PHILO'S DE VITA CONTEMPLATIVA AS A

PHILOSOPHER'S DREAM

by

TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN

University of Copenhagen

The issue of genre I: the first possibility-a moral

philosophical treatise (pragmateia)

What is the genre of Philo's De hita Contemplativa?1 What kind of

writing is it? Though the question may seem to lie behind much scholar-

ship on the work during the last 100 years and more, to my knowl-

edge it has not been addressed head-on. I shall initially sketch two

possible answers, then suggest a method for choosing between them

and then practise the method in a close reading of the whole work

that is intended to bring out its comprehensive and coherent meaning.

Finally, I shall indicate why it will be important to keep in mind the

qucstion of genre, as I have construed and answered it, in any future

scholarship that will address the work more than tangentially. The obvious place to look for an answer would be the title of the

work. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear from the manuscript tradi-

tion what the title actually was. Nor can we be certain that any form

of the title as we have them was Philo's own. Initially, therefore, the

best place to look is the first and last paragraphs. The first third of

the first paragraph (down to suggests the following, straightfor- ward answer. Contempl. is to be understood as part of a larger work in

1 I presuppose without discussion Philonic authorship of the treatise. 2 I am drawing here on the very helpful survey by J. Riaud, "Les Thérapeutes

d'Alcxandrie dans la tradition et dans la recherche critique jusqu'aux découvertes de Qumran," ANRW II 20.2 (Berlin/New York 1987) 1189-1295. However, see J.-P. Audet, Review of F. Daumas, P. Miquel (eds.), De vita contemplativa, PAPM 29 (Paris 1963), RB 72 (1965) 155-156. Asking about the "genre litteraire" of Contempl., Audet commented: "Nous sommes ici en pleine description de mirabilia" (Review 156). He was right.

41

which Philo described at least two among the traditional "lives" (bioi) that people might choose between in their ethical reflection. In terms

of genrc, Gontempl. would therefore be this: a moral philosophical treatise.

This picture may be supported in the following wayk. (a) The theme

of the lives was a well-established one in the ancient world, clearly pre- sented, for instance, by Aristotle near the beginning of his Nicomachean

Ethics (1.5). There Aristotle lists four lives as possible candidates for the

happy life. The two to which Philo refers-"the practical life" and (the life of) "those who have welcomed contemplation (theoria)"-are also

the two of foremost importance in Aristotle. Thus at thc end of the

Ethics (10.7-8), he discusses precisely whether happiness consists in the

life of theoria or a life of practical, moral virtue. With this compare Philo's claim in the conclusion of his work that a life of theoria leads

to "the very summit of happiness". (b) Aristotle, furthermore, was the

inventor of a distinct literary genre, the pragmateia or "systematic or

scientific treatise".: In our text too, Philo presents his own work as part of a pragmateia. (c) In general terms of style, too, Aristotle might very

easily himself have written something like the sentence with which Philo

starts off "Having discussed the Essenes, who ..., I will now proceed at once in accordance with the sequence of this treatment (pragmateia) to say what is required about those too who have welcomed (the life

of) contcmplation." Similarly, the beginning of Philo's last paragraph has a very Aristotelian ring: "So much then for the therapeutae, who...."1

The suggestion here is certainly not that Philo consciously modeled

the genre of his work on Aristotle, but only that he presented it as

belonging to a genre that had first been sharply configured by Aristotle.

That is the straightforward answer.

3 The quotation is from Liddell/Scott/Jones s.v., who refer to Polybius (see The Histories 1.1.4), Diodorus Siculus (see The Library of History 1.1.1), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (see The Roman Antiquities 1.74.4) and Lucian (see On How to Write History 13) for the meaning "systematic or scientific historical treatise". That genre ultimately derives from Aristotle, cf., e.g., Nicomachean Ethics 2.2, 1103b26.

4 The claim is not that there are exact linguistic replicas of this in Aristotle, but that the general style is closely comparable. For Contempl. 1 for instance this: backward ref- erence-forward reference plus the idea of the next logical step in a sequence. Cf., e.g., Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics 3.9-10, 1117b20-23, or 7.14, 1154b32-34. For Contempl. 90 this: enough about that. Cf. Aristotle's Ethics 1.10, 1101a21, or 8.14, 1163b27-28.

42

The issue of genre Ik the second possibility-a fictional story (plasma)

Against this I wish to place an altogether different answer. Just now

the aim is not to convince the reader, but only to articulate a compre- hensive, alternative framework for understanding the work. The argu- ment will come later.

We may begin from noting two puzzling features of Philo's text. (i) His reference to an earlier discussion of the Essenes cannot be taken

to refer to either of the two treatments of them that we have from his

hand, in Hypoth. and in Prob.5 For one thing, the Esscncs are not really described there as living a life that could properly qualify as practical as distinct from theoretical. But more importantly, the discussion of the

Essenes to which Philo refers at the beginning of Contempl. must belong to the very same pragmateia on the lives of which Contempl. is itself a

part. But neither Hypoth. nor Prob. is about the lives. So Con temp l. could

not be merely "volume two" of either of them. Thus if we take what

Philo says here in its literal sense, what we have in Contempl. is only a

fragment of a longer treatise on the lives. In itself this is hardly puz-

zling. After all, we might merely say that something has been lost. Still, has Philo given a third description of the Essenes? Apparently, yes.

(ii) However, to judge from Philo's last paragraph, something has

been lost at the end too. That paragraph, which in terms of its con-

tent certainly summarizes and concludes the work as we have it, is

introduced by a pEv 8rj ("now then"), which should have been followed

by a 8e ("but"). There is another in the paragraph, but that is

immediately followed by a corresponding 8£. There is no however, to correspond with the introductory Ov That, then, will have fol-

lowed after the end of thc work as we have it. In short, if we adopt the straightforward answer to the question of gcnre, we are forced to

say that Contempl. is only a fragment, with something missing at either

end. For all we know, that might of course be the case. But here

another possibility opens up: that Philo only presented his work in the

way suggested in the straightforward answer, whereas in fact it neither

originated in a larger work nor belonged to the genre ostensibly sug-

gested by Philo. It is this possibility that we should explore. Let us note another puzzling feature of Philo's introductory para-

graph. In its second third ( 1 b, from otK0gev), Philo contrasts the

usual practice of poets and speechwriters with his own aim of "quite

5 Hypoth. 11.1-18, Prob. 75-91.

43

simply clinging to (7rEptEX6gEVO;) the truth itself irjS and in the last third ( 1 c, from 1tEàç ijv) Philo claims that

even so he will not be able to do justice to his wonderful subject. lb

obviously makes use of a well-known topos, also employed, for instance,

by Socrates at the beginning of Plato's Apology (17a4-b6). Philo himself

uses it elsewhere, c.g. at the beginning of Op f (4-5). There are rather

close verbal correspondences between the two passages.b But there is

also a striking difference. In Opif. there is not the emphatic contrast

made in Contempl. between improving on one's subject and clinging to

the truth alone. Why the difference? Why the emphatic truth-claim in

C,ontempl.? Is Philo out to hide something? I suggest that we adopt an altogether different picture of the genre

