them are reminded of food only once every three days, those in whom the longing for knowledge is more deeply rooted; and some so delight and take such pleasure, feasting richly and abundantly on the teachings that wisdom supplies, that they can hold out twice as long, scarcely tasting necessary food once every six days - grown accustomed, as they say the race of cicadas is, to feed on air, since their song, I suppose, makes the lack of food easy to bear.
They regard the seventh day as wholly sacred and a festival above all festivals, and have honored it with special privilege; on it, after tending to the soul, they also give the body its ease, as one relieves cattle too, releasing it from its continual labors.
They eat nothing costly, only plain bread, with salt as a relish, which those who live delicately season further with hyssop, and their drink is spring water. For the two mistresses nature has set over the mortal race, hunger and thirst, they appease without indulgence, bringing nothing for flattery's sake, but only what is useful, without which life is impossible. For this reason they eat only enough not to be hungry and drink only enough not to be thirsty, avoiding excess as an enemy and schemer against both soul and body.
Since shelter, too, is of two kinds, clothing and housing, it has already been said of housing that it is unadorned and improvised, made only for what is needed; and clothing likewise is of the plainest sort, meant only to ward off cold and heat - a thick cloak of shaggy hide in winter, a light tunic or linen garment in summer.
In sum, they cultivate freedom from vanity, knowing that vanity is the origin of falsehood and freedom from vanity the origin of truth, each functioning like a spring: from falsehood flow the many-formed kinds of evils, and from truth flow the abundance of goods, both human and divine.
I wish also to describe their common gatherings and the more cheerful conduct of their banquets, setting them against the banquets of others. For when other men have gorged themselves on unmixed wine, as though they had drunk not wine but something that provokes madness and frenzy, or whatever is more savage still born of the derangement of reason, they crash about and rage like untamed dogs, and rising up they bite one another and gnaw off noses, ears, fingers, and other parts of the body, so that they prove true the story told of the Cyclops and the companions of Odysseus, devouring, as the poet says, 'gobbets' of human flesh - and more savagely than he described.
That one, at least, attacked men he suspected as enemies, but these attack their own companions and friends, sometimes even kinsmen, at the salt and the table, making truceless war amid the pledges of friendship, and, like those in athletic contests, they counterfeit as if it were sound coin the very training of the games - wretches in place of athletes, for that is the name that must be given them.
For what those athletes do soberly in the stadiums, before the eyes of all the Greeks by day, for the sake of victory and crowns, these men do falsely, drunk by night in the darkness at their banquets, behaving with drunken violence, acting ignorantly and viciously to the dishonor, outrage, and harsh mistreatment of those who must endure it.
And if no one comes forward to part them like an umpire, they wrestle each other down with still greater license, murderous and deadly at once in their intent; for they suffer no less than what they inflict, though they do not realize it, being out of their minds - men who endure drinking wine not, as the comic poet says, only to the harm of their neighbors, but to their own harm as well.
So those who a little before entered the banquet safe and sound, as friends, go out a short time later as enemies, their bodies maimed; and some need advocates and judges, others plasterers and physicians and the help these provide.
Others among those thought to be more moderate drinkers, having drunk unmixed wine as though it were a sleeping-draught, overflow with it, and, throwing forward the left elbow and twisting the neck sideways, belching into their cups, are weighed down by deep sleep, seeing and hearing nothing, as though they possessed but one single sense - the most slavish of all, taste.
I know of some who, once merely tipsy, before being fully drenched in drink, arrange in advance, by subscription and contribution, for the next day's drinking bout, supposing that the hope of future drunkenness is itself part of the enjoyment already in hand.
Living in this way they pass their lives without home and without hearth, enemies of parents, wives, and children, enemies too of their country, and hostile even to themselves; for a dissolute and profligate life is a schemer against everyone.
Perhaps someone might approve of the arrangement of banquets now prevalent everywhere, following the taste for Italian extravagance and luxury, which both Greeks and non-Greeks have come to emulate, making their preparations more for display than for genuine feasting.
Couches for three and for many more, fashioned from tortoise-shell or ivory or still more precious material, most of them inlaid with gems; coverlets of purple interwoven with gold, and others dyed in floral colors of every kind for the pleasure of the eye; a multitude of drinking-vessels arranged by type - horn-cups and bowls and goblets and other manifold vessels, most skillfully wrought Thericlean ware, engraved with the precision of master craftsmen.
