Below is a brief outline of Theosojihy as taught by Boehme (q. v.). Finite existences of every kind are an efflux from the One Infinite l'2xistcnce, and such an efflux is a necessary attribute of (Jod's own being. All things come from a working-will of the holy, triune, incompre- hensible God. who manifests himself through an exter- nal efflux of lire, light, and spirit. Angels and men are the true and real offspring of <iod, their life originating in the divine tire from which light. and love are gener- ated in them. This triune life in (iod is the perfection of being, and the loss of it constituted the fall of angels
and men. Thus man having been made a living image of the divine nature and endowed with inmiortality, he exchanged the light, life, and Spirit of < Jod for the light, life, and spirit of the world. He died to the influences of the Spirit of God on the very day of his transgres- sion, but remained subject to all the external influences of the world; and the restoration of the influence of the Spirit constitutes the work of redemption and sanctifica- tion. Christ restored to men the germ of the paradi^i- acal life, which is possessed by all through new birth and his indwelling. No son of Adam can be lost except by the wilful loss of this paradisiacal germ of the divine life; and its development is the development of salva- tion. In the hands of Law, the theosophy of Bcrhme as- sumed a much more reasonable form than that in which it had been clothed by its author, whose language was a medley of alchemy, obscure analogies, and false ety- mologies. It was then exhibited as a philosophy of re- demption and spiritual life, which only wantcil the key- stone of sacramental psychology to make it a tirm sys- tem of truth. For very full information on the subject, see Walton, Notes and Materials for an Adequate Biog- raphy of William Law, comprising an Elucidation of the Scope and Contents of the Writings of .Jacob Bahme, and of his Great Commentator Dionysius A ndreas Freher, etc. (1854). See Blimt, Diet, of Doctrinal Theology, s. v. ; Chambers's Encyclop. s. v.
Tlieotokos (QtOToKOC, God-bearing'). 1. A title ap- plied by various Romish writers to the Virgin Mary as the '• mother of God." See Mariolatijv.
2. An ecclesiastical term adopted at the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon to assert the doctrine of the divinity of our Lord's person. The truth which it was designed to teach is that although two natures are united in one Christ, yet there are not two persons, but one. Our Lord was a divine person from all eternitj', and upon liis incarnation he did not cease to be the jjerson he had been before. There was, therefore, no change or interruption of his identity, for the Godhead became incarnate, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God. Al- though the nature which he took of the substance of his mother was human, the person who was born was divine, and this was the truth declared in the adoption of the term BtoToKOQ. It is not, of course, meant that the Virgin was the mother of the Godhead of our Lord, but that the human nature, which he had assuiried of her substance, was so united to the divinity that the person begotten of her was God as well as man. In this sense she might be called the mother of God. Eipiivalent expressions are used by Irenceus and Ignatius, while Qiori'iKoc is used by Alexander of Alexandria, Athana- sius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Origen, and (Gregory Theologna. This doctrine has been the cause of much debate, and of more than one council. See Christology.
Therapeutse {^spairivrai [attendants, i. e. wor- shippers, sc. of (jod] and ^ipaTrivrpi^tQ), a Jewish sect in P>gypt, which is described by Philo in a separate treatise ITfpi [iiov ^(a)pi]TiKov r] irtpi iketio}' apfTotv, or De Vita Contemplativa {Opp. [ed. IMangey], ii, 471- 486). It is strange that no other writer of that period, not even Josephus, knows anything about the Thera- peutie; for what we find in ecclesiastical writings about them since the time of Eusebius is nothing but a repro- duction of the I'hilonic narrative; and the erroneous opinion of Eusebius, who regarded the Theraijcutje as Christians, has been followed by all Church fathers, W'ith the exception of Photius. Modern critics have, with a few exceptions, identified the Therapeutas with the Essenes. but with this difference, that while the for- mer were only theorists, the latter were men of practical life. Of late the question as to who the Therapeutos were has become superfluous, since some scliolars, espe- cially the Jewish historian Griitz, believe Philo's trea- tise to be spurious, and only an embellishment of Chris- tian monachism as it began iu Egypt. But, before dc-
THERAPEUT^
337
THEllAPEUT^
cidiiig the question as to whether this treatise is spuri- ous or genuine, we must examine first what Philo tells us about the Therapeuta;.
I, M(i liners and Usoffes of flie Therapeutte. — The fatherland of the Therapeuta is Egypt, and beyond this country the order has probal)ly not been propa- gated. When Piiilo speaks of their diffusion through the whole world (TroWa^oC fiiv ovv Ti/g oiKoc/zf j/j/c trrrl TovTO TO yfVof), we cannot take his words in their literal sense, as does Lucius (Die T/ierapeiiteu [Stras- burg, 1880], p. 16 sq.), but in a more general sense, be- cause we have no notice whatever of the Tlierapeutas outside of Egypt. What he meant to say is that, out- side of Egypt, there were also men of a similar tenden- cy, without believing that they really belonged to this order in Egypt. Keim thinks, therefore, that Philo's words are an exaggeration, or rather that he confuses the hermit life of the Jews with like "phenomena among the (ireeks and barbarians." (iriitz, however, holds a different opinion, and adduces this as an argument for Christian monks, who were generally diffused at an early age (as early as the time of Eusebius or of Phi- lo'?). " But," asks Dr. Keim, " has not Philo compared both the Essenes and Therapeutic with the Gyrano- sophists and INIagi, with the wise man Kalanos, with Anaxagoras and Democritus?" It is evident that Phi- lo, in describing this order, had a certain colony in view near the Lake Mareotis, to the south of Alexandria, where the Therapeut.iB lived. They dwelt at no great dis- tance from each other, but every man in his own little house, his sanctuary, and his cell. They lived alone for the whole week, not stepping over the threshold, nor looking out (r*/i' ai'Xtuir oii^ VTrtpjiaivovTiQ, dW