The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. Philo and the Intellectual Currents of His Time: The Therapeutae and Essenes

[Ladies and gentlemen!]

[ 1 ] Last time, I attempted to show how Philo of Alexandria introduced a new direction into Platonic philosophy and how Philo then facilitated the transition from the mysteries and Jewish mysticism to Christianity. And I concluded by pointing out that both Philo and Jesus used parables to convey the hidden wisdom acquired in the mystery schools.

[ 2 ] We find a vivid example in Philo’s commentary on the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis. There we will see how Philo goes about his work. It is the story you are familiar with, which goes as follows: “ And it came to pass in those days that Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and the kings of Shinar, Ellasar, and the king of the nations went to war against the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela—which is called Zoar.” Abraham puts his enemies to flight, rescues Lot, and is finally blessed by Melchizedek.

[ 3 ] There are five kings with whom Abraham fights against the four other kings. There is a mystical meaning behind this. The four kings represent four vices: lust, desire, fear, and sadness. The five other kings must be understood as the five senses, which are, as it were, connected to them. Abraham, however, symbolizes the Logos. When the Logos cultivates his virtues, he victoriously overthrows those forces. In the battle of the five kings against the four others, [Philo] sees the battle of the Logos. He sees the power taking hold of the five senses. With the help of the five senses—that is, wisdom and knowledge—the Logos fights against lust, desire, fear, and “sadness.” This human process, which can be recognized when we delve into the soul, is just like when we observe plants. It is the same lawfulness. The regularity of spiritual human creativity can also be explained by the fact that humans have derived these laws from human nature. The myth is not to be explained in an external way, but rather by the fact that it underlies the deepest mystical process.

[ 4 ] We see, then, that Philo was the first to apply to Old Testament mythology something we have come to know from the Mystics and Greek folk religion. The Greek Mystics conceived of this in exactly the same way. We must set aside whatever is unscientific in this, or whatever contradicts precise self-knowledge. Well, the point is simply to describe what goes on within the human being. And what takes place within the human being must be understood in terms of the original human forces. It is not to be understood as an allegorical expression, but rather as an objective, spiritual law that the spirit employs to bring forth the myth. One grasps the myth and relates to it in the same way that the natural scientist relates to nature.

[ 5 ] In these deepest driving forces within the human soul—which create an external existence for themselves by transforming into myths and [manifesting themselves] in the mythological world, so that what has been at work within them as deeper forces is no longer visible in the external world—[Philo] sees the Logos reigning in the human spirit, the eternal world spirit. And this world spirit reigning in the human spirit—which he designates as the Logos, and which, insofar as it expresses itself in human beings, is not merely an abstract world of concepts but something immediately alive—he simultaneously designates this world spirit with the word “Sophia”—which I would translate as “reason”—“the Word,” and “wisdom.” These are the two components into which universal wisdom is transformed within the human spirit. This is what lies at the foundation of the entire Old Testament myth as a deeper truth. This is, as I said, what we see expressed in Philo.

[ 6 ] Thus we see that what in Greek mythology is distributed among a multitude of divine figures—and what the Greek mystic was able to synthesize, to a greater or lesser extent, in the figure of Dionysus—is synthesized by Philo into this single figure. It is the same concept that was also present in Judaism. What was once sought in the diversity of the world, Philo traces back to a single primordial spirit as a single divinity and designates it as the “Logos.”

[ 7 ] In these few words, he says, wisdom was guided in deeper souls toward what, in Jewish mysticism of that time, remained trapped in symbolism. It is what they referred to as the masculine-feminine. The masculine Logos and feminine wisdom—for Philo, this is the state of consciousness that corresponds to the external symbol I spoke of recently. Thus Philo says: Everything that appears as spiritual in the world leads back to the God-man, to the divine in human nature.

[ 8 ] We may say—and this is spoken in the Philonian sense, and passages could be cited to support this if we delve deeper into the ancient writings—that nothing other than the divine-human is revealed to us.

