The Therapeutae were a Jewish sect in which flourished in Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

 and other parts of the Diaspora

Diaspora

A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

 of Hellenistic Judaism

Hellenistic Judaism

Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism...

 in the final years of the Second Temple period

Second Temple period

The Second Temple period , in Jewish history, is the period between 530 BCE and 70 CE, when the Second Temple of Jerusalem existed. It ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Temple's destruction....

. The primary source is the account De vita contemplativa ("The Contemplative Life") by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE - 50 CE) who appears to have been personally acquainted with them. The pseudepigraphic Testament of Job

Testament of Job

The Testament of Job is a book written in the 1st century BC or the 1st century AD...

 is also thought to be a Therapeutae text.

Philo records that they were "philosophers" (cf.