An Introduction to Philo Judaeus, 2nd ed

An Introduction to PHILO JUDAEUS by E R W I N R. GOODENOUGH Second Edition OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL 1962 First Edit...

Author: Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough

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An Introduction to PHILO JUDAEUS

by

E R W I N R.

GOODENOUGH

Second Edition

OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL 1962

First Edition,

1940

YALE U N I V E R S I T Y

PRESS

© i n this edition 1962 BASIL BLACKWELL,

OXFORD

Second Edition Revised 1962

Printed in England by Adlard and Son Limited London and Dorking

to The Staff of The JEWISH T H E O L O G I C A L

SEMINARY

OF AMERICA who in their persons demonstrate that Christian Ethics has its source in Judaism

C O N T E N T S Page Preface I. II.

Method

ix i

Philo's Writings

30

III.

T h e Political Thinker

52

IV.

The Jew

75

V. VI. VII.

T h e Philosopher: Metaphysics

91

T h e Philosopher: M a n and Ethics

112

T h e Mystic

134

Bibliographical Note

161

Index

164

P R E F A C E PUBLICATION o f a s m a l l b o o k o n P h i l o needs n o a p o l o g y . I n all the g r e a t b o d y o f l i t e r a t u r e d e v o t e d to h i m a n d his t h o u g h t , n o satisfactory w o r k has a p p e a r e d w h i c h c a n b e g i v e n the g e n e r a l r e a d e r to i n t r o d u c e h i m to the subject. W h a t b r i e f studies exist w e r e i n n o case w r i t t e n to serve the d o u b l e p u r p o s e o f h e l p i n g the b e g i n n e r to m a k e a start i n a n i n t e l l i g e n t r e a d i n g o f P h i l o a n d o f p r e s e n t i n g w h a t is n o w the p o i n t o f v i e w from w h i c h all study o f Philo must, whether in agreement or disagreement, d e p a r t . E v e n the r e c e n t interesting s t u d y o f D a n i e l o u is d e s i g n e d to present P h i l o ' s t h o u g h t i n s u c c i n c t f o r m r a t h e r t h a n to h e l p a b e g i n n e r i n s t u d y i n g P h i l o ' s w r i t i n g s a n d p e r s o n a l i t y for himself. T h e p r o b l e m o f the r e l a t i o n o f e a r l y C h r i s t i a n i t y to its en v i r o n m e n t , w h i c h has engrossed historians o f r e l i g i o n , a n d w h i c h c o n s e r v a t i v e s c h o l a r s — c o n s e r v a t i v e t e c h n i c a l l y as w e l l as t h e o l o g i c a l l y — h a v e t e n d e d to belittle o r n e g l e c t , is t h e g r e a t p r o b l e m o f the n e x t g e n e r a t i o n o f students i n the field. I t has b e e n easy to dismiss the w o r k o f historians o f religion w h o h a v e b e e n c o n t e n t s i m p l y to list p a g a n parallels to the N e w T e s t a m e n t , so l o n g as conclusions o f g r e a t i m p o r t a n c e w e r e d r a w n from m e r e similarities b e t w e e n e a r l y C h r i s t i a n ideas a n d those o f religions scattered from I n d i a to B r i t a i n . I f w e a r e to l e a r n a b o u t C h r i s t i a n i t y from n o n - C h r i s t i a n m a t e r i a l , w h a t w e n e e d is n o t parallels b u t b r i d g e s , d e m o n s t r a t i o n o f h o w i d e a s c o u l d have reached a n d become incorporated into early Christianity from sources o t h e r t h a n o r t h o d o x J u d a i s m a n d the direct t e a c h i n g s o f Jesus. It is a p p a r e n t t h a t w i t h i n a few y e a r s o f the d e a t h o f Jesus e a r l y C h r i s t i a n i t y h a d a p p r o p r i a t e d the ideals t h a t s a l v a t i o n is f r e e d o m from the ' w o r l d ' o r from the ' b o n d a g e o f the flesh', t h a t the m e a n s o f g r a c e a r e s a c r a m e n t a l instead ix

x

PREFACE

o f sacrificial, a n d t h a t the s a v i o u r is at o n c e a personality a n d a cosmic spiritual force, to n a m e o n l y three o f the most i m p o r t a n t contrasts b e t w e e n hellenistic C h r i s t i a n i t y a n d t r a d i t i o n a l J u d a i s m . I n t r y i n g to reconstruct t h a t transition the historian h a s b e e n r a t h e r confused t h a n i l l u m i n a t e d b y s u c h parallels as h a v e b e e n c o l l e c t e d , for e x a m p l e , i n the w r i t i n g s o f the JesusM y t h s c h o o l . C e r t a i n l y these parallels m u s t all b e rejected as i r r e l e v a n t until t h e y , or s o m e o f t h e m , c a n b e s h o w n n o t o n l y to h a v e r e s e m b l e d b u t to h a v e b e e n w i t h i n the r a n g e o f t h o u g h t o f s u c h a m a n as P a u l himself. R a p i d assimilation b y e a r l y C h r i s t i a n i t y o f s u c h a c o m p l e x o f i d e a s as m e r e parallels h a v e presented w o u l d h a v e b l a s t e d the e a r l y g r o u p to a t o m s . Y e t the fact r e m a i n s t h a t C h r i s t i a n i t y d i d v e r y e a r l y b e c o m e h e l l e n i z e d , a n d the parallels still are as striking as ever. Is there a b r i d g e to b e f o u n d , o v e r w h i c h these notions, o r s o m e o f t h e m , c o u l d h a v e r e a c h e d the e a r l y C h r i s t i a n s a l r e a d y i n so o r g a n i z e d a n d a c c e p t a b l e a f o r m t h a t their a d o p t i o n w o u l d n o t h a v e s h a t t e r e d t h e e a r l y faithful i n t o countless g r o u p s w h o dis agreed about w h a t should be borrowed ? S u c h a bridge, I have l o n g b e e n c o n v i n c e d , exists i n hellenistic J u d a i s m . F o r t h r e e centuries before P a u l there s e e m to h a v e b e e n J e w s w h o d e v e l o p e d w h a t finally c a m e to fruit i n P h i l o , a J u d a i s m w h i c h h a d a c q u i r e d a strong sense o f o r t h o d o x y as to w h a t c o u l d b e assi m i l a t e d a n d w h a t n o t , a n d w h o s e o r t h o d o x y w a s , a p a r t from t h e a l l - p o w e r f u l force o f the p e r s o n o f Jesus, a m a z i n g l y like C h r i s t i a n i t y i n its basic p o i n t o f v i e w , m e t h o d o l o g y , a n d re s e m b l a n c e s to p a g a n i s m . I t w a s , i n the m a i n , still l o y a l l y J e w i s h , a n d w o u l d , as d i d the hellenistic s y n a g o g u e s i n J e r u s a l e m , t a k e the l e a d i n p e r s e c u t i n g a n e w g r o u p w h o u n d e r the i n s p i r a t i o n o f a n e w s a v i o u r , t u r n e d the g u n s o f hellenistic J e w i s h l o g i c b a c k u p o n the J e w s themselves to l e v e l the r e q u i r e m e n t o f l e g a l o b s e r v a n c e . B u t the g u n s w e r e t h e p r o d u c t o f hellenistic J e w s , a n d hellenistic C h r i s t i a n i t y w o u l d h a v e b e e n impossible without them. A l l this has y e t to b e d e m o n s t r a t e d . B u t it is o b v i o u s t h a t o n l y those w i l l b e a b l e to see the force o f the a r g u m e n t s w h o k n o w ,

PREFACE

xi

as l a m e n t a b l y few i n the field n o w d o , the P h i l o w h o h a s b e e n e m e r g i n g i n r e c e n t researches. T h i s little b o o k has b e e n w r i t t e n for those, y o u n g a n d o l d , w h o w i s h to b e a b l e to pass u p o n this matter. T h e Bibliography of Philo m a k e s the necessity o f l o n g q u o t a tions o f titles u n n e c e s s a r y . A f t e r e a c h title n o t fully c i t e d I h a v e i n d i c a t e d the n u m b e r o f t h a t title i n the B i b l i o g r a p h y . W o r k s o f P h i l o are q u o t e d i n the a b b r e v i a t i o n s listed i n the B i b l i o g r a p h y , 1 3 1 - 6 , a n d also i n m y By Light, Light, p p . xiii f. T h e translations o f P h i l o a r e m y o w n revision o f earlier translations, e s p e c i a l l y o f those b y F . G . C o l s o n i n the L o e b series. F o r t h e s e c o n d edition I h a v e m a d e stylistic revisions a n d , especially i n the first c h a p t e r , discussed t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t studies o f P h i l o w h i c h a p p e a r e d after the first edition w a s written. E. R. G . 1

1

The Politics of Philo Judaeus, Practice and Theory by ERWIN R. GOODENOUGH, together with a General Bibliography of Philo, by HOWARD L. GOODHART and ERWIN R. GOODENOUGH, N e w H a v e n , 1938—hereafter referred to as the Biblio graphy.

CHAPTER I

M E T H O D T o i n t r o d u c e a n y c h a r a c t e r from the a n c i e n t w o r l d to a m o d e r n a u d i e n c e is difficult from m a n y points o f v i e w . T o i n t r o d u c e a n a n c i e n t m a n o f t h o u g h t i n v o l v e s still g r e a t e r difficulties. B u t to present a m a n w h o s e t h o u g h t w a s as c o m p l i c a t e d a n d is as m u c h c o n t r o v e r t e d as t h a t o f P h i l o J u d a e u s o f A l e x a n d r i a is m o s t difficult o f a l l . O n l y those o f us w h o h a v e w o r k e d l o n g a t his w r i t i n g s c a n h o p e to m a k e s u c h a n i n t r o d u c t i o n , a n d w e are t h e ones m o s t a w a r e o f the difficulty. P h i l o speaks a l a n g u a g e w h i c h o n l y experts c a n u n d e r s t a n d , b u t w h i c h has b e e n so differently u n d e r s t o o d b y e q u a l l y c a p a b l e specialists t h a t it is a question t h a t e v e n a n y o f us k n o w him. W e m u s t d e v o t e this first c h a p t e r to the p r o b l e m o f h o w w e c a n k n o w P h i l o , i f w e e v e r c a n , o r i n w h a t sense w e m a y s p e a k of knowing him. E v e r y o n e agrees u p o n a few g e n e r a l points a b o u t his life. H e l i v e d i n A l e x a n d r i a a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f the C h r i s t i a n era, w h e n t h a t city d o m i n a t e d the c u l t u r a l a n d p h i l o s o p h i c a l life o f the R o m a n E m p i r e . S o m e R o m a n s w e n t to s t u d y a t A t h e n s , as scholars o f t h e e a r l y n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y w e n t to I t a l y from America. T h e great new movements, however, no longer began at A t h e n s b u t i n A l e x a n d r i a , w h e r e , as i n l a t e r n i n e t e e n t h century G e r m a n y , a n e w w o r l d w a s being created. T h e city h a d b e e n f o u n d e d three centuries earlier b y A l e x a n d e r , w h o h a d c o l l e c t e d settlers from all o v e r the eastern M e d i t e r r a n e a n , especially G r e e k s a n d J e w s , a l o n g w i t h his o w n d o m i n a t i n g M a c e d o n i a n s . T h e greatest l i b r a r y o f the a n c i e n t w o r l d w a s here a s s e m b l e d , a n d the greatest science ( v e r y g r e a t science I

2

AN I N T R O D U C T I O N

TO PHILO

JUDAEUS

indeed) developed. Here apparently Platonism changed into N e o p l a t o n i s m , a n d the religions o f the n e w w o r l d fused a n d f o u n d n e w d e p t h s as philosophers r e a d n e w ideas i n t o the settlers' v a r i o u s c u l t p r a c t i c e s a n d m y t h s . A few d e c a d e s later, C h r i s t i a n i t y h a d h e r e m o r e t h a n a n y w h e r e else to orient itself w i t h the best t e a c h i n g s o f the classical philosophers, a n d w i t h t h e c u r r e n t m y s t i c a l tendencies o f c o n t e m p o r a r y p a g a n thinkers. T h e artistic r e m a i n s o f the p e r i o d h a v e l a r g e l y perished f r o m t h e c i t y , b u t the d e c o r a t i o n s o f P o m p e i i i n I t a l y s e e m to a c o n s i d e r a b l e e x t e n t to reflect a s c h o o l , e s p e c i a l l y o f p a i n t i n g , t h a t h a d flourished best i n A l e x a n d r i a . J e w s , w h o i n h a b i t e d A l e x a n d r i a b y the h u n d r e d s o f thous a n d s , c o u l d n o m o r e b e unaffected b y s u c h c r e a t i v i t y t h a n c o u l d J e w s in nineteenth-century G e r m a n y or twentieth-century A m e r i c a . P h i l o l i v e d i n A l e x a n d r i a a t t h e h e i g h t o f its g l o r y . Since he called himself an 'old m a n ' in a document describing events o f A.D. 40, w e assume t h a t h e w a s b o r n a b o u t 25 B.C.; a n d since h e s u r v i v e d l o n g e n o u g h a t least to w r i t e t w o l o n g treatises, w e suppose t h a t h e d i e d p e r h a p s b e t w e e n A.D. 4 5 a n d 50. F r o m these d a t e s the i m p o r t a n c e o f P h i l o a g a i n a p p e a r s , i m p o r t a n t n o t o n l y for J u d a i s m , since w e h a v e so little J e w i s h literature o f this d a t e (he has far m o r e to tell us t h a n the D e a d S e a S c r o l l s ) , b u t also for C h r i s t i a n i t y . For,*if h e c a n b e t a k e n i n a n y sense as t y p i c a l o f the J e w s o f t h e R o m a n w o r l d — a h i g h l y d i s p u t e d p o i n t i n itself—he g i v e s us a priceless p i c t u r e o f t h e J u d a i s m o n w h i c h Christians b u i l t , o r f r o m w h i c h t h e y d e parted, in the gentile world. Philo must h a v e c o m e from several generations o f wealth, a f a m i l y w i t h a position m u c h like t h a t o f t h e R o t h s c h i l d s a t t h e e n d o f t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y . I n d e e d it h a s r e c e n t l y b e e n a r g u e d t h a t n o t o n l y P h i l o a n d his b r o t h e r A l e x a n d e r , b u t their father before t h e m , h a d e n j o y e d R o m a n citizenship. P h i l o says t h a t life w i t h o u t slaves w o u l d b e u n t h i n k a b l e , a n d A l e x a n d e r w a s o n e o f the richest* m e n i n the a n c i e n t w o r l d . S u c h w e a l t h w a s r a r e l y a c q u i r e d i n a single g e n e r a t i o n , at least w e a l t h w i t h the p o l i t i c a l a n d social alliances o f this f a m i l y . W h e n H e r o d

METHOD

3

A g r i p p a h a d r e a c h e d the l o w e s t p o i n t o f the a p p a r e n t l y h o p e less v a g a b o n d a g e o f his earlier y e a r s , A l e x a n d e r lent to h i m , b e c a u s e h e a d m i r e d the spirit o f A g r i p p a ' s wife C y p r o s , the king's r a n s o m o f t w o h u n d r e d t h o u s a n d d r a c h m a e . L a r g e a s u m as this w a s , it m u s t h a v e b e e n o n l y a s m a l l p o r t i o n o f A l e x a n d e r ' s fortune, since A l e x a n d e r w a s u n d e r n o c o m p u l s i o n to a d v a n c e the m o n e y , c o u l d h a v e h a d little h o p e o f its ever b e i n g r e t u r n e d , a n d so c o u l d n o t h a v e risked a l a r g e p a r t o f his c a p i t a l . J o s e p h u s g i v e s us still m o r e d r a m a t i c e v i d e n c e o f A l e x a n d e r ' s w e a l t h in t e l l i n g us t h a t A l e x a n d e r p r o v i d e d the silver a n d g o l d p l a t e s w h i c h c o v e r e d the n i n e gates o f the t e m p l e at J e r u s a l e m . E v e n a l l o w i n g for J o s e p h u s ' e x a g g e r a t i o n in dimensions, t h a t gift m u s t h a v e b e e n i n c r e d i b l y v a l u a b l e . I n a n o t h e r passage J o s e p h u s says t h a t A l e x a n d e r w a s 'foremost a m o n g his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s at A l e x a n d r i a b o t h for his f a m i l y a n d his w e a l t h ' . I n t h e R o m a n w o r l d g r e a t w e a l t h i n v o l v e d g r e a t p u b l i c o b l i g a t i o n : h e n c e it is not surprising t h a t A l e x a n d e r h a d a n official title, ' A l a b a r c h ' , w h i c h m e a n t t h a t h e w a s t h e p e r s o n responsible to t h e R o m a n s for the c o l l e c t i o n o f taxes, t h o u g h w h e t h e r for the taxes o f all A l e x a n d r i a o r o n l y for those o f the J e w s o f the c i t y does n o t a p p e a r . H e w a s also the s t e w a r d o f C l a u d i u s ' m o t h e r , A n t o n i a , a n d the ' o l d friend' o f C l a u d i u s . D u r i n g the riots G a i u s h a d h i m i m p r i s o n e d , b u t C l a u d i u s , o n c o m i n g to the threme, released h i m . H e m a r r i e d a son, M a r c u s , to B e r e n i c e , d a u g h t e r o f H e r o d . A n o t h e r son o f A l e x a n d e r , T i b e r i u s J u l i u s A l e x a n d e r , d e serted his r e l i g i o n a n d h a d a p o l i t i c a l c a r e e r e v e n m o r e brilliant t h a n his father's. W e first h e a r o f h i m i n the r e i g n o f C l a u d i u s , w h e n h e w a s epistrategos i n E g y p t . H e w a s afterwards a p p o i n t e d R o m a n p r o c u r a t o r in Palestine a t a b o u t A.D. 46, w h e r e h e g o v e r n e d severely b u t a c c e p t a b l y . U n d e r N e r o h e b e c a m e prefect o f E g y p t , a n d there t u r n e d the R o m a n legions u p o n the J e w s d u r i n g o n e o f the riots, w i t h the result, says J o s e p h u s , t h a t fifty t h o u s a n d J e w s w e r e killed. H i s a p p o i n t m e n t as prefect, a n d p r o b a b l y t h a t o f p r o c u r a t o r , h a d c a r r i e d w i t h it the r a n k o f a R o m a n k n i g h t , i f h e h a d not r e c e i v e d it before. H e assisted

4

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO PHILO

JUDAEUS

C o r b u l o i n a n e x p e d i t i o n i n t o A r m e n i a , i n t h e course o f w h i c h , as inlustres eques Romanus, a l o n g w i t h a n e p h e w o f C o r b u l o o f m i n o r a g e , h e w a s c o n s i d e r e d a d e q u a t e h o s t a g e for t h e safety o f K i n g T i r i d a t e s himself. R o m a n historians especially stress A l e x a n d e r ' s p a r t i n s u p p o r t i n g V e s p a s i a n ' s c a n d i d a c y for t h e t h r o n e . I t a p p e a r s t h a t t h e eastern a r m y h a d d e c l a r e d for V e s p a s i a n , b u t t h a t T i b e r i u s A l e x a n d e r i n E g y p t w a s t h e first R o m a n g o v e r n o r to r e c o g n i z e h i m a n d f o r m a l l y t o s w e a r t h e legions a n d p o p u l a c e o f a p r o v i n c e t o his s u p p o r t , so t h a t V e s p a s i a n ' s accession w a s s u b s e q u e n t l y d a t e d from this r e cognition rather than from the d a y o f the army's acclamation. I n o u r last g l i m p s e o f T i b e r i u s A l e x a n d e r h e is a g a i n i n P a l e s tine, this t i m e d u r i n g t h e g r e a t siege o f J e r u s a l e m . H e is s u b o r d i n a t e to T i t u s , o f course, b u t a p p a r e n t l y to T i t u s a l o n e , a position for w h i c h J o s e p h u s says h e ' w a s w e l l qualified b o t h b y a g e a n d e x p e r i e n c e ' . I t is possible t h a t J u v e n a l refers t o a statue of h i m at R o m e . 1

I n this f a m i l y o f w e a l t h a n d d e v o t i o n t o p u b l i c interest P h i l o seems n o e x c e p t i o n . A l t h o u g h w e k n o w o n l y a single i n c i d e n t from his life, t h a t i n c i d e n t s h o w s h i m a p o l i t i c a l l e a d e r o f A l e x a n d r i a n J e w s . T o this w e shall r e t u r n i n a l a t e r c h a p t e r . H e r e it is e n o u g h t o s a y that, i n a t i m e w h e n t h e E m p e r o r Gaius' madness h a d provoked a p o g r o m w h i c h threatened to w i p e t h e J e w s c o m p l e t e l y from A l e x a n d r i a , t h e y a p p o i n t e d P h i l o h e a d o f a l e g a t i o n to visit t h e e m p e r o r a n d p l e a d their c a u s e . I n t h e d o c u m e n t s w h i c h d e s c r i b e t h a t affair P h i l o tells little o f h i m s e l f e x c e p t w h a t h e d i d a n d said, b u t those w h o selected h i m m u s t h a v e d o n e so b e c a u s e t h e y h a d l o n g k n o w n a n d trusted h i m as a p r a c t i c a l l e a d e r . Philo's other writings contain only a few autobiographical passages, b u t u p o n t h e m w e a r e c o m p l e t e l y d e p e n d e n t for a n y 1

For documentation of these statements see m y The Politics of Philo Judaeus, Practice and Theory, 1938, 64-66, whence this text is largely excerpted. This book is hereafter referred to as Philo's Politics. For a n excellent study of Tiberius- and his father, see A . LEPAPE, 'Tiberius Julius Alexander,' Bulletin de la Sociiti Royale d'Archfologie d'Alexandrie, V I I I (1934), 3 3 1 - 4 ; and see J . DANIELOU, Philon d'Alexandrie, 1958, 1 1 - 3 9 .

METHOD

5

guesses a b o u t his personal c h a r a c t e r a n d w a y o f l i v i n g , since references to P h i l o i n o t h e r a u t h o r s s p e a k o n l y o f his w r i t i n g s . T h e r e h e is m e n t i o n e d as 'the l e a r n e d J e w ' , the Platonist, or the P y t h a g o r e a n , b u t n o p e r s o n a l details are g i v e n . E v e n J o s e p h u s m a k e s o n l y s u c h g e n e r a l statements. P h i l o r a r e l y refers to his p e r s o n a l life, b u t s o m e passages are r e v e a l i n g . A t the b e g i n n i n g o f the third b o o k o f his treatise On the Special Laws h e s a y s : T h e r e was once a time w h e n by devoting myself to philosophy and to contemplation of the world and its parts I achieved the enjoyment of that M i n d which is truly beautiful, desirable, and blessed; for I lived in constant communion with sacred utter ances and teachings, in which I greedily and insatiably rejoiced. N o base or worldly thoughts occurred to me, nor did I grovel for glory, wealth, or bodily comfort, but I seemed ever to be borne aloft in the heights in a rapture o f soul, and to accompany sun, moon, and all heaven and the universe in their revolutions. T h e n , ah, then peering downwards from the ethereal heights and directing the eye of m y intelligence as from a watchtower, I regarded the untold spectacle of all earthly things, and reckoned myself happy at having forcibly escaped the calamities of mortal life. A n d yet there lurked near m e that most grievous of evils, E n v y , with its hatred of all that is fair (o ILKJOKOXOS 06VOS), which suddenly fell upon me, and did not cease dragging upon me until it had hurled m e down into the vast sea of political cares, where I a m still tossed about and unable even so m u c h as to rise to the surface. But though I groan at m y fate, I still struggle on, for implanted in m y soul from early youth, I have a desire for education which ever has pity and compassion upon me, and lifts me up and elevates me. T h i s it is b y w h i c h I can sometimes raise m y head, and b y w h i c h , though the penetration of the eyes of m y soul is dimmed b y the mists of alien concerns, I can yet cast about with them in some measure upon m y surroundings, while I long to suck the breast of life pure and unmixed with evils. A n d if unexpectedly there is tem porary quiet and calm in the political tumults, I become winged and skim the waves, barely flying, and a m blown along 2

6

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO PHILO JUDAEUS

by the breezes of understanding, which often persuades me to run a w a y as it were for a holiday from m y pitiless masters, w h o are not only men but the great variety of practical affairs deluged upon me from all sides like a torrent. Still, even in such a condition, I ought to thank G o d that while I a m inundated I a m not sucked down into the depths. Rather, though in despair of m y good hope I had considered the eyes of m y soul to be incapacitated, now I open them and a m flooded with the light of wisdom, so that I a m not abandoned for the whole of my life to darkness. A n d so, behold, I dare not only read the sacred expositions of Moses, but even, with a passion for under standing, I venture to examine each detail, and to disclose and publish w h a t is not known to the multitude. 2

W i t h this goes a n o t h e r

statement:

For m a n y a time have I myself forsaken friends and kinsfolk and country and come into a wilderness, to give m y attention to some subject demanding contemplation, and derived no advantage from doing so, but m y mind scattered or bitten by passion has gone off to matters of the contrary kind. Sometimes, on the other hand, amid a vast throng I have a collected mind. G o d has dispersed the crowd that besets the soul, and taught me that a favorable and unfavorable condition are not brought about by differences of place, but by G o d w h o moves and leads the car of the soul in whatever w a y he pleases. 3

A g a i n Philo says: 'Flee into Mespotamia,' that river of life, and take heed lest rather stand absolutely rigid, of concerns as it pours in upon and from everywhere.

is into the middle of the swollen you be swept a w a y and drowned; and repel with might the torrent you from above, from either side,

4

I n v i e w o f the o t h e r passages w e c a n see t h a t this last o n e , w h i l e not a d i r e c t reference to P h i l o ' s o w n life, w o u l d h a v e b e e n u n d e r s t o o d as s u c h b y his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s w h o k n e w h i m . . B y profession he w a s , at least d u r i n g a l a r g e p a r t o f his life, a politicus, a w o r d w h i c h I m u s t k e e p i n L a t i n since o u r w o r d ' p o l i t i c i a n ' has b e e n r u i n e d . T h a t h e w a s a politicus w h o 2

Spec, I I I , 1 - 6 .