[ 9 ] This is what Philo’s philosophy introduced as a new element into the Western intellectual world. He was aware that he was not presenting something of which he was the original creator. Philo was well aware that he had predecessors. He also provides a description of them, revealing the nature of his predecessors. He describes not only individuals but entire sects. From a young age, he was familiar with the “Therapists” as hermits in various regions of Egypt and North Africa. He describes them to us as hermits who lived in seclusion from the world, detached from all sensuality and all worldly matters, in order to awaken within themselves, in a pure form, what Philo refers to as the divine-human. They spent a large part of the week—six days—in a purely contemplative life; they devoted the seventh day to coming into contact with the world through communal meals.

[ 10 ] The Therapeuts practiced exegesis of Old Testament and Egyptian texts. This was by no means a different approach; rather, it was the same one we have identified as Philo’s own. He had already written On the Contemplative Life before he reached the age of thirty. In the book On the Contemplative Life, one can see how the Therapeuts sought the divine-human aspect behind every fact. However, they were treated in a highly biased manner in Western philosophy in a wide variety of ways.

[ 11 ] Here we can see how we are often the originators of an idea. At first, they were hermits, whom Catholic priests regard as their ancestors in the truest sense of the word. There has been an interest in viewing them as precursors to Christian monks in order to claim that contemporaries of Jesus had already developed a form of monasticism. Catholicism has regarded this text as proof of how ancient monasticism is. Protestantism has sought to prove that this text is spurious and was falsely attributed to Philo. This view has recently been proven to be completely erroneous. Philological analysis cannot fully resolve the matter; however, evidence from the language used and specific turns of phrase has established that it is a Philo-inspired text.

[ 12 ] There can be no doubt that we are dealing with a truly Philonian text. However, this cannot serve as proof of the existence of Christian monasticism. The text refers only to hermit-therapists. This way of life was rather the cause of the development of certain ascetic movements within Christianity. But they must not be regarded as institutions established by Christ.

[ 13 ] This has introduced us to an entire sect from which Philo drew his inspiration. In particular, in [Mead’s] work on the Gnostics, which has just been published and includes a translation of the treatise “On the Contemplative Life,” you can read how this has been demonstrated by English [philology]. But even in Germany, the authenticity of this work has long been beyond doubt. If you read it, you will see that Philo describes the Therapists as a sect that closely resembles what Philo himself taught.

[ 14 ] If we want to clarify the difference between the two, we can say that Philo is more philosophical in orientation, while the Therapists are more religious. Philo is better suited to translating the esoteric interpretation of the [Old] Testament into philosophical language. Just as Philo interpreted the Book of Genesis, so too might a follower of the Therapeutae sect have interpreted it. Philo, however, goes further by showing that one has a right to adopt such a perspective. This soul is given strength in no other way than through the fact that the divine-human aspect is within the human being itself. Thus, in Philo, a second divine aspect is added to the hidden divine, to the deepest core of the world spirit.

[ 15 ] In Plato’s case, we cannot yet say that he has a clear awareness of how his world of ideas relates to the Divine. In Philo, however, one finds precise philosophical reflections on this. The Divine, the Infinite in every direction, is that which can never be exhausted. It is that to which human beings can look up, yet which can also enter completely into the human soul. But this can only be the divine-human, wisdom. And this is what unfolds within the human soul, and this is what unfolded in the content of the Old Testament.

[ 16 ] From there, Philo goes on to conclude that the divine-human aspect manifests itself in the human soul, that there are, as it were, two divine aspects that are accessible to humans and akin to them, and that yet, at its core, there is a hidden, infinite divine. He thus arrives at the view that when the appearance of Jehovah is spoken of, it is not the infinite God Himself, but rather the divine-human aspect that he has discovered there. In this way, he arrives at a kind of personification of the divine in the instance where the divine appears to Moses in the form of the burning bush.

[ 17 ] If I were to make the divine-human being who appeared to Moses—so Philo told himself—into the unattainable Divine, the inexhaustible One, then I would be unable to comprehend anything, since the deepest knowledge can only be intuited. In order not to drag it down into the earthly and worldly, in order to allow it to retain its divine nature even though it cannot be fully comprehended, Philo contrasts the highest divine with the divine-human. And he contrasts this divine-human with the “Father as Son.” He therefore says: Wherever the “Divine” ever appeared in the Old Testament, it was the Son. Wherever God bestows help or punishment, for Philo it was the “Son of God” who intervened. It is he who now, for the first time, becomes comprehensible to humanity—to those who look more deeply into the fabric of the world.