Serving-slaves of the fairest and most beautiful form, brought in not so much for service as to delight the eyes of those looking on with their appearance; of these, the boys who are still young pour the wine, while grown lads, bathed and smoothed, carry the water, their faces rouged and painted, their hair braided and elaborately dressed,
For they wear their hair long, either never cutting it at all, or trimming only the hair over the forehead at the very tips, to bring it into an even line and a precisely rounded shape. They gird up spider-web-fine, gleaming white tunics, the front hanging lower than the knees and the back a little below the knees, gathering each side into thicker folds at the seam of the little tunics so as to let the folds hang loose at the flanks, widening the hollows of the ribs.
Others stand by in attendance, boys just past childhood, their first down just blooming, who a little while ago were the playthings of pederasts, trained with excessive elaborateness for the heavier tasks of service — a display, as those who employ them suppose, of the host's wealth, but in truth, as it really is, of bad taste.
Besides these there is the variety of pastries and delicacies and seasonings, over which bakers and cooks labor, taking care not merely to sweeten the taste — which alone would have been necessary — but also the sight, by their cleanliness. [Sensory pleasures parade before the guests:] turning their necks round in a circle, they lick over the dishes with their eyes and their nostrils, some drawn by the plumpness and abundance, others by the savor that rises from them. Then, when they have had their fill of both sights and smells, they bid the guests eat, having first lavished no small praise on the preparation and on the host's extravagance.
At any rate seven tables and more are brought in, laden with everything that earth and sea and rivers and air produce, all choice and well-fattened — creatures of the land, of the water, of the air — each course differing from the last both in its preparations and in its seasonings. And so that no kind existing in nature should be left out, last of all the desserts are brought in, heaped high, quite apart from what goes to the revels and the so-called after-dinner extras.
Then some of the tables are carried out empty because of the insatiable greed of the guests, who gorge themselves gull-fashion and gnaw the meat so thoroughly that they even chew on the bones; others they maul and tear and leave half-eaten. And when they have utterly given out, their bellies filled to the throat but their appetites still unsatisfied, worn out with eating rather than satisfied by it — but why should I dwell any longer on these things,
which are already condemned by many even among the more moderate people, since they only inflame appetites whose diminishing would be a benefit? Indeed one might well pray for the most dreaded of things, hunger and thirst, rather than for the boundless abundance of food and drink found at such banquets.
Of the banquets famous in Greece, the two most celebrated and noteworthy are those at which Socrates himself was present: the one at Callias's house, when he was giving the victory feast for Autolycus on his being crowned, and the one at Agathon's, which men of letters and philosophers, Xenophon and Plato, thought worthy of record — for they wrote them down as memorable, supposing that later generations would use them as models of tasteful conduct at banquets.
And yet even these, compared with the banquets of our own people, who have embraced the contemplative life, will be shown up as laughable. Each, to be sure, has its pleasures, but Xenophon's is the more human: flute-girls and dancers and conjurers and comic poets take great pride in their jesting and witticisms, and there are other features belonging to the merrier sort of relaxation.
Plato's, on the other hand, is almost entirely about love — not merely of men mad for women or women for men, for such desires are subject to the laws of nature — but of males for males differing only in age; for even if something seems to be said gracefully about love and the heavenly Aphrodite, it is introduced only for the sake of urbane wit.
For the greater part of it is taken up by common, vulgar love, which strips away manly courage, the virtue most beneficial to life both in war and in peace, and produces in souls a feminine disease, fashioning men into womanish creatures who ought instead to have been trained in every pursuit conducive to strength.
Having corrupted the years of boyhood and reduced the boy to the condition and status of a mistress, this love has also injured the lovers in what is most vital to them — body, soul, and property. For the mind of the pederast is necessarily strained toward the boy, sharp-sighted only for him, but blind to everything else, private and public alike; his body wastes away from desire, especially when it fails of its aim; and his property is diminished from two directions, both from neglect and from the expenses lavished on his beloved.
There grows up alongside this another and greater evil, common to all: they contrive the depopulation of cities and a scarcity of the best class of men, and barrenness and sterility, imitating farmers ignorant of their craft, who, instead of sowing the deep, rich plain, sow salt marshes or stony, hard-baked ground, which, besides being incapable of producing anything, also ruins the seed cast into it.
I pass over in silence the fictions of myth and the two-bodied loves, which at first grew together, joined by uniting powers, and then, like parts that had merely come together, were split apart again when the harmony that held them fast was dissolved. All these tales are seductive, able by the novelty of their invention to charm the ears; but the disciples of Moses, having learned from their earliest years to love truth, from a position of great superiority scorn them, and remain undeceived.