8

LA, II, 85.

* Fug., 49.

METHOD

7

l o o k e d b e y o n d the m e r e affairs o f state a p p e a r s i n these pas sages, a n d to this d u a l i s m i n his p o i n t o f v i e w w e m u s t r e t u r n . But w e m u s t n o t t a k e the intensity o f these passages too literally. P h i l o b a t t l e d w i t h the flood o f h u m a n c o n c e r n s for his i n n e r spiritual integrity, b u t h e w a s a g o o d s w i m m e r , o n e w h o r e a l l y l o v e d the w a t e r . P h i l o ' s difficulty l a y i n h o w to find r o o m for his m u l t i v a r i o u s interests, a n d w h i l e r e a d i n g his w r i t i n g s w e m u s t always recall that in h i m w e have one w h o was intimately in t o u c h w i t h all aspects o f the t e e m i n g life o f A l e x a n d r i a . I n spite o f the p h i l o s o p h i c a l a n d religious n a t u r e o f his w r i t i n g s , h e w a s a h a b i t u e o f the tfieatres, the g a m e s , a n d the b a n q u e t s o f the city. H e w a t c h e d the athletic sports o f the d a y critically, a n d speaks w i t h a l m o s t a n e x p e r t ' s insight a b o u t contests h e has seen w h e r e the v i c t o r w a s n o t the m o r e skilful b o x e r , b u t the m a n i n better p h y s i c a l t r a i n i n g , as w e s h o u l d say, to ' t a k e p u n i s h m e n t ' . H e k n o w s t h a t o n e w h o trains athletes insists t h a t t h e y carefully m a s t i c a t e their food. H e tells o f b e i n g a t c h a r i o t races w h e r e e x c i t e m e n t r a n so h i g h t h a t s o m e o f the spectators rushed i n t o the course a n d w e r e killed. H e describes the en thusiasm o f the c r o w d at a n o w lost p l a y o f E u r i p i d e s w h e n s o m e brilliant lines i n praise o f f r e e d o m w e r e recited. A t the theatre, too, h e h a s 'often' n o t i c e d h o w differently music affects different p e o p l e , the s a m e t u n e m o v i n g s o m e to e x c l a m a t i o n s o f praise, l e a v i n g others u n m o v e d , a n d d r i v i n g still others o u t of the t h e a t r e i n disgust w i t h their fingers s t o p p i n g their ears. W h e n h e a t t e n d e d b a n q u e t s he h a d to w a t c h h i m s e l f carefully, ' t a k e r e a s o n a l o n g ' , as h e expressed it, or, as frequently h a p p e n e d , h e w o u l d b e c o m e a helpless slave to the pleasures o f food a n d d r i n k . W i t h w h a t satisfaction h e recalls the b a n q u e t s h e a t t e n d e d w h e r e h e d i d not thus lose c o n t r o l o f h i m s e l f . 5

A n interesting testimony to P h i l o ' s c h a r a c t e r a p p e a r s i n a f r a g m e n t w h i c h tells o f a r e m a r k m a d e b y his wife. S h e w a s 6

6

For documentation of the foregoing see m y The Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt, 1929, 2 f., whence this text is excerpted. See ANTONIUS, Ser., cxxiii; MANGBY, Philo, II, 6 7 3 . 6

8


TO PHILO

JUDAEUS

c o n s p i c u o u s in h e r e n v i r o n m e n t for n o t w e a r i n g the h e a v y g o l d o r n a m e n t s o f w e a l t h y w o m e n o f the t i m e . W h e n asked w h y she d i d not w e a r t h e m she r e p l i e d : ' T h e v i r t u e o f h e r h u s b a n d is sufficient o r n a m e n t for the w i f e ' . E v e n t h o u g h n o t h i n g final c a n b e c o n c l u d e d , it is w o r t h suggesting, w h a t M r H o w a r d G o o d h a r t p o i n t e d o u t to m e , t h a t P h i l o w a s p r o b a b l y o l d e r t h a n his b r o t h e r A l e x a n d e r . A l e x a n d e r ' s son, T i b e r i u s J u l i u s A l e x a n d e r , w a s at the h e i g h t o f his p o l i t i c a l c a r e e r i n the sixties a n d seventies, a n d , c o n s i d e r i n g the c a r e e r a g e c u s t o m a r y i n the a n c i e n t w o r l d , w a s p r o b a b l y not o v e r fifty i n A.D. 7 0 ; t h a t is, h e w a s b o r n p r o b a b l y n o t earlier t h a n A.D. 20. H i s b r o t h e r M a r c u s w a s m a r r i e d i n A.D. 4 3 , a n d , a g a i n i n v i e w o f the e a r l y m a r r i a g e a g e o f the p e r i o d , w a s p r o b a b l y b o r n also not before A.D. 20. T h e p r e s u m p t i o n , then, m u s t b e t h a t A l e x a n d e r the A l e b a r c h w a s a y o u n g m a n w h o s e c h i l d r e n w e r e b e i n g b o r n i n his e a r l y twenties, a n d so w a s h i m s e l f b o r n not earlier t h a n 10 B.C. I f P h i l o w a s a n ' o l d m a n ' i n A.D. 40, his b i r t h d a t e , as w e h a v e seen, w o u l d p r o b a b l y b e close to 20 B.C., t h a t is, s o m e y e a r s earlier t h a n his b r o t h e r ' s . I n t h a t case it is p r o b a b l e t h a t P h i l o w a s less distinguished as a financier t h a n A l e x a n d e r b e c a u s e i n his y o u t h he w a s , as h e says, interested e x c l u s i v e l y i n s t u d y a n d c o n t e m p l a t i o n , a n d so left the responsibilities o f the f a m i l y estate to his y o u n g e r b r o ther. W h e n h e l a t e r e m e r g e d to share i n a c t i v e p o l i t i c a l affairs h e still h a d his h e a r t so l a r g e l y i n s t u d y a n d w r i t i n g t h a t A l e x a n d e r c o n t i n u e d financially the h e a d o f the f a m i l y . T h i s is all w e k n o w o f P h i l o ' s life from tradition or f r o m the a u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l passages i n his w r i t i n g s . W e b e g i n w i t h h i m i n the e x t e r n a l life o f the politicus, h i g h l y c o n n e c t e d , r i c h , a l i v e to all t h a t w a s v i t a l i n A l e x a n d r i a . T o his p o l i t i c a l ideas w e shall d e v o t e a s e p a r a t e c h a p t e r . O f P h i l o the m a n w e c a n s a y o n l y o n e t h i n g m o r e : h e w a s also the m a n w h o f o u n d time to w r i t e a g r e a t n u m b e r o f treatises, w h i c h t o g e t h e r m u s t h a v e m a d e a l m o s t a l i b r a r y i n themselves. T h e w r i t i n g s themselves tell us m u c h m o r e a b o u t h i m . H e l i v e d i n conflict b e t w e e n the p r a c t i c a l a n d the c o n t e m p l a t i v e

METHOD

9

life, b u t e v e n w i t h i n the c o n t e m p l a t i v e itself h e w a s o f d i v i d e d l o y a l t y . F o r his w r i t i n g s , w h i c h w e shall consider m o r e i n d e t a i l in the f o l l o w i n g c h a p t e r , a r e for the most p a r t scriptural c o m m e n t a r i e s . S o m e o f t h e m consider the b i b l i c a l text verse b y verse, others d e v o t e w h o l e treatises to discursive a l l e g o r y o n o n l y a few verses, i n the course o f w h i c h scriptural statements from a n y p a r t o f the P e n t a t e u c h a r e selected a n d r e l a t e d to the c e n t r a l ones. I n so far, his w r i t i n g s m a y b e c a l l e d M i d r a s h , a form w e k n o w n o t o n l y from the later r a b b i s b u t from the D e a d S e a Scrolls. T h e e x p l a n a t i o n s a n d o b j e c t i v e s r e a c h e d , h o w e v e r , little r e s e m b l e those o f r a b b i n i c M i d r a s h . W i t h a p r o f o u n d l o y a l t y to the B i b l e w h i c h insists u p o n the s a n c t i t y o f the v e r y letter, w i t h a l o y a l t y to the J e w i s h l a w w h i c h s h o w s h e m u s t h a v e b e e n a carefully o b s e r v a n t J e w , P h i l o shows a v e r i t a b l e obsession w i t h the ideas o f the G r e e k c i v i l i z a t i o n a b o u t h i m . H i s treatises c o u l d h a v e c o m e o n l y f r o m o n e steeped i n the text o f the B i b l e , especially the B o o k s o f M o s e s , for his sentences are s t u d d e d w i t h b i b l i c a l q u o t a t i o n s or phrases, i n a w a y to r e m i n d the E n g l i s h r e a d e r o f s u c h a u t h o r s as J o h n B u n y a n . B u t P h i l o w r o t e a n d t h o u g h t in G r e e k . A n y o n e r e a d i n g B u n y a n w o u l d k n o w t h a t h e h a d b e e n b r o u g h t u p o n the K i n g J a m e s V e r s i o n , since h e a l w a y s reflects its l a n g u a g e , a n d n e v e r i n d i c a t e s t h a t a H e b r e w o r G r e e k text h a d g r e a t e r a u t h o r i t y t h a n the translation. I n the s a m e w a y P h i l o w a s steeped i n the G r e e k translation m a d e from t h e H e b r e w t w o centuries before his d a y , a n d h e c o m m e n t s o n the n u a n c e s o f G r e e k phrases i n a w a y to s h o w t h a t h e c o n s i d e r e d the G r e e k t e x t v e r b a l l y inspired a n d c o r r e c t . H e a p p a r e n t l y h a d a g u i d e to the m e a n i n g o f the strange H e b r e w p r o p e r n a m e s , b u t n e v e r q u e s t i o n e d a line o f the G r e e k trans l a t i o n as c o m p a r e d w i t h the o r i g i n a l . S c h o l a r s i n g e n e r a l a g r e e , a c c o r d i n g l y , t h a t P h i l o ' s careful t r a i n i n g i n the B i b l e w a s i n the G r e e k text, a n d see n o e v i d e n c e t h a t h e k n e w m o r e t h a n a scattered bit o f H e b r e w , i f a n y . T o this w a s a d d e d t r a i n i n g i n G r e e k literature a n d civili z a t i o n . H e q u o t e d the classical poets a n d dramatists freely,

IO


TO PHILO

JUDAEUS

seems to h a v e k n o w n G r e e k history w e l l , a n d h a d at least a g o o d w o r k i n g k n o w l e d g e o f the classical p h i l o s o p h e r s . N o t t h a t h e w a s at all i n d i s c r i m i n a t e i n a d o p t i n g i d e a s a n d p r a c t i c e s o f hellenistic A l e x a n d r i a . T h e i d o l a t r y , the w h o l e p a g a n cultus, h e r e g a r d e d w i t h s c o r n . B u t n o m a n e d u c a t e d like P h i l o i n the s u b l i m e p h i l o s o p h y o f the G r e e k s c o u l d fail to b e m o v e d b y it. A n d p h i l o s o p h y i n c l u d e d m u c h : w i t h P h i l o it i n c l u d e d the w h o l e s y s t e m o f G r e e k e d u c a t i o n , as w e l l as the t e a c h i n g s o f t h e f o r m a l p h i l o s o p h e r s o f all schools, a n d those n o w less-known a n d m o r e m y s t i c i d e a s w h i c h P l a t o n i c a n d P y t h a g o r e a n schools w e r e d e v e l o p i n g i n their transition to N e o p l a t o n i s m . O f course h e d i d n o t like all p h i l o s o p h i c d o c t r i n e s : S t o i c m a t e r i a l i s m a n d E p i c u r e a n h u m a n i s m w e r e alike a b h o r r e n t to h i m . Y e t the p h i l o s o p h i c a l schools fascinated h i m a p p a r e n t l y as m u c h as, i f n o t m o r e t h a n , the t e a c h i n g s o f the B i b l e i n their simple literal form. A n d P h i l o w a s d e e p l y m o v e d b y the i d e a s b e h i n d the M y s t e r y R e l i g i o n s w h i c h h a d p o u r e d i n t o the hellenistic m i x i n g b o w l from all sides. T o w h a t e x t e n t t h e y i n f l u e n c e d h i m is a h i g h l y c o n t r o v e r t e d p o i n t , b u t i f his m y s t i c a l l a n g u a g e a n d figures o f s p e e c h b e d i s c o u n t e d at the v e r y l o w e s t r a t e , a n d t h o u g h t to b e o n l y t e r m s w h i c h P h i l o ' t o o k from the air' w i t h o u t essential i n f l u e n c e u p o n h i m s e l f o r his i d e a s , still there t h e y a r e , staring a t us f r o m e v e r y p a g e , a n d t h e r e c a n b e n o q u e s t i o n t h a t P h i l o ' s o w n religious e x p e r i e n c e w a s o f a k i n d for w h i c h h e f o u n d s u c h t e r m i n o l o g y expressive. T h e t w o traditions o f t h o u g h t , t h e J e w i s h a n d the G r e e k , so c o m p l e t e l y b l e n d e d i n his m i n d t h a t t h e f a v o u r i t e dispute as to w h e t h e r h e w a s m o r e G r e e k o r m o r e J e w i s h has little m e a n i n g . O u t o f the t w o strands h e h a d w o v e n h i m s e l f a single c l o t h , w a r p and woof. H e read Plato in terms o f Moses, and Moses in terms o f P l a t o , to t h e p o i n t t h a t h e w a s c o n v i n c e d t h a t e a c h h a d said essentially the s a m e things. I n d e e d , h e used to s a y t h a t P l a t o h a d c r i b b e d his i d e a s from M o s e s , b u t his b i b l i c a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s often r e a d as t h o u g h h e t h o u g h t M o s e s h a d b e e n t r a i n e d b y P l a t o . P h i l o , a n o p e n - m i n d e d J e w , n o m o r e rejected the best o f the g e n t i l e w o r l d t h a n t h e m o d e r n A m e r i c a n J e w

METHOD

II

s h o u l d b e e x p e c t e d to reject Einstein or S h a k e s p e a r e . H e n o t o n l y r e m a i n e d l o y a l to J e w i s h p e o p l e a n d customs, b u t h e m a d e a h e r c u l e a n effort to see m e a n i n g i n the J e w i s h traditions i n s u c h terms o f ' m e a n i n g ' as the deepest a n d most v a l u a b l e k n o w l e d g e o f his d a y h a d t a u g h t h i m . I n i n t e r p r e t i n g P h i l o d u r i n g the last c e n t u r y a n d a h a l f this p r o b l e m o f the relation o f J e w a n d G r e e k w i t h i n h i m has not b e e n so c l e a r l y e n v i s a g e d as it h a s b e e n d u r i n g the last thirty y e a r s . I s a a k H e i n e m a n n ' s Philons griechische undjiidische Bildung, 1932, m y o w n By Light, Light, 1 9 3 5 , W a l t h e r V o l k e r ' s Fortschritt und Vollendung bei Philo von Alexandrien, 1938, a n d H a r r y W o l f s o n ' s Philo, 1 9 4 5 , b y their diversity o f interpretations i l l u m i n a t e the i m p o r t a n c e o f basic m e t h o d o l o g y a n d p r e conceptions. H e i n e m a n n addressed h i m s e l f to the c e n t r a l q u e s t i o n : W h a t is the e x a c t n a t u r e o f the m i x t u r e o f p a g a n a n d J e w i s h elements in P h i l o ; w h a t d i d h e t a k e from w h i c h sources, a n d w h a t w a s the m e a n i n g o f the t w o w h e n c o m b i n e d ? T h e difficulties o f this m e t h o d H e i n e m a n n frankly r e c o g n i z e d from the start, chiefly t h a t i n m a n y matters the J e w s a n d gentiles w e r e so n e a r to g e t h e r t h a t P h i l o m i g h t h a v e h a d m u c h o f w h a t h e said from either source. H e i n e m a n n w a s c o n v i n c e d t h a t the o n l y m e t h o d w a s to a n a l y s e closely a b l o c k o f P h i l o ' s t h i n k i n g w i t h this p o i n t i n m i n d . H e chose the l e g a l interpretations o f P h i l o r a t h e r t h a n the m o r e m e t a p h y s i c a l w r i t i n g s , a n d c a m e to s o m e interesting conclusions. P h i l o , h e is c e r t a i n , k n e w n o t h i n g o f the o r a l traditions o n w h i c h t a l m u d i c l a w w a s u l t i m a t e l y b a s e d . H e k n e w n o H e b r e w . H e h a d s i m p l y the p r a c t i c e s o f t h e J e w s o f his c o m m u n i t y , a n d the P e n t a t e u c h ; these h e i n t e r p r e t e d t h r o u g h o u t i n terms o f G r e e k science, especially the scientific ethics o f the G r e e k schools. H e n e v e r c e a s e d to b e a J e w , a n d his J e w i s h p i e t y — a t e r m w h i c h H e i n e m a n n l e a v e s r a t h e r v a g u e — i n f l u e n c e d his selection o f hellenic elements. B u t t h a t influence, as h e describes it, seems r e l a t i v e l y slight i n c o m parison w i t h the influence o f the G r e e k p o i n t o f v i e w o n his J u d a i s m . T h e festivals a n d l a w s are s p i r i t u a l i z e d a n d justified,

12

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INTRODUCTION

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n o t i n the J e w i s h w a y o n the g r o u n d t h a t t h e y are the c o m m a n d s , o f G o d a n d h e n c e to b e a c c e p t e d as such, b u t b e c a u s e t h e y a g r e e w i t h the g e n e r a l p r i n c i p l e s o f ethics t a u g h t b y the G r e e k s . G o d the legislator g a v e p r i m a r i l y the l a w o f n a t u r e . H e n c e t h e blessed p e o p l e w i t h a s p e c i a l r e v e l a t i o n , t h a n w h i c h n o t h i n g c a n b e h i g h e r , b e c a m e the p e o p l e w i t h a superior f o r m u l a t i o n o f G r e e k m e t a p h y s i c s , a n d this is for P h i l o the basis o f J e w i s h p a r t i c u l a r i s m . W h a t H e i n e m a n n seems to b e i m p l y i n g is t h a t the superiority o f J u d a i s m w a s to P h i l o o n e o f d e g r e e n o t o f k i n d , a n d the d e g r e e w a s m a r k e d b y the posses sion o f the m i r a c u l o u s T o r a h , b y a l l e g o r i z i n g w h o s e w o r d s o n e m i g h t find the true sources a n d o b j e c t i v e s o f all G r e e k science a n d p h i l o s o p h y . T h a t is, H e i n e m a n n seems to h a v e c o n c l u d e d t h a t for P h i l o the T o r a h c e a s e d to b e J e w i s h i n c h a r a c t e r , a n d b e c a m e simply a cryptogram o f G r e e k thought. T r u e , he r e c o g n i z e s , P h i l o often t r e a t e d b i b l i c a l passages e x a c t l y as d i d the r a b b i s , a n d t h e r e w a s a m o v e m e n t o f u n i v e r s a l i s m a n d spiritualization i n J u d a i s m itself, e s p e c i a l l y i n the p r o p h e t s , w h i c h m u c h r e s e m b l e d G r e e k t h i n k i n g o n m a n y points. B u t H e i n e m a n n feels t h a t P h i l o w a s often so closely f o l l o w i n g the G r e e k s t h a t h e h i m s e l f d i d n o t suspect his similarity o n m a n y details to r a b b i n i c J u d a i s m , o r w h a t c a m e to b e so i n its later c o d i f i c a t i o n , o f w h i c h h e seems o n the w h o l e to b e ignorant. Heinemann's work, a mine of information, a n d a masterpiece o f synthesis, has still to b e c r i t i c a l l y j u d g e d , b u t this c a n b e d o n e o n l y b y a n e x p e r t scrutiny o f his details. H a s H e i n e m a n n a d e q u a t e l y p r e s e n t e d r a b b i n i c h a l a c h a , a n d a r e his c o n clusions s o u n d ? S a m u e l B e l k i n has discussed the p r o b l e m a n d c o m e to q u i t e different conclusions f r o m H e i n e m a n n ; a n d w h i l e I suspect H e i n e m a n n is n e a r e r the t r u t h , I a m n o t i n a position to j u d g e . A n e w d i m e n s i o n o f this a p p r o a c h to the p r o b l e m a p p e a r s i n the studies o f s e v e r a l rabbinists, led b y S a u l 7

7

Philo and the Oral Law, 1940; see m y review in Journal of Biblical Literature, L I X (1940), 420-3. Belkin's thesis is that Philo knew Hebrew, was well informed about rabbinic tradition, and based his interpretation of the law largely upon rabbinic principles. See also BELKIN'S In His Image, i960, passim.