[ 18 ] According to Philo, the Jews understood the [Logos] as the mediator between the Father and the world. But now humanity has become spiritually imbued with him. Philo regarded sects such as the Therapeuts as the nurturing ground for human personalities who sought to ascend to that exalted human state in which the divine and human could come into being within them.

[ 19 ] Philo thus regards the life of the Therapeuts as a preparation for the appearance of the Son of God in human nature. He regards the life to which the Therapeuts aspired as one that brings about the direct infusion of the divine nature into the sensual nature.

[ 20 ] Something similar occurs in yet another sect. Over in Asia—you can read about it yourself in Philo’s writings—you will find that the Essenes held the same view as the Therapeuts. This sect, which Philo visited and—as he himself admits—from which he learned the method of scriptural interpretation he practiced, was just like the sect of the Therapeuts; it sought to discover the divine-human element in Old Testament mythology. This Logos, who was destined for this and who himself sought to live out his life in the human realm, was to take on a form and truly live within the human spirit. And this teaching was alive in the Essene sect two or three centuries before the birth of Christ.

[ 21 ] Therapists are doctors of the soul. If we trace the origin of the name, we find a sect that derives its name from “healing,” and this healing means “being a doctor of the soul.” These Therapeuts were those who sought to elevate the soul to a higher level. They held the view that the sensual realm is something that leads one away from God, something that causes illness, something against which a person must undergo a healing process. The Therapeuts were people who sought to free others from the sensual realm. The same was true of the Essenes. They had a kind of communist state. There are indications that the Essenes were the same as the Therapists, and it can be demonstrated that the Chaldean word “Essene” means nothing other than “healer.” But that is less important.

[ 22 ] Based on the references in Josephus, Philo, and Pliny, however, we can say that the teachings of the Essenes are in fact exactly the same as those of the Therapists. The Therapists, the hermits, and the Essenes differed only in their outward way of life. Near the Dead Sea there was a communal society. There, there was complete communal ownership of property and a strictly regulated, ascetic way of life. Describing the external form of this society is of little significance for the course of spiritual life. What is particularly important is that anyone who wished to be admitted had to commit themselves through the so-called “great vow”: first, to truly submit to everything required by the Essenes in order for them to ascend to the highest level; second, to reveal nothing to the outside world about the means by which the Essenes attained this higher state.

[ 23 ] This great vow makes a person a true [“Nazarite”], as they were called in the Essene community. At least two centuries before the birth of Christ, we are dealing with views that we cannot characterize in any other way [...], for Philo would undoubtedly not seek support for his teachings in the doctrine of the Essenes. He takes for granted something that the Essenes themselves held regarding the Old Testament myths. He would not take anything for granted if it were not the case that the Essenes had held the same fundamental view that Philo himself espoused.

[ 24 ] Philo lived around the same time as Jesus of Nazareth is believed to have lived. The same teachings—the doctrine of the Logos made flesh, the doctrine of the mediator between God the Father and the world—that Philo himself taught were also found among the Essenes. They had existed among the Essenes for two centuries—undoubtedly more than a century before the birth of Christ. We can assume nothing else but that this teaching reached them via a detour through Egypt. Every other possibility is ruled out. No matter how hard one has tried to establish that such an interpretation of Scripture developed from within Judaism, when we consider the entire worldview of the Essenes, we are in fact dealing with nothing other than the application of the Greek-mystical mode of thought to the interpretation of the Old Testament by individual sects.

[ 25 ] The impetus for this arose from the fact that Greek philosophy reached the region via a detour through Platonic philosophy and the School of Alexandria in northern Egypt, and that this philosophy led to the extension of Greek methods to the Old Testament. This led to a view that can serve as confirmation of this process—a view that had already prevailed before Philo. They believe that the entire body of Greek philosophy is nothing other than a process of development that emerged specifically from Greco-Jewish philosophy. Plato is regarded as a disciple of Moses and the prophets. They translated the Old Testament myths into Greek myths; and now Greek philosophy is understood in such a way that it is nothing other than something derived from the Old Testament.