But since the celebrated banquets are full of such nonsense, carrying their own refutation within themselves, should anyone be willing to look past reputation and the widespread report of them as having been altogether excellent, I will set against them, in opposition, the life of those who have dedicated their own existence and themselves to knowledge and to the contemplation of the things of nature, according to the most sacred instructions of the prophet Moses.
These people first gather at intervals of seven weeks, in awe not only of the simple week but of its power; for they know it to be holy and ever-virgin. It is the eve of the greatest feast, which falls to the fiftieth day, the most holy and most natural of numbers, constituted from the power of the right-angled triangle, which is the origin from which the generation of the universe proceeds.
So when they come together, clothed in white, joyful, with the utmost solemnity, at a sign given by one of the men appointed for the day's service — for that is the customary name for those engaged in such duties — they stand in order, row upon row, before reclining, and stretching both eyes and hands toward heaven — the eyes because they have been trained to look upon what is worthy of sight, the hands because they are pure of unjust gain, defiled by no pretext of profit-seeking — they pray to God that the feast may be pleasing to him and take place according to his will.
After the prayers the elders recline, following the order of their admission into the group; for they do not reckon as elders those who are advanced in years and gray-haired [rather they are counted as still quite young children] if they have come late to this way of life, but those who from their earliest years have grown up and come to maturity in the contemplative part of philosophy, which is indeed the most beautiful and most divine part.
Women also share the banquet, most of them aged virgins, who have kept their chastity not out of necessity, as is the case with some priestesses among the Greeks, but rather by their own free choice, out of zeal and longing for wisdom, in whose company they have been eager to live, and for whose sake they have disregarded the pleasures of the body, desiring offspring not mortal but immortal, which only the God-loving soul is able to bear from itself, once
the Father has sown into it rays of intelligible light, by which it will be able to contemplate the doctrines of wisdom. The seating is arranged separately, the men on the right, the women on the left. Let no one suppose that couches — even if not costly, still softer ones — are prepared for people of such noble birth, refinement, and devotion to philosophy. They are rather rough mats of ordinary material, spread on the ground, made of the papyrus native to that region, quite plain, slightly raised at the elbows so as to give something to lean on; for while they relax somewhat the Spartan harshness of self-discipline, they always and everywhere practice a generous, free simplicity, waging unrelenting war against the enticements of pleasure.
They are not served by slaves, holding that the possession of servants is altogether contrary to nature; for nature has begotten all men free, but the injustice and greed of some, who have emulated inequality, the primal source of evil, have imposed a yoke, binding the weaker under the power of the stronger.
In this sacred banquet, then, as I have said, there is no slave, but free men perform the services required, undertaking the duties of attendance not under compulsion, nor waiting to be commanded, but anticipating the orders willingly, with zeal and eagerness.
For it is not just any free men who are appointed to these services, but the young members of the community, chosen with the utmost care on the basis of merit, as befits those who, being refined and well-born, are pressing on toward the height of virtue. Like true-born sons, they wait upon their fathers and mothers gladly and with a sense of honor, regarding these common parents as more truly their own than those related by blood — since to people of sound mind nothing is more one's own than nobility of character. They come in to serve ungirded and with their tunics let down, so as not to bring with them even a semblance of a servile posture.
At this banquet — I know that some will laugh on hearing this, but it is those who do things worthy of tears and lamentations who will be laughing — no wine is brought in during those days, but only the clearest water, cold for the majority, warm for the more delicate among the elders; and the table is free of anything containing blood, on which bread is the food and salt the relish, though hyssop is sometimes added as a seasoning for the sake of those who are fond of luxury.
For right reason instructs them to live, as priests must when offering sacrifice, in sobriety; for wine is a drug of folly, and costly delicacies stir up the most insatiable of all creatures, desire.
Such, then, are the first things. After the diners have reclined in the order I have described, and the attendants have taken their stand, arrayed and ready for service, the president of the company — once complete silence has fallen over everyone (though when is it otherwise, one might ask? yet even more so now than before, so that no one dares even to murmur or to breathe more heavily than usual) — inquires into some point in the sacred writings, or else resolves a question raised by someone else, giving no thought to display — for he is not eager for the reputation that comes from cleverness of speech — but desiring to see something more precisely himself, and, having seen it, not begrudging it to those who, even if they do not see as sharply, still share a like longing to learn.
He teaches at a leisurely pace, lingering and dwelling on repetitions, engraving the thoughts into the soul; for by the technique of one who runs on smoothly and without pausing for breath, the mind of the listeners cannot keep up, but falls behind and fails to grasp what is being said.
