The village of therapeutai of Lake Mareotis as sacred and philosophical locus amoenus
Abstract
Philo of Alexandria's treatise De vita contemplativa describes the existence and lifestyle of an ascetic group of Jewish men and women called therapeutai and therapeutrides.The members of the group live a communal but secluded life in an idyllic landscape on the outskirts of Alexandria, near Lake Mareotis. They have settled in this place to escape from the environment of confusion and conflict of the urban world, trying to find the wisdom that provides a quiet life, dedicated to philosophy and divine service. At the same time, they also found here a peaceful existence away from the anti-Semitic harassment suffered in the metropolis, which would culminate in the general persecution of the year 38 AD. in Alexandria. In this article we intend to know this place and its characteristics as a locus amoenus, namely, as the right place for the development of an ascetic and philosophical way of life.
References
ANDRÉ,J. M. (1966): L’otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle romaine des origines à l’époque augustéenne, Presses Universitaires de France, París.
AUBERT, J. J. (2004): «Aux origines du canal de Suez? le canal du Nil à la mer Rouge revisité», dans M. CLAVEL-LÉVÊQUE - E. HERMON (dirs.) Espaces intégrés et ressources naturelles dans l’Empire romain. Actes du colloque de l’Université de Laval - Québec (5-8 mars 2003), Collection de l’Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l’Antiquité 939, Besançon, pp. 219-252.
BEAVIS, M. A. (2004): «Philo’s Therapeutai: Philosopher’s Dream or Utopian Construction?», Journal for the Study of the Pseudoepigrapha 14 (1): 30-42.
CALABI, F. (2013): Filone di Alessandria, Carocci, Roma.
CARDOSO BUENO, D. A. (2021): Filón de Alejandría: Los terapeutas o De vita contemplativa [Tesis doctoral], Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
CARDOSO BUENO, D. A. (2022a): «El tratado De vita contemplativa de Filón de Alejandría en el marco de la Pentalogía que le atribuye Eusebio de Cesarea», Gerión 40 (1): 153-178. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/geri.79294.
CARDOSO BUENO, D. A. (2022b): «Las omisiones de Filón en el tratado De vita contemplativa. Olvidos y silencios como estrategia de sublimación de la comunidad de los terapeutas de Alejandría», El Olivo 46/96: 47-70.
DANIÉLOU, J. (1962): Ensayo sobre Filón de Alejandría (trad. F. PÉREZ-EMBID), Taurus, Madrid.
ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, T. (1999): «Philo’s De vita contemplativa as a Philosopher’s dream», Journal for the Study of Judaism 30 (1): 40-64.
FERNÁNDEZ-GALIANO, D. (1993), «Un monasterio pitagórico: los terapeutas de Alejandría», Gerión 11: 245-270.
FERNÁNDEZ-GALIANO, D. (2011): Los Monasterios Paganos. La huida de la ciudad en el Mundo Antiguo, El Almendro, Córdoba.
FOUCAULT, M. (1987 [2002 (2010)]): Historia de la sexualidad. 3. La inquietud de sí (trad. T. SEGOVIA), Siglo XXI, México.
FRASER, P. M. (1972): Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
FRENKEL, D. (2005-2006): «Una visión del Egipto Ptolemaico según la Carta de Aristeas a Filócrates», Circe 10: 157-175.
GIMÉNEZ DE ARAGÓN, P. (2018): «Ignacio de Antioquía inventó el Cristianismo: Trajano y Adriano frente a los Cristianos», Arys 16: 289-332.
GUASCH-JANÉ, M.R.- FONSECA, S.-IBRAHIM, M.(2012):«“Irep En Kemet”Project:Creating the Corpus of Wine in Ancient Egypt», in Fourt International Euro-Mediterranean conference on Cultural Heritage and Digital Libraries, Amathus (Cyprus), October 29 November 3. International Journal of Heritage in the Digital Era, pp. 181-186. https://doi.org/10.1260/2047-4970.1.0.181.
HAAS, C. (1997): Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore-London,
HAY, D. M. (1992): «Values and Convictions of the Therapeutae: Things Philo Said and Did Not Say About the Therapeutae», in E. H. LOVERING (ed.), Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers, Series 31: 673-683, Scholar Press, Atlanta.
