“ But the Sabbath was a feast on which, after attending to their souls, they indulged their bodies, like yoke animals let out to graze. But their indulgence even then is not mentioned to have gone beyond the coarse bread, flavoured with salt and sometimes hyssop, while their drink was water from the spring. ”

“ In contrast with the drunken revels of the Greeks, Philo describes the sober enjoyment by the Therapeutae of the feast of Pentecost, or rather of the eve of that festival. They assembled together with glad faces and in white garments, and the proceedings were begun with prayers, in which they stood and stretched their eyes and hands to heaven. Then they took their seats in the order of their admission, the men on the right and the women on the left. Slavery being against their principles, the younger members of the society waited on the elder. ”

“ To the modern reader the importance of the Therapeutae, as of the Essenes, lies in the evidence they afford of the existence of the monastic system long before the Christian era. We have no clue to the origin of the Therapeutae, but it is plain that they were already ancient when Philo described them. Eusebius was so much struck by the likeness of the Therapeutae to the Christian monks of his own day as to claim that they were Christians converted by the preaching of St Mark. ”