of Contempl. than the one given in the straightforward answer. The new

genre is one that for want of a better term I shall call "utopian fan-

tasy done for a serious purpose". In ancient terms, as we shall see in

a momcnt, such a genre would fall under that of a plastheis mythos, a

fabricated story or, for short, fiction ( plasma)-as opposed to an alithinos

logos, that is, true history. Let us try to situate this genre as it may have appeared in Philo's

time to a rcflective person like Philo himself. I begin from Philo's

revered hero Plato and one of his dialogues most highly favoured by Philo, the Timaeus. From there we shall move down to Philo's own

time and consider two passages, the first in Josephus and then one in

Lucian. Independently of each other they are evidence that there was

felt to be a genre of utopian fantasy and that it was seen to be prob- lcmatic in a way that is directly relevant for the manner in which (on the present hypothesis) Philo constructed his own case of precisely that.

First the Timaeus. It is well known how much time and care Plato

spends over the many introductory pages of this dialogue on explain-

ing the specific character of a certain story about prehistorical Athens

that Kritias recounts. It derives, Kritias claims, from Solon, who had

heard it from certain priests in Egypt when he travelled there. A num-

ber of points are relevant here.

(a) Socrates intends to take "yesterday's" (that is, the Republic's) account

of the ideal state and its citizens further by seeing how that state will

act in practice (19b-c). But for that purpose both Socrates and Kritias

6 E.g. this (from Opif.): "neither poet nor speechwriter," "a venture must be made," "nothing from our own store" (I am grateful to David Runia for having drawn my attention to this passage).

44

feel the need to "find a suitable story on which to base" what they want to say (X6yov wva 1tpÉ1tov-ca ioi5 [3ov?,?jpawv 1m08Écr8at, 26a5-6). Kritias believes that he has found one in the Solonic story (25c4-5). And Socrates later confirms that that story will suit their purpose

(26el-5). The point is that the best way to discuss abstract questions about the ideal state and its citizens is, so Plato suggests, by means of

a story (a logos, 21 c5-6).

(b) However, what makes Solon's story suitable is also the fact that

it was actually true. That is how Kritias introduces it.' And that, he

claims, is part of the reason why it may serve its purpose,s a claim

with which Socrates again concurs. Here is Socrates on Solon's story as recalled by Kritias: "it is a great point in its favour that it is not

fiction (a plastheis mythos) but true history (an alithinos logos)" (26c4-5).

(c) In spite of this, Plato goes out of his way to signal to his reader

that of coursc Solon's story is not "true history"- for instance, in Socrates'

concluding remark (26e4-5, just quoted) and when he has Kritias say the following: "when you were describing your society and its inhabit-

ants yesterday, I was rcminded of this story and noticed with astonish-

ment how closely, by .some miraculous chance (91C nvoç your account

coincided with Solon's" (25e4-5)! What we havc here are the following elements: (x) a story, jj designed

for the purpose of describing an ideal state and its citizens as acting, that is, as "engaging in some of the activities for which they appear to

be formed" ( 19b8-c 1-compare the actual content of Contempl.), (z) claimed (falsely) for that purpose to be historically but also

implicitly acknowledged as a piece of fiction, a plastheis mythos of thc

kind that Plato notoriously delighted in creating. Understood as under

x, y and z, Kritias' story is a case of utopian fantasy-though obvi-

ously engaged in for serious purposes. The proposal I am exploring is

that Contempl. too should be understood as under x, y and z-but not

under v. In contrast with Plato, I suggest, Philo did not intend to pro- vide any implicit acknowledgement that he was himself a main factor

behind his account.

That requires some explanation, which we may obtain from Josephus. In a fascinating passage in Against Apion (2.220-224), Josephus argues that the Jewish people has put into practice what Greeks would only

7 Cf. 20d7-8: "very strange, but in all respects true;" and 21a4-5: "this unrecorded yet authentic achievement of our city." 8 Cf. 26c7-d1 : "we will transfer the imaginary citizens and city which you described yesterday to the real world," namely by means of that story.

45

consider distant ideals. I translate the vital sections. "Suppose our peo-

ple (ethnos) and our voluntary obedience to our laws (nomoi) had not

happened to be known to the whole world as a patent fact; suppose instead that someone delivered a lecture (&v(xytv6aKp-tv) to the Greeks

which he admitted (stated, to having himself (alr6q) composed

(6vyypayrat)-or indeed kept saying insisted) that somewhere

outside the known world he had fallen in with certain people who held such sublime ideas about God and had for ages continued

steadily faithful to such laws (as ours), they would all, I am sure, have

marvelled at it (0avpGaai, that is, reacted Aith incredulity) ... In fact,

people accuse those who have attempted to write up (yp6cxV(xt) something similar with a view to a constitution and a code of laws of having invented things that are beyond belief (9av?aaia: they arc just too mar-

vellous !), and they insist (cpa6xetv) that such people have based their

account on impossible premisses (å8úva-cot Other philosophers I pass over, who have treated such a theme in their writings (ypGppara, or-with an alternative reading-compositions, avyyp6ppara, cf. 6vy-

yp6yai above), but Plato ..."

This passage gives us the following points:

( 1 ) For the purpose of discussing themes like those indicated by

Josephus (constitutions, laws, a people's relationship with God), some

people would themselves write a narrative whose fictitious character

they would not attempt to conceal. Here belong a number of philoso-

phers, including Plato. Other people would tell fanciful stories about

their travels to far-away places. The first genre we already know from

Plato, from the Timaeus but of course also from his Republic and else-

where. But as Josephus states, Plato was not alone. Another example would be the utopian sketch of an ideal society made by Zeno, the

founder of stoicism, in his own Republic.9 The second genre is that of

the "marvellous tale" (paradoxologoumenon).'o It had its roots far back in

the Greek imagination (compare, e.g., the many fanciful tales in

Herodotus) but flourished in the period after Alexander's conquest of

the Orient. As an example one might cite the account given by the

enigmatic lambulus (possibly 2nd century BC) of his stay in a far-away

9 For analyses of this see A. Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action (London 1990) 18-27, M. Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge 1991) 3-56, D. Dawson, Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought (New York/Oxford 1992) 160-22.

10 Compare the entry by J.R. Morgan on "fantastic literature" in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. 1996). On Hellenistic "paradoxographies" in general see E. Gabba, "True History and False History in Classical Antiquity," JRS 71 (1981) 50-62.