[ 26 ] This view prevailed in Alexandria. Philo, in particular, espoused it. The esoteric method was then applied to the Old Testament, and specifically to Pythagorean philosophy. Plato, too, later engaged with the latter. One had to undergo lengthy examinations. This method led the Therapeuts to introduce similar practices. The true [esoteric] essence of the Jewish myth was discovered because Greek mysticism was led to seek out this essence. It was through this process that the true esoteric core of the Old Testament myth was sought. Therefore, the Essenes were a sect that practiced esotericism.

[ 27 ] It is the Logos who truly represents God in the world. The Logos is the mediator between the Father and humankind. The Logos is the Son of God. This is Essene teaching. Philo merely expanded upon this teaching. He was the philosopher of this teaching. He admits that he found this teaching already in existence, that it was already there. Among the Essenes and Therapeuts, such views were already commonplace centuries before our era. There must have been someone who sought the [divine-human] in the Old Testament. Great teachers lived within the Essene community who taught them this ancient worldview—that the Universal Spirit manifests itself in the human Logos. This fulfillment [with the Logos] is what human beings must strive for. This was what the Essene sect sought, and it constituted the core of their deepest aspiration.

[ 28 ] Thus, based on external evidence, we must assume the existence of a great figure whose name has not been passed down to us. He cannot have been named because every Essene passed on what was most essential—in the deepest sense—only within his Essene community, only within his own brotherhood. The actual process of imbuing oneself with the deeper essence was practiced only within the Essene community. The vow prevented this from being carried out into the wider world. We may assume that there was a founder who synthesized all the mystical interpretations of the deepest essence of mythology into a central figure of the divine-human Logos, and who taught that this Logos is that upon which all knowledge and all truth depend. It must have been a conviction of the Essene community that all human wisdom is worthless unless this Logos permeates it.

[ 29 ] It is folly on the part of natural scientists and presumption to want to know God directly. The only way in which a human being can behold God is this: “I and the Father are one.” This insight encapsulates the deepest core of Essene teaching. Thus, we see the deepest spiritual core of esoteric Christianity taking shape, outlined in broad strokes, two centuries before the birth of Christ within the Essene community.

[ 30 ] The need for a savior has existed within the Jewish people in the most diverse ways. We see that Old Testament teachers, alongside this view—alongside this “Hellenism”—had some inkling of what the Jewish writers were referring to. We therefore find allusions to a Hellenization of the Essenes and certain schools. Jewish writers speak of Hellenism with fear and loathing. Individual schools, and notably the Essene community, were aware that something foreign had been adopted. Within this Jewish community, a vivid need developed for a Messiah who could free the Jews from the terrible political situation in which they found themselves. We must imagine that, alongside Essene esotericism, there certainly existed all around it an exoteric interpretation [of the Old Testament] as well, which was understood to mean that a Messiah would come to redeem the Jewish people from the weakness and shame into which they had fallen in their secular life. This view ran parallel to that of the Essenes.

[ 31 ] If we examine the circumstances closely, we see that Judaism possessed all the conditions necessary for a warm reception of such figures who were capable of freeing the Jews from the situation into which they had fallen. People were easily inclined to make them into Messiahs. The most diverse figures were regarded as such Messiahs. There is not enough time here to elaborate on this relationship in the case of John the Baptist and other figures. I merely wanted to point out that those who lived within the Essene community, once Philo had made this teaching the foundation of his philosophy and some of it had seeped out, could no longer uphold that vow. Now it was no longer possible to shut oneself off. Now everything was open to those who sought the path in a philosophical way. It was no longer possible to be an Essene simply by joining the Essene community.

[ 32 ] If we wish to understand the origins of Christianity itself, we must realize that something fundamentally new was created through Philonic philosophy, through this act of assimilation. People were, so to speak, endowed with new tongues of fire. Now it was possible once again to speak as they had spoken in the ancient Greek mysteries—namely, to express in myth what had presented itself to them as an [inner] experience through [the description] of external, sensory facts. They were able to learn this through the currents that developed out of Greek philosophy.

