The language in which Philo describes the Therapeutæ might be applied to the Christian monks of Egypt. I must condense his rambling account. The Therapeutæ abandon their property, their children, their wives, parents, and friends and homes, to seek out fresh habitations outside the city walls, in solitary places and in deserts. They pray twice in the day, at morning and evening, and the interval is wholly devoted to meditation on the Scriptures and elucidating the allegories therein. They likewise compose psalms and hymns to God, "and during six days each, retiring into solitude, philosophises, never going outside the threshold of the outer court, and indeed never looking out. But on the seventh day they all assemble, and sit down in order, and the eldest, who has the most profound learning, speaks with steadfast voice explaining the meaning of the laws." They wore but one garment, a shaggy hide for winter, and a thin mantle for summer. Their food was herbs and bread, and their drink water. Philo concludes his account thus: "This then is what I have to say of those who are called Therapeutæ who have devoted themselves to the contemplation of nature, and who have lived in it, and in the soul alone, being citizens of heaven and of the world, and very acceptable to the Father and Creator of the universe because of their virtue; it has procured them His love as their most appropriate reward, which far surpasses all the gifts of fortune, and conducts them to the very summit and perfection of happiness." It was not among the Jews alone that the solitary life was cultivated. In the Serapium of Thebes were also heathen monks leading a very similar life. That Persian Manichæism had infected Jews and heathen as well there can exist little doubt. [Footnote: Philo gives an account of the sacred banquets of the Therapeutæ that strongly reminds us of the Agapæ of the Early Christians.] In 177, in Lyons, when S. Pothinus and others were arrested, thrown into prison, tortured and killed for the Faith, there was one of the martyrs who caused offence to the rest because "he had long been used to a very austere life, and to live entirely on bread and water. He seemed resolved to continue this practice during his confinement, but Attalus (another martyr), after his first combat in the theatre, understood by revelation that Alcibiades gave occasion of offence to others by seeming to favour the new sect of the Montanists (a Christian phase of Manichæism), who endeavoured to recommend themselves by their extraordinary austerities. Alcibiades listened to the admonition, and from that time ate of everything with thanksgiving to God." [Footnote: Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, v. i.]