46

place (somewhere like Sri-Lanka) and the strange people he met there." 1

Modern interpreters have disagreed on whether such stories should be

understood as having a character as ancient utopias with a serious,

quasi-philosophical intent." Our passage in Josephus settles this ques- tion. He, at least, took them to have that. The vital point here is that

Josephus saw the two genres as being very closely connected in spite of the difference with regard to the truth-claim made in either. Both

might serve for exploring an ideal, utopian state. Both are cases of

utopian fantasy done for a scrious purpose.

(2) Josephus also shows that the reaction to either genre would often

be the same. Peoplc would say that the stories (whether ackowledged to be fictive or claimed to be true) were "beyond belief," as we should

clearly translate 8au?acr-cá here. People might even become quite tech-

nical and say that the stories were based on "impossible prcmisses"- with a curious anticipation of modern arguments within the field off

"possible world semantics."

(3) However, so Josephus claims, all these problems may be put

safely aside in the present case. For with the Jews it is not a matter

of any fictive account (whether acknowledged to be so or not). Here

it is sheer fact!

Now supposc Philo wanted to tell a story (cf. x above) for the pur-

pose of describing an ideal state and its citizens in action (cf. y). Suppose he also wanted to say that that ideal state was one to which only one

actual people in the world, the Jewish onc, could be said to be aspir-

ing. In that case, it would not be attractive for him to present it as

his own creation in the manner of Plato (Josephus' first possibility). For people might thcn rcspond with the "impossible premisses" reac-

tion and decline to accept that the ideal picture had anything to do

with thc Jewish people in particular. Nor would it make sense for him

to locate his ideal state beyond the boundaries of the known world.

For what relationship would it then have with the Jews? The only choice he would be left with is this: to present his idcal state as a his-

11 In Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History 2.55-60. 12 See, for instance, the discussion by W.-W. Ehlers, "Mit dem Südwestmonsun nach

Ceylon, Eine Interpretation der lambul-Exzerpte Diodors," Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft, N.F. 11 (1985) 73-84. Ehlers rejects any kind of utopian interpre- tation of this text, taking it instead to be just a "literary account of a travel of dis- covery" comparable with those of Pytheas, Ctesias and Megasthenes ("Sudwestmonsun," 84). The way he gets around all the "marvellous" elements in lambulus' account ("Sudwestmonsun," 80-81) is not convincing.

47

torical fact (cf. z) without admitting its fictitious character (cf. to locate it within the confines of the known world. That, on the pre- sent hypothesis, is what Philo did in Contempl.

An important premiss in this line of reasoning was the claim about

a change in the likely reaction to utopian fantasy between Plato and

Philo's day. A passage in Lucian supports this picture. In his treatise

A True Story, Lucian refers (1.2) to the poets prose-writers (avy- and philosophers of old who have written up (cyi)yyp6yp-tv) much

that smacks of miracles and fables (icp&6iLa xai One is Ctesias

of Cnidus (end of 5th century Bc) and another our well-known Iambulus

(1.3). Lucian does not himself wish to criticize such people for having lied since he claims to have noticed that "this was already a common practice even among men who profess philosophy"-appar-

ently, as the scholiast takes it, a slap at Plato's Republic. 13 He did won-

der, though, "if (Ei) they thought they could write untruths (OÙK åÀr¡8fl) and not get caught at it" (1.4).

Note how writers of far-away miracles and fables are here lumped

together with philosophers engagcd in reflection on the ideal state. Note

also how Lucian distances himself from what he merely sees as enter-

taining forms of lying and expresses his wonder if these authors (really)

thought that they could go undetected when writing up plain untruths.

As in Josephus, the basic issue had now become that of truth (fact) or

falsity (fiction) instead of the actual content of the fantasy. If Philo was

writing in a similar climate, it is entirely reasonable that he should

have chosen to make his own case of utopian fantasy appear as close

to historical fact as at all possible. No genial smile here of the Platonic

Socrates. No covert acknowledgement that the story is not literally true.

Still, on the present hypothesis Philo's account would in fact be just as much of a plastheis mythos as the one in the Timaeus that Plato had

more or less overtly acknowledged to be just that.

Seen in this light, the straightforward reading of the first paragraph of Contempl. appears altogether naive. A far more devious one is required. What Philo is up to will now be this: to make room for his own exer-

cise of utopian fantasy and preferably without being detected. If he has

in fact gone undetected, then, as one might say, he has been success-

ful. But of course it is not necessarily the task of critical scholarship to

let itself be duped by the material it intends to analyse.

13 See the Loeb edition ad loc.

48

For clarity's sake, it should be pointed out here that when I set up the choice between the straightforward and the devious answer to the

question of genre as one between fact and fiction, I include under

fiction the position of those relatively many scholars who claim that

although there may be some factual element to Philo's description, he

has also "idealized" his own account fairly extensively. Methodologically, I cannot see that there is any possibility of choosing between that

hypothesis and the one according to which it is all fiction. Nor do I

think that we should deplore this. After all, whether there were people a little bit like Philo's therapeutai or not does not seem to matter much.

Method: an argument from maximal coherence

Which understanding of Contempl. should we choose? And does it really matter whether we understand it in one way or the other? The latter

question I shall reserve for the end. As regards the former, if some

form of the question of fact or fiction has actually been in the back-

ground of most discussions of the work during the last 100 years and

more, is there any hope that it can at all be answered? Is there any chance of advancing on what has already been said? The only possi- ble way must be via some form of methodological progress. Let it first

be clear that there can of course be no proof in the matter. This means

that any proposal will to some extent rely on intuitions as to what is

more or less likely. This is notoriously frail ground. Can some method-

ological consideration improve on that situation?

Here is the strategy I shall adopt. Based on the initial hypothesis that

Contempl. is in all essentials a piece of fiction, I shall engage in as much

close literary reading of the text as at all possible with the aim of

unearthing some basic set of perspectives within which the text will

come out as being maximally coherent and to the point. Any particular

part or feature of the text that will not immediately fit into the pic- ture that is being developed should be repeatedly turned around to see

whether they can after all be seen to fit in. Of course, maximal coher-

ence is always a valid goal of reading. But there is a special reason

why this is particularly relevant here. The thought is that if the text

is basically factual it is intrinsically likely that it will be less coherent, less sharply focused on a restricted set of basic points-than if it is

fictional. If it turns out that some form of maximal coherence can in

fact be achieved, then that will itself lend support to seeing the text

as, in all essentials, fictional.

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One might seek for coherence of two kinds: internally, that is, within

the text itself taken as a more or less complete entity, and externally in relation to the rest of Philo's work. I have attempted to do both

things, but will restrict myself here to internal coherence. If the oper- ation proves successful, the fact that it is possible to achieve maximal

coherence when one adopts the hypothesis from which I start will be

taken as sufficient ground for issuing a challenge to fellow scholars to

go on applying the fiction hypothesis in further work on the treatise-

until it may turn out to break down. What the present strategy aims

to do is basically to set up a research programme for future work on

Contempl. The aim is to convince fellow scholars that the particular pro-

gramme I advocate is the one most likely to succeed.

