περὶ βίου θεωρητικοῦ ἢ ἱκετῶν; De Vita Contemplativa. This work is still extant, and is given by Mangey, II. 471–486. Eusebius is the first writer to mention it, and he identifies the Therapeutæ described in it with the Christian monks, and assumes in consequence that monasticism in the form in which he knew it existed in the apostolic age, and was known and praised by Philo. This opinion was generally adopted by the Fathers (with the single exception of Photius, Cod. 105, who looked upon the Therapeutæ as a Jewish sect) and prevailed unquestioned until the Reformation, when in the Protestant reaction against monasticism it was denied that monks existed in the apostolic age, and that the Therapeutæ were Christians at all. Various opinions as to their identity have been held since that time, the commonest being that they were a Jewish sect or school, parallel with the Palestinian Essenes, or that they were an outgrowth of Alexandrian Neo-Pythagoreanism. The former opinion may be said to have been the prevailing one among Christian scholars until Lucius, in his work entitled Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Gesch. der Askese (Strassburg, 1879), proved (what had been asserted already by Grätz and Jost) that the Therapeutæ are really to be identified with Christian monks, and that the work De Vita Contemplativa is not a genuine work of Philo’s. If the former proposition is proved, the latter follows of necessity, for it is absolutely impossible to suppose that monasticism can have existed in so developed a form (or indeed in any form) in the time of Philo. On the other hand it may be proved that the work is not Philonic, and yet it may not follow that the Therapeutæ are to be identified with Christian monks. And so some scholars reject the Philonic authorship while still maintaining the Jewish character of the Therapeutæ (e.g. Nicolas, Kuenen, and Weingarten; see Schürer, Gesch. der Juden im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, p. 863). In the opinion of the writer, who agrees therein with the great majority of scholars, Lucius has conclusively demonstrated both his propositions, and has shown that the work De Vita Contemplativa is the production of some Christian of the latter part of the third century, who aimed to produce an apology for and a panegyric of monasticism as it existed in his day, and thus to secure for it wider recognition and acceptance. Lucius concludes with the following words: “Wir haben es demnach in D.V.C. mit einer Tendenzschrift zu thun, welche, da sie eine weit ausgebildete und in zahlreichen Ländern verbreitete Askese, so wie Zustände voraussetzt, genau wie dieselben nur im Christenthum des dritten Jahrhunderts vorhanden waren, kaum anders aufgefasst werden kann, als eine, etwa am Ende des dritten Jahrhunderts, unter dem Namen Philo’s, zu Gunsten der Christlichen Askese, verfasste Apologie, als erstes Glied eines an derartigen Producte überaus reichen Litteratur-zweige der alten Kirche.” Compare with Lucius’ work the reviews of it by Hilgenfeld in the Zeitschrift für wiss. Theol., 1880, pp. 423–440, and by Schürer in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1880, No. 5. The latter especially has added some important considerations with reference to the reasons for the composition of this work under the name of Philo. Assuming then the correctness of Lucius’ conclusions, we see that Eusebius was quite right in identifying the Therapeutæ with the Christian monks as he knew them in his day, but that he was quite wrong in accepting the Philonic authorship of the work in question, and in concluding that the institution of monasticism as he knew it existed already in the apostolic age (compare note 19, below).