The Therapeut left "for ever," says Philo, "brothers, children, wives, father and mother," for the contemplative life.
Like the Buddhists, the Therapeuts had nuns vowed to chastity.
The preacher and the missionary, two original ideas of Buddhism, were conspicuous amongst the Therapeuts. This was in direct antagonism to the spirit of Mosaism.
The Therapeut was a healer of the body as well as the soul.
Turning to the kindred society of the Essenes we get a few additional points of contact.
The Essenes, like the Buddhist monks, had ridiculous laws relating to spitting and other natural acts, those of the Essenes being regulated by a superstitious veneration for the Sabbath day, those of the Buddhists, by a superstitious respect for a pagoda.
In Buddhist monasteries a rigid obedience, together with a quite superstitious respect for the person of a superior, is enacted. In Buddhaghosa's Parables is a puerile story of a malicious Muni, who, when an inferior monk had gone out of a hut where the two were sleeping, lay across the doorway in order to make the novice inadvertently commit the great sin of placing his foot above his superiors head. The penalty of such an act is that the offender's head ought to be split into seven pieces. With the Essenes similar superstitions were rife. If an Approacher accidentally touched the hem of the garment of an Associate, all sorts of purifications had to be gone through.
The principle of thrift and unsavouriness in dress was carried to extremes by both Essenes and Buddhists. The sramana (ascetic) was required to stitch together for his kowat the refuse rags acquired by begging. The Essenes were expected to wear the old clothes of their co-religionists until they tumbled to pieces.
In the Thibetan "Life of Buddha," by Rockhill, it is announced that when the great teacher first cast off his kingly silks he donned a foul dress that had been previously worn by ten other saints. This throws light on the story of Elisha.
Dr. Ginsburg ("The Essenes," p. 13) shows that the Essenes had eight stages of progress in inner or spiritual knowledge.