The reason why it is necessary to adopt this rather elaborate approach is that one cannot merely rely in this case on a scholarly, unselfcon-

scious reading of the text. For the basic underlying perspective (fact or

fiction?) with which a scholar will initially approach the text will also

to a very large extent determine how he or she will read the actual

material. Here there really is the kind of radical shift in perspective that Wittgenstein illustrated with the famous drawing of a figure which

may be seen as the head of either a duck or a hare. 14 But we precisely do not wish merely to be left with an unacknowledged initial predilec- tion for either of two such strongly opposed perspectives. We also wish

to maintain the possibility of a genuine conversation about which per-

spective is the more rational one to apply. The notion of maximal

coherence provides the handle for settling this question, but only, as

it were, tentatively. That is why the proposal has the character of a

challenge to engage in a specific research programme, and not of a

final truth-claim. We can never know. But we can hopefully do enough shared reading to make it clearly more likely that one or the other

perspective will constitute the better approach.

Structural puzzles

There arc a number of puzzling features of structure in the way Philo's

story unfolds.

(a) The first major part of Contempl. runs as far as § 21, where Philo's

Mareotic therapeutai are finally introduced. Can we see some coherent

point to the long stretch of text between the initial unspecified mention

14 Philosophical Investigations 2.xi.

50

of the therapeutai (1-2) and the moment when Philo closes in on his

own therapeutai? What strikes one at first is rather a number of puz-

zling features.

It is noteworthy that §§ 3-20 contains two cases of a phenomenon which plays a major structural role in the work: synkrisis (comparison,

3). In the first (3-9), Philo compares the therapeutai and therapeutrides who

constitute his theme with other people--Greeks in various forms and

Egyptians-who "profess piety (eusebeia)" (3 init.). These he ends up

declaring to be in fact "incurable" (atherapeutoi, I I)-with a nicc pun on

the double meaning he has already given (2) to the title of therapeulai and therapeutrides, who both worship (therapeuein) the true deity and are

also able to provide a better cure (therapeuein) of all ills, psychic no less

than bodily, than any art of healing in the cities. But what, then, is

the point of this comparison with people who do not, after all, belong under Philo's topic?

The second .rynkrisis (14-16) compares thc manner in which the true

therapeutai and therapeutrides will leave their property (13) with the manncr

adopted by such venerated Greek sages as Anaxagoras and Dc:mocritus.

The latter are criticized because they just left their property behind

instead of doing the only proper thing of handing it over to their rel-

atives. But why is that the proper thing to do if, as Philo immediately

goes on to say (16), possessions are not at all beneficial since they need

to be taken care of and that consumes timc?

We should also note the peculiar way in which Philo closes in on

his own therapeutai in 21. He has spoken earlier (1 1) of a therapeutikon

genos, a certain general category of people, and he now states that this

genos (21) is found all over the world, both in Greece and in barbarian

lands, "but even more so in Egypt," "in each of the so-called nomes---

and in particular around Alexandrian." If, as becomes increasingly clear, Philo's real topic is in fact only his own Mareotic therapeutai, why then

does he introduce them in such a roundabout way? The best answer appears to be that Philo both wishes to connect

his own therapeutai, who with increasing emphasis throughout the treat-

ise turn out to be distinctly Jewish, with religious people and sages from other parts of the civilized world-and also to set them apart from them. The others are comparable to varying degrees, those who

profess piety distinctly less so, sages like Anaxagoras and Democritus

perhaps slightly more so. But they all fall short of the perfection that

is only to be found in Philo's own therapeutai, the Jewish ones. In the

light of this strategy, it does not really matter that Philo's criticism of

51

Anaxagoras and Democritus is inconsistent on his own premisses. What

matters is not facts about Greeks and others, but making Philo's own

Jewish therapeutai stand out as masters in a field in which the Greeks

too had aspirations. The same pattern may be observed in another synkrisis later in the

work (57-63). When Philo here compares the symposia described by

Xenophon and Plato with "those of our people who embrace the con-

templative life" (58), he notoriously grossly misrepresents Plato's Symposium in particular, using it among other things as a stepping-board for a

violent attack on Greek pederasty. But first, Philo generally reveres

Plato and the amount oC implicit Platonism in the work itself is very extensive.' And second, the particular criticism of sexual sterility that

Philo advances against the pederasts-that their sexual life will lead to

depopulation-would certainly also apply to his own therapeutai, who

have no sexual lifc whatever. Once more, the point is the obvious one

that Philo aimed to take, as he himself says, "two celebrated and highly notable examples of symposia held in Greece" that Xenophon and

Plato had even described in order that thcy might "serve to posterity as models of the happily conducted symposium" (57)- and then show

that the symposia held by his own therapeutai were in fact far better.

Relative to such an aim, inconsistencies that were rhetorically not

allowed to surface and even gross misrepresentations of Philo's revered

master, Plato, did not really matter. The Greeks had something com-

parable (and they of course had all the ideas that Philo relies on, cf.

e.g. 16-17-and passim, see below), but what Philo was able to intro-

duce was something better, in fact the genuine practice of those ideas.

(b) Since we have already touched on the synkrisis sections of the

treatise, we may as well emphasize here the huge importance of these

sections in the flow and structure of the text. This comes out with

overwhelming clarity in the very long set of synkriseis, which Philo him-

self also calls contrasts (cf. antitaxai in 40 and 64), that take up §§ 40-

63 by way of introducing the account of the great feast held by the

therapeutai every fiftieth day. Taking up almost half of that account, which is itself introduced at § 40 init. and concluded in § 89, they con-

tain detailed descriptions of the repulsive symposia of Greeks, Romans

and barbarians (cf. 48). Even the slightest acquaintance with literary

theory (no matter of which branch) will immediately put a ban on

15 Cf. David M. Hay, "Things Philo Said and Did Not Say About the Therapeutae," SBLSPS 31 (1992) 673-683, esp. 678.

52

neglecting the importance of these sections in the structural flow of the

treatise. And the practice of translating only those portions of Contempl. which directly describe the therapeutai-e.g. in a comparison with the Essenes and Qumran-should be felt to be taboo.'? But what is the

purpose of these extended .synkrisis sections?