JAEGER, W. W. (1975 [1990]): Paideia: los ideales de la cultura griega (trad. J. XIRAL), FCE, Madrid.
LENS TUERO, J. - CAMPOS DAROCA, J. (2000): Utopías del mundo antiguo, Alianza, Madrid.
NIEHOFF, M.R.(2018): Philo of Alexandria. An Intellectual Biography, Yale University Press, New Haven -London.
PEREA YÉBENES, S. (2009): «Los therapeutai judíos de Egipto, una singular comunidad religiosa platónica (en el De vita contemplativa de Filón de Alejandría), y la tradición literaria griega pre y post filoniana», en R. GONZÁLEZ SALINERO - M. T. ORTEGA MONASTERIO (eds.), Fuentes clásicas en el judaísmo: de Sophía a Hokmah, Signifer Libros, Madrid, pp. 51-86.
RICHARDSON, P. (1993): «Philo and Eusebius on Monasteries and Monasticism: the Therapeutae and Kellia», in B. MCLEAN (ed.), Origins and Method: Towards a New Undestanding of Judaism and Christianity. Essays in Honor of Jonh C. Hurd, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series 86, JSOT Press, Sheffield, pp. 334-359.
RICHARDSON, P. (1996): «Early synagogues as collegia in the Diaspora and Palestine», in S. G. WILSON and J. KLOPPENBORG (eds), Voluntary Associations in the Ancient World, Routledge, London, pp. 90-109.
RICHARDSON, P. (2004): Building Jewish in Roman East, Baylor University Press, Waco.
RICHARDSON, P. - HEUCHAN, V. (1996): «Jewish Voluntary Associations in Egipt and roles of women», in J. S. KLOPPENBORG - S. G. WILSON (eds.) Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-RomanWorld, Routledge, London - New York, pp. 226-252.
RUNIA, D. T. (ed.) (1998): «Instructions to Contributors», Studia Philonica Annual 10: 206-208. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philo/supplement3.html.
SBL = SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (2014 [2nd ]): The SBL Handbook of Style: For Biblical Studies and Related Disciplines, Society of Biblical Literature Press, Atlanta.
SILVER, K. (2017): Alexandria and Qumran: Back to the Beginning, Archaeopress Publishing Limited, Oxford.
STANDHARTINGER, A. (2015): «Philo im ethnografischen Diskurs: Beobachtungen zum literarischen Kontext von DeVita Contemplativa», Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 46 (3): 314-344.
TAYLOR, J. E. (2003): Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philo’s ‘Therapeutae’ Reconsidered, Oxford University Press, New York - Oxford.
TAYLOR, J. (2004): Pythagoreans and essenes. Structural Parallels, Collection de la Revue des études juives 32, Peeters, Paris-Louvain.
TAYLOR, J. E. (2015): «The Women Therapeutae and the Divided Space of the “Synagogue”» pp. 1-23. torreys.org/sblpapers2015/Taylor_WomenTherapeutae.pdf.
TAYLOR, J. E. (2019): «Mujeres reales y retoques literarios: las mujeres “terapeutas” de De vita contemplativa de Filón y la identidad del grupo», (trad. L. CALDUCH-BENAGES), en E. SCHULLER - M-T. WACKER (eds.), La Bíblia y las mujeres. VI. Primeros escritos judíos, Verbo Divino, Pamplona, pp. 223-241.
TAYLOR, J. E. - HAY, D. (2012): «Astrology in Philo of Alexandria’s De Vita Contemplativa», pp. 1-18. https://www.academia.edu/446178/Astrology_in_Philo_of_Alexandrias_De_Vita_Contemplativa.
UUSIMÄKI, E. (2018): «The Rise of the Sage in Greek and Jewish Antiquity», Journal for the Study of Judaism 49 (1): 1-29.
WILKINSON, R. H. (2002): Los Templos del Antiguo Egipto, (trad. J. RABASSEDA), Destino, Barcelona
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right to be the first publication of the work as well as license it under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with acknowledgment of authorship of the work and initial publication in this magazine.
Authors may separately establish additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (for example, placing it in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