But those seated hold their ears and eyes raised toward him, remaining in one and the same posture throughout, listening; they show that they understand and have grasped the point by a nod and a glance, and their approval of what he is saying by a cheerful look and an easy turning of the face, and their perplexity by a gentler motion of the head and the tip of the right finger; and the young men standing by attend no less closely than those reclining at table.
The expositions of the sacred writings are made through hidden meanings, in allegories; for the whole of the legislation seems to these men to resemble a living creature: its body is the spoken ordinances, and its soul is the invisible mind laid up within the words, in which the rational soul has begun, above all else, to contemplate what belongs to it — as though seeing, through the names as through a mirror, the extraordinary beauties of the thoughts they reflect, and having unfolded and uncovered the symbols, brings the inner meanings out naked into the light for those who are able, from a small reminder, to discern the hidden by means of what is manifest.
So when the president seems to have discoursed adequately, and to have met his aim — his exposition hitting its mark, their hearing hitting its mark too — applause comes from everyone, as people rejoicing together over what is still to follow.
And then one of them rises and sings a hymn composed to God — either a new one that he himself has made, or an old one of the poets of long ago, for they have left behind many measures and melodies of trimeter verse, processional hymns, libation-songs, songs at the altar, standing choral songs finely measured out in many-turned strophes — and after him the rest sing in their turn, in due order, all listening in deep silence except when it is necessary to sing the closing refrains and responses; for then all of them, men and women alike, raise their voices together.
Whenever each has finished his hymn, the young men bring in the table just mentioned, on which is the most sacred food, leavened bread with a seasoning of salt, mixed with hyssop, out of reverence for the holy table that stands in the sacred forecourt; for on that table are loaves and salt without any seasonings, the loaves unleavened and the salt unmixed.
For it was fitting that the simplest and purest things should be allotted to the highest of the priests as the prize of his service, and that the rest should aspire to the same things yet abstain from them, so that those who are greater might keep their privilege.
After the meal they keep the sacred all-night festival. It is kept in this manner: they all rise together, and in the middle of the gathering two choruses are formed at first, one of men and one of women; a leader and precentor is chosen for each, the most honored and most musical among them.
Then they sing hymns composed to God in many measures and melodies, sometimes singing together, sometimes moving their hands and dancing in response to one another in antiphonal harmonies, chanting inspired now the processional songs, now the standing songs, forming the turns and counter-turns of the choral dance.
Then, when each chorus has feasted separately and by itself — as though, in Bacchic rites, having drunk deep of the unmixed wine that is dear to God — they mingle together and become a single chorus out of the two, an imitation of the chorus long ago formed at the Red Sea because of the wonders worked there.
For by God's command the sea became for some a cause of salvation, for others of utter destruction; for when it was torn apart and driven back by violent recoils, and on either side, as though walls had been set up facing one another, the space between was cut open and widened into a broad highway of dry land, through which the people crossed on foot all the way to the opposite shore, being led up onto the high ground beyond; but when it rushed back again in its returning tide and poured out over the dried floor from both sides, the enemies who had followed in pursuit were overwhelmed and destroyed.
Seeing and experiencing this — a deed greater than word or thought or hope — the men and women together, seized with inspiration, becoming a single chorus, sang hymns of thanksgiving to God the savior, Moses the prophet leading the men, and Miriam the prophetess leading the women.
It is above all in imitation of this that the chorus of the Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, with melodies answering and responding to one another, the high voices of the women blending with the deep sound of the men, produces a harmonious concord and truly musical sound; the thoughts are altogether beautiful, the words are altogether beautiful, and the dancers are dignified — and the end of the thoughts, the words, and the dancers alike is piety.
Having thus been drunk with this fine drunkenness until dawn, not heavy-headed or drowsy-eyed but rather more awake than when they came to the gathering, they stand with their eyes and their whole body turned toward the east, and when they see the sun rising they stretch out their hands to heaven and pray for a fair day, for truth, and for keenness of reasoning; and after their prayers each withdraws to his own sacred dwelling, once more to engage in and cultivate their accustomed philosophy.
So much, then, concerning the Therapeutae, who have embraced the contemplation of nature and of what is in it, and have lived for the soul alone, citizens of heaven and of the world, genuinely commended to the Father and Maker of all things by virtue, which has procured for them friendship as its most fitting reward, adding to it nobility of character — a thing better than any good fortune, reaching to the very summit of happiness.