(c) Following on § 21, the next major part, §§ 22-39, describes the

life of the therapeutai up to the point when Philo with much emphasis

(cf. 40: "I wish also to ...") turns to describing their great fiftieth day feast. The account given in §§ 22-39 is slightly awkward in one respect. It has two parts, §§ 22-33 and 34-39, with the latter returning and

even explicitly referring back to the former (38 to 24). The first part focuses on the study engaged in by the therapeutai. A description of the

place where they live (22-23) and how their houses arc situated (24)

gives rise to a description of the individual houses, focusing on the

sanctuary (semneion) and holy cubicle (monastirion, 25) where the lonely inhabitants are engaged in various types of solitary study (25-29). This

life of individual study occupies six days of the week. On the seventh

the therapeutai "come together as for an assembly" (30) and listen, care-

fully and intently, to a further round of study in the form of a lecture

given by an expert (31). This gives rise to a further description of a

building, the shared sanctuary (semneion), and of how it is able to accom- modatc both men and women (32-33). This is the first reference to

women among the therapeutai, though it has been prepared for by the

reference to therapeutai and therapeutrides in § 2. The focus, however, remains on their study. For the specific detail of architecture on which

Philo focuses (a wall that separates the two sexes) has to do with the

possibility of shared, but unmixed study. We have now moved from the six days (stage 1 in the life of the

therapeutai) to the seventh day (stage 2). But then comes the second part (34-39). Now Philo's theme is different: the attitude of the therapeutai to

ordinary material goods, in particular food (34-37) and one form of

shelter, clothing (38). That attitude is one of enkrateia (self-control), and

Philo sums up his account here in a principled statement about the

simplicity (atyphia) that they practise in all such matters (39). In this

account he has gone back to the six days (stage 1) to describe when

the therapeutai take food: if at all, then at least during the night, but

16 I am referring to G. Vermes, M. Goodman, The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (Sheffield 1989) 75-99, who include only §§ 1-2, 11-40 and 64-90 (though admit- tedly in an appendix).

53

some only after three days of study and others not before they all meet

again on the seventh day (34-35). It is this change of theme and the

concomitant return to stage 1 that together generate Philo's slightly awkward reference back to what he has already said some time ago about a second form of shelter: housing (38 and 24).

The structural awkwardness can teach us something about the aims

of the text. Clearly, what Philo wishes to emphasize most are the activ-

ities that constitute the whole point of the therapeutic form of life: the

various forms of study (the6ria). Once that has been settled, he aims to

focus on what was traditionally, and quite intelligibly, taken to consti-

tute the foremost hindrance to those activities, namely material or bodily needs and the handling of the goods that would fulfil those needs. Here

he brings in the enkrateia of the therapeutai as a sort of "foundation of

their soul," on which they "build the other virtues" (34 init.). We may note for later use that Philo's account of the two sides to

the life of the therapeutai (study and handling of material goods) involves

an intriguing play between what they do during the day and during the night. On the six days, they study during the day and eat, if at

all, during the night. On the seventh, they both study and eat during

daytime. Philo goes out of his way to explain this: having provided for

the soul, they also refresh the body by giving it some form of release

from its continuous labour (36). And of course, what they do eat is

nothing costly but only the barest necessaries of life (37): water, bread

with salt and for some a bit of hyssop. Still, is there some rationale to

the change from night to day-for instance, that they are alone during the six days but together on the seventh?

(d) At § 40 Philo turns to describe the "cheerful pastimes" of the

therapeutai during their symposia-stage 3 in their lives. With regard to

this second half of the treatise, we may note one more puzzling feature

of a structural kind. For what we gct is to all intents and purposes an

expanded repetition of what took place on the gathering on the seventh

day, with only a few exceptions. One of these (the dancing) is admit-

tedly a major one, on which see below. But otherwise it is basically

expanded repetition. There is an account of the order in which they recline (67)-compare on the seventh day (30). There is a reference to

the participation of women (68)-compare on the seventh day (32-33). There is an account of the way in which the President lectures to them

(76-77, 79)-compare on the seventh day (31); and how they listen to

the lecture (77, 79)-compare on the seventh day (31). Finally, the food

that they eat is the same (73-74, 81-82-with 37).

54

The extent of expanded repetition should make us pause. We have

daily study at stage 1, further shared study at stage 2 and even more

shared study at stage 3. What does the specific element of expansion in these descriptions add to what might otherwise mercly be the same

thing ovcr and over again? Conversely, to the cxtcnt that there are in

fact also differences between what happens at the three stages, what

light do these differences throw on the form of life of the therapeutai as

a whole? For instance, at stage 1 there is no eating during the day. At stage 2 there is. At stage 3 there is also eating, in principle of the

same kind as at stage 2-but here too there is dancing. What do these

developments show us about the point of the therapeutic form of life?

(e) Finally, we should notice the structural relationship between

the long section of synkrisis and antitaxis that takes up §§ 40-63 and the

account of thc symposia of the therapeutai themselves in §§ 64ff. The

long list of specific negative features that Philo mentions in the former

section sheds a great deal of light on the details of his account in the

latter. Indeed, there are very close counterparts here. On the negative side there is a long and formidable section on the effects of immod-

erate drinking of unmixed wine (40-47). This is counterbalanced by the

account of the therapeutai, who having "drunk in the Bacchic rites of

the unmixed wine of God's love" (85) conclude their feast with a drunk-

enness that make them "more alert and wakeful than when they came

to the banquet" (89). There is also a negative account of the outfit of

different types of slaves at the new, trendy Italian-style symposia (50-

52). This is counterbalanced by the moving description of the servants

at the great feast of the therapeutai, who are not even slaves (since the

therapeutai consider the ownership of servants to be entirely against

nature) but young free men who of their own free will have accepted to perform this task on their way towards reaching the summit of virtue

(70-72). Finally, there is the violent critique that we notcd of Greek

pederasty as contrasted with the chastity of the therapeutai that is ex-

plicitly mentioned for the women among them (68) and celebrated in

a striking manner at the dancing that consummates the sacred vigil

( pannychis, 83-89) with which the great feast ends.

Clearly, Philo has constructed his negative account of the non-Jewish

symposiastic practices with a sharp eye on their positive counterpart at

the great feast of the therapeutai. Or should we rather say the other way round? Has Philo constructed his account of the therapeutai as a utopian-

style comment on the devious practices of his own day? One thing is

at least clear: there is a tight literary and structural construction here

which no careful rcader can afford to neglect.

55

A structuralist solution: Pierre Bourdieu and Philo's basic scheme

The literary analysis we have pursued so far has only scratched the

surface. We have noted some more or less striking structural features

of the treatise, but also becn somewhat puzzled by others. We have

got nowhere near to a comprehensive grasp of its overall theme. To

do that we need another approach. However, is that really necessary? Would it not suffice to bring in

the whole set of abstract, Greek philosophical terms with which Philo

spiccs his account of the therapeutai throughout the treatise'? There can

be no doubt that Philo did see the life of the therapeutai in the light of

this more or less coherent set of terms. They constitute a comprehen- sive framework that give meaning and shape to the therapeutic form

of life. It will be enough to list the most important of these various

concepts here in telegraphic style: practice and theory ( etc.); philoso-

phers (2 etc.); passions and vices (2, 6); nature and laws (2); God as a

technician (4) and a demiurge (5); sight of the soul (10, cf. 31); the

role of the senses (10-1 1 , 27); happiness (11); habit or exhortation (12); to do something of one's own free will (13); the handling of wealth

(14, 16, also 17: nature's wealth); inequality, injustice; equality, justice

(1 7); the lures of habit (18); freedom (19); the perfect good (21); sim-

plicity (24 etc.); fellowship (24); things necessary for the needs of the

body (25, 34 etc.); knowledge and piety (25); growth and perfection

(25); dream-images (26); askêsis (28); self-control (34); atyphia etc. (39);

courage (60); kalokagathia (72); anamnists (78, by implication); citizens of

the kosmos (90); virtue, God's friendship etc. (90). This is all quite

explicit and in fact rather overwhelming. Is it not enough to give full

and adequate meaning to the form of life described by Philo in the

treatise?