METHOD

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L i e b e r m a n , w h o are p o i n t i n g o u t G r e e k influence o n the t h o u g h t o f the r a b b i s themselves. T h e i r w o r k b y n o m e a n s lessens m y impression t h a t the G r e e k s influenced P h i l o d i r e c t l y a n d d e e p l y , b u t w e shall p r o b a b l y h a v e to c o n c l u d e t h a t all J e w s w e r e m o r e or less h e l l e n i z e d , a n d t h a t the s h a r p cleft b e t w e e n r a b b i n i c a n d h e l l e n i z e d J u d a i s m c a n no l o n g e r b e t a k e n as a n a b s o l u t e . T h e r e c a n b e n o question t h a t H e i n e m a n n has suggested a m o s t profitable m e t h o d o f a p p r o a c h to P h i l o , e v e n t h o u g h it p r o v e t h a t h e has n o t said the last w o r d . T o s t u d y P h i l o ' s ideas o f legislation, c e r e m o n i a l a n d civil, is b o u n d to l e a d to i m p o r t a n t results. It is a m e t h o d , h o w e v e r , w h i c h o n l y halachists w h o h a v e also a g o o d t r a i n i n g in G r e e k and R o m a n law and philosophy can attempt. I n m y o w n By Light, Light q u i t e a n o t h e r a p p r o a c h w a s used. H e r e I w a s interested i n s t u d y i n g w h a t I c a l l e d the religiosity o f P h i l o , a n d t o o k as m y c h i e f g u i d e the m o r e e l a b o r a t e l y a l l e g o r i c a l w r i t i n g s , i n w h i c h I w a s c o n v i n c e d , a n d still a m , t h a t P h i l o w r o t e m o r e from the h e a r t t h a n i n a n y o t h e r o f his w o r k s . T h a t is, h e w r o t e here to e x p o u n d his s p e c u l a t i v e a n d m y s t i c a l aspirations, w h i c h he r e p e a t e d l y r a n k e d a b o v e all his o t h e r interests. T h e s e aspirations n e v e r for a m o m e n t d i s p l a c e d his a c t i v e l o y a l t y to the J e w i s h g r o u p , or the expression o f t h a t l o y a l t y i n careful l e g a l o b s e r v a n c e . B u t o v e r a n d a g a i n h e asserts t h a t the t r u e m e a n i n g o f t h a t g r o u p i n G o d ' s eyes, a n d the m e a n i n g o f the literal tradition a n d o b s e r v a n c e o f the T o r a h , c a n b e p e r c e i v e d o n l y b y a m i n o r i t y o f spiritually gifted m e n . I n the T o r a h G o d r e v e a l e d h i m s e l f to b e the source o f a g r e a t s t r e a m o f B e i n g , as the sun is o f l i g h t , a n d m a d e it c l e a r t h a t the true J u d a i s m is fulfilled o n l y w h e n m e n r e c o g n i z e the n a t u r e o f this deity, a n d a s c e n d into e v e r h i g h e r p a r t i c i p a t i o n in the B e i n g o f G o d thus r a d i a t e d from the s u p r e m e a n d ulti m a t e l y inaccessible O n e . I n the process P h i l o assimilates the religious notions o f p a g a n i s m a b o u t h i m , p a r t i c u l a r l y o f the later forms o f P l a t o n i s m a n d P y t h a g o r e a n i s m . T h e s e t a u g h t the s u p r e m e a n d i m m a t e r i a l deity, b u t a b s o r b e d m u c h o f the emotion and form of the M y s t e r y Religions w h e n presenting

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the possibility o f access to G o d , the m y s t i c ascent. T o the m y s t i c ideas a n d aspirations o f P h i l o a special c h a p t e r w i l l b e d e v o t e d . H e r e I m a y say t h a t w h i l e I d e v e l o p e d the n o t i o n m o r e e l a b o r a t e l y t h a n m y predecessors, a n d h a v e , I h o p e , s h o w n its i n t e g r a t i o n i n the J e w i s h tradition m o r e c o m p l e t e l y , I w a s b u t c a r r y i n g o n the t e n d e n c y o f the best P h i l o n i c scholarship o f the p r e v i o u s thirty y e a r s , Bousset, B r e h i e r , W i n d i s c h , L e i s e g a n g , R e i t z e n s t e i n , L e w y , P a s c h e r , a n d m a n y others. W e disagree a m o n g ourselves a b o u t details, b u t a g r e e t h a t the basic d e p a r t ure o f P h i l o from ' n o r m a t i v e ' J u d a i s m lies i n the fact t h a t h e took to his h e a r t the p a g a n i d e a o f s a l v a t i o n ; t h a t is, t h a t the spirit b e released from the flesh i n o r d e r to r e t u r n to its spiritual source i n G o d . T h i s , r a t h e r t h a n his a d o p t i o n o f the f o r m a l p h i l o s o p h y o f classical G r e e k schools, i m p o r t a n t as t h a t a d a p t a t i o n w a s , seems to us the critical step o f P h i l o . T h e b o o k b y W a l t h e r V o l k e r so s h a r p l y a t t a c k e d this p o i n t o f v i e w t h a t w e c a n n o l o n g e r assume w i t h o u t d e f e n d i n g o u r m a j o r premises i n m e t h o d o l o g y . V o l k e r w r i t i n g from the position o f e x t r e m e l y c o n s e r v a t i v e Protestantism, asserts t h a t to use the t e r m m y s t i c o f P h i l o a t all, as historians o f religion h a v e freely b e e n d o i n g , is to b e g the essential question. H e believes that, in his o w n w o r d s , ' t h e r e exists n o true m y s t i c i s m a p a r t from the en Christoi a n d the s a c r a m e n t ' , a n d t h a t the a t t e m p t ' t o m a k e P h i l o responsible for the b e g i n n i n g s o f C h r i s t i a n m y s t i c i s m ' is m o t i v a t e d b y the desire 'to discredit C h r i s t i a n m y s t i c i s m at its v e r y outset b y its p r e t e n d e d e x t r a - C h r i s t i a n o r i g i n ' . T h e s e h a r d w o r d s , d i r e c t e d against m e m o r e t h a n a n y o n e else, n o t o n l y misrepresent m y m o t i v e s , b u t m y position. I h a v e n e v e r d r e a m e d o f m a k i n g P h i l o the o r i g i n o f C h r i s t i a n m y s t i c i s m , or a n y o t h e r m y s t i c i s m . H e seems to m e to reflect a m y s t i c m o v e m e n t i n J u d a i s m w h i c h as a w h o l e a c t e d w i t h g r e a t influence o n early C h r i s t i a n i t y , b u t I see n o d i r e c t i n fluence o f P h i l o h i m s e l f o n the e a r l y Christians at all. I find it still m o r e difficult to b e l i e v e t h a t it w o u l d h a v e b e e n to the dis credit o f Christianity, however, if he actually h a d influenced the founders. V o l k e r ' s s t a t e m e n t m i g h t w e l l b e i g n o r e d i f it

METHOD

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w e r e n o t m a d e b y one w h o t h e n p r o c e e d s to g i v e a d e e p l y l e a r n e d a c c o u n t o f P h i l o i n w h i c h a n e w P h i l o i m a g e is e r e c t e d . His g r e a t w e i g h t o f e v i d e n c e , his assured k n o w l e d g e o f p r e v i o u s study o f P h i l o , m a k e V o l k e r ' s b o o k e x t r e m e l y p l a u s i b l e . V o l k e r w o u l d set u p a n e w m e t h o d for s t u d y i n g P h i l o . First h e denies a priori t h a t the m y s t e r y ideas c u r r e n t in P h i l o ' s w o r l d c o u l d h a v e influenced a J e w , so h e refuses to consider a line o f the mass o f e v i d e n c e from those sources w h i c h historians o f religion h a v e b e e n a c c u m u l a t i n g . S e c o n d l y , h e attacks r e p e a t e d l y those w h o try to e x p o u n d the t h o u g h t o f P h i l o b y assem b l i n g passages o n the different points o f his t e a c h i n g , a n d then, w h e n as often t h e statements are c o n t r a d i c t o r y , b y a r b i t r a r i l y selecting some r a t h e r t h a n others r e a l l y as p r e s e n t i n g P h i l o ' s t h o u g h t . T h e w h o l e e v i d e n c e , all the passages, h e insists, must b e t a k e n into a c c o u n t . T h i r d l y , h e denies o v e r a n d a g a i n t h a t P h i l o h a d a n y system w h i c h c a n b e e l a b o r a t e d i n d e t a i l (on w h i c h , I a m sure, most scholars w o u l d a g r e e ) , b u t t h e n says t h a t P h i l o ' s v a r y i n g statements m u s t b e c o n s i d e r e d from the p o i n t o f v i e w o f his essential a t t i t u d e w h i c h , V o l k e r asserts, w a s t h a t o f a pious J e w . A n y t h i n g not i n h a r m o n y w i t h this essential P h i l o w a s b u t a side issue, a Nebenstrommung, or it w a s a n a t t e m p t to d r a g i n p h i l o s o p h i c a l t e r m i n o l o g y w h i c h h a d n o m e a n i n g for the h e a r t o f Philo's m e s s a g e . V o l k e r , then, essenti ally uses the m e t h o d h e r e p u d i a t e s . H e collects the passages o f P h i l o o n e a c h p o i n t h e discusses, a n d t h e n p r o n o u n c e s t h a t those passages w h i c h are i n a c c o r d w i t h the p i e t y o f the Psalms a n d S i r a c h are t h e true P h i l o . H e considers the p h i l o s o p h i c a l passages to b e m e r e f o r m a l gestures, a n d the m y s t i c a l passages, i f h e a d d u c e s t h e m at all, to b e m e a n i n g l e s s p h r a s e o l o g y . T h e P h i l o w i t h w h o m h e b e g a n , a n d thus ends, is a s i m p l e J e w w h o l i k e d to talk i n p h i l o s o p h i c a l l a n g u a g e to impress his e d u c a t i o n u p o n G r e e k readers. It is h a r d to b e l i e v e t h a t a n y o n e w h o has r e a d m u c h o f P h i l o w i l l a g r e e w i t h V o l k e r . T h e g r e a t difficulty is t h a t for all his protests against s y s t e m a t i z i n g P h i l o , V o l k e r ' s b o o k is a n e x t r e m e e x a m p l e o f simplification, a n d I c a n see n o essential

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difference b e t w e e n simplification a n d s y s t e m a t i z a t i o n . I f P h i l o ' s r e l i g i o n w a s a l w a y s a n d o n l y t h a t o f the S o n o f S i r a c h , it seems strange t h a t he so c o m p l e t e l y b u r i e d a n d o b s c u r e d it i n Nebenstrdmungen. T h e W i s d o m o f S i r a c h , in G r e e k , w o u l d h a v e b e e n perfectly intelligible to G r e e k s , a n d to c o n c e a l s u c h a message in the w a y V o l k e r thinks P h i l o d i d w o u l d h a v e b e e n the most fatuous sort o f p r o c e d u r e . I c a n n o t b e l i e v e t h a t P h i l o w a s thus fatuous. I q u i t e a g r e e t h a t religious e x p e r i e n c e r a t h e r t h a n rationalistic p h i l o s o p h y w a s P h i l o ' s o b j e c t i v e . V o l k e r ' s essential error arises from his consistent a priori a s s u m p t i o n t h a t p a g a n religiosity h a d n o r e a l religious spirit o r m o t i v a t i o n , c e r t a i n l y n o n e t h a t c o u l d a p p e a l to a J e w . I n contrast to V o l k e r , H a r r y W o l f s o n w r o t e to s h o w t h a t P h i l o w a s o n e o f the greatest p h i l o s o p h i c a l thinkers o f the W e s t . H i s s t u d y o f P h i l o is p a r t o f a magnum opus, m a n y o f w h o s e v o l u m e s h a v e a l r e a d y b e e n p u b l i s h e d . W h e n c o m p l e t e it w i l l b e g i n w i t h at least o n e v o l u m e o n the G r e e k s , then consider P h i l o as here, t h e n g i v e the w h o l e d e v e l o p m e n t o f p h i l o s o p h y i n C h r i s t i a n , I s l a m i c a n d J e w i s h circles o f the M i d d l e A g e s , a n d finally s h o w the b e g i n n i n g o f the n e w a g e w h e n S p i n o z a b r o k e the p a t t e r n o f m e d i a e v a l t h o u g h t a n d r e t u r n e d to the G r e e k a p p r o a c h . W o l f s o n believes t h a t m e d i a e v a l p h i l o s o p h y h a d a distinctive c h a r a c t e r b e c a u s e it h a d a distinctive source o f k n o w l e d g e q u i t e foreign to b o t h G r e e k a n d m o d e r n thinkers, the source w e u s u a l l y c a l l ' r e v e l a t i o n ' , b u t w h i c h W o l f s o n calls the ' p r e a m b l e o f faith'. T h e m o d e r n s , as d i d the G r e e k s , try b y o b s e r v a t i o n , hypothesis, a n d intuition, w h a t e v e r these w o r d s m e a n , to discover the t r u t h a b o u t the n a t u r e o f m a n , a n d the n a t u r e o f his e n v i r o n m e n t u p to a n d i n c l u d i n g G o d himself. T h e m e d i a e v a l w o r l d h a d to s q u a r e all s u c h d a t a o f 'reason' w i t h the d a t a o f inspired S c r i p t u r e s w h e r e the answers w e r e all g i v e n . M o r e t h a n this, the mediaevalists h a d to s q u a r e their reasons w i t h a p h i l o s o p h i c a l tradition w h i c h d e t e r m i n e d h o w S c r i p t u r e itself w a s to b e interpreted, W o l f s o n says, for in reli g i o n t h e y h a d a 'set o f inflexible principles o f a d i v i n e l y r e v e a l e d origin, b y w h i c h p h i l o s o p h y , the p r o d u c t o f erring h u m a n

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reason, h a d to b e tested a n d p u r g e d a n d purified'. T h e s e i n flexible principles, W o l f s o n continues in his Preface, w e r e a l l w o r k e d o u t b y n o n e o t h e r t h a n P h i l o himself, a n d so the ' p h i l o s o p h y o f P h i l o ' c a m e to b e the ' m o s t d o m i n a n t force i n the history o f p h i l o s o p h y d o w n to the s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y ' . E v e n as a r d e n t a Philonist as m y s e l f m u s t blink a t so g r e a t a c l a i m for o u r h e r o . T h a t the P h i l o n i c school, or h e l l e n i z e d J u d a i s m , w a s o n e o f the most i m p o r t a n t f o r m a t i v e influences in the m a k i n g o f C h r i s t i a n i t y ; t h a t it set a t e n d e n c y a n d m e t h o d w h o s e e l a b o r a t i o n does distinguish m e d i a e v a l t h o u g h t from the t h i n k i n g o f m o d e r n t i m e s ; t h a t this w a s l a r g e l y a r e q u i r e m e n t to h o l d reason w i t h i n the limits o f r e v e a l e d r e l i g i o n — t h e s e s e e m to m e c l e a r l y i n d i s p u t a b l e , though m e d i a e v a l thinkers steadily forced so m u c h i n t o the w o r d s o f S c r i p t u r e t h a t the 'limits o f r e v e a l e d r e l i g i o n ' b e c a m e h i g h l y d e b a t a b l e entities. W o l f s o n , h o w e v e r , w a n t s to g o farther a n d to see in a single 'set o f inflexible p r i n c i p l e s ' , a single ' p h i l o s o p h y ' , t h a t o f P h i l o , the d o m i n a t i n g force i n all m e d i a e v a l t h i n k i n g . W o l f s o n ' s v o l u m e s o n P h i l o a t t e m p t to s h o w h o w this ' p h i l o s o p h y ' , those 'inflexible p r i n c i p l e s ' , c a m e i n t o existence in the m i n d o f o n e w h o w a s , says W o l f s o n , ' a p h i l o s o p h e r in the g r a n d m a n n e r ' . I n a c h a p t e r o n m e t h o d it is n o t possible to outline the i n tricate p h i l o s o p h y o f P h i l o w i t h w h i c h W o l f s o n e m e r g e s . R e p e a t e d l y , w h e n f a c e d w i t h P h i l o ' s inconsistencies, W o l f s o n speaks essentially as h e does a b o u t o n e o f t h e m : ' U n l e s s w e assume t h a t P h i l o d i d n o t k n o w his o w n m i n d , o r t h a t h e c h a n g e d his m i n d , a w a y m u s t b e f o u n d to r e c o n c i l e this s t a t e m e n t w i t h his o t h e r s t a t e m e n t s ' . W o l f s o n a l w a y s finds a w a y . I n the process h e m a k e s little o r n o r o o m for the m y s t i c i s m o f P h i l o , the jeu d'esprit o f m u c h o f his a l l e g o r y , his m a n y similarities to G n o s t i c a n d N e o p l a t o n i c formulations ( w h i c h in the m o d e r n sense w e r e n o t formulations at a l l ) , o r w h a t still seems to m e a n d m a n y o t h e r Philonists the flexibility o f his t e r m i n o l o g y . H e a l l o w s for no g r e a t d e p t h or v a r i e t y in hellen8

8

Harry Wolfson, Philo, 1947, I, 275

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i z e d J u d a i s m at all. I n this h e follows G e o r g e F o o t e M o o r e , w h o t h o u g h t t h a t P h i l o w a s u n i q u e in J u d a i s m a n d H e l l e n i s m a l i k e ; so W o l f s o n goes o n to assume t h a t w h a t a p p e a r s to b e ' P h i l o n i c ' i n the later C h r i s t i a n apologists must h a v e c o m e o u t from the p a g e s o f P h i l o himself. H e c a n see o n l y ' n a t i v e ' J e w i s h attitudes, h o w e v e r , in P h i l o ' s u l t i m a t e religious e x p e r i e n c e s . H e calls all the G r e e k elements i n P h i l o a ' v e n e e r ' u p o n this J u d a i s m , b o t h his m y s t i c l a n g u a g e a n d the p h i l o s o p h y W o l f s o n distils from his w r i t i n g s . T h i s ' n a t i v e ' J u d a i s m he identifies b y parallels from r a b b i n i c a l d o c u m e n t s w r i t t e n m o s t l y from a c e n t u r y a n d a h a l f to five centuries after P h i l o . A t the s a m e time h e refuses to consider as possibly h a v i n g i n f l u e n c e d P h i l o a n y G r e e k ideas w h i c h c a n n o t b e found i n sources t h a t a n t e d a t e P h i l o . A c c o r d i n g l y the simi larities o f P h i l o to the m o r e m y s t i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t s o f R o m a n p h i l o s o p h y witnessed in p a g a n d o c u m e n t s from P l u t a r c h o n w a r d seem to W o l f s o n to h a v e little r e l e v a n c y for u n d e r s t a n d i n g P h i l o , w h o w a s w o r k i n g from the classical t r a d i t i o n o f G r e e k p h i l o s o p h y a l o n e . T h i s classical, rationalistic p h i l o s o p h y , W o l f s o n feels, w a s w h a t P h i l o h a d to adjust to J e w i s h r e v e l a t i o n , a n d it w a s the p h i l o s o p h y r a t h e r t h a n the r e v e l a t i o n t h a t g a v e w a y . A s a result, P h i l o seems to W o l f s o n to h a v e p r o d u c e d a b o d y o f t h o u g h t w h i c h , like all s u b s e q u e n t p h i l o s o p h y until S p i n o z a , r e a l l y offered a system o f scriptural passages r a t h e r t h a n a r a t i o n a l a p p r o a c h to life itself. S o far as f o r m a l classical p h i l o s o p h y is c o n c e r n e d , W o l f s o n seems to m e c o r r e c t l y to h a v e stated the p r o b l e m a n d the patristic solution. N o one c a n n o w s t u d y a n y aspect o f P h i l o ' s p h i l o s o p h i c a l t h i n k i n g w i t h o u t constant reference to W o l f s o n . B u t the s y s t e m a t i c a l l y o r g a n i z e d m i n d i n W o l f s o n ' s Philo seems to m e the m i n d o f W o l f s o n n o t o f P h i l o himself. W o l f s o n has n o t c o n v i n c e d m e t h a t to l e a v e o u t the m y s t i c elements i n P h i l o , a n d to c o n c e n t r a t e o n h a r m o n i z i n g his scattered m e t a p h y s i c a l a n d e t h i c a l allusions, all o f w h i c h are to b e c o n s i d e r e d o n l y a ' v e n e e r ' u p o n ' n a t i v e ' J u d a i s m , is the m e t h o d for u n d e r s t a n d i n g P h i l o himself. L a t e r C h r i s t i a n s h a d little interest

METHOD

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in the s a v i n g p o w e r o f the J e w i s h P a t r i a r c h s a n d their w i v e s , or in M o s e s as the u n i q u e m y s t a g o g u e ; b u t t h e y w e r e the centre o f P h i l o ' s t h i n k i n g . P h i l o h i m s e l f is a w h o l e , w h i c h i n c l u d e s his G r e e k m y s t i c i s m restated in terms o f the p e c u l i a r natures, victories, a n d s a v i n g p o w e r o f the J e w i s h P a t r i a r c h s . P e r h a p s 1 h a v e o v e r e m p h a s i z e d the m y s t i c a l side o f P h i l o : W o l f s o n seems to m e to h a v e o v e r e m p h a s i z e d his p h i l o s o p h i c a l consistency, a n d u n d e r e s t i m a t e d the i m p o r t a n c e o f G r e e k religious c o n c e p t s for P h i l o ' s total religious a t t i t u d e . A s c h o l a r w h o w i l l d o j u s t i c e to P h i l o as a w h o l e has y e t to c o m e . I n a sense this w a s the a i m o f J e a n D a n i e l o u i n his little Philon d'Alexandrie, 1958. B u t w h i l e r e a d a b l e , interesting, a n d often s t i m u l a t i n g , D a n i e l o u presents i n fact a n assortment from c o n t r i b u t i o n s o f earlier scholars. H e tells us w h a t w a s G r e e k or w h a t J e w i s h i n P h i l o ' s t h i n k i n g w i t h facile finality. T h e b o o k c a n n o t b e c o n s i d e r e d a m e t h o d o l o g i c a l c o n t r i b u t i o n to the study o f P h i l o . W e shall k n o w P h i l o o n l y w h e n w e a c c e p t h i m as a w h o l e , a n d o n his o w n terms. I suggest t h a t the m e t h o d for s t u d y i n g h i m m u s t b e as follows. T h e b e g i n n e r must first r e a d P h i l o , r e a d all his w o r k s . T o d o this i n the G r e e k a n d A r m e n i a n , c o n s i d e r i n g the mass a n d difficulty o f his G r e e k a n d o u r g e n e r a l i g n o r a n c e o f A r m e n i a n will for most o f us b e impossible. B u t F . H . C o l s o n translated P h i l o ' s G r e e k m a g n i f i c e n t l y for the L o e b Series, so t h a t w e c a n m a k e a g o o d start in E n g l i s h , a n d , b y frequent reference to the G r e e k , g e t s o m e n o t i o n o f P h i l o as a w h o l e . R a l p h M a r c u s translated e x c e l l e n t l y the most i m p o r t a n t o f Philo's treatises p r e s e r v e d o n l y i n A r m e n i a n , also for the L o e b Series. T h e m u c h less r e l i a b l e Y o n g e w i l l for a few y e a r s h a v e to b e used w h e r e these b r e a k off. T o d o a n y special s t u d y o f P h i l o w i t h o u t a t least a sense o f his w r i t i n g s as a w h o l e is e x t r e m e l y d a n g e r o u s . W e shall r e t u r n i n the f o l l o w i n g c h a p t e r to the c h a r a c t e r o f P h i l o ' s different treatises. B u t w i t h a g r a s p o f Philo's p r e v a i l i n g interests, w h i c h o n l y the g e n e r a l r e a d i n g c a n g i v e , w e h a v e s o m e defence a g a i n s t a n assertion, o u r o w n o r a n o t h e r ' s , t h a t

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this or t h a t is the k e y to P h i l o or the h e a r t o f P h i l o . W e s h o u l d g i v e P h i l o a h e a r i n g , as h e h i m s e l f preferred to present his ideas, before w e i n t e r r u p t h i m to ask questions from o u r o w n t h o u g h t forms. T h i s is w h a t I h a v e elsewhere c a l l e d r e a d i n g P h i l o ' w i t h the g r a i n ' , instead o f a g a i n s t it, for all o u r questions w i l l c u t across his o w n presentation, a n d b e i n e v i t a b l y a n a c h r o n i s m s . W h e n w e h a v e h e a r d P h i l o , p a t i e n t l y a n d at l e n g t h , w e m a y b e g i n to ask h i m o u r o w n questions, scores o f w h i c h w i l l h a v e c o m e to m i n d w h i l e h e w a s s p e a k i n g . T o g e t his answers w e shall h a v e to c o n t i n u e to assemble passages o n p a r t i c u l a r points. E v e r y t h i n g t h a t c a n b e said against this m e t h o d is v a l i d , y e t w e m u s t c o n t i n u e to use it since there is n o other. P h i l o gives us n o single, e x h a u s t i v e , a n d systematic discussion o f a n y point, the doctrines o f G o d , L o g o s , Spirit, S o p h i a , m a n , sin, s a l v a t i o n , the future life, ethics, social principles, the L a w , a n d the rest. I m p o r t a n t as these ideas i n systematic form m a y s e e m to us, P h i l o n e v e r b o t h e r e d to o r g a n i z e his t h i n k i n g , or to present his t h i n k i n g i n o r g a n i z e d f o r m , o n a n y o f t h e m . H e d i d n o t t h i n k t h a t w a y . I f w e w a n t to k n o w h o w h e felt o n a n y o f these m a t t e r s w e m u s t c o l l e c t the scattered passages from all his w r i t i n g s w h e r e h e refers to t h e m . T h e passages thus c o l l e c t e d w i l l often flatly c o n t r a d i c t o n e a n o t h e r , a n d i n e v a l u a t i n g t h e m w e c o m e to the most difficult stage. First w e m u s t carefully o b s e r v e the c o n t e x t o f e a c h passage a n d the d o c u m e n t w h e r e it a p p e a r s . S o m e o f Philo's w r i t i n g s , as w e shall see, w e r e p o l i t i c a l p r o p a g a n d a for the R o m a n g o v e r n i n g class. S o m e are v e r s e - b y - v e r s e c o m m e n t a r y o n the Books o f M o s e s , w i t h the literal m e a n i n g a n d s i m p l e m o r a l c o n c l u s i o n carefully distinguished from the a l l e g o r i c a l or m y s t i c a l m e a n i n g . S o m e are diatribes in the classical form, s o m e a r e sermons to s i m p l e J e w i s h p e o p l e , a p p a r e n t l y farmers. S o m e are subtle presentations o f J e w i s h story a n d l a w for s y m p a t h e t i c g e n t i l e s ; s o m e a r e w r i t t e n , as he says, o n l y for 'initiates', w i t h subjects discussed or h i n t e d t h a t m u s t n o t b e r e v e a l e d to o r d i n a r y m e n . I n d e e d , P h i l o ' s w r i t i n g s a r e e v e n m o r e diverse

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t h a n those o f M o n t e f i o r e , w h o likewise w r o t e b o t h close studies o f J u d a i s m for J e w s , a n d interpretations o f J u d a i s m in v a r i o u s forms for C h r i s t i a n s . M u c h o f the confusion in P h i l o n i c inter p r e t a t i o n has c o m e from a failure to distinguish b e t w e e n these treatises as sources. S e c o n d l y , w e m u s t s t u d y the passages closely for the ancestry o f their l a n g u a g e , w h e t h e r t h a t ascent l e a d us to p h i l o s o p h y , traditional J u d a i s m , m y s t i c i s m , or a n y w h e r e else. I f w e refuse to follow these lines w i t h o u t p r e j u d i c e , w e c l e a r l y refuse to follow P h i l o himself. W h e n o u r forefathers used phrases from R o u s s e a u ' s Social Contract in the D e c l a r a t i o n o f I n d e p e n d e n c e , they themselves c o m p e l us to r e a d the Social Contract as p a r t o f the c o n t e n t o f their m i n d s , c o n t e n t w h i c h t h e y tried to express in the D e c l a r a t i o n . It is j u s t as i n a c c u r a t e to j u m p at o n c e to the c o n c l u s i o n , b e c a u s e w e find c e r t a i n phrases from the Social Contract in the D e c l a r a t i o n , t h a t t h a t d o c u m e n t w a s b u i l t e x clusively o n R o u s s e a u . T h e p r o p e r s t u d y w i l l b e n o t o n l y o f one source or t y p e o f sources. A l l e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y p o l i t i c a l p h i l o s o p h y w i l l h a v e to b e considered, as w e l l as the E n g l i s h l e g a l h e r i t a g e a n d the p e c u l i a r genius a n d e x p e r i e n c e s o f c o l o n i a l A m e r i c a n s . T h e presence o f a n y r e c o g n i z a b l e terms a n d phrases from a m i l i e u outside a g i v e n d o c u m e n t c o m p e l s us to s t u d y c r i t i c a l l y w h a t the a u t h o r o f the d o c u m e n t m e a n t b y using those terms, w h e t h e r in repetition or m o d i f i c a t i o n o f their former u s a g e . S o i f P h i l o uses w o r d s w h i c h a n y intelligent r e a d e r o f his d a y w o u l d h a v e u n d e r s t o o d i n terms o f P l a t o n i s m , Stoicism, M y s t e r y R e l i g i o n s , or w h a t not, w e c a n c l e a r l y not u n d e r s t a n d P h i l o , i n V o l k e r ' s phrase, ' o u t o f h i m s e l f , until w e k n o w the c o n n o t a t i o n s o f his v o c a b u l a r y for h i m s e l f a n d his readers. O n l y b y a t h o r o u g h a c q u a i n t a n c e w i t h the l a n g u a g e a n d ideals o f b o t h J e w s a n d G r e e k s in P h i l o ' s d a y w i l l w e b e a b l e to k n o w w h a t l a n g u a g e he is using, a n d to w h a t extent he c h a n g e d its m e a n i n g for his purposes. S u c h a t h o r o u g h a c q u a i n t a n c e w e shall n e v e r h a v e . T h e l i t e r a t u r e o f P h i l o ' s d a y , gentile as w e l l as J e w i s h , is l a r g e l y lost. W e h a v e s o m e o f the classics t h e n r e a d , b u t a l m o s t n o n e 3

