Adams reads the Therapeutae as a branch of the Essenes, the ascetic Jewish milieu the archive places behind the whole baptist and Elchasaite line.
In Hannah Adams
In Adams’s own words, from the 1817 Dictionary. Each passage is quoted verbatim under its own entry.
THERAPEUTAE, a sect of Jews, generally considered as a branch of the Essenes, which see. They affected extraordinary silence and decorum in their worship, and remarkable austerity in their manners. Some of the sect probably verged to Paganism, and others to Christianity; which has occasioned circumstances which the learned have found great difficulty in reconciling.!
ESSENES, a Jewish sect, which maintained that rewards and punishments extended to the soul only, and considered the body as a mass of malignant matter, and the prison of the immortal spirit. The greatest part of them considered the laws of Moses as an allegorical system of spiritual and mysterious truth, and renounced all regard to the outward letter in its explanation. The leading traits in the character of this sect were, that they were sober, abstemious, peaceable, lovers of retirement, and had a perfect community of goods. They paid the highest regard to the moral precepts of the law; but neglected the ceremonial, excepting what regarded personal cleanliness, the observation of the sabbath, and making an annual present to the temple at Jerusalem. They commonly lived in a state of celibacy, and adopted the children of others, to educate them in their own principles and customs. Though they were in general averse to oaths, they bound all whom they initiated by the most sacred vows to observe the duties of piety, justice, fidelity, and modesty; to conceal the secrets of the fraternity; to preserve the books of their instructors, and with great care to commemorate the names of the angels.
Philo mentions two classes of Essenes, one of which followed a practical, the other a theoretical institution. The latter, who were called Therapeutce, placed their whole felicity in the contemplation of the divine nature. Detaching themselves entirely from secular affairs, they transferred their property to their relations and friends, and retired to solitary places, where they devoted themselves to a holy life. The principal society of this kind was formed near Alexandria, where they lived not far from each other in separate cottages, each of which had its own sacred apartments, to which the inhabitants retired for the purposes of devotion.
Philo says, lib. v. cap. 17. the Essenes were in number about four thousand in Judea; and Pliny seems to fix their principal abode above Engedi, where they fed on the fruit of palm trees. He adds, that they lived at a distance from the seashore, for fear of being corrupted by the conversation of strangers.
We do not see that Jesus Christ hath spoken of them, or that he preached among them. It is not improbable, that John Baptist lived among them, till lie began to baptize and preach. The wilderness, where Pliny places the Essenes, was not very far from Hebron, which is thought by some to be the place of John’s birth.
Hannah Adams, A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations, 4th ed. (Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1817), entries “Therapeutae” (p. 288), “Essenes” (pp. 78–79).