Both yes and no. Yes, in the sense that Philo has certainly given his reader a full and comprehensive conceptual framework within which

to see the life of the therapeutai. Anybody who knows this traditional set

of concepts from its use within the ancient ethical tradition will imme-

diately know what the life of the therapeutai is basically about. But also

in an important sense no. For what will a life of theoria actually look

like in concrete practice? Human beings are what they are. How then

will a life of thed7ia, which certainly does not pay an equal and undivided

attention to all sides of the human being, handle them all in concrete

practice? The answer cannot be given by merely rehearsing the abstract

set of concepts. First, they are precisely abstract and so cannot fulfil

the need for a more concrete sense of what living the life of theoria

56

would actually be like-as it were the feel of it. Second, their abstract

character does not allow the possible complexities to become clear that

may arise when they are put into practice. Thus there is an impor- tant need to try to imagine the life of the6ria in concrete terms, to think

about what theoria practised in a concrete form of life would actually look like. That, I suggest, is what Philo set out to do in Contempl.

But that, then, also requires a different type of analysis of the treat-

ise than the one that merely recalls the abstract philosophical system

underlying it. To help us here I shall bring in a few ideas derived from

the early structuralism of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. I am

very far from aiming to adopt a "structuralist method" proper. Instead, I wish to draw on certain perspectives in Bourdieu that will be help- ful in illuminating a number of features in Contempl. itself.

At the beginning of his career in the late 1950's, Bourdieu did soci-

ological and anthropological research in Algeria. This resulted in a

stream of publications in the 1960's on various aspects of Algerian cul-

ture and society. One particularly famous article is "La maison Kabyle ou le monde renvers6" ("The Kabyle house or the world reversed"), written in 1963, but only published in 1970. Here Bourdieu gives an

exegesis of the cultural symbolism embodied in the domestic space of

the traditional house of the Berber (or Kabyle) peasant. 17 Let us begin with a quote, which clearly shows Bourdieu's structuralist roots: "A

vision of the world is a division of the world, based on a fundamental

principle of division which distributes all the things of the world into

two complementary classes. To bring order is to bring division, to

divide the universe into opposing entities."" Reflec.ting this principle, in his analysis of the Kabyle house Bourdieu was looking for binary

oppositions. But how were they to be organized? And were they in

fact all of the same type? In his analysis of the Kabyle house Bourdieu claimed that there was

one fundamental division that provided the sub-text, through processes of analogy and homology, for all the other binary classifications of the

system: the gender division.19 He also distinguished between two types of opposition: concrete, material ones and abstract, conceptual ones.

17 In the next few paragraphs I pick up some sentences from the analysis of Bourdieu's article given in R. Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu (London/New York 1992) 30-44.

18 Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Cambridge 1990) 210. 19 Bourdieu, "La maison Kabyle ou le monde renversé", in J. Pouillon, P. Maranda

(eds.), Échanges et communications: Mélanges offerts à Claude Lévi-Strauss à l'occasion de son 60ème anniversaire II, Studies in General Anthropology V/2 (The Hague/Paris 1970) 739-758,

57

Moreover, he argued that the oppositions that provided the basis for

drawing the other ones were the concrete and real ones. Up and down, back and front, left and right, hot and cold, for example, are all sen-

sible relations which presuppose the point of view of the embodied

person: they are, or reflect, "bodily dispositions."2° But these real (or

natural) features also become arbitrary (or cultural) since they may- and in fact invariably do-symbolize and refer to the whole abstract, cultural order of a society's values and interpretive morality, which is

itself also organized in the form of binary oppositions. With this em-

phasis on the concrete, material oppositions and the point of view of the

embodied participant in the cultural scene under investigation, Bourdicu

clearly aimed to give a basically materialist reading of symbolism and

classification, in which culture is rooted in the necessarily physical em-

bodiments of its producers: men and women.

We need not take over everything in this general approach of Bourdieu

in order to see that it is highly relevant to analysing Contempl. As we

saw, Philo had at his disposal a large number of received, abstract

terms that together went into a logical, philosophical system. But what

he wanted to do was to show these terms being put to use in practice, to show them being acted out-exactly in the way Plato aimed in the

Timaeus to present his ideal state in "acting practice." Philo wanted to

give a description of a concrete form of life in which those abstract

terms were given flesh and blood. Of course, in Philo's case it looks

vcry much as if the form of life was generated (whether historically or

in Philo's description of it) by the system of abstract terms as an attempt to put that into practice. But if, as Bourdieu suggests, practice is always in some way primary, it is worth looking at Philo's description to scc

whether, as Bourdieu also suggested, there are oppositions in the account

of the practice which may be seen as a sub-text for all the others, both

the other practical ones and also those abstract distinctions that make

up the logical, philosophical system. It might be that there is an inter-

esting relationship between the received philosophical system of terms

and the story of a set of practices that Philo is giving in Contempl., pos-

sibly even a relationship of the kind Bourdieu envisaged where the

esp. 748. English language versions in Social Science Information 9 (1970) 151-70; Mary Douglas (ed.), Rules and Meanings (Harmondsworth 1973) 98-110 (abridged); Bourdieu, The Logic 271-83.

20 Cf. Bourdieu, "La maison," 756. This clearly prefigures Bourdieu's later concept of habitus.

58

primary role is allotted to the practices as reflecting embodied dispo- sitions of embodied people.

In Bourdieu's own case the material to be analysed was the ground-

plan and layout of the Kabyle housc. In Philo the material is partly

topographical too (where and how the therapeutai live and meet), but

we may generalize it to be the actual set of practices that go into

Philo's description of what the therapeutai were doing when and where and

together with whom. If we apply Bourdieu's structuralist strategy of

looking for binary oppositions in this material, can we find either a

single basic one or a small set of oppositions that will hold all the

others together? I suggcst the following basic sets.