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o f the c u r r e n t w r i t i n g s , o n l y a j u m b l e o f fragments a n d n a m e s to tell us t h a t the literature w a s v e r y l a r g e . B u t o f w h a t w e h a v e w e m a y e x c l u d e n o t h i n g a priori as a source o f i n f o r m a t i o n . I f w e use r a b b i n i c a l w r i t i n g s from centuries after P h i l o to establish the J u d a i s m o f P h i l o ' s d a y , w e s h o u l d also use the later G r e e k philosophers a n d G n o s t i c s , since i n so ill-preserved a p e r i o d o f literature w e c a n n o t p r e s u m e t h a t ideas b e g a n w i t h their first a p p e a r a n c e in o u r w r i t t e n sources. L a t e d o c u m e n t s m u s t o f course b e used c r i t i c a l l y a n d w i t h g r e a t c a u t i o n , b u t use t h e m w e m u s t . A n d w e must a l w a y s a l l o w t h a t P h i l o m a y h a v e h a d m u c h from the k a l e i d o s c o p i c c o n v e r s a t i o n o f A l e x a n d r i a , w h e r e traders c a m e from all o v e r the w o r l d a n d w e r e e a g e r l y p u m p e d for their traditions. I f w e w o u l d u n d e r s t a n d P h i l o h i m s e l f w e m u s t first c o m e as n e a r as w e c a n to u n d e r s t a n d i n g h i m as h e e x p e c t e d a c o n t e m p o r a r y r e a d e r to u n d e r stand h i m . W e c a n n o t isolate the u n i q u e i n a n y i n d i v i d u a l until w e h a v e first r e c o g n i z e d w h a t w a s not u n i q u e i n h i m at all. P h i l o , like P l a t o a n d A r i s t o t l e , m u s t b e r e a d i n his setting. O n l y w h e n w e h a v e c o m e as n e a r as w e c a n to the impossible, t h a t is, w h e n w e h a v e r e a d Philo's passages as n e a r l y as w e c a n , in the w a y his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s w o u l d h a v e d o n e , o r as h e m e a n t his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s to d o , m a y w e f o r m u l a t e a n s w e r s to o u r questions a b o u t o u r p a r t i c u l a r points o f interest. W e must still recall t h a t P h i l o w i l l a n s w e r i n o n l y o n e w a y , in terms o f his o w n c o n t e m p o r a r y t h o u g h t . W e c a n n o t m a k e h i m talk o u r l a n g u a g e , a n y m o r e t h a n w e ourselves c a n talk the l a n g u a g e o f p e o p l e t w o m i l l e n n i a from n o w . W e k n o w little e n o u g h o f Philo's l a n g u a g e : h e c a n n e v e r k n o w a n y t h i n g o f ours. M o r e a n d m o r e w e must project ourselves into his a g e , or there c a n b e n o c o n t a c t b e t w e e n us a t all. G r a d u a l l y as w e c o m e to d o so w e m a y find a m e a n s o f i n t e r p r e t i n g h i m to o u r c o n t e m p o r a r i e s . B u t this i n t e r p r e t a t i o n c a n n o t b e m e r e l y a v e r b a l o n e , since o u r w o r d s m e a n s u c h different things from his. O u r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n must a l w a y s b e a p a r a p h r a s e , b e h i n d w h i c h is a resolution o f P h i l o i n t o a n entity c o m m o n to h i m a n d to us, h u m a n n a t u r e . T h i s , I m u s t insist, a g a i n impossible

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t h o u g h it is i n the fullest sense, is o u r o n l y a p p r o a c h to P h i l o . F o r unless h u m a n n a t u r e is a constant, h o w e v e r different m a y b e o u r c o n d i t i o n i n g i n different a g e s , w e c a n n e v e r u n d e r s t a n d a n y figure o u t o f the past. M e r e w o r d s a r e in themselves the most d e c e i v i n g things. L a n g u a g e has v a l u e i n a n y a g e o n l y as a m e d i u m to transfer ideas a n d e m o t i o n s from o n e p e r s o n a l i t y to others. E v e n so simple a w o r d as the sun s h o w s the difficulty. T o us the sun is a n i n c o n c e i v a b l y l a r g e b a l l o f fire 93,000,000 miles a w a y , the centre o f the solar s y s t e m ; p r a c t i c a l l y a n d artistically it is a t h i n g o f b e a u t y ; e m o t i o n a l l y a s u n n y d a y is associated w i t h h a p p i n e s s a n d h o p e . B u t to the a n c i e n t w o r l d the sun w a s the source o f life, h u m a n , a n i m a l , v e g e t a b l e , a n d d i v i n e ; it w a s the v i v i d s y m b o l o f G o d to the philosophers, G o d h i m s e l f i n p o p u l a r r e l i g i o n ; it w a s the s y m b o l o f t h o u g h t a n d p e r c e p t i o n , a n d , i n P h i l o a n d the M y s t e r y R e l i g i o n s alike, of revelation and mystic illumination. W h e n Philo constantly a p p e a l s to the sun, then, it is to the sun o f his d a y , n o t o f ours, t h a t h e refers. H i s usage expresses q u i t e different e m o t i o n s a n d ideas from ours. T h e o n l y w a y to u n d e r s t a n d w h a t h e expresses b y the w o r d is to find w h a t it typified to h i m , a n d so to u n d e r stand the w o r d t h r o u g h o u r s y m p a t h y w i t h his e m o t i o n a l o b objectives. T h a t is, P h i l o the m a n m u s t b e u n d e r s t o o d before his l a n g u a g e c a n fully s p e a k to us. T h i s i m p l i e s a v e r y c i r c u i t o u s a p p r o a c h to the p r o b l e m , a n d is, as I h a v e stated it, q u i t e p a r a d o x i c a l . P h i l o ' s i n n e r m i n d a n d life m u s t d e t e r m i n e the m e a n i n g o f his l a n g u a g e , b u t his l a n g u a g e is o u r o n l y a p p r o a c h to t h a t i n n e r m i n d a n d life. T h i s is the essential difficulty o f w r i t i n g the history o f ideas, a n d o n this r o c k h o p e s o f o b j e c t i v i t y m u s t b e w r e c k e d . O u r o n l y recourse is a sort o f s h u t t l e : w e s t u d y the w o r d s w i t h all possible c o n t e m p o r a r y e v i d e n c e until w e g e t a n insight i n t o the m a n , t h e n w i t h t h a t insight r e t u r n to the w o r d s w i t h n e w criteria for their m e a n i n g , a n d so o n b a c k a n d forth. It is a spiral w h i c h r e a c h e s P h i l o h i m s e l f o n l y a t infinity. B u t w e h a v e n o o t h e r m e t h o d , a n d w e d o not h e l p ourselves b y refusing to r e c o g n i z e it. T h e test before w h i c h a n y final p i c t u r e o f P h i l o m u s t s t a n d or fall is a d o u b l e o n e : is it

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i n a c c o r d w i t h P h i l o ' s o w n statements u n d e r s t o o d i n the l a n g u a g e o f his d a y , a n d does it m a k e a c o n v i n c i n g h u m a n p i c t u r e o u t o f those s t a t e m e n t s ? F o r b e h i n d Philo's w r i t i n g s stood a h u m a n b e i n g , o n e w h o w i l l a p p e a l to a r e a d e r in c r e a s i n g l y b e c a u s e his personality lives o n i n his w o r k s . T o u n d e r s t a n d h i m w e must, let m e r e p e a t , l a r g e l y let h i m speak to us, often a b o u t matters in w h i c h w e h a v e n o interest, until i n o u r p i c t u r e it is the interests a n d m o t i v e s o f P h i l o , as little as possible those o f ours, w h i c h w e present. S u c h a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g w e shall n e v e r e v e n a p p r o x i m a t e i f w e d o n o t w a t c h o u r p r e c o n c e p t i o n s carefully. H i s J e w i s h l o y a l t y w e must n o t p r e j u d g e , for to b e g i n : T h i l o w a s a l o y a l J e w a n d therefore . . . ,' is fatal, b e c a u s e e v e n in o u r o w n g e n e r a t i o n a n d e n v i r o n m e n t there is n o single w a y to c o m p l e t e the sentence, w h i l e for P h i l o ' s o w n g e n e r a t i o n a n d e n v i r o n m e n t w e h a v e o n l y P h i l o h i m s e l f to c o m p l e t e it. Philo's J e w i s h l o y a l t y m a d e h i m carefully o b e y the L a w a n d spurn the rites o f the M y s t e r y R e l i g i o n s a n d o f p a g a n i s m : d i d it m a k e h i m s p u r n the i d e o l o g y a n d aspirations b e h i n d those rites? D i d J u d a i s m at t h a t t i m e m e a n H a s i d i c s e p a r a t i o n from the religious ideas o f the g e n t i l e w o r l d , or o n l y from its w o r s h i p a n d m y t h o l o g y ? S u c h questions w e c a n n o t p r e j u d g e . A g a i n , d i d P h i l o nism die w i t h P h i l o , or d i d it l e a v e a d e e p impression, not so m u c h o n the J u d a i s m w e u s u a l l y associate w i t h the terms r a b b i n i c a n d n o r m a t i v e , b u t o n the m y s t i c J u d a i s m w h i c h finds itself r e p e a t e d l y e c h o e d a n d e v e n cited in T a l m u d a n d M i d r a s h , a n d w h i c h seems finally to h a v e burst into C a b a l l a ? T o these questions w e c a n n o t b e g i n w i t h a n a n s w e r , b u t unless w e c a n b e c o m e like the chemists w h o freely g i v e o v e r their p r e d e l i c tions w h e n t h e y d o not p r o v e verifiable i n e x p e r i m e n t , w e are n o t scholars b u t p r o p a g a n d i s t s , h o w e v e r p r o f o u n d o u r l e a r n i n g . I f w e a r e C h r i s t i a n s w e c a n n o t b e g i n w i t h a n a priori a n s w e r to the question o f the r e l a t i o n o f the religious experiences o f P h i l o a n d his friends to C h r i s t i a n i t y . H o w e v e r u n i q u e w e m a y feel the C h r i s t i a n r e v e l a t i o n to h a v e b e e n , w e are not scholars w h e n w e defend t h a t uniqueness b y insisting t h a t n o t h i n g else

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c o u l d r e s e m b l e it in a n y p a r t i c u l a r . N o t h i n g g o o d c a n c o m e from scholars w h o try to b r e a k d o w n the uniqueness o f C h r i s t i anity b y stressing o n l y the similarities o f C h r i s t i a n i t y w i t h o t h e r religions a n d refusing to r e c o g n i z e the differences. B u t stressing o n l y t h e differences is b o u n d to l e a d to as g r e a t futility. N o J e w w o u l d d e n y t h a t there w a s s o m e t h i n g u n i q u e i n C h r i s t i a n i t y w h i c h e n a b l e d it to p u s h aside all the other religions a n d b e c o m e the d o m i n a n t faith i n w e s t e r n c i v i l i z a t i o n . F r o m t h e p o i n t o f v i e w o f P h i l o , it seems to m e , w e m u s t d o e x a c t l y w h a t V o l k e r r e c o m m e n d s : w e must forget C h r i s t i a n i t y as far as w e c a n a n d find w h a t is i n P h i l o himself. C e r t a i n l y w e shall find m u c h m y s t i c i s m , as t h a t w o r d is used i n all l a n g u a g e s . T o l i m i t m y s t i c i s m to the e x p e r i e n c e 'in C h r i s t ' is s i m p l y to r o b us o f the t e r m b y w h i c h w e h a v e l o n g expressed a c e r t a i n t y p e o f religious e x p e r i e n c e f o u n d all o v e r the w o r l d . A n d here, since m y s t i c i s m is a w o r d w h i c h w e shall use freely, a definition o f the t e r m as I u n d e r s t a n d it is r e q u i r e d . I n c o n trast, a religion w h i c h is n o t m y s t i c a l has its basic m o t i v e i n r e v e r e n c e , respect, a sense o f l o y a l t y or o b l i g a t i o n , e v e n o f p r o f o u n d l o v e , for a d i v i n e B e i n g w h o is t h o u g h t o f i n terms q u i t e o b j e c t i v e . W h e n d i v i n i t y is p u t u p i n h e a v e n , o r o n O l y m p u s , a n d w e feel t o w a r d h i m as a c h i l d w h o b o w s i n l o v e a n d respect before a father, inspired b y his majesty a n d e a g e r to o b e y his c o m m a n d s , o u r r e l i g i o n is not m y s t i c a l . B u t w h e n , d r i v e n b y a n i n n e r sense o f l a c k , insufficiency, w e c r y o u t for a d i v i n i t y or h i g h e r reality w h o or w h i c h w i l l c o m e i n t o us, take a w a y o u r dross, u n i t e us to h i m s e l f or itself, t h e n w e a r e mystics. T h e e x p e r i e n c e is o n e o f classical ecstasy o n l y o c c a s i o n a l l y for a n y o n e , a n d n e v e r for most. O f t e n it is a q u i e t sense o f u n i o n , w i t h few h i g h points o f e m o t i o n . O r it m a y b e the familiar a l t e r n a t i o n o f m o o d s o f dryness a n d inspiration, n e i t h e r o f w h i c h goes to the e x t r e m e s o f d e s p a i r or ecstasy. Y e t w h e n w e s a y — ' I c a n live since D i o n y s u s is w i t h i n m e ' , or 'since C h r i s t is w i t h i n m e ' , o r 'since the G o d o f A b r a h a m , Isaac a n d J a c o b is w i t h i n m e ' , the e x p e r i e n c e is m y s t i c a l . F o r i n all these state m e n t s the e x p e r i e n c e is d e s c r i b e d t h a t o n e c a n d o o r b e the

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s u p e r h u m a n b e c a u s e the s u p e r h u m a n has b e c o m e i n s o m e m e a s u r e a p a r t o f oneself. N a t u r a l l y the e x p e r i e n c e takes o n a different c o l o u r as the c h a r a c t e r o f the G o d differs w i t h w h o m o n e is u n i t e d . T h e e t h i c a l c o n s e q u e n c e s o f the e x p e r i e n c e w i l l v a r y e n o r m o u s l y . B u t there is a distinct c o m m o n d e n o m i n a t o r i n all o f t h e m , since all infuse the h u m a n w i t h the d i v i n e , a n d m a k e p a r t i c i p a t i o n the r e a l m e a n i n g o f i m i t a t i o n . U n d e r s t a n d i n g the t e r m m y s t i c a l i n this sense, m y r e a d i n g o f P h i l o forces m e , like the vast m a j o r i t y o f P h i l o n i c scholars, to call Philo a mystic. P r e c o n c e p t i o n s present the greatest d a n g e r i n u n d e r s t a n d i n g P h i l o . H e r e V o l k e r has set us a m o d e l w h i c h w e m a y w e l l follow, for h e o u t l i n e d i n his Preface the p r e c o n c e p t i o n s w i t h w h i c h h e b e g a n . T h e a p p r a i s a l o f his w o r k w a s t h e r e b y m a d e m u c h easier. A n y o n e w h o studies P h i l o w i l l d o w e l l to w a t c h h i m s e l f for p r e c o n c e p t i o n s at the outset, a n d for h a s t y j u d g m e n t s as h e p r o c e e d s , since these w i l l u n c o n s c i o u s l y influence the decisions a t the e n d . M y o w n p r e c o n c e p t i o n s a n d j u d g m e n t s I shall set forth i n the s a m e spirit o f frankness. M a n y o f t h e m have already appeared. First, I see i n P h i l o a m a n d i v i d e d i n his l o y a l t y n o t o n l y b e t w e e n the J e w i s h a n d hellenistic w a y s o f l i v i n g , b u t also b e t w e e n their religious m o t i v a t i o n s . I c a n n o t e m p h a s i z e o n e at the e x p e n s e o f the other. P h i l o , as I see h i m , tried to c o m b i n e the t w o , n o t in a m e t a p h y s i c a l system b u t i n his h e a r t . W h e t h e r h e s h o u l d c o n s e q u e n t l y b e c a l l e d a h e l l e n i z e d J e w or a j u d a i z e d Hellenist is q u i t e indifferent, since n e i t h e r c o n q u e r e d the other. S e c o n d l y I m u s t r e a d P h i l o as far as possible i n his o w n l a n g u a g e a n d t h o u g h t forms. I n t e r p r e t a t i o n for m o d e r n s c a n n o t b e direct, b u t o n l y i n terms o f the p e r s o n a l i t y b e h i n d his l a n g u a g e a n d t h o u g h t , a n d the experiences i n t o w h i c h h e c a m e . T h a t is, w e m u s t see P h i l o the m a n i n the h u m a n e x p e r i e n c e s h e e x pressed i n his o w n terms, a n d m u s t i n t e r p r e t his t h o u g h t forms to m o d e r n s t h r o u g h a r e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f the m a n . I b e l i e v e t h a t o n l y so c a n w e u n d e r s t a n d a n y m e n or ideas o f a n t i q u i t y . T h i r d l y , this r e a d i n g o f P h i l o i n his o w n categories i m p l i e s the

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widest possible c o m p a r i s o n o f his l a n g u a g e w i t h e v e r y k i n d o f contemporary or near-contemporary usage, though large conclusions from parallels are e x t r e m e l y d a n g e r o u s . I n the Preface I said t h a t parallels are b y n a t u r e lines w h i c h n e v e r m e e t , so t h a t w e must establish m o r e t h a n m e r e parallels i f similarity is to h a v e a n y i m p o r t a n c e . F o u r t h l y , , I h a v e for m a n y years b e e n c o n v i n c e d t h a t hellenistic C h r i s t i a n i t y m u s t h a v e arisen o u t o f a h e l l e n i z e d J u d a i s m s u c h as P h i l o shows existed. W h a t C h r i s t i a n i t y took from this J u d a i s m , a n d w h a t it a d d e d to m a k e the n e w religion, I a m still t r y i n g to k e e p o p e n in m y m i n d . I t is a subject t o w a r d w h i c h most o f m y s t u d y has all a l o n g b e e n p o i n t i n g , b u t I a m not r e a d y for it y e t . Fifthly, I a m c o n v i n c e d t h a t P h i l o ' s position in J u d a i s m w a s b y n o m e a n s u n i q u e . H i s o w n c o n s t a n t references to predecessors a n d c o n t e m p o r a r i e s w h o s e J u d a i s m w a s like his o w n m a k e uniqueness seem to m e impossible. H e impresses m e as a m a n w i t h a l o n g tradition b e h i n d h i m . N o r c a n I b e l i e v e t h a t the m o v e m e n t d i e d o u t w i t h h i m , or w a s s m o t h e r e d o r a b s o r b e d b y C h r i s t i a n ity. W h a t his i d e a s c o n t r i b u t e d to the history o f later J u d a i s m is s o m e t h i n g w e c a n n o t discuss h e r e . S i n c e p u b l i s h i n g the first e d i t i o n o f this little b o o k m y Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period h a v e s h o w n m u c h o f w h a t I h a v e i n m i n d a b o u t t h e s u r v i v a l o f h e l l e n i z e d J u d a i s m after P h i l o ' s d a y , b u t I h a v e e v e n y e t n o conclusions w h i c h are final. A s to P h i l o ' s k n o w l e d g e o f the O r a l T r a d i t i o n o f J e w i s h L a w as it existed in his o w n d a y I a m still w a i t i n g to b e i n f o r m e d b y rabbinists. I n v i e w o f P h i l o ' s inconsistencies a n d d i v i d e d loyalties, o f o u r l a c k o f a d e q u a t e i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t his b a c k g r o u n d a n d ter m i n o l o g y , a n d o f the p r e c o n c e p t i o n s e a c h w i l l take i n t o the study, I c a n n o t i m a g i n e t h a t a n y o n e w i l l e v e r w r i t e a n e x p o sition o f P h i l o w h i c h w i l l please all o t h e r scholars in the field. O n this subject o n e m o r e w o r d should b e said, for I c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d the e m o t i o n a l i n t o l e r a n c e w h i c h so often i n v a d e s a n d nullifies scholarship. Books w r i t t e n b y c h a r l a t a n s o r b y fond a m a t e u r s w i t h n o c o m m a n d o f the m a t e r i a l w e m a y i g n o r e , or e v e n s h a r p l y r e b u k e . B u t there is n o reason to i g n o r e

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the p r o d u c t o f a n y serious scholar, h o w e v e r m u c h w e m a y dis a g r e e w i t h h i m . N o stating o f o u r p r e c o n c e p t i o n s c a n o b v i a t e o u r e m o t i o n a l v a r i e t y as m e n . A s I p r o j e c t m y s e l f b a c k to P h i l o ' s a g e it m u s t b e a l w a y s a n d o n l y m y s e l f t h a t I project. J u s t as c l e a r l y c a n I r e c o g n i z e the personalities o f H e i n e m a n n , V o l k e r , W o l f s o n , o r N o c k w h e n t h e y e x p o u n d P h i l o . I t is this w h i c h m a k e s it finally impossible t h a t a n y o n e w r i t e a n o b jective study of Philo. A l l w r i t i n g o f history has r e c e n t l y b e e n u n d e r fire. M o r e a n d m o r e h a v e philosophers insisted t h a t w e c a n w r i t e o n l y c h r o n o l o g y or c h r o n i c l e ; t h a t is, t h a t w e c a n identify events as facts i n a frame o f t i m e , b u t t h a t all a t t e m p t to reconstruct c o n n e c t i o n o r r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n events, s u c h m a t t e r s as c a u s e a n d effect, or, i n m a n , m o t i v a t i o n , c a n b e d o n e o n l y b y the projection o f o u r o w n tastes a n d personalities i n t o the past, so t h a t w e select a n d a r r a n g e historical d a t a i n a n o r d e r w h i c h is u l t i m a t e l y a c r e a tion o f o u r o w n . I n p o l i t i c a l a n d institutional history this notion, w h i l e n e v e r entirely w r o n g , seems to m e often mis l e a d i n g , for it tends to discredit w h a t r e a l l y tries to b e o b j e c t i v e history, history w h i c h the a u t h o r is h i m s e l f d e l i g h t e d to h a v e scrutinized a n d verified b y o t h e r s c h o l a r s ; at the s a m e t i m e the c o m p l e t e d e n i a l o f o b j e c t i v e history e n c o u r a g e s r e a l l y subjective historians to g o i n t o fanciful s c h e m a t i z a t i o n s w h i c h o t h e r scholars c a n n o t relate to d a t a at all. F o r the history o f ideas, h o w e v e r , the w a r n i n g is m u c h m o r e i m p o r t a n t , since h e r e w e are b o u n d to b e m u c h m o r e subjective. A person o f mystic a n d religious t e m p e r , for e x a m p l e , c o u l d not possibly c o m e o u t from a r e a d i n g o f P l a t o ' s Dialogues w i t h the s a m e impressions as w o u l d a m a n to w h o m m y s t i c i s m is v a g a r y , a n d for w h o m positivistic analysis a l o n e has m e a n i n g . M e n w i t h Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic backgrounds cannot read T h o m a s A q u i n a s , M a r t i n L u t h e r , a n d M a i m o n i d e s a n d e a c h see at all w h a t the others see. C o n t r o v e r s i e s a b o u t the m e a n i n g o f the e a r l y C h r i s t i a n d o c u m e n t s w i l l n e v e r b e settled. N o t o n l y d o 9

9

It is a pity that A. D . Nock has not written a book on Philo, since he always knows what the rest of us should have said.

