Note 1047 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)

Socrates, iv, 23; Sozomen, i, 12, et seq. Previous to Christianity there were at least two communities of Jewish ascetics in the near East, the Essenes, who dwelt west of the Dead Sea, and the Therapeutae, who lived by Lake Moeris, near Alexandria. The first have been described briefly by Pliny (Hist. Nat., v, 15) and the second by Philo Judaeus in a separate tract (De Vita Contemplativa) respecting the authorship and date of which, however, opinion continually fluctuates; I do not know whether at present it is on the crest of the wave or in the trough of the sea. These solitaries consisted of males and females, and were recruited regularly by persons who became sick of the world and determined to fly far from the madding crowd. About them generally see Neander, Church Hist., Introd.