There is first a framing set:

City Outside the city

Then there is the following set, which of course falls under the fram-

ing category "outside the city:"

Six days of the week The seventh day Every fiftieth day Study during day/ Study during day/ Study during day/ eating at night plus eating during day plus eating during day/

plus dancing at night Solitude Fellowship but Fellowship and

division between unification of men and women men and women

Looking at this set, we can see that it is made up of the two binary

oppositions between day and night and solitude and a ,fellowship that unites

men and women. This identification follows Philo's own description fairly

closely. He begins by telling about what the therapeutai do during the

day and in solitude and only later recounts what they do during the

night and when being together. To get the basic set of oppositions in

the abstract, however, we must bring in also the framing contrast. Then

the basic set becomes a contrast between night connected with life in the

city and day connected with life outside the ciry. Seen in this light we can make striking sense of the development and

dynamism represented by the three stages of the life of the therapeutai. For we must add one contrast to the two just given. With night and

life in the city we also have what we may call non-solitude. The best

example of this is contained in Philo's description of what takes place at the customary symposia in the city (40-47). They occur explicitly

59

during the night (42) and are obviously non-solitude events inasmuch

as people will fight with one another in the ways so graphically described

by Philo. What we have on the other side, then, is day and life outside

the city which begins in distinct solitude (stage 1), but gradually develops

(stage 2) into a unified fcllowship (stage 3) in such a way that the soli-

tude is overcome. In other words, the solitude of stage 1, which at first

appeared as constituting the contrast with nightly life in the city, is only to be understood as an intermediate step which leads on to, and via its

incipient removal at stage 2 makes altogether possible, the unified fellow-

ship of stage 3. Basically, then, we move from non-solitude via solitude

to a kind of fellowship at stage 3 which is as far as could be from life

in the city.

Details in support

The picture I have given of the basic, comprehensive point of Contempl.

explains a whole range of additional features in Philo's description adding up to twenty in all. In spite of their difference in character and

importance, I shall list them consecutively. (i) The picture explains the

step from the separation of men and women on the seventh day to

their unification at the great feast. Right at the beginning (stage 1) men

and women are entirely separated, inasmuch as each is occupied in

his or her own house. Then they come together (stage 2) but are sepa- rated by a wall. At the end, however (stage 3), they sing and dance

together, first in two separate choirs, one for men and one for women

(83-84), and then (85-89) in a single choir-when "having drunk as in

the Bacchic rites of the unmixed wine of God's love they mix and

become a single choir out of the two" (85). (ii) It also explains the fact

that the singing at the great feast begins in the form of individual singing with the others listening and merely joining in for the closing lines or

refrains (80). Here the move from the solitude of stage 1 is somehow

recapitulated. (iii) The basic picture also explains a point that puzzled us, that at stages 2 and 3 the therapeutai turn to eating during the day, whereas at stage 1 eating took place, if at all, during the night. What

all this seems to be about is overcoming the dangers connected with food and

gender, dangers that to begin with required that the consumption of

food be relegated to the night (stage 1) and that fellowship between

men and women be regulated by a wall (stage 2). Gradually the dangers arc eliminated, overcomc, indeed sublimated. And the result is that

60

food may now be taken during the day and men and women may even dance together in a single choir.

This comprehensive picture is supported by a number of details, some more central than others. (iv) A central one is that the final

unification of men and women takes place at night during the sacred

vigil. Night and all that it stands for has now been finally conquered.

(v) Note also that Philo specifically refers to the alternative Bacchic drunk-

enness in the quotation given above. Here all the characteristics of an

ordinary Bacchic state as described in §§ 40-47 in the nightly rcvelries

of the customary city symposia have been overcome. (vi) One may also

notice the specific manner in which the therapeutai end their vigil the

next morning. They stand with their faces and whole body turned to the

east (89). This again shows that all dangers connected with the body have now been overcome. The whole body is now ready to receive the

first rays of the sun. (vii) Here too one may fit in the rather striking and extensive account Philo gives (86-87) of the single choir that was

formed at the Red Sea when the Israelites had been saved from the

Egyptians. As commentators note, in Philo Egyptians often stand for the

passions. Thus victory over the passions is part of what the therapeutai celebrate at the great feast. Howcver, Philo's symbolism scems some-

what more specific. In his account of the event at the Red Sea he

stresses first the separation of the waves and next their coming together

again. It is the latter event that gives rise to the formation of a single choir that sang hymns of thanksgiving to God their Saviour (87). It

seems difficult not to connect this with the dangers inherent in sexual

discourse. The separation of the waves (and the two sexes) help to elim-

inate those dangers and the coming together again of the waves (and the two sexes) celebrates that the dangers are overcome in a meeting of the two sexes that has by now been sublimated to take place at an

altogether different level.

Other details that fit in with the comprehensive picture belong to

the description of the therapeutai at stage 1. As we should expect, these

details bring out the intermediary character of that stage. We may note

some of them very briefly. (viii) There is, the placement of their houses:

in solitude, but also so closely together that they point to some form of

fellowship (24). (ix) There is the point that the purpose of their daily

study is that their knowledge and piety be enhanced and perfected (25). Indeed, their activity during the day is explicitly said to be a form of

training (askêsis, 28). (x) And there is the striking fact that even the

dreams of at least some of them-and dreams of course occur during

61

the night-are holy (26)-but that they also need to pray for such

dreams (27). Other details that fit in concern the basic framing set, the opposi-

tion between life in and outside the city. (xi) The description of how

the therapeutai leave the city and all that it stands for (18-20) of course

serves to make this opposition explicit. (xii) The vivid descriptions of the

contrast in style between lecturing and listening among the therapeutai and in the cities serves to keep this opposition alive (31, 76-77, 79).

(xiii) Also, the willingness of the therapeutai to give up their possessions- the first practical step that they take-is developed by Philo (16-20) in

a manner that contrasts it explicitly with life in the city. That willing- ness gives them a freedom (1 9) which explains why they leave the cities

altogether instead of merely exchanging one master for another. (xiv)

Furthermore, neglect of all anxious thought for the means of life and

for money-making-activities that precisely belong in the cities-- -means

that they value equality, as opposed to the inequality of trying to get more material goods for oneself, and consequently also justice rather

than injustice (17). This explains features that are only developed much

later when they come to full fruition during the great feast: (xv) the

practical equality of women and men as celebrated during the sacred

vigil and (xvi) the abolishment of slavery that Philo also mentions in

connection with the great feast (70-72). The contrast here with the

description of slaves, even various types of slaves, at the dainty city sym-

posia (50-52) could hardly be starker.

Two more, connected details may be seen to fit in with the com-

prehensive picture. (xvii) There is first the description in § 12 of how

the therapeutai come to take the first important step in their exodus.