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different g r o u p s see different things i n t h e m d u r i n g a single g e n e r a t i o n , b u t as a n e w g e n e r a t i o n arises w i t h a n e w p h i l o s o p h y a n d n e w e m o t i o n a l patterns, it w i l l a l w a y s see a n e w p i c t u r e i n the s a m e d o c u m e n t s . D o e s this m e a n t h a t s c h o l a r l y r e s e a r c h i n s u c h fields is futile ? I c a n n o t a n d w i l l n o t b e l i e v e so. A l w a y s w e h o p e t h a t b y r e c o g n i z i n g o u r o w n limitations w e m a y g r a d u a l l y c o m e to a p p r o x i m a t e the t r u t h . I n d e e d w i t h o u t this h o p e w e m u s t g i v e u p all a t t e m p t to l e a r n or e x p l a i n the ideas o f a n y b u t ourselves. T h e l o g i c o f p h i l o s o p h i c objectors to history leads us, like so m u c h o t h e r p h i l o s o p h i c l o g i c , to solipsism, w h i c h is i n d e e d futility. I n spite o f the impossibility o f p u r e o b j e c t i v i t y , it m u s t still b e o u r g o a l . L o g i c or n o l o g i c , w e m u s t a s s u m e the r e a l i t y o f the w o r l d w e e x p e r i e n c e as outside ourselves, a n d o u r p o w e r in some m e a s u r e to u n d e r s t a n d it. T h i s applies to history, e v e n to the history o f i d e a s , as w e l l as to all o t h e r aspects o f o u r e n v i r o n m e n t . W e shall n e v e r a g r e e a b o u t P l a t o , Jesus, P h i l o , L u t h e r , or a n y o t h e r figure. M y o w n e m o t i o n a l life as w e l l as m y p r e c o n c e i v e d i d e a s w i l l m a k e m e stress w h a t seems q u i t e u n essential i n their c h a r a c t e r s to others. T o s o m e , m y s t i c i s m doesn't m a k e sense. T o m e , n o r e l i g i o n is m o r e t h a n i n t e l l e c t u ally c o m p r e h e n s i b l e w h i c h does n o t i n c l u d e the m y s t i c l o n g i n g for i n n e r c o m p l e t i o n b y p a r t i c i p a t i o n . T h i s is b o u n d to affect m y u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f P h i l o . U n q u e s t i o n a b l y I shall r e s p o n d as others d o not to passages w h e r e h e expresses a m y s t i c l o n g i n g . S u c h d i s a g r e e m e n t w e m u s t e x p e c t ; a n d I c a n see n o reason w h y c h e e k s s h o u l d flush w h e n w e discuss interpretations o f P h i l o w i t h w h i c h w e d o n o t w h o l l y a g r e e . I n this field as in all fields the g o a l o f scholarship s h o u l d b e n o t k n o w l e d g e b u t w i s d o m , a w i s d o m w h i c h finds itself i n l e a r n i n g from o n e a n o t h e r .

CHAPTER II

PHILO'S

W R I T I N G S

IT has b e e n suggested that the first task o f a b e g i n n e r is to r e a d P h i l o t h r o u g h . H e r e I shall a t t e m p t to g i v e s o m e suggestions for t h a t r e a d i n g , since his treatises are not easy to a p p r o a c h . A r e a d e r o f P h i l o m u s t distinguish carefully b e t w e e n the different sorts o f w r i t i n g s , for e a c h s h o u l d b e r e a d w i t h different e x p e c t a tions. S o , at the e x p e n s e o f m a k i n g a d u l l analysis, I m u s t o u t line the v a r i o u s series o f treatises in the c o r p u s , a n d the p l a c e o f the i n d i v i d u a l d o c u m e n t s i n e a c h series. T h i s has often b e e n d o n e . T h e analyses b y S c h i i r e r , M a s s e b i e a u , C o h n , a n d S c h m i d follow e a c h other closely, a n d to t h e m I m u s t refer a student for m a n y details. T h e p r e s e n t a t i o n has b e c o m e q u i t e s t a n d a r d i z e d , for t h a t o f S c h m i d in 1920 is a l m o s t e x a c t l y t h a t o f C o h n i n 1899, a n d he differed o n l y i n details from his p r e decessors. T h i s c o n c e p t i o n o f P h i l o ' s w r i t i n g s is still v a l i d for the most p a r t , t h o u g h I shall frequently find o c c a s i o n to differ from it. B u t I s h o u l d like to consider P h i l o ' s w o r k s i n the o r d e r i n w h i c h it is r e c o m m e n d e d for a b e g i n n e r to r e a d t h e m , r a t h e r t h a n i n t h e o r d e r i n w h i c h t h e y are u s u a l l y discussed. T h e first treatises o f P h i l o w h i c h o n e s h o u l d r e a d seem to m e to b e the t w o , in the first o f w h i c h h e defends the J e w s o f A l e x a n d r i a for their relations w i t h F l a c c u s , a n d i n the s e c o n d 1

2

3

4

1

EMIL SCHURER, Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zt&talUr Jesu Christi (4th ed. Leipzig), I I I (1911), §34, I . English translation (Edinburgh, 1893), I I , iii, §34, I. L. MASSEBIEAU, *Le classement des oeuvres de Philon,' Bibliotheque de VEcole des Hautes Etudes . . . Sciences rejigieuses, I (1889), 1 - 9 1 . LEOPOLD COHN, 'Einteilung und Chronologie der Schriften Philos,' Philologus Supplementband, V I I , iii (1899) 387-435. Published separately, Leipzig, 1899. For reviews see the Bibliography, N o . 808. WM. SCHMID, in the 6th edition of WILLIAM CHRIST, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur, I I , i (1920), 625 ff. (I. VON MULLER, Handbuch der klassischen AltertumsWissenschaft, V I I . ) 2

3

4

PHILO'S

WRITINGS

31

for their refusing, e v e n to G a i u s ' face, to a c c e p t the e m p e r o r ' s d i v i n i t y . T h e s e t w o treatises b e a r t h e titles Against Flaccus a n d The Embassy to Gaius. N o t o n l y a r e t h e y P h i l o ' s most v i v i d l y w r i t t e n treatises, b u t i n t h e m P h i l o speaks m o r e i n t h e first person t h a n i n a n y others, a n d the r e a d e r o f P h i l o ' s o t h e r w o r k s should a l w a y s h a v e in m i n d t h a t t h e y w e r e w r i t t e n b y a m a n w h o c o u l d w r i t e these. T h e y a r e n o t his earliest w r i t i n g s , for h e says h e w a s a n o l d m a n w h e n h e w e n t o n t h e e m b a s s y , a n d these m u s t h a v e b e e n w r i t t e n after t h e events t h e y describe. B o t h o f these w o r k s a r e f r a g m e n t a r y , a n d there h a s b e e n c o n s i d e r a b l e dispute, w h i c h n e e d n o t here b e r e v i e w e d , a b o u t their o r i g i n a l f o r m . T h e i r c o n t e n t w i l l b e so m u c h t h e c o n c e r n o f t h e n e x t c h a p t e r t h a t further c o m m e n t w i l l n o t b e m a d e a t this t i m e . B u t o f their p u r p o s e I m a y r e p e a t w h a t is p u b l i s h e d e l s e w h e r e , that t h e t w o s e e m e x t r a o r d i n a r i l y c l e v e r p o l i t i c a l tracts d e s i g n e d to p r o v e to R o m a n administrators t h a t t h e y harass J e w s a t their peril. T h e J e w s a r e t h e best citizens i n t h e e m p i r e , dutiful a n d profitable to a n a m a z i n g d e g r e e , b u t to interfere w i t h t h e m brings disaster u p o n their persecutors. E s p e c i a l l y a r e t h e J e w s d i v i n e l y p r o t e c t e d in their l e g a l o b s e r v a n c e s , a n d to c o m p e l t h e m to d i s r e g a r d the S a b b a t h , o r t o r e c o g n i z e i m p e r i a l d i v inity, for e x a m p l e , is fatal for those so m a d as to a t t e m p t s u c h c o m p u l s i o n . I h a v e suggested t h a t t h e treatise Against Flaccus w a s w r i t t e n for F l a c c u s ' successor, o r o n e o f his successors, a n d The Embassy to Gaius for C l a u d i u s a n d his c o u r t ( p e r h a p s for Nero). F o l l o w i n g t h e b i o g r a p h i c a l line, t h e s t u d e n t w o u l d d o w e l l n e x t to r e a d On the Contemplative Life. H e r e is a d o c u m e n t w h i c h is o b v i o u s l y a p a r t o f a l a r g e r w o r k . Its first sentence r e v e a l s that s u c h w a s t h e case, a n d the suggestion h a s n o w b e e n a c 5

6

5

COHN, op. cit., 421-4, largely followed MASSEBIEAU, op. cit., 65-78. T h e y seem better here than Schurer. O n the purpose of the Legatio the reader will get much from H . LEISEGANG, *Philons Schrift iiber die Gesandtschaft der alexandrinischen Juden a n den Kaiser Gaius Caligula,* Journal of Biblical Literature, L V I I (1938), 377-405, a n d from Philonis Alexandrini in Flaccum, edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, by HERBERT BOX, London, 1939. In m y Philo's Politics, Chap. I. Here the political realism of the two documents is elaborated. 6

32

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

PHILO

JUDAEUS

c e p t e d for m a n y y e a r s t h a t it w a s p a r t o f a n Apology for the Jews addressed to gentiles, other fragments o f w h i c h g o u n d e r the n a m e Hypothetica. On the Contemplative Life, a u n i t c o m p l e t e in itself, describes the life o f the T h e r a p e u t a e , a p e c u l i a r g r o u p o f J e w i s h m o n k s , m a l e a n d f e m a l e , w h o l i v e d i n seclusion i n the desert. I t is a s s u m e d w i t h g r e a t p r o b a b i l i t y t h a t P h i l o ' s e a r l y m o n k i s h isolation w h i c h , i n the passage q u o t e d i n the p r e c e d i n g c h a p t e r , P h i l o says h e w a s forced to a b a n d o n for p o l i t i c a l ser v i c e , w a s n o n e o t h e r t h a n a n e a r l y m e m b e r s h i p i n or residence w i t h this g r o u p . C e r t a i n l y h e describes the monastics w i t h a d m i r i n g passion. A g a i n it is w e l l to h a v e i n m i n d v e r y e a r l y t h a t P h i l o not o n l y w a s a m a n o f p o l i t i c a l a c t i o n , b u t also o n e w h o n e v e r ceased to respect, a n d at least i n p a r t to e n v y , the possibilities o f s u c h c o n t e m p l a t i v e isolation. T h e literature o n this d o c u m e n t is v e r y l a r g e , for i n t h e m i d - n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y a g r e a t c o n t r o v e r s y r a g e d as to w h e t h e r it w a s g e n u i n e , o r the T h e r a p e u t a e were not really a group of Christian monks of t h r e e centuries l a t e r . T h a t c o n t r o v e r s y has n o w l o n g b e e n settled, a n d n o o n e for y e a r s has q u e s t i o n e d t h a t P h i l o w r o t e it. T h e t w o fragments o f the Hypothetica w h i c h s u r v i v e i n E u s e b i u s ' Praeparatio Evangelica ( V I I I , 5 - 7 ) , s e e m to represent a n o t h e r section from the rest o f the l o n g e r w o r k o f w h i c h On the Contemplative Life itself w a s o r i g i n a l l y a p a r t . H e r e P h i l o seems to b e addressing h i m s e l f to the s a m e sort o f hostile critic as t h a t A p i o n w h o m J o s e p h u s a n s w e r e d , a n d w e m a y assume t h a t P h i l o ' s Apology a n d J o s e p h u s ' w o r k Against Apion w e r e n o t dissimilar i n tone a n d m a t e r i a l . I n the first f r a g m e n t P h i l o refutes slanderous assertions t h a t M o s e s w a s a soothsayer, a n d i n the s e c o n d gives a few o f the w e i g h t i e r points o f the J e w i s h l a w . W i t h the loss o f most o f this d o c u m e n t the details o f o n e w h o l e aspect o f P h i l o ' s a t t i t u d e t o w a r d p a g a n i s m h a v e dis a p p e a r e d . A t least the student s h o u l d e a r l y l e a r n t h a t this sort o f a t t i t u d e d i d express itself. A third f r a g m e n t , c i t e d b y E u s e b i u s as from t h e Apology (Praep. Ev. V I I I , 1, 1 8 ) , n o t the Hypothetica, 7

8

7

For this literature see the Bibliography, pp. 282-9.

8

T h e English reader will best use E. H. Gifford's translation, Oxford, 1903.

PHILO'S

WRITINGS

33

p r o b a b l y b e l o n g s to the s a m e w o r k . It tells o f the Essenes in m u c h the w a y On the Contemplative Life tells o f the T h e r a p e u t a e , a n d b o t h w e r e p r o b a b l y in a section o f the lost w o r k w h i c h , w h i l e refuting slanders, presented to gentiles the h e i g h t s o f J e w i s h mystic a c h i e v e m e n t as expressed i n the lives o f s u c h sects or orders. T h e s t u d e n t s h o u l d n e x t r e a d P h i l o ' s t w o books On the Life of Moses. T h i s w o r k has passed t h r o u g h several stages o f c r i t i c a l a p p r a i s a l , especially for its relation to o n e o f P h i l o ' s l a r g e r series, The Exposition of the Law. H e r e it n e e d o n l y b e said t h a t in itself On the Life of Moses has a l w a y s b e e n t a k e n as a n o t h e r a p o l o g y for the J e w s , this o n e addressed to friendly r a t h e r t h a n hostile p a g a n s , w h o w o u l d like to k n o w w h o the g r e a t M o s e s w a s o f w h o m J e w s w e r e so p r o u d , a n d w h a t h e d i d . A p o l o g y has n o w b e c o m e a n i n t r o d u c t i o n to J u d a i s m t h r o u g h the story o f M o s e s a n d the establishment o f J e w i s h l a w . W e are c o m i n g n e a r e r to P h i l o ' s message w i t h e a c h successive d o c u m e n t , a n d it is interesting to w a t c h carefully w h a t sort o f J u d a i s m it is w h i c h P h i l o presents to s y m p a t h e t i c gentiles. M o s e s is c h a r a c t e r i z e d b a s i c a l l y i n terms o f the c o n t e m p o r a r y i d e a l o f the k i n g , w h o w a s to b e a ' d i v i n e m a n ' a n d so link the p e o p l e w i t h the spiritual order. T h i s w a s a p e r s o n a l i t y o f w h o m the p a g a n w o r l d h a d l o n g b e e n d r e a m i n g . H e w o u l d b e the i d e a l S a g e o f the Stoics, the ' d i v i n e m a n ' o f the P y t h a g o r e a n s , the ' s a v i o u r ' o f the M y s t e r i e s , a n d his life w o u l d b e o f v a l u e not o n l y for h i m self b u t as a p o w e r f u l o r d e r i n g a n d s a v i n g a g e n t i n society a n d in the lives o f i n d i v i d u a l s w h o l o o k e d to h i m for g u i d a n c e . It w a s i n d e e d wishful t h i n k i n g w h e n subjects h a d c l a i m e d t h a t the i d e a l w a s r e a l i z e d i n a c o n t e m p o r a r y E g y p t i a n or P h a r a o h , in a P e r s i a n or B a b y l o n i a n ruler, or e v e n , i n their o w n d a y , in the J e w i s h D a v i d a n d S o l o m o n . B u t the d r e a m w a s a g e - o l d , expressed i n the w i d e s t v a r i e t y o f m y t h i c a l t e r m i n o l o g y , a n d w a s still thrusting itself, i n spite o f all the d e m o c r a t i c tradition o f R o m e , u p o n the n e w rulers o f the w o r l d . Y e t h o w e v e r often 9

9

See m y 'Philos Exposition of the Law and his de vita Mosis,' Harvard Theological Review, X X V I I (1933), 109-25.

34


TO PHILO JUDAEUS

m e n m i g h t describe their a c t u a l rulers i n s u c h terms, n o o n e w a s so fooled t h e r e b y that t h e i d e a l w a s not, for full r e a l i z a t i o n , projected b a c k u p o n m y t h i c a l heroes o f o l d , u p o n S o c r a t e s , Lycurgus, or Minos, or forward upon the coming Messiah o f the J e w s o r , possibly, o f V e r g i l ' s fourth Eclogue. T h i s e x t r e m e l y c o m p l e x i d e a w a s expressed l e g a l l y b y d e scribing

the

ideal

man

as i>d/zo? efja/tvxvs,

lex animata,

the

in

carnate representation o f supreme a n d universal L a w . I n h i m t h a t L a w , itself u n f o r m u l a t e d , c o u l d b e c o m e v o c a l , XoyLKos; t h a t is, t h e i d e a l m a n h a d t h e p o w e r o f t a k i n g a L a w w h i c h w a s spirit a n d d i v i n e p u r p o s e , a n d o f a p p l y i n g it to h u m a n p r o b lems. T h r o u g h h i m the L a w , or nature, o f G o d could b e c o m e statutory l a w s , a n d true l a w s for society c o u l d n e v e r , it w a s universally believed, be h a d i n a n y other w a y . It w a s P h i l o ' s t r i u m p h a n t boast t h a t w h a t t h e gentiles s o u g h t in i g n o r a n c e t h e J e w s h a d a c t u a l l y possessed i n M o s e s . A s a c o r o l l a r y t o this k i n g s h i p w i t h its d i v i n e p o w e r o f legislation, M o s e s w a s also t h e i d e a l priest a n d p r o p h e t , a n d h e w a s a b l e to g i v e t h e perfect legislation o f J u d a i s m . A t t h e e n d P h i l o says t h a t this m a n o f G o d w a s e x a l t e d , freed from d e a t h , a n d trans lated to t a k e his p l a c e a m o n g the stars w h e r e h e j o i n e d i n t h e c o s m i c h y m n o f t h e h e a v e n l y bodies a n d t h e n , after final a d m o n i t i o n s to Israel, shed his b o d y , i n t h e P l a t o n i c p h r a s e (Phaedr. 250c) like t h e shell o f a n oyster, as his soul r e t u r n e d to t h e i m m a t e r i a l . T h e gentiles w h o r e a d this b o o k w e r e to see i n J u d a i s m t h e r e a l i z a t i o n o f all their o w n d r e a m s . T h e J e w s h a d h a d t h e perfect k i n g a n d saviour, t h e i d e a l legislator, a n d h e n c e t h e h o p e o f m a n k i n d . B u t t h e gentiles w o u l d h a v e h e a r d v e r y little a b o u t a J e w i s h p o i n t o f v i e w o f G o d , n a t u r e , o r m a n w h i c h w a s i n a n y sense different from w h a t t h e noblest teachers o f G r e e c e h a d l o n g b e e n presenting. I f The Life of Moses s u c c e e d e d i n its p u r p o s e , it w o u l d h a v e a w a k e n e d i n t h e g e n t i l e a lively desire to l e a r n m o r e o f t h e J e w i s h traditions. W h a t w a s t h e history o f this p e o p l e , a n d w h a t the a m a z i n g legislation w h i c h s u c h a M o s e s h a d g i v e n ? I n o n e 1 0

1 0

This theory is discussed more fully below, pp. 6 8 - 7 1 .

PHILO'S

WRITINGS

35

passage o f The Life of Moses P h i l o suggests t h a t he w i l l a n a l y z e the historical p a r t o f the books o f M o s e s , a n d then the legis lation. T h i s p r o m i s e I h a v e e l s e w h e r e s h o w n w a s fulfilled in his first g r e a t series o f w r i t i n g s , at least the first series I w o u l d r e c o m m e n d to b e r e a d , The Exposition of the Law. H e r e , w i t h m u c h g r e a t e r e l a b o r a t i o n t h a n before, P h i l o c a n l e a d t h e g e n t i l e into his J u d a i s m . I m u s t w a r n t h a t w h i l e I w a s n o t the first to suggest t h a t the Exposition w a s d e s i g n e d for gentiles, I w a s the first to d o so after scholars h a d for forty y e a r s c o n s i d e r e d it p r o v e d to the c o n t r a r y , a n d w h e n e v e n S c h u r e r h a d b e e n b r o u g h t o v e r to t h a t o p i n i o n . B u t , u n l i k e m a n y o f m y p u b l i c a t i o n s , this o n e has b e e n r e c e i v e d w i t h almost u n a n i m o u s a p p r o v a l , so far as I h a v e seen, a n d I think the r e a d e r m a y h e r e follow m e safely. T h e a r g u m e n t s n e e d not be r e p e a t e d . 1 1

T h e r e a d e r o f t h e Exposition, it is definitely assumed b y P h i l o , w i l l h a v e first r e a d The Life of Moses. N o w P h i l o treats the T o r a h , w h i c h to h i m w a s the P e n t a t e u c h , u n d e r several d i v i sions. T h e s e m a y b e e n t i t l e d : the c o s m o l o g i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n ; the i n c a r n a t i o n s o f L a w ; the g e n e r a l principles o f L a w ; the a p p l i c a t i o n s o f these principles i n specific l a w s ; the r e l a t i o n o f these to the c a r d i n a l virtues o f the G r e e k s ; a n d the sanctions o f the l a w s in r e w a r d a n d p u n i s h m e n t . T h e first o f these, the c o s m o l o g i c a l i n t r o d u c t i o n , is presented in w h a t I c o n s i d e r P h i l o ' s most difficult treatise, entitled On the Creation of the World. It is the treatise p r i n t e d first in all editions o f P h i l o , a n d its difficulty has o n l y too often m a d e it the last as w e l l as the first for a r e a d e r to a t t e m p t . It s h o u l d b e r e a d as a brilliant tour de force,. b y w h i c h P h i l o wishes to a m a z e the g e n t i l e r e a d e r w i t h the g r e a t a m o u n t o f hellenistic c o s m o l o g y a n d m e t a p h y s i c s w h i c h h e c a n r e a d o u t of, r e a l l y into, t h e first t h r e e c h a p t e r s o f G e n e s i s . Y e t it is not w h o l l y a n artificial w o r k . P h i l o here is carefully selecting those aspects o f p h i l o s o p h y w h i c h h a d a p p e a l e d to h i m in G r e e k w r i t i n g s , or in I r a n i a n tradition, a n d w h i c h he h a d t a k e n i n t o his o w n religious 1 1

See the work cited, note 9 above.