[ 33 ] Protagoras believed that all humans share a sense of virtue, morality, and social coexistence, but that only a few possess the ability to ascend to the highest levels. This is why, in Plato’s time, the myth depicted that once upon a time only gods lived on Earth as fire. Animals and humans no longer had the ability to live within the fire. Consequently, they had no chance of survival. That is why Prometheus was entrusted with the task of instilling life in them. Epimetheus, however, bestowed everything upon the animals, leaving nothing for humans.

[ 34 ] [Prometheus] brought fire to humankind. This symbolizes the gift of the arts and the gift of wisdom. I believe this legend mythically illustrates an inner process. This is evident in the way the legend unfolds. Abilities are distributed; some have more, others less. Hermes was also sent with the ability to distinguish between good and evil. They all possess this in equal measure. The Greek philosopher expresses inner human realities of the life of the soul through myths.

[ 35 ] The one who considered himself capable of undertaking such a task was the Apostle John. His Gospel provides us with what is most important—despite modern theological research. From the standpoint of [Philo’s] philosophy and using practical esoteric methods, he presents us with the life story of the God-man. He reveals to us the inner God-man. He himself is familiar with the teachings of the Essenes and imparts to us what he learned in the Essene community. What he could not say in plain language, he gives us in mythical form. He shows us how the Christian idea grew out of the philosophy of Philo, the Therapists, and the Essene sect. The Gospel of John has been regarded as the last to be written, as the one that is least certain. But this view is untenable.

[ 36 ] When we compare it with the other Gospels, we will see that we must conclude it presents the sacred legend as it must have taken shape. But the one who was initiated in the deepest sense into the teachings of the Essene community—who could thus allow the Logos made flesh to grow out of the idea of the God-man, who could explain this—that was John. That is why it also begins with the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and so on. These are ideas that form the foundation of Philo’s philosophy: the idea of the Father and what is associated with it—the Logos made flesh. The words, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” can be interpreted in no other way than that he held the Essene view and was aware of the significance of the Essene teaching.

[ 37 ] While various external factors may support the view that [the Gospel of John] is a later work, the overall tone and presentation of the Gospel ultimately show that it grew directly out of the deepest understanding of Christianity. This is also evident in the thoroughly modest way in which John concludes [the Gospel] by saying that he was present at these events—that he was, so to speak, an eyewitness and earwitness—but that what matters to him is not to recount personal experiences or what was visible to the eye, but rather to convey the deeper essence—that is, what was taught in the Essene community. Therefore, we can understand the matter in such a way that we find an esoteric Christianity centuries before Christ and that we have the exoteric interpretation of it in the Gospel of John.

FAQ:

[ 38 ] Philo did not know Jesus. There is no mention of him in Philo’s writings. Hints can be found in his book Quod omnis probus liber. These hints indicate—and they are quite clear—that “what” or “how” he taught was common practice among the Essenes. Nowhere is there any mention of a specific person whom he knew as a contemporary. On the other hand, there is a continuous tradition, apart from internal reasons. This entirely different way of interpreting the Old Testament. This can be traced back to certain figures, regarding whom it must be acknowledged that they must have lived before our era. I mean, there is a continuous tradition. This is most beautifully expressed among the Druze people. They have a distinctive form of religion—a religious tradition that encompasses all these elements, which one might refer to as “Essene Christianity.”—Furthermore, this people has also absorbed certain influences from Islam.—Within this sect, there is a legend about Christ, who, according to this legend, lived around the time of [gap in the transcript]. This is a view held by the Druze. However, we have absolutely no historical basis—other than the well-known passage in Josephus—for the assumption that a Jesus of Nazareth existed between the years 1 and 33. The Gospel of John cannot be interpreted any other way; otherwise, it becomes what it has been for fifty years among Protestant theologians: a complete nothing. The first three Gospels then represent nothing more than a sacred legend. I would like to elaborate further on the origins of the Gospel of John and on Philo. One might think that Philo took a polemical stance against this new worldview. But no, the new teaching does not appear in such a way that he, as a philosopher, would have felt compelled to combat it. Their foundation is what later became Christianity. The life of John, Moses’ conception of the creation of the world, as well as certain elements from Persian thought, influences from Judaism, and its demonology—which is ancient Jewish in origin. Likewise, many things can be attributed to Persian influence.