They do not merely "follow custom or the advice and admonition of

others, but are carried away by a heaven-sent passion of love" and so

remain "rapt and possessed like Bacchic worshippers or corybants until

they see the object of their yearning." What Philo is describing here is

clearly a conversion. But it contains the special feature that it ends in

a vision of the (final) object of their yearning, probably God. The idea

seems to be that at the beginning of the process that is being initiated,

they somehow already experience what they will end up experiencing- in practice and for good. This ties together everything in the text

between this initial individual experience (12) and their final, shared

greeting of the sun after the sacred vigil (89). 1 he developmental or dynamic feature of Philo's account is very strong. (xviii) Connected with this is

Philo's description of how they move from their conversion to taking

62

the first practical step of giving up their possessions: since they "long for the deathless and blessed life", they believe they have "already ended their mortal life" (13 init.). Once more Philo has sketched in a

single phrase the gradual, practical development that is described in

the rest of the trcatise. The therapeutic life as consummated at the

great feast is thc deathless and blessed life so far as human beings can

attain to this. It is a life that is no longer mortal. Till now I have presented a whole range of oppositions that all fit

into the basic set of oppositions that we formulated by drawing on

Pierre Bourdieu. There are also other binary oppositions, which are

not directly generated by the basic set, but stand out as independent ones. These too may be fittcd into the basic set. One example is Philo's

handling of the binary opposition between Greek, barbarian and Roman

on the one side and Jewish on the other. We already saw how Philo

partly uses this contrast to suggest that the Greek (and barbarian and

Roman) side belongs on the negative side of the basic contrast he is

operating with, partly that some Greeks may aftcr all be said to belong on the positive side, but without having gone far enough. Thus it is

not quite clear in the end where they do belong. (xix) It fits well with

this that Philo should begin by presenting the therapeutai as a general genos and not just a specific, Jewish group but then gradually draw

the lines together in such a way that only Philo's own therapeutai come

out as really qualifying for the title. (xx) In the light of this one can

also understand why Philo only gradually discloses that the therapeutai he has in mind are in fact distinctly Jewish. The initial determination

of the God they worship is fairly non-committal (2 fin.). So is the ref-

erence to their holy scriptures (28) and the writings of men of old (29) that they study. But when Philo introduces his comments on Xenophon and Plato as aiming to contrast the symposia described by these writ-

ers with those "of our people who have embraced the contemplative life" (58) and concludes his account by stating that "the disciples of

Moses" have been trained to look down with disdain upon the myth- ical stories (ta ton mythôn plasmata)z' that go into Plato's Symposium (63), then he is of course being far more definite. And the same is true

when he states that the therapeutai follow "the truly sacred instructions

21 Instead, Philo says, the disciples of Moses have been trained from their earliest years to love the truth (eran alêtheias)-in the way Philo himself does this in Contempl.?! At the very least, Philo's contrast here between mythôn plasmata and eros alêtheias is a quite clear reference back to the Plato whose use of the same contrast we encountered in the Timaeus. Note then how Philo is out to conceal the element of fiction in his own story whereas Plato employed the same contrast to reveal it (if only implicitly) in his.

63

of the prophet Moses" (64). Finally, the reference to the (Jerusalem)

temple (81-82) and the substantial, explicit references to the Red Sea

incident (85-89) merely serve to clinch the case. What matters here is

not so much Philo's complex attitude to the "Greeks" as the fact that

his comments on this particular topic, which constitutes a theme of its

own, may be seen to fit in closely with the basic drive that runs through the treatise. When the description of the therapeutai reaches its apogee at the end of the account of the great fcast, then such themes as the

relationship with Greek culture and the specifically Jewish identity of

Philo's therapeutai also receive their most explicit treatment.

Enough has been said to substantiate the claim that Contempl. has a

degree of literary coherence that is so developed that it may reason-

ably be called maximal. This will then also be cnough to vindicate my

proposal that the treatise is, in all essentials, fiction (a plastheis mythos)- at least with the extent of vindication that makes it reasonable to

challenge fellow scholars to pursue this hypothesis instead of the oppo- site one.

Conclusion: Philo and his therapeutai, not "the" therapeutai

Then the final question: does it really matter whether we understand

the work in one way or the other? Indeed it does. If we take Philo to

be writing what is, to some degree at least, an historical account, we

will take the feature of describing, that is, conveying information about, the therapeutai to be one important part of the meaning of the text-

certainly not the whole meaning, but still an important part. Conversely, if we take him to be writing what is basically a piece of fiction, thc

meaning will lie wholly in other areas than that of describing and con-

veying information. The text will now have to be taken as if it were

conveying information. And that situates what it does do in other types of speech act."

Now this will have very important consequences for how interpreters

may go about studying the text. If it is taken to be basically factual, there is a large number of interesting qucstions about the position of

the therapeutai within Judaism that one may raise and attempt to answer

in the light of our broader historical knowledge of ancient Judaism. This has been the general direction in which scholarship on the thera-

peutai has been going over the last more than hundred years once

22 I refrain from trying to specify here what these may be.

64

Philo's authorship had been settled .2' But if the text is, in all essen-

tials, fictional, scholars cannot-and must not-go on asking these ques- tions in just that form. It is the aim of this essay to argue that a block

should be put on all further scholarly attempts to push on along such

historically orientated lines.24 It will remain very important historically that Philo could conceive of a Jewish community like the one he describes. And that supposed fact may be used in a number of ways. But the most basic questions to be raised will now be about the relationship between Contempl. and the rest of Philo's work, more specifically what

particular point or points about the life of a Jew in Philo's own time

and place he is trying to express. Basically, the good scholarly questions will be about Philo and "his" therapeutai, not about "the" therapeutai.

They will not ask what more we may learn about lhem. I began work on Contempl. with the aim of analysing the treatise in

literary terms, viewing it, methodologically, as a "philosopher's dream. 1115 I gradually became convinced that the question of its genre is a central one. Thinking about this, I came across certain passages in Josephus and Lucian that revealed their sense of a genre of fiction which included

both utopian tracts of philosophers and paradoxical accounts of far-

away countries by mythographical historians. As a result of this and

of my internal analysis of the work itself, I came to the conclusion that

we should remove the methodological brackets and affirm that Contempl.. is, in the ways I have explained here, a philosopher's dream. The aim

of this essay has been to present this result as a challenge to future

scholarship on the work. 16

23 Riaud, "Les Thérapeutes," bears this out with overwhelming force. 24 As an example of this approach one might mention the paper David M. Hay

referred to in note 15. 25 The notion of a "philosopher's (utopian) dream" is derived from Plutarch, On the

Fortune or the virtue of Alexander. Having summarized the content of the famous Republic of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, Plutarch adds (329B): "This Zeno wrote, as it were sketching a dream (onar) or shadowy picture (eidôlon) of a philosopher's (conception of) good, lawful order (eunomia) and (the proper) political constitution ( politeia); but it was Alexander who added practice (ergon) to the idea (logos)." In the same way, Philo's Contempl. describes the practices of a philosopher's dream: the life of theôria.

26 I would like to acknowledge here my immense debt to Professor Johnny Christensen of Copenhagen University for a range of insights over the last decades on a large num- ber of topics within the field of classics and ancient philosophy. Long time ago, he first sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind concerning Contempl. He also graciously read an earlier version of this essay, pointing me, among other things, in the direction of Plato's Timaeus. He would probably not agree with everything in the essay in its present form. But whatever it may contain of value is no doubt partly due to him.