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t h i n k i n g . T h e v e r y fact t h a t M o s e s has b e g u n w i t h the c r e a t i o n o f the w o r l d s h o w s , says P h i l o , t h a t h e surpassed all the o t h e r l a w m a k e r s . F o r , w h i l e s o m e h a v e b e g u n at o n c e w i t h legislation, others w i t h m y t h s , M o s e s presents a t the outset the p l a c e o f L a w i n the u n i v e r s e , a n d the fact t h a t o n e w h o o b e y s t r u e L a w is t h e r e b y l i v i n g i n a c c o r d w i t h n a t u r e a n d n a t u r e ' s G o d . T h e u l t i m a t e is t w o f o l d (§8), a c t i v e C a u s e a n d passive o b j e c t . T h e a c t i v e C a u s e , G o d , transcends all things, e v e n v i r t u e , the beautiful, a n d the g o d . B u t this t r a n s c e n d e n t B e i n g is at the s a m e t i m e the c a u s e o f all c r e a t e d things. T h e e q u a l l y o r i g i n a l passive o b j e c t is u n f o r m e d m a t t e r . T h e fact t h a t the f o r m e d w o r l d m u s t h a v e h a d a n o r i g i n is a r g u e d after the r e a s o n i n g o f P l a t o i n the Timaeus. T h e t w o b i b l i c a l stories o f c r e a t i o n a r e t h e n discussed i n d e t a i l . T h e c r e a t i o n in s e v e n d a y s d e s c r i b e d i n the first c h a p t e r o f Genesis is to P h i l o the c r e a t i o n o f the i d e a l w o r l d (§16), the P l a t o n i c p a t t e r n o f the m a t e r i a l w o r l d . T h e first c r e a t i o n , b e i n g i m m a t e r i a l , is also n o n s p a t i a l , a n d existed in the d i v i n e r e a s o n or L o g o s as a n a r c h i t e c t ' s p l a n takes its first a n d most i m p o r t a n t f o r m a t i o n i n the architect's m i n d ( § § 1 7 - 2 2 ) . B u t i n a p p l y i n g this perfect c r e a t i o n to m a t t e r , G o d w a s f r o m the first l i m i t e d b y the limitations o f m a t t e r itself, the u l t i m a t e passive o b j e c t . T h e perfect c r e a t i o n w a s itself the L o g o s o f G o d (§§24 f.) a n d the d a y s o f c r e a t i o n c o u l d n o t represent t i m e , for t i m e , as P l a t o h a d said, c a m e into existence o n l y w i t h the m o v e m e n t o f the h e a v e n l y b o d i e s i n s p a c e . T h e n u m b e r o f ' d a y s ' o f the first i d e a l c r e a t i o n t h e n represents the o r d e r of, o r w i t h i n , the i d e a l w o r l d , w h i c h a c t u a l l y c a m e i n t o existence i n all its p a r t s s i m u l t a n e o u s l y . M u c h attention is g i v e n to the n u m e r a l o g i c a l force o f e a c h o f the n u m b e r s from o n e to seven, a n d the a p p r o p r i a t e n e s s o f w h a t w a s d o n e o n e a c h d a y , or w h a t is to b e classified u n d e r e a c h n u m b e r . W h e n P h i l o c o m e s to m a n , b e i n g 'in the i m a g e o f G o d ' is identified w i t h m a n ' s d i v i n e r e a s o n i n g p o w e r , b y w h i c h m a n truly resembles G o d a n d aspires to m y s t i c association w i t h G o d ( § § 6 9 - 7 1 ) . B u t , after the m a n n e r o f the Timaeus, m a n w a s m a d e not b y G o d a l o n e , b u t also b y assistants, as i n d i c a t e d b y the p h r a s e 'let us

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m a k e ' ; i n this w a y , a g a i n f o l l o w i n g P l a t o , G o d is s a v e d from causation o f evil. T h e s e c o n d p a r t o f the treatise takes u p the s e c o n d story o f c r e a t i o n , a n d the fall. T h e first m a n w a s , after all, a p u r e l y i d e a l c r e a t u r e . T h e m a n c r e a t e d i n the s e c o n d story w a s a c o m b i n a t i o n o f m a t t e r a n d spirit, m a d e f r o m m o t h e r earth, a n d , u n l i k e his i d e a l p r o t o t y p e , specifically m a l e . H e w a s m a d e o f the v e r y best m a t e r i a l s a n d g i v e n , i n the b r e a t h o f G o d , the L o g o s as his spiritual n a t u r e . A s s u c h h e w a s a c i t i z e n o f the universe, c o - c i t i z e n w i t h the h e a v e n l y b o d i e s , a n d , since the L o g o s w a s the s u m m a t i o n o f the i d e a l w o r l d , so m a n w a s i n his spiritual n a t u r e a m i c r o c o s m o s , a n d e v e n his b o d y w a s m a d e after the i d e a l n u m e r i c a l relations. H e w a s the o n e true k i n g o f all t i m e . H i s d o w n f a l l b e g a n w i t h the c r e a t i o n o f w o m a n , w h o represented a n d e m p h a s i z e d the m a t e r i a l p a r t o f his n a t u r e , especially p h y s i c a l desire. T h r o u g h h e r the serpent, s y m b o l o f p l e a s u r e , a t t a c k e d h i m a n d c a u s e d his d o w n f a l l , for reason b e c a m e t h e slave o f p l e a s u r e , a n d w i t h this e n s l a v e m e n t m o t h e r e a r t h c e a s e d to p r o d u c e for m a n w i t h o u t his toil a n d effort. T h e b o o k closes w i t h w h a t is, so far as I k n o w , the first c r e e d o f history. First, against the atheists, b o t h those i n d o u b t a b o u t G o d ' s r u l i n g (the E p i c u r e a n s ) a n d those w h o d e n i e d his exist e n c e a l t o g e t h e r , P h i l o affirms t h a t G o d exists a n d rules the w o r l d . S e c o n d l y , against polytheists h e affirms t h a t G o d is O n e . T h i r d l y , against v a r i o u s schools, h e affirms t h a t the m a t e r i a l w o r l d h a d a b e g i n n i n g i n its present f o r m ; fourthly, a g a i n s t atomists o f all periods, t h a t there is b u t o n e cosmos, w h i c h exhausts all m a t t e r ; fifthly, against the E p i c u r e a n s , t h a t G o d exercises p r o v i d e n c e i n the w o r l d , a p r o v i d e n c e w h i c h is n o t the S t o i c d e t e r m i n i s m , b u t w h a t seems to b e a n i m m a n e n t p r e s e n c e a n d c o o p e r a t i o n o f d i v i n i t y i n the c r e a t e d w o r l d , a n d especially, like a father w i t h his c h i l d r e n , i n m a n . 1 2

H e that has begun b y learning these things with his under standing rather than with his hearing [Philo concludes] and has 1 2

4

See By Light, Light, 122.

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stamped on his soul these marvellous and priceless realities (etSrj), namely that G o d both is and is from eternity, that he w h o truly is is one, that he has created the world and created it a single entity after the likeness of his o w n unity, and that he ever exercises forethought for his creation, such a man will lead a blessed and happy life, for he is moulded by dogmas which produced piety and holiness. E v e r y bit o f this c r e e d , w h i c h the g e n t i l e must a c c e p t i f he is to g o o n w i t h P h i l o , is f a m i l i a r P l a t o n i c a n d P y t h a g o r e a n d o c trine. M o n o t h e i s m i n the sense t h a t the u l t i m a t e p r i n c i p l e a n d true G o d is O n e w a s a familiar a n d a c c e p t e d notion in most p h i l o s o p h i c systems o f the G r e e k s . T h e o n l y t h i n g in this c r e e d w h i c h seems J e w i s h in o r i g i n is the a l m o s t p a r e n t h e t i c e x p l a n a tion t h a t the p r o v i d e n c e o f G o d w a s like t h a t o f a father for his c h i l d r e n . G o d the father i n p a g a n t r a d i t i o n w a s , like G o d the father in the A p o s t l e s ' C r e e d , 'the A l m i g h t y c r e a t o r o f h e a v e n a n d e a r t h ' . H e w a s the B e g e t t e r , first C a u s e , not the k i n d l y g u i d e a n d p r o t e c t o r o f his offspring. T o i n t r o d u c e the n e w conception of divine fatherhood was a most important change, a n d in the c o u r s e o f r e a d i n g P h i l o it w i l l b e c o m e a p p a r e n t t h a t this is o n e o f the essential survivals o f J u d a i s m i n its m i n g l i n g w i t h p a g a n ideas. B u t it m u s t not b e m a d e to o v e r s h a d o w all the rest o f P h i l o ' s c r e e d , w h i c h , as a w h o l e , is o n e w h i c h n o i n t e l l i g e n t p a g a n w o u l d h a v e h a d a n y t r o u b l e in d e r i v i n g from his o w n postulates. T h e p u r p o s e o f the treatise On Creation, then, is to s h o w t h a t i n M o s e s ' story o f c r e a t i o n is set forth the best p a g a n c o s m o l o g y a n d m e t a p h y s i c , t h a t o f the u n i q u e c r e a t o r G o d w h o expresses h i m s e l f b y m e a n s o f the L o g o s , a n d to c e n t r e the gentile's m i n d o n this c o n c e p t i o n o f G o d w h i l e before his w o n d e r i n g eyes the c o n c e p t is w o r k e d o u t from the simple b i b l i c a l n a r r a t i v e s . The Exposition of the Law for gentiles is n o w r e a d y to g o o n to the n e x t stage i n w h i c h L a w exists. T h e first w a s L a w i n the m i n d o f G o d , the i d e a l w o r l d , a n d the m a t e r i a l cosmos, L a w as the p u r p o s e i n h e r e n t i n the n a t u r e o f G o d . T h e r e v e l a t i o n o f L a w , most perfect in the m e t a p h y s i c a l r e a l m , takes its s e c o n d

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form i n the p e r s o n o f the i d e a l h u m a n b e i n g , the m a n w h o c o n q u e r e d his m a t e r i a l n a t u r e (as p o o r A d a m p r o v e d u n a b l e u l t i m a t e l y to d o ) a n d so w h o s e life is a r e v e l a t i o n o f true L a w in the h u m a n m i c r o c o s m . T h i s i d e a l has a l r e a d y a p p e a r e d i n the description o f M o s e s , b u t is here b r o u g h t f o r w a r d a g a i n for the e a r l y P a t r i a r c h s of J e w i s h history. P h i l o begins the treatise On Abraham, w h i c h i n the Exposition followed that On the Creation of the World, w i t h the w o r d s : As well as w e could have analyzed in our former treatises how the creation of the world was disposed. But since it is now necessary in due order to investigate the laws, w e shall postpone the consideration of the detailed laws, w h i c h are in a sense copies, in order to investigate those more general laws which one might call their antecedent archetypes. These latter laws are those men w h o have lived irreproachably and nobly, whose virtues have been promulgated in the sacred scriptures, not merely to praise them, but in order to exhort those w h o read them, and to lead readers to the like aspiration. For these men were incarnate and vocal laws (vofiou efjufjvxoL /ecu XoyiKoi), w h o m Moses has celebrated for two reasons: because he wished first to show that the laws of the C o d e are not at variance with nature, and second that those w h o wish to live according to the established laws (of the T o r a h ) are not confronted with a tremendous labour, in as m u c h as these original men readily and easily used the legislation even in its unwritten form, before a beginning had been made in writing d o w n any of the par ticular laws. So one could properly say that the laws of the C o d e are nothing but memoirs of the life of the ancients, discus sions of antiquities, namely the deeds and words of their active careers. For they were not pupils or disciples of anyone, nor did they learn w h a t to do or say from teachers, but they were people who heard for themselves (avTrjKooL) and taught themselves (avTOfiaSels), clove to w h a t w h a t was in accordance with nature, and on the supposition, as is indeed the fact, that nature herself is the primary L a w , they shot their whole lives through with the fine order of L a w (d-rravTa rov jSt'ov rjvvofjLrjdrjaav). T h e y did nothing reprehensible of their o w n volition, while for chance offences they loudly implored G o d and propitiated him with

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prayers and supplications in order that they might share in a perfect life purged of both deliberate and involuntary offences.

T h e s e P a t r i a r c h s a r e presented i n t w o triads, E n o s , E n o c h , a n d N o a h , w h o a r e considered briefly a t the b e g i n n i n g o f On Abraham, a n d A b r a h a m , I s a a c , a n d J a c o b , to e a c h o f w h o m P h i l o d e v o t e d a treatise. T h e treatises o n I s a a c a n d J a c o b a r e lost. I n t h e treatise On Abraham t h a t P a t r i a r c h ' s story is t r a c e d : his m i g r a t i o n from m a t e r i a l b o n d a g e , his successive visions, his m a r r i a g e w i t h W i s d o m o r V i r t u e i n S a r a h , a l l these a r e d e v e l o p e d until it a p p e a r s t h a t A b r a h a m h a s b e c o m e m o r e t h a n a m a n . G o d spoke to h i m ' n o l o n g e r as t h o u g h h e w e r e s p e a k i n g to a h u m a n b e i n g , b u t as a friend w i t h a friend' (Abr., 2 7 3 ) , and A b r a h a m , b y virtue o f being the unwritten l a w o f G o d , w a s a merciful b e n e f a c t i o n (x«p^) from G o d w i t h a b i d i n g p o w e r to benefit m a n . O f t h e treatises o n Isaac a n d J a c o b w e h a v e o n l y s u m m a r i e s i n t h e c o n c l u d i n g b o o k o f t h e Exposition. F r o m t h e m w e l e a r n t h a t these c h a r a c t e r s w e r e sirnilarly treated, b u t t h a t I s a a c was even more exalted than A b r a h a m and J a c o b . For, while these h a d h a d to g o t h r o u g h l o n g periods o f m i g r a t i o n a n d t r a i n i n g before t h e y a c h i e v e d the i d e a l relationship w i t h G o d , I s a a c w a s a d i v i n e b e i n g from his b i r t h w h o h a d n o o c c a s i o n or r o o m for i m p r o v e m e n t . T h e story o f J o s e p h is a n i n t e r r u p t i o n i n t h e l o g i c a l s e q u e n c e o f P h i l o ' s t h o u g h t , b u t t h e b o o k On Joseph s h o u l d n e x t b e r e a d since it f o l l o w e d i n t h e Exposition, a n d is e x t r e m e l y i m p o r t a n t for P h i l o ' s g e n e r a l t h i n k i n g . I h a v e elsewhere treated t h a t b o o k at l e n g t h , a n d w i l l here s a y o n l y t h a t i n telling the story o f J o s e p h , P h i l o takes a d v a n t a g e o f t h e o p p o r t u n i t y to discuss t h e function o f t h e civil ruler a n d to g i v e his g e n t i l e readers s o m e sharp a d v i c e o n t h e p r o p e r c o n d u c t o f E g y p t i a n affairs. J o s e p h , a m a n a c t i v e l y e n g a g e d i n p o l i t i c a l matters, a politicus, is b y n o m e a n s i d e a l i z e d as w e r e t h e three w h o p r e c e d e d h i m . B u t J o s e p h w a s a n e x e m p l a r y ruler i n t h a t h e l o o k e d a l w a y s t o 1 3

1 3

See m y Philo's Politics, Chap. I I I .

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G o d ' s g u i d a n c e , a n d carefully o b s e r v e d j u s t i c e to m e n o f all nationalities. I f the R o m a n s are l o o k i n g for a n i d e a l prefect o f E g y p t , t h e y w i l l d o w e l l , P h i l o is s a y i n g , to note t h a t the i d e a l w a s fully e x e m p l i f i e d o f o l d i n n o n e o t h e r t h a n a J e w . A f t e r this i n v a s i o n o f the m a i n a r g u m e n t b y P h i l o ' s p o l i t i c a l interest, P h i l o is r e a d y to r e s u m e his t h r e a d o f exposition. H e has s h o w n L a w i n its m e t a p h y s i c a l a n d c o s m i c reality, a n d t h e n i n m e n w h o , the p r o t o t y p e s o f J e w i s h p i e t y , w e r e the i n c a r n a tions o f t h a t h i g h e r L a w a n d so the saviours o f m e n thereafter. T h e g e n t i l e e n q u i r e r is n o w r e a d y for f o r m u l a t e d or v e r b a l l a w . T h i s t o o , as P h i l o tells us i n the treatise On the Decalogue, the J e w s h a v e u n i q u e l y i n its highest f o r m ; t h a t is, i n a f o r m u l a t i o n m a d e n o t b y m a n at all, b u t d i r e c t l y b y G o d . T h e perfection o f the n u m b e r o f the T e n C o m m a n d m e n t s is o f course a m p l i f i e d , a n d t h e m i r a c u l o u s v o i c e w h i c h w a s not a s o u n d i n the sense w e k n o w it, b u t a n i m m e d i a t e i m p a r t i n g o f the message to the m i n d s o f all the J e w i s h n a t i o n a s s e m b l e d at S i n a i . T h e c o m m a n d s are d i v i d e d into t w o g r o u p s o f five e a c h , the o n e setting forth t h e basic principles o f m e n ' s relations to G o d , the o t h e r o f their r e l a t i o n to o n e a n o t h e r . E a c h o f the ten is e x p o u n d e d as a basic p r i n c i p l e o f l a w , from w h i c h all lesser statutes a r e derived. On the Decalogue has thus s k e t c h e d the line w h i c h the later a m p l i f i c a t i o n is to t a k e . T h e n e x t four b o o k s , those entitled On the Special Laws, s y s t e m a t i c a l l y r e v i e w M o s a i c legislation to s h o w h o w the i n d i v i d u a l statutes o f t h a t legislation are all l o g i c a l a n d p r o p e r results o f the a p p l i c a t i o n o f these principles to v a r i o u s aspects o f life. T o m a n y J e w s these b o o k s On the Special Laws w i l l b e the m o s t interesting i n P h i l o , for h e r e h e is m o r e c o n c e r n e d w i t h J e w i s h l a w t h a n i n a n y o t h e r treatise. B u t to gentiles these b o o k s are q u i t e slow r e a d i n g . I n the first b o o k P h i l o first defends, r a t h e r fancifully, the J e w i s h rite o f c i r c u m c i s i o n . I t is interesting t h a t h e r e a p p e a r s for the first time so far as I k n o w the m y t h t h a t c i r c u m c i s i o n w a s o r i g i n a l l y g i v e n to the J e w s , or practised b y t h e m , for h y g i e n i c reasons. P h i l o t h e n takes u p the first t w o C o m m a n d m e n t s o f the D e c a -

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l o g u e as g e n e r a l principles o f legislation o n t e m p l e w o r s h i p , r e g u l a t i o n s o f the p r i e s t h o o d , tithes, the a n i m a l s sacrificed, a n d the a t t i t u d e o f the w o r s h i p p e r . T h e legislation is n o t c o m p l e t e l y r e v i e w e d , b u t b y far the m o s t o f it is discussed. Y e t the discussion is v e r y different f r o m w h a t a n o r m a t i v e J e w w o u l d h a v e g i v e n . E a c h l a w is justified o n the basis o f its g e n e r a l s y m b o l i c v a l u e i n r e p r e s e n t i n g to the faithful the t y p e o f v i r t u e P h i l o a n d his p a g a n r e a d e r t o g e t h e r h a v e t h r o u g h o u t a s s u m e d to b e the n o r m . T h e e x c l u s i o n o f the hire o f the h a r l o t , for e x a m p l e , is m o r e e l a b o r a t e l y a l l e g o r i z e d t h a n o t h e r l a w s , b u t is q u i t e o f a p i e c e w i t h the o t h e r e x p l a n a t i o n s . T h e harlots are those w h o reject the P l a t o n i c F o r m s or I d e a s , atheists, polytheists, r a t i o n alists, a n d those w h o h o n o u r the senses r a t h e r t h a n G o d . P h i l o is p l a i n l y s a y i n g t h a t o n l y those w h o h a v e the c o r r e c t P l a t o n i c p h i l o s o p h y o f life c a n truly share i n J e w i s h ritual. H e is o b v i o u s l y still w r i t i n g for p a g a n enquirers. T h e s e c o n d b o o k o f the Special Laws discusses the T h i r d , F o u r t h , a n d Fifth C o m m a n d m e n t s . P r o h i b i t i o n o f the use o f the N a m e b e c o m e s a p r o h i b i t i o n o f t a k i n g oaths, a n d all m a n n e r o f oaths a r e considered for their p r o p r i e t y , as w e l l as the evils a n d penalties o f perjury. L e g i s l a t i o n o f v o t i v e offerings is h e r e also discussed. P h i l o m a k e s the F o u r t h C o m m a n d m e n t the g e n e r i c l a w o f all J e w i s h festivals, a n d strongly s c h e m a t i z e s the festivals i n t o s a c r a m e n t s o f m y s t i c i m p o r t . T h i s section is o n e o f the m o s t i m p o r t a n t i n P h i l o for the a d a p t i n g o f J e w i s h rites to m y s t i c i d e a s . A f t e r discussing briefly the Fifth C o m m a n d m e n t , in w h i c h he justifies o b e d i e n c e to p a r e n t s a g a i n o n G r e e k g r o u n d s , P h i l o closes b y s h o w i n g t h a t the c o r r e c t p e n a l t y for infractions o f all the first five C o m m a n d m e n t s a n d their subsidiary l a w s is d e a t h . U p to this p o i n t P h i l o has b r o u g h t i n c o n s i d e r a b l e civil l a w , t h a t o f i n h e r i t a n c e , o a t h s a n d perjury, a n d interest o n l o a n s . B u t it is w i t h the t h i r d b o o k , w h e r e the second h a l f o f 1 4

1 5

1 4

See By Light, Light, 123-5. See m y 'Literal Mystery in Hellenistic J u d a i s m / Quantulacumque (London, *937)> 236-41, and below, pp. 154-8. 1 5

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the D e c a l o g u e is considered, t h a t civil a n d c r i m i n a l l a w is m o r e s y s t e m a t i c a l l y discussed, a n d it is i n i n t r o d u c i n g this section t h a t P h i l o gives the i m p o r t a n t description o f his o w n life w h i c h w e c o n s i d e r e d i n the first c h a p t e r , h o w h e w a s e a r l y d e d i c a t e d to m y s t i c c o n t e m p l a t i o n , b u t w a s torn a w a y to b e p l u n g e d into p o l i t i c a l cares. H e t h e n goes o n at o n c e to the S i x t h C o m m a n d m e n t , w h e r e the s a m e m e t h o d is used as in the first t w o b o o k s . U n d e r the S i x t h C o m m a n d m e n t P h i l o s u b sumes all legislation o f m a r r i a g e a n d s e x : incest a n d the for b i d d e n m a r r i a g e s o f different k i n s h i p ; d i v o r c e a n d r e g u l a t i o n o f intercourse w i t h i n m a r r i a g e (on w h i c h p o i n t P h i l o is m u c h m o r e ascetic t h a n r a b b i n i c t r a d i t i o n ) ; s e x u a l perversions a n d a d u l t e r y . T h e rest o f the b o o k discusses l a w s w h i c h fall u n d e r the g e n e r a l c o m m a n d against killing a n d h e r e h e classifies n o t o n l y t h e l a w s c o v e r i n g different types o f h o m i c i d e , b u t the b e a t i n g o f slaves to d e a t h , l a w s w h i c h set the penalties for v i o l e n c e b y a b u l l , a n d for a c c i d e n t s w h i c h result from a n u n g u a r d e d pit o r roof, as w e l l as all the l a w s d e a l i n g w i t h v a r i o u s types o f assault. I n t h e fourth b o o k o f the Special Laws the other C o m m a n d ments a r e discussed. U n d e r the p r o h i b i t i o n o f stealing P h i l o discusses not o n l y the different sorts o f r o b b e r y a n d theft, b u t also k i d n a p p i n g , p r o p e r t y d a m a g e , deposits, a n d l o a n s . U n d e r the c o m m a n d against false witness h e discusses the w h o l e p r o b l e m o f e v i d e n c e in courts, as w e l l as d i v i n a t i o n , t h e q u a l i ties o f a j u d g e , a n d his criteria i n passing u p o n e v i d e n c e . U n d e r the w o r d s , ' T h o u shalt not c o v e t ' , P h i l o finally brings i n the d i e t a r y l a w s , w h o s e justification h e m a k e s e t h i c a l p r i n c i p l e r a t h e r t h a n l a w i n the sense in w h i c h h e has h i t h e r t o b e e n using the t e r m . I n t h e last y e a r s these b o o k s On the Special Laws h a v e b e e n discussed w i t h a n interest n e v e r before s h o w n . I n m y Jewish Jurisprudence * I p o i n t e d o u t the g r e a t n u m b e r o f parallels to Greek and R o m a n procedure, and concluded that Philo was g i v i n g a p i c t u r e o f J e w i s h l a w as p r a c t i s e d i n t h e J e w i s h courts 1

1 6

The Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt. N e w H a v e n , 1929.

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o f E g y p t . H e i n e m a n n p u b l i s h e d his g r e a t w o r k i n w h i c h h e d i s a g r e e d w i t h m e i n detail, b u t w a s also impressed w i t h t h e a m o u n t o f p a g a n l a w i n P h i l o ' s interpretations. O f his b o o k a n d t h e studies o f B e l k i n I h a v e a l r e a d y s p o k e n . T h e b e g i n n e r m i g h t stop a t this p o i n t a n d r e a d these three b o o k s , b u t I s h o u l d advise a g a i n s t it. H e must k n o w m o r e sides o f P h i l o t h a n h e h a s yet m e t i n order to b e able to read t h e m critically. T h e i m m e d i a t e task is t o g o o n a n d finish t h e Exposition. T h e n e x t treatise i n t h e Exposition is t h a t On Virtues. H e r e t h e p o i n t o f v i e w is n o l o n g e r t h a t o f l a w , b u t frankly o f ethics. T h e treatise, w h i c h m a y h a v e o r i g i n a l l y i n c l u d e d a section o n p i e t y , is n o w d i v i d e d u n d e r t h e h e a d s o f b r a v e r y , l o v e o f m a n k i n d (<j>i\avOpa)TrLa), repentance, a n d nobility. W h e r e a s before h e w a s d e m o n s t r a t i n g t h e l e g a l soundness o f J e w i s h legislation, his g e n e r a l p u r p o s e n o w is t o s h o w t h a t t h e JevMsh l a w s a r e also i n h a r m o n y w i t h t h e best t r a d i t i o n o f G r e e k ethics. H e i n e m a n n h a s p o i n t e d o u t t h a t t h e g r e a t stress o n J e w i s h l o v e o f m a n is o f a p o l o g e t i c c h a r a c t e r a g a i n s t t h e g e n t i l e a c c u s a t i o n t h a t J e w s w e r e t a u g h t t o h a t e a l l b u t their o w n p e o p l e ; h e h a s m a d e it c l e a r t h a t w h i l e P h i l o d e v e l o p s this v i r t u e i n t h e m a i n o n lines familiar i n hellenistic ethics h e i n fuses i n t o i t t h e J e w i s h religious n o t e t h a t t r u e l o v e o f G o d w i l l fructify i n l o v e o f m a n . T h e t w o last virtues, r e p e n t a n c e a n d nobility, furnish a p r e t e x t for discussing t h e p r o b l e m o f prose lytes, t o w h i c h issue P h i l o h a s a t last b r o u g h t his gentile r e a d e r . T h e gentile i n b e c o m i n g a proselyte will a b a n d o n polytheism, r e c o g n i z e a n d w o r s h i p t h e o n e G o d , a n d c o n d u c t his life a c c o r d i n g to t h e best virtues. A s s u c h , P h i l o points o u t i n t h e section o n n o b i l i t y , t h e proselyte w i l l b e q u i t e t h e e q u a l o f n a t i v e J e w s , a n d i n d e e d superior t o those w h o a r e J e w s o n l y b y b i r t h a n d n o t also b y v i r t u e a n d o b s e r v a n c e . F o r true n o b i l i t y is n o t a m a t t e r o f J e w i s h b i r t h as C a i n , H a m , A d a m , E s a u , a n d t h e sons o f A b r a h a m o t h e r t h a n I s a a c s h o w , b u t is o f t h e heart, as a p p e a r e d i n t h e case o f A b r a h a m , T h a m a r , a n d 1 8

1 9

1 7

1 9

1 8

See above, p . 1 1 - 1 3 . See above, p. 12. Philos Werke in deutscher Ubersetzung, I I , 316 f.

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others. F o r , b y the L a w , e v e r y m a n is j u d g e d not o n the merits o f his fathers, b u t o n his o w n . T h e last treatise o f the Exposition is On Rewards and Punish ments, a n d i n it P h i l o r e v i e w s or s u m m a r i z e s the points h e has h a d i n m i n d t h r o u g h o u t . A g a i n the P a t r i a r c h s e m e r g e as the types o f true J e w i s h a c c o m p l i s h m e n t . T o the ones a l r e a d y discussed, E n o s , E n o c h , a n d N o a h , A b r a h a m , I s a a c , a n d J a c o b , is n o w a d d e d the g r e a t seventh, M o s e s , w h o s e c a r e e r h a d b e e n discussed in t h e p r e l i m i n a r y w o r k On the Life of Moses. T h e s e m e n a c h i e v e d n o t happiness i n a future life, for o f this P h i l o has little to say, b u t m y s t i c c o m p l e t i o n . C a i n a n d K o r a h , the e x a m p l e s o f p u n i s h m e n t , o n the c o n t r a r y w e r e c u r s e d b y b a n i s h m e n t from G o d , w i t h its a t t e n d a n t penalties o f fear a n d s o r r o w . T h i s section b r e a k s off s u d d e n l y , a n d the c o n c l u s i o n o f the Exposition is lost. P r e s u m a b l y this c o n c l u s i o n w a s a final e x h o r t a t i o n to the g e n t i l e r e a d e r to a c h i e v e the blessings o f mystic J u d a i s m . 2 0

T h e r e a d e r w h o has f o l l o w e d P h i l o to this p o i n t has h a d a v e r y g o o d i n t r o d u c t i o n to the m a n , a n d stands o n the threshold o f his d e e p e r t h o u g h t . F r o m the a c t i v e p o l i t i c i a n w e h a v e g r a d u a l l y c o m e , t h r o u g h his defences against hostile attacks, to his w r i t i n g s i n w h i c h J u d a i s m is presented to gentiles i n the h o p e o f w i n n i n g not o n l y their t o l e r a n c e b u t their c o n v e r s i o n . W e h a v e not y e t h e a r d h i m speak to J e w s themselves. S t u d e n t s w o u l d d o w e l l to r e a d n e x t the little treatises On Blessings and Curses w h i c h are e r r o n e o u s l y p r i n t e d as the c o n c l u d i n g p a r t o f the treatise On Rewards and Punishments. H e r e w e h a v e q u i t e a n e w P h i l o a g a i n . H e is c l e a r l y g i v i n g a s p e e c h or s e r m o n o n the necessity o f k e e p i n g the l a w . I t is a t h o r o u g h l y D e u t e r o n o m i c address. T o those w h o a r e careful observers, especially o f the l a w s g o v e r n i n g the c o n d u c t o f a f a r m , the blessings o f l o n g life, posterity, a n d p r o s p e r i t y w i l l b e g i v e n , a n d to those w h o d i s o b e y , the reverse. I f the w h o l e g r o u p is 21

2 0

T h e Exposition, as we have it, closes at Praem. 78. T h e sections which follow in the Cohn-Wendland text will be considered shortly. O n the independent nature of this treatise, see m y 'Philo's Exposition of the L a w and his de vita Mosis,' Harvard Theological Review, X X V I I (1933), 119-24. 2 1

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faithful, the M e s s i a n i c A g e o f J e w i s h d o m i n i o n o v e r o t h e r peoples w i l l b e fulfilled. T h i s d o c u m e n t is u n i q u e in P h i l o ' s w r i t i n g s ; y e t there is n o reason w h y P h i l o c o u l d not h a v e w r i t t e n it, a n d r e a d it to a n a u d i e n c e w i t h enthusiasm. O b v i o u s l y h e is addressing a p o p u l a r g r o u p , a n d h e is s p e a k i n g the s i m p l e J u d a i s m w h i c h has b e e n intelligible to the mass o f J e w s o f all periods. W h a t e v e r d e p t h s a n d heights l e a r n e d J e w s m a y h a v e seen i n their religion, few o f t h e m c o u l d not h a v e t u r n e d from their studies to g i v e j u s t s u c h a s e r m o n to a m e e t i n g o f peasants. S h o r t as it is, this treatise is o f the greatest i m p o r t a n c e in s h o w i n g t h a t h o w e v e r rarefied Philo's i d e a m a y h a v e b e c o m e , h e n e v e r lost s y m p a t h y w i t h the J u d a i s m o f the h u m b l e s t p e o p l e . T h e r e a d e r is n o w r e a d y to g o o n to P h i l o ' s w o r k for a n o t h e r g r o u p o f J e w s , the g r o u p w h o m he c a l l e d the ' i n i t i a t e s ' ; t h a t is, those J e w s w h o h a d l e a r n e d to l o o k b e y o n d the letter o f the T o r a h , a n d , t h r o u g h the lenses o f a l l e g o r y , to discern as the true o b j e c t i v e o f J e w i s h r e v e l a t i o n a g r e a t n e w i m m a t e r i a l world o f mystic accomplishment. T h i s objective will not n o w s e e m entirely n e w . I t w a s the J u d a i s m , o b v i o u s l y , t o w a r d w h i c h the Exposition h a d b e e n l e a d i n g the e n q u i r i n g gentile, a n d t h e o n l y n o v e l t y w i l l b e the a m a z i n g ramifications a n d passionate m y s t i c i s m w i t h w h i c h P h i l o d e v e l o p s the t h e m e for those w h o a r e r e a d y to h e a r . T o this subject P h i l o d e v o t e d a l a r g e series o f treatises k n o w n , in contrast to the Exposition, as the Allegory. T h e Allegory consists n o w o f e i g h t e e n titles, t w e n t y - o n e b o o k s , b u t w a s o r i g i n a l l y m u c h l o n g e r . A t least nine treatises a r e definitely k n o w n to b e lost, a n d m a n y o f those w h i c h w e h a v e are i n c o m p l e t e . P h i l o a p p a r e n t l y w a s w o r k i n g a t the Allegory a g o o d p a r t o f his life, a n d v e r y possibly p u b l i s h e d e a c h i n s t a l m e n t as h e finished it. W e c a n n o t say w h e t h e r h e h a d a 2 2

2 2

T h e analysis of L. COHN, Einteilung und Chronologie der Schriften Philos (Leipzig, 1899), 393-402 (reprint from Philologus, Supplementband V I I ) , is still the best for the tradition of these books and for the lost portions. T h e treatises of the Allegory n o w preserved are LA, I, II, I I I ; Cher., Sacr., Pot., Post., Gig., Immut., Agr., Plant., Ebr., Sobr., Conf., Migr., Heres, Congr., Fug., Mut. and Som., I, I I . t

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definite p l a n i n the w o r k . M a s s e b i e a u t h o u g h t s o , a n d I d i d o n different g r o u n d s , b u t C o h n a n d others h a v e d e n i e d it. T h e Allegory, as the title suggests, w a s p l a n n e d to m a k e a n a l l e g o r y o f the b i b l i c a l text, b e g i n n i n g , for s o m e reason not e x p l a i n e d , w i t h the second c h a p t e r o f Genesis a n d g o i n g o n to the e n d . C o h n ' s c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n c a n n o t b e i m p r o v e d u p o n : ' P h i l o a t t a c h e s his l u c u b r a t i o n s to the b i b l i c a l text, w h i c h h e for the most p a r t follows verse b y v e r s e ; y e t h e n e v e r confines himself to the passage h e is e x p l a i n i n g , b u t w a n d e r s off, a d d u c e s related passages, a n d spreads h i m s e l f o u t i n the greatest detail o v e r these a n d e v e r y t h i n g else c o n n e c t e d w i t h t h e m , so t h a t h e seems i n the process to h a v e lost his t h r e a d . ' W h e n a b e g i n n e r reads these b o o k s for the first t i m e , t h a t description w i l l seem a n u n d e r s t a t e m e n t . H e w i l l h a v e forgotten the starting p o i n t o v e r a n d o v e r a g a i n as h e w a n d e r s t h r o u g h the m a z e s . A n y subject, it w o u l d a p p e a r , c a n b e discussed i n a n y c o n n e c t i o n . T h e b i b l i c a l text is often, as C o h n says, dismissed as ridiculous a n d a b s u r d i n its literal sense, a n d b e c o m e s a s p r i n g b o a r d u p into p s y c h o l o g y , politics, m y s t i c i s m , ethics, m e t a p h y s i c s , theories o f e d u c a t i o n , a n d a d o z e n o t h e r subjects w h i c h a p p e a r at first to b e stirred t o g e t h e r w i t h a s p o o n . F o r this r e a s o n w e c a n g i v e n o s u c h analysis o f the Allegory as w e g a v e o f the Exposition. B u t I w o u l d not h a v e it a p p e a r t h a t I a m d i s p a r a g i n g the Allegory. I t is P h i l o ' s greatest w o r k , i n d e s c r i b a b l y r i c h in e v e r y w a y , a n d b y the t i m e the b e g i n n e r has r e a d P h i l o u p to this p o i n t h e w i l l b e r e a d y to r e a d it. B u t , I b e g , d o r e a d it. D o n ' t skip a n d skim. T h e greatest classics i n religion are a p t to a p p e a r j u s t as formless to the r e a d e r . Plotinus is m u c h m o r e difficult to follow, a n d so is Aristotle's Metaphysics, to say n o t h i n g o f the r a b b i n i c a l classics. P h i l o m e a n t these w o r k s to b e r e a d b y initiates w h o k n e w the m a i n points o f his doctrines, a n d w h o w o u l d r e a d t h e m as b o o k s o f d e v o t i o n , as C h r i s t i a n s r e a d T h o m a s a K e m p i s , books w h i c h w o u l d b e p i c k e d u p a g a i n a n d 2 4

2 3

See above, n. 2. I have attempted to trace a continuity of thought from Conf. to Fug. in By Light, Light, 245-55. 2 4

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a g a i n w i t h n e w d e p t h s to b e found at e v e r y r e a d i n g . T h e y d o not e x p o u n d in the sense o f t h e Exposition, t h e y s i m p l y m e d i t a t e , as o n e does in a s e r m o n or a p h i l o s o p h i c m o n o l o g u e , w h i c h m i g h t w e l l b e q u i t e unintelligible to a n outsider. B u t o n e w h o has r e a d the o t h e r w o r k s o f P h i l o as I h a v e suggested t h e m w i l l h a v e c o m e the r o a d o f P h i l o ' s proselytes, a n d w i l l n o w b e r e a d y to listen to the earnest c o n v e r s a t i o n o f the i n n e r g r o u p . It still seems v e r y o b v i o u s to m e t h a t this w i l l l e a d i n t o a w o r l d w h i c h c a n b e c o m p a r e d closely o n l y to the w o r l d o f hellenistic m y s t i c i s m . P h i l o o c c a s i o n a l l y refers i n it to the l e g a l side o f J u d a i s m , a n d in o n e striking p a s s a g e h e d e n o u n c e s those J e w s w h o s e c o n c e r n w i t h the m y s t i c a l m e a n i n g o f the T o r a h has led t h e m to t h i n k t h a t the literal m e a n i n g , a n d w i t h it the o b l i g a t i o n o f l e g a l o b s e r v a n c e , is n o l o n g e r b i n d i n g . Y e t I c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d h o w a r e a d e r c a n fail to see t h a t these offenders h a v e o n l y c a r r i e d to a l o g i c a l c o n c l u s i o n the line o f a r g u m e n t , the p o i n t o f v i e w , w h i c h P h i l o h i m s e l f e v e r y w h e r e assumes. T r u e J u d a i s m is h e r e e p i t o m i z e d i n the m e a n i n g o f the w o r d Israel, w h i c h to P h i l o m e a n s t h e m a n or p e o p l e w h i c h sees G o d . A n d the g o a l o f all e n d e a v o u r is to purify the soul from passions, a c h i e v e , b y G o d ' s h e l p , a state o f v i r t u e in the G r e e k sense o f t h a t t e r m , a n d so i n t h e e n d to b e a b l e to r e c e i v e the h i g h e r u n i o n a n d vision. I n t o this subject w e shall g o i n m o r e d e t a i l in a later c h a p t e r . H e r e I a m o n l y a d v i s i n g the b e g i n n e r t h a t h e r e a d all the b o o k s o f the Allegory t h r o u g h , s l o w l y a n d carefully, as P h i l o e x p e c t e d his w o r k s to b e r e a d in his o w n g e n e r a t i o n . W i t h t h e c o m p l e t i o n o f the Allegory, the b e g i n n e r w i l l b e s u c h n o l o n g e r . H e w i l l h a v e g o n e t h r o u g h the most i m p o r t a n t w o r k s o f P h i l o . B u t there a r e other w o r k s w h i c h h e s h o u l d b y n o m e a n s n e g l e c t r e a d i n g , a n d r e a d i n g at o n c e . T h e first o f these is w h a t w e h a v e left o f P h i l o ' s t h i r d g r e a t series o f w r i t i n g s , the series w h i c h h e c a l l e d Questions and Answers. T h i s m a m m o t h w o r k is p r e s e r v e d less satisfactorily t h a n a n y o t h e r o f P h i l o ' s m a j o r series. W e h a v e o n l y a few s c a t t e r e d fragments o f it i n G r e e k , a n d l a r g e sections, b u t o n l y sections, i n A r m e n i a n . T h i s

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A r m e n i a n text w a s p u b l i s h e d o v e r a c e n t u r y a g o w i t h a L a t i n t r a n s l a t i o n , b u t is n o w a v a i l a b l e i n t h e c r i t i c a l translation o f R a l p h M a r c u s i n the L o e b series. T h e Questions w a s o r i g i n a l l y q u i t e as i m p o r t a n t a w o r k as a n y o f P h i l o . T h e m e t h o d is a g a i n c o m m e n t a r y , b u t this t i m e P h i l o discusses t h e t e x t verse b y verse, a n d u s u a l l y u n d e r t w o h e a d s , the literal m e a n i n g a n d t h e i n t e l l e c t u a l o r m y s t i c a l m e a n i n g . E a c h section is i n t r o d u c e d b y t h e ' q u e s t i o n ' : ' W h a t does it m e a n w h e n it s a y s ' — a n d t h e n a verse is q u o t e d . T h e answers are s o m e t i m e s a f e w lines, s o m e t i m e s s e v e r a l p a g e s , b u t u s u a l l y a b o u t a p a g e i n l e n g t h . T h e literal m e a n i n g seems a l w a y s t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n w h i c h w o u l d b e used b y a p r e a c h e r a d d r e s s i n g s u c h a n a u d i e n c e as d i d P h i l o i n his sermons On Blessings and Curses, a n d these literal interpretations h a v e still n o t b e e n e x h a u s t e d for their t e s t i m o n y t o p o p u l a r , literalistic, J u d a i s m in E g y p t . T h e a c c o m p a n y i n g m y s t i c a l c o m m e n t a r y is a n i n v a l u a b l e s u p p l e m e n t w h i c h fills i n m a n y g a p s i n t h e Allegory, a n d presents t h e s a m e sort o f J u d a i s m . T h e w o r k is, as I said, far from c o m p l e t e . W e h a v e four b o o k s o f u n e q u a l l e n g t h o n Genesis, a n d t w o short ones o n E x o d u s , b u t t h e r e is e v e r y reason to suppose t h a t P h i l o a c t u a l l y d i d a l l o f b o t h Genesis a n d E x o d u s i n this w a y ( w h i c h w o u l d i n itself d o u b l e w h a t w e h a v e ) , since e v e r y verse is c o n s i d e r e d i n succession i n o u r texts. F u r t h e r , o n e f r a g m e n t is p r e s e r v e d f r o m L e v i t i c u s , w h i l e P h i l o h i m s e l f seems t o refer i n t h e Allegory t o t h e Questions on Numbers, a n d promises i n t h e Questions t o c o n t i n u e t h r o u g h D e u t e r o n o m y . If, as seems likely, the w o r k w e n t a t least t h r o u g h N u m b e r s , it w a s P h i l o ' s magnum opus, a n d c a n n o m o r e b e n e g l e c t e d t h a n t h e magnum opus o f a n y o t h e r w r i t e r . 25

2 6

2 7

W h e n t h e Questions h a s b e e n r e a d , there w i l l r e m a i n o n l y a few i n d i v i d u a l treatises. O n e is t h e little i n c o m p l e t e w o r k On the Eternity of the World. H e r e P h i l o a r g u e s t h a t t h e p h y s i c a l w o r l d c o u l d n e i t h e r h a v e b e e n c r e a t e d n o r e v e r perish. H e 2 5

For full titles see the Bibliography, N o s . 440-1. A good start w a s made b y M . J . SHROYER, 'Alexandrian Jewish literalists,' Journal of Biblical Literature, L V (1936), 261-84. See L . COHN, op. cit., 403. 2 6

2 7

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quotes l e a r n e d l y from P l a t o , A r i s t o t l e , t h e Stoics, a n d later philosophers. H i s r e a l c o n c e r n is t o a t t a c k S t o i c i s m w i t h its d o c t r i n e o f c y c l i c c r e a t i o n a n d destruction. O c c a s i o n a l reference is m a d e t o b i b l i c a l m a t e r i a l , b u t t h e b o o k as a w h o l e is w r i t t e n from t h e p o i n t o f v i e w o f a Platonist a n d A r i s t o t e l i a n w h o resents t h e doctrines o f the Stoics. T h e b o o k is o n l y t h e b e g i n n i n g o f a n e x t e n d e d treatise, as t h e last sentence i n d i c a t e s . A n o t h e r treatise is Every Good Man is Free. T h i s is t h e second p a r t o f a p a i r , o f w h i c h t h e first, n o w lost, b o r e t h e title Every Wicked Man is a Slave. T h e a r g u m e n t i n this treatise w a s o p p o s e d to Stoic c o s m o l o g y . T h e c h i e f e x a m p l e s o f t h e wise m a n a r e M o s e s , t h e Essenes, t h e I n d i a n g y m n o s o p h i s t C a l a n u s , a n d a n u m b e r o f others from G r e e k history a n d l i t e r a t u r e . T h e treatise On Providence, is p r e s e r v e d i n t w o b o o k s , b u t o n l y i n A r m e n i a n . I t w a s translated b y A u c h e r i n t o L a t i n , b u t never into a modern language. M a s s e b i e a u , doubted the v a l i d i t y o f t h e first b o o k ; W e n d l a n d d e f e n d e d i t . I t is a n e x t r e m e l y i m p o r t a n t treatise for t h e p h i l o s o p h i c ideas o f P h i l o , a n d i n d e e d , as W e n d l a n d h a s s h o w n , for t h e history o f postA r i s t o t e l i a n p h i l o s o p h y . H e r e a g a i n P h i l o sides w i t h S t o i c i s m , b u t against t h e S c e p t i c s a n d E p i c u r e a n s , i n t h e interest o f t h e activity o f providence in the world. T h e last treatise is i n t h e form o f a discussion b e t w e e n P h i l o a n d his n e p h e w A l e x a n d e r o n t h e subject w h i c h its title i n d i c a t e s : Alexander, or On the Question Whether Dumb Animals Have the Power of Reason. A l e x a n d e r takes t h e affirmative, P h i l o the n e g a t i v e i n this interesting d i a l o g u e . T h e s t u d e n t w h o h a s c o m e to this p o i n t h a s d o n e w h a t rela2 8

2 9

3 0

2 8

Op. cit. 87-90. Philos Schrift iiber die Vorsehung, Berlin, 1892 (Bibl. 8 2 1 ) . It is especially discussed by GEORG TAPPE, De Philonis Libro qui inscribitur y

2 9 3 0

'Atefavdpos

$ wept TOV \6yov ix^v rd dAoya Zun\ Quaes tiones selectae, Diss. Gottingen, 1 9 1 2 .

Cohn has shown that it was written after A.D. 12, and hence when Philo was probably at least thirty to forty years of age. If written at about that time it would have been composed for the Alexander who was Philo's younger brother and later Alabarch. If written for Alexander the younger it would have been still later a work, since this Alexander, w e have seen (see above, p. 8), was probably born not much if any before A.D. 20. See DANIELOU, Philon d'Alexandrie, 5 7 - 7 5 , o n these last-named philosophical treatises.

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tively few p e o p l e h a v e e v e r d o n e — r e a d P h i l o t h r o u g h . It w i l l h a v e b e e n a l o n g task, b u t I shall b e surprised i f h e h a s n o t b e c o m e a P h i l o a d d i c t i n the process. O n e o f the things t h a t must h a v e impressed h i m , as it has so r a r e l y impressed those w h o o n l y d a b b l e i n P h i l o , is the m a n y - s i d e d n e s s , the versatility o f the m a n . S u c h p r o b l e m s as h a v e interested most w o r k e r s in P h i l o , p r o b l e m s o f the specific m e a n i n g o f this or t h a t c o l l e c t i o n o f passages u p o n s o m e d e t a i l , w i l l s e e m still i m p o r t a n t , b u t o f m u c h less i m p o r t a n c e i n c o m p a r i s o n w i t h the m a g n i t u d e o f the m a n as a w h o l e . H e w i l l h a v e c o m e to k n o w the g r e a t l e a d e r o f a g r e a t p e o p l e in a g r e a t p e r i o d o f their history. P h i l o ' s d e t a i l e d k n o w l e d g e o f m e n , p h i l o s o p h y , politics, n a t u r a l science, l a w J e w i s h a n d p a g a n , p s y c h o l o g y , a n d ethics, impresses o n e o n l y less t h a n the s u b l i m e spirit, s i m p l i c i t y t r a n s c e n d i n g c o m p l e x i t y , i n w h i c h all these things are b r o u g h t t o g e t h e r . W i t h s u c h a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f P h i l o the student w i l l i n d e e d b e w a r e o f easy f o r m u l a e for the 'essence o f P h i l o ' s p o s i t i o n ' . T h e ' k e y ' to u n d e r s t a n d i n g P h i l o w i l l at last a p p e a r to b e n o t his J u d a i s m , his m y s t i c i s m , his S t o i c i s m , his P l a t o n i s m , or a n y o f the o t h e r aspects o f the m a n , b u t the m a n himself.

CHAPTER in

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T H I N K E R

T H E first step i n the p r o c e d u r e o u t l i n e d at the b e g i n n i n g has n o w b e e n t a k e n . T h e o r e t i c a l l y the r e a d e r w i l l h a v e finished a c o m p l e t e r e a d i n g o f P h i l o , from w h i c h he has f o r m e d initial impressions o f P h i l o ' s p e r s o n a l i t y . T h e s e are first a n impression o f a m a n w h o n e v e r tired o f infinite ramifications i n e x p o u n d i n g a n d d e f e n d i n g a c e n t r a l i d e a , the i d e a t h a t the d e e p e r c o n t e n t o f J u d a i s m w a s a r e v e l a t i o n o f the c o n c e p t s o f P l a t o n i c a n d P y t h a g o r e a n p h i l o s o p h y , S t o i c a n d P l a t o n i c ethics, a n d o f the w a y to r e a c h the r e a l i t y b e h i n d those c o n c e p t i o n s i n m y s t i c ascent. W i t h this w i l l h a v e c o m e o t h e r impressions, s u c h as those i n d i c a t e d at t h e close o f the last c h a p t e r , especially P h i l o ' s m a n y - s i d e d interests, his g r e a t c o n c e r n w i t h c o n t e m p o r a r y politics a n d especially w i t h the p r o b l e m o f the J e w i s h p e o p l e u n d e r R o m a n r u l e . I n all this o n e n e v e r loses sight o f his pas sionate l o y a l t y to the life a n d traditions o f the J e w i s h p e o p l e . Politics i n P h i l o ' s d a y , for the u p p e r officials, at least, w a s a n e x t r e m e l y p r e c a r i o u s c a r e e r . T h e task o f a n o n - R o m a n w h o w a s s t r u g g l i n g to p r o t e c t the rights o f o n e o f the subject races w a s d o u b l y u n c e r t a i n . P h i l o l i v e d i n four c o i n c i d e n t p o l i t i c a l frames, to all o f w h i c h he h a d to p a y h e e d : there w a s the J e w i s h p o l i t i c a l o r g a n i z a t i o n i n E g y p t , l o n g officially r e c o g n i z e d w i t h its o w n courts a n d officers, w h i c h m u s t r u n s m o o t h l y b o t h w i t h i n itself a n d i n c o n n e c t i o n w i t h the s e c o n d p o l i t i c a l u n i t ; t h a t is, w i t h the R o m a n g o v e r n m e n t o f E g y p t a n d A l e x a n d r i a . B e y o n d these l o c a l p o l i t i c a l units w e r e the t w o l a r g e r ones a n a l o g o u s to t h e m , the J e w i s h p e o p l e as a w h o l e , i n Palestine as w e l l as e l s e w h e r e , a n d the R o m a n e m p i r e as a w h o l e . T r o u b l e i n a n y o n e o f these p o l i t i c a l units w o u l d instantly affect the o t h e r

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three, and trouble was always imminent in them all. T h e spirit of Roman rule corresponds most closely in modern times to fascism, for Augustus and his successors were fascist rulers in the sense that they had no constitutional warrant for their totalitarian authority. It had been accepted by an exhausted people when the forces of a single adventurer seemed more acceptable than continued civil war under republican forms. This fascist power, which began with proscriptions, exiles, and civil murders on a great scale, operated effectively, and, once settled, quite liberally on any point except its own despotic power. From subject peoples little was asked except complete submission and the prompt payment of very high taxes. T h e Greeks could continue to be Greeks, the Egyptians Egyptians, the Jews Jews, so long as they recognized the rulership and unique privileges of Romans, and did as they were told in matters of finance. T h e Romans were wise enough in the pro vinces to let sleeping dogs lie, and since the people of the majority of the provinces had for so many centuries been sub jected by conqueror after conqueror, most of them asked little better than to be sleeping dogs. All but the Jews (and Alexandrians). What more than any other one thing served to break down the barriers of civiliza tion after civilization in the Roman world and permitted free intercourse between all other peoples, was religious syncretism. That Venus was the same as Astarte and Aphrodite, and a dozen other local female deities—Venus, Aphrodite, or Demeter, what did it matter?—was a conception which enhanced the value of each local deity in the eye of its devotees. But Yahweh was different: to identify him, as the later Seleucids tried to do, with Zeus or Dionysus was a signal for war to the death, signal to at least a part of the Jews. T h e Jews of Philo's day could not forget that on this issue the Maccabees had been successful, and religious devotion had become inextricably infused with national patriotism. T h e Palestine of Philo's day was a pot of boiling oil which was soon to boil over, catch fire, and burn to the bottom of the pot. T h a t is, religious syn5

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cretism, one of the chief binding forces of the empire, stirred the Jews alone to rebellion. T h e test issue, that of sharing in the imperial cult, was just arising in Philo's time, and he faced a problem which was really hopeless. M u c h as Philo deplored the situation, he was not one to com promise on essential points. He, like Josephus, quotes a law unknown in the Bible, which absolutely prohibits any sort of disrespect to pagan gods, idols, or temples. He suggests that the Jews themselves punished such offences with death, and I have no doubt that they did so. It was the only possible attitude for the Jewish community to take. If some mad Jew should go today into a Catholic cathedral and defile the high altar, other Jews, far from defending him, would unite in demanding against him the extreme penalty of the law. Similarly, when sacrilege in temples was a capital crime among gentiles, Jews must have been ready to anticipate the gentiles in executing a fanatical Jew whose folly imperilled all the Jewish group. T h a t was in the interest of safety. But Philo was quite willing to give his own life, and risk the very existence of his people, in resisting their being forced themselves to participate in pagan worship. 1

In such a pass, caution must never relax. Philo or his brother the Alabarch could not possibly go to the prefect, or to the emperor, and set terms and conditions for the Jewish people. O n propitious occasions they could supplicate for privileges. But the Romans had been very generous in continuing the special favours and conditions given to Jews in hellenistic cities by the early Diodochs, and all the Jews could really hope was the perpetuation of these concessions. For this only one thing was needed, the good nature of the ruler: hence Jewish political activity consisted, in dealing with the Romans, largely in flattery, obsequiousness, and insinuation. All people of the Empire had to do the same. It had long been the only possible way for any subject to approach his ruler, as it has always been the only way to handle tyrants. When the Jews of Palestine angered the Romans by insistent demands and assertion of 1

See m y Jurisprudence,

47 f., 245.

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their 'rights' they were far less realistic politicians than the Greeks who met the Romans with flattery and deification. Philo was fully aware of this situation. H e expressed it in one of the most vital passages from ancient literature. True, it is tucked in as a digression in one of his scriptural allegories for the initiates, but that, we understand, was a place where it could safely hope to avoid the danger of Roman notice. It is long, but too important not to be quoted at length. 2

As the good man is an observer not only of human life but also of things in the universe, he is well aware how mightily may blow the winds of necessity, change, opportunity, force, and lordly power ( S w a o W a ) , as well as what plans and achieve ments, though mounting to heaven, these same forces have scattered and destroyed by merely holding their breath. Con sequently he will feel obliged to shield himself with caution ( c v A a / t e i a ) , for caution is the proper protection against one's suffering sudden calamity, since it seems to me that caution is for an individual what its wall is for a city. So then are those people not out of their wits, completely mad, who are rash enough to display inopportune frankness, and dare at times to speak and act in defiance of kings and tyrants ? They do not seem to per ceive that they are not only like animals putting their necks under the yoke, but that they are betraying their whole bodies and souls, as well as their wives and children and that large kindred crowd and community of companions and relations. Now it is possible for the charioteer and driver with all freedom to goad his horses and urge them on, or to check them and hold them back and mete out any treatment small or great just as he wishes. So they are branded and beaten and mutilated and suffer before they die every savage and pitiless torture, and then are lea'd away to execution and killed. These are the rewards of untimely frankness, not of frankness as used by people of discriminating judgment, but the rewards [emendation of Colson] allotted to silliness, madness, and incurable insanity. What ? you say. When a person sees a winter storm raging, and a heavy adverse gale, and a hurricane * From Som., I I , 8 1 - 9 2 .

5D

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rushing d o w n and piling u p the sea with waves, a time w h e n one ought to lie in harbour, does he set sail and put out to sea? W h a t pilot or skipper was ever so drunk or maddened b y wine that while such storms as I have described were raging he would w a n t to cast off, when his ship w o u l d be swamped b y the seas rushing over it and be swallowed u p with its c r e w ? T h e m a n w h o wants to sail in safety must w a i t for a favourable w i n d , one that is propitious and gentle. A n d w h a t ? W h e n a person sees a bear or a wild boar or a lion sweeping d o w n upon him, and ought to pacify and mollify the beast, does he inflame it and tantalize it, until he actually offers himself as a banquet and feast to the pitiless carvinore? Is it true that one gets nothing by trying to oppose spiders and E g y p t i a n asps and other creatures w h i c h bear destructive poison, and inflict sure death upon those they attack ? Surely it is far better to use incantations and make them manageable and so to escape suffering calamity from them. A r e there not certain men w h o are more savage and treacherous than boars, spiders, and asps, m e n whose treachery and hostility can be escaped only b y mollifying and propitiating t h e m ? So for example A b r a h a m the wise m a n did obeisance (7rpoaKvvrja€i) to the sons of Ghet (whose name means those w h o 'disperse'), because the emergency convinced h i m he must do so. H e did not consent to this act of obeisance because he honoured those w h o b y race and habit were the natural enemies of reason, and w h o 'disperse,' fritter a w a y , and piteously squander education, the coin of the soul; but he feared their present power and irresitible strength a n d took care not to provoke them. In this w a y he could preserve that great and powerful treasure and achievement of virtue, that best dwelling place of wise souls, the double cave, w h i c h he could not occupy w h e n fighting and warring, but only w h e n he was cultivating and serving reason (or the Logos). W h a t ? A r e not w e also, as w e loiter in the market place, often 'dispersed' b y the rulers, and 'dispersed' b y the beasts of burden ? But w e 'disperse' for each from a quite different motive; for w e give w a y to the rulers out of honour, but to the beasts out of fear lest w e be injured b y them. N o w w h e n occasion offers it is a good thing to oppose our enemies and to destroy their power

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of attack (jfo'a), but lacking such opportunity it is safe to keep quiet, while if one wishes to get any benefit from them it is ad vantageous to propitiate them. This seems to be plain enough. T h e Jews could hardly have mistaken Philo's meaning and Machiavelli himself, had he written from the point of view of the prince's subjects, could have given no more realistic advice. Beasts and asps the Jew may well consider the Romans in his heart, but they must be handled softly and propitiated by any man who does not want to ruin himself and his people together. T h e sarcasm at the end is obvious. Philo has compared harsh rulers to savage and deadly animals throughout. When he mentions how in the market place the Jews have to make place for their rulers and the pack animals alike, it is part of the very caution he is coun selling that he should distinguish between the two, once the rulers in Alexandria have been distinctly referred to, and say that one gives way out of honour to the rulers, but out of fear to the beasts. If the passage were called into question, he could insist that the first part was perfectly general and had no refer ence to the Romans, while he had properly indicated that one gives way to Romans out of honour. But his Jewish readers would quite well have understood that the reason Philo gave way to each was the same, because he knew that if he did not he would be crushed. A n d the Jews would also have under stood by the last sentence that if Philo had been able to destroy the Roman power he would gladly have done so. T h e propitiat ing attitude he was advising was the only one a sensible Jew or other non-Roman subject in the empire could take under existing circumstances. But he loved the Romans no more than the skipper of a tiny boat loves a hurricane. In my study of Philo's politics, which I am here largely sum marizing, I have pointed out that Philo gives three different types of political discussion: first, that in his avowedly political treatises, those Against Flaccus and The Embassy to Gaius; sec3

8

The Politics of Philo Judaeus, Practice and Theory. N e w H a v e n , 1938.

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ondly, the discussion of political matters found in the Exposition addressed to gentile enquirers, especially that in the treatise On Joseph; and thirdly, the political references, of which I have just quoted a sample, in the writings addressed to the Jewish inner circle. It is only by following another principle of our methodology, that of studying Philo's passages with reference to the treatises from which they are taken, that sense emerges from the contradictions between his various political allusions. T h e first of these types of treatment of the political situation seems to be exceedingly astute. Philo wrote the treatises Against Flaccus and The Embassy to Gaius in connection with a pogrom which threatened to exterminate the hundreds of thousands of Jews in Alexandria. A t first the storm centre was the prefect, Flaccus, who not only failed to protect the Jews but openly encouraged the rioters. T h e treatise Against Flaccus is concerned with the prefect and his responsibility. But larger issues were involved. T h e Jews had refused to do religious homage to the emperor's statue, and appeal for this could be made only to Gaius himself. Philo led to Rome the embassy designated to present this plea, and at once he found himself confronted with a situation which involved not only Jews in Alexandria, but those in Palestine and all the Roman world. The Embassy to Gaius tells this part of the story. There is not space to analyse these documents in detail. T h e y are both in complete, and contradict each other on a number of essential points. In Against Flaccus Philo presents the emperor Gaius in a favourable light; it was he who put a stop to the pogrom by sending in an army to protect the Jews and overthrow and exile Flaccus. In The Embassy Gaius is the perfect villain. N o mention is made of any help he sent the Jews, and apparently there was no mitigation of the pogrom until after Gaius' death. It is un thinkable that the pogrom, as Philo describes it, could have lasted thus indefinitely. W e cannot believe that several hundred thousand people could have lived for several years on the sea shore, under constant attack, their property entirely confis cated, especially as we know that on the accession of Claudius

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they were still strong enough to launch a serious counter attack against the Greeks of Alexandria. Obviously Philo is not interested in an impartial narrative of what happened. Why, then, did he write these treatises ? Analysis has convinced me that they were written as definite political propaganda. T h e first document is really the story of how Flaccus prospered as long as he was friendly to the Jews, but how he collapsed, was disgraced, and speedily executed, as a result of having persecuted the chosen people. There is probably little truth in Philo's analysis of Roman motives. T h e army from Gaius seems to have come to oust a man who had the misfortune to belong to a faction which had not fav oured his succession to the throne, and which Gaius was accordingly hounding to extinction in all quarters. Philo changes this into the assertion that Flaccus' downfall was really an act of God, who would always protect his people and destroy those who persecuted them. He wrote this treatise, it would seem, when the Jews were striking back at the Alexan drians; that is, when the Jews hoped for Claudius' sympathies; they were at least partially justified by Claudius when the matter was finally referred to him. For once Philo could let his caution become transparent. He wrote this document, I am convinced, to give it to the new prefect. He does not, still, dare to give direct instructions to the prefect, but he has so obvi ously schematized the events of the past few years and the reasons for the fall of Flaccus that the new prefect must per fectly have understood that he was faced with a people whom one offended at one's peril. T h e fabricated intervention of Gaius for the Jews was a reference to the new emperor's sup port which the prefect knew well the Jews were justified in assuming. T h e prefect could not touch Philo for writing as he did. Flaccus alone was attacked, and he was dead and unmourned. But the new prefect would have read the document very carefully, and remembered it often if he were as intelli gent politically as most Romans. T h e Embassy is no less realistic and pointed. Leisegang pub-

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lished an elaborate analysis to prove that it is a treatise on the virtues of the Jews and of God in contrast with the vices of the Romans. This may be true, but still misses the practical politi cal aspect which seems to me to have inspired the document. For Philo wrote the treatise, I am sure, to be read by the em peror Claudius, or, less likely, Nero, to show to him what he showed to the prefect; namely, that an emperor touched Jewish people and religious observances at his peril. T h e com pletely different account of the Alexandrian pogrom seems to me explicable only on this basis. T o instruct the prefect he had shown that even the wicked Gaius served as God's avenger when he sent in an army, protected the Jews, and arrested and condemned an offending prefect. N o such solution is found in the Embassy. Here all depends upon the will of the emperor, and under Gaius that will was steadily perverse. Philo will not directly present the new emperor with a lecture on ideal king ship, but he devotes several pages to such a lecture directed to Gaius by Macro, and shows how Gaius' perversion of true kingship was one of the causes of his downfall. Philo does not himself point out that the strength of Jewry throughout the empire is something which should give even the emperor pause, but he is careful to have the imperial favourite, Herod Agrippa, do so. Still a model of obsequiousness on the surface, that sur face has become almost transparent with the new sense of security which the fall of Gaius and Flaccus produced. Philo is truly the Jewish champion, ready to die for the people and the law which are dearer to him than life; but, bold as he can be under favourable conditions, he still never loses his astute sense of where to stop. If I am right in thus reading these documents, it is apparent not only that Philo could fish with skill in the troubled waters of imperial politics but that he was writing as though he was still the political spokesman of Alexandrian Jewry. Meanwhile, how did he actually regard these Romans ? This attitude seems to me clearly expressed in the allegories of Joseph which appear in the Allegory, the series of treatises designed for

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the inner group of Jews, and intelligible only to them. Here Joseph appears a deep-dyed villain, the politicus, in character istic rebellion against the ascetic and orderly virtue which Jacob and his other eleven sons represented. W h y this allegory has seemed to me a reference to Romans requires an elaborate demonstration which I cannot here repeat. Three terms used in the allegory become almost a cipher by which Philo refers to Romans, especially to the Roman governing class living in Alexandria: they possess only Kevij S o f a , empty opinion in con trast with knowledge of truth; their character is rityo?, arro gance; and they are 'additions' to true society in the same derogatory sense that suckers are additions to a healthy tree. Not yet has the husbandman appeared who will hack off this injurious growth at the very roots. These code references to Romans are surprisingly numerous and consistent. T h e Romans, especially the haughty ruling class, were really to him slaves of empty opinion, slavish in character, seeking the baubles of life, thrusting themselves up like Joseph's sheaf and expecting obeisance, even worship, from the followers of truth. This obeisance can never be given. T h e sheaves may bow in caution, but when the dreamer becomes the sun, that divine symbol, before which the others bow, then the brothers and the father together must resist to the death. Death, Philo assures his fellows, is not a terrible thing in such a case, for it is a martyr dom which means immediate transfer to the realms of eternal light. T h a t is, Jews may yield to the brute force of the hated Rorrians, but must prefer death to recognizing their divinity. 4

Such hatred Philo could hardly publish freely. T o the gen tiles he interprets Joseph in completely different terms. Joseph is still the type of the Roman prefect in Egypt. But he has been transformed into a highly ideal person. His brothers who resist him, instead of being ideal characters, now represent the vices of envy and selfishness which Joseph must, by sheer force of superior character, soften and control. Joseph had the 5

4

* This will be found in Chap. I I of m y Philo's Politics. For details of this treatment of Joseph, see Philo's Polities, 5

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ideal training for rulership, first as a shepherd, since by almost universal tradition the ruler was the shepherd of his people; then, according at least to Greek theory, in household manage ment in the estate of Potiphar. Joseph was always, says Philo, instinctively recognized as the ideal ruler because that was his God-given character. T h e brothers might resist, but with them as with Potiphar and even the jailer, his powers were undeniable. A t last he became the one ideal prefect of Egypt—for his vicegerency under Pharaoh is made a detailed parallel with the prefect under the Roman emperor. Such a complete reversal in interpreting Joseph can come only from a change in the audience addressed. Joseph is the politicus: for gentiles he becomes an excuse for flattery of the office and suggestion of the way gentiles should rule their sub jects—firmly but with every care for the interests of the sub jects, and especially with care for the various legal traditions of the realm. Honesty, avoidance of graft, and especially pro tection of those elements (the Jews) who will support the ruler in all his efforts for justice and peace, these are the quali fications exemplified in Joseph. For Jews, Joseph is the enemy of all that they hold sacred, the Roman who will be hacked away by the axe of the coming true husbandman. In brief, Philo detests the Roman political power and longs for the day of its overthrow, but with realistic caution will praise Roman rulers to their face in the hope that they will help and support the Jews. How does a Philo of such political realism square with the man who produced the great mass of mystical and metaphysical allegory we normally and properly associate with him? Here we must recall the protest against political life which was quoted in the first chapter. There Philo told us that 'there was once a time' when he had devoted himself entirely to philosophy and contemplation, but had been forced to leave this to take up an active political career in which, immersed as he was, he still took time for retreat in mystic contemplation and to write his allegories of the Scriptures. This, I repeat, must be taken literally. Philo lived a double life, of one half of which we have

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an elaborate record, of the other half only these hints. Just what offices he held, except that of heading the legation to Rome, there is no way to discover, though I suspect from his great interest in law that his primary duty was legal adminis tration of the Jews under imperial supervision. But that is only a guess. Yet, lost as is his actual political career, I can read all his writings only as I read the writings of Gladstone and Dis raeli, who likewise solaced themselves from political cares by writing and study. O f the vast political activity of the time, the horde of men engaged in it, we have only the records of Josephus and the Romans, and the fragmentary information of the papyri. T h a t Philo was thus divided in his interest we have evidence not only in these four autobiographical references, and in the political writings, but in a number of passages where he discusses, often with great contradiction, the relative value of the practical and the contemplative life. Sometimes he scorns any concern whatever with material or social life; at other times he insists just as strongly that running away from life is cbwardice and hypocrisy, and that nothing is to be gained by it. More characteristically he tries to combine the two, by insisting either that the doors of mystical and philosophic achievement can open only to men who have first purified themselves by conquering the problems of personal and social life, or that the man who stops with contemplation is really incomplete, since the fully developed person will come back to matter and men, as Plato's visionaries returned to the cave, to help others by the new integration and victory which their own higher insight had given them. It is arbitrary to say that any one of these attitudes is the 'true Philo'. T h e 'true Philo' was, I repeat, like the true Smith or the true Jones, the Philo of the moment. But arbitrary as it is, I must confess that to me the Philo of more moments than others was one who believed that he was the son of a father and mother, divine law and civil law, and that while, if a man were to obey only one of these, he should by all means choose allegiance to the divine or mystical world and 6

I have developed this problem in detail in Philo's Politics.

Chap. I V .

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its laws, the highest type of man was the one who honoured both parents and obeyed each in its own sphere. Yet it can never be forgotten that, if one side of his life's interests had to perish, Philo would have been content that we know his life of thought rather than of action. T h e world of true reality was for him the immaterial, and as truth existed only in the ideal world, so Philo himself would have insisted that he himself was real only in so far as he penetrated into and abode in the supernal. This is true of any thoughtful man with ideals. Which are our true selves: the men who greet one another in the morning, carry on businss, and jest over cigars in the even ing, or the people we dream of being? W e are no more con sistent about this than Philo himself. W e do not often want to have our daily lives judged by our own ideals. But we know that if any of our numerous personalities were to survive, we should select the personality of our ideals. It was Philo's great privilege, as it is the privilege of any great author, to have survived largely in his own ideal form. T h e only excuse for peering through the screen to get glimpses of the Philo of everyday life is that Philo is so extraordinarily interesting, and that it is good to remind ourselves that the true Philo of most of his writings is really the super-Philo. We cannot leave Philo the politicus, however, until we have considered his very interesting ideas on political theory. He began with a conception which perhaps was as old as Heraclitus, and which later came to be the basis of Augustine's profoundly influential ideas, the conception that there are two states, that of God or nature, and that of human organization. These two should be joined in the sense that the man-made state should be a material counterpart of the city of God. U n fortunately the civil organization in which Philo lived was far short of this ideal. Philo tells us little of the heavenly city, but a number of scattered remarks fit together too well not to have come from a formulated notion, a notion which we de scribed briefly in Chapter T w o as the supreme L a w which became incarnate in the Patriarchs. God, the source of all

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things except unformed matter, regulates all beneath him. He is essentially abstracted from all other things, but his very existence has the result that a flow of power streams forth from him. T h e analogy for this was the sun with its rays, and to the metaphysical and mystical implications of the theory we shall return in another chapter. So far as politics is concerned, this stream, the Logos or Sophia, is the stream of rulership and Law. It is not only the creative power, but also the governing. Its very nature is the L a w of the universe which it produces. This is not a hard notion to understand. In a home the father is in his personal character the law of the home. T h e law will differ in one home from that in another as the father's nature is different; it will be similar where there are similar fathers (and, of course, mothers). Every specific command the father gives will spring from this personal source, will be a reduction of his character to specific injunctions. T h a t is, it will be if he is not a hypocritical parent who holds up one ideal for his children, and another for his own guidance; even then his laws for his children will reflect the ideal which he knows he ought to be. With God and the Logos there is no such dualism. T h e nature of God as it truly is sets the norm, and conformity with the nature of God is identical with obedience to his law. This is an idea common to both Greek philosophy and Judaism, and, while Philo develops it in a much more Greek than Jewish way, it. was the essential bridge by which he brought his Judaism and Greek idealism together. From the point of view of God this rule is, like the rule of a father in the home, monarchy. But the Logos which streams out from God manifests itself in a thousand ways as it forms first the heavenly bodies, then the grossly material world of this earth; it forms, especially on this earth, a vast number of things which are essentially of equal merit. T h e material world is then a monarchy in that it gets its regulation from above, but it is a democracy within itself in so far as all created things (except man, and even men among themselves) are equal before the higher reality of the Logos-Law. M a n , by the fact that he is not

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wholly a material thing, but contains, as his soul, an immediate spark or seed of the immaterial reality, is thus a citizen of the Universal State. As such he is called to live in the immaterial, has the mystic and ascetic urge which, we have seen, had so powerful an attraction for Philo. If all men were perfect there would be no need of further laws. It is the sinfulness of man which compels the organization of a political state in addition. This idea Philo has beautifully epitomized: 7

State organization as it appears among various peoples is an 'addition' to Nature which has sovereign power over all things. For this world is the Megalopolis, or Great City, and uses a single constitution and a single law, and this is the Logos of Nature which enjoins what is to be done, and prohibits what is not to be done. But the variously situated states are unlimited in number and use different constitutions and dissimilar laws; for the different states various customs and laws have been invented and enacted in addition [to the law of Nature]. Now the cause [of such disparity] is the lack of intermingling and of social life not only between Greeks and barbarians, or barbarians and Greeks, but also within a single race between people of the same kin. Men seem to lay the blame [for their lack of inter course or their bad laws] where it does not belong, as they point to bad times, failure of crops, poverty of soil, or to their geographical location by the sea or inland or on an island or the mainland, or to some other such geographical factor. But they do not mention the true reason, their greed and faithlessness toward one another, which lead them, since they are not pleased with the laws of Nature, to decree as 'laws' whatever the crowd unites in supposing will be of public benefit. Thus naturally the individual constitutions are an 'addition' to the one constitution of Nature; for the civic laws are 'additions' to the right reason (6p66s \6yos) of Nature, and the politicus is an 'addition' to the man who lives according to Nature. If we will recall that by 'nature' Philo, like the Stoics, meant 'God', but meant his own type of God, not at all the G o d of 7

Jos.,

28-31.

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the Stoics, this passage is perfectly clear, and we understand more fully what Philo had in mind when he called the politicus a 'superfluous addition', one who was motivated usually by empty opinion in contrast with metaphysical truth, and why it is human 'arrogance' which is the real motive of the human state as it is. Quite in accordance with this, in another con nection, Philo says that the one true manifestation of divine Law in the form of a social code, the Jewish law, had to be given to a people in the desert where they were isolated from the pressures and entanglements of ordinary life. Presumptuous as men are in their civic organizations, they are still not cut off from the cosmic, deterministic democracy of the Logos. O n this basis Philo explains the rise and fall of states. He calls the roll of empires, Greece, Macedonia, Persia, Parthia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Carthage, Libya, and Pontus (Rome is conspicuously absent, for obvious reasons) and says that each of them, except the then-powerful Parthia, has had to decline. This is not chance, Philos says, but a manifestation of a great cyclic movement of the Logos; for the Logos, 8

9

which is in constant flux (det piuiv) makes distribution city by city, nation by nation, country by country. What these had once, those have now. What all had, all have. Only from time to time are the possessions of each exchanged back and forth, to the end that the inhabited world might as a whole be like a single state and enjoy the best of constitutions, a democracy. T h a t is, to change the figure, the Logos is an ocean, a con stant entity, but it is always moving, and as it moves it throws up towering waves which it quickly recalls when other waves emerge. So the Logos is subject to temporary concentrations, empires or states, which have no permanent significance. T h e y are severally like a private citizen in a democracy who is elected to a public office where he temporarily towers above his fellows, only to be reabsorbed in the mass when his term expires. 8

DecaL,

2

ff.

9

Immut.,

173-6.

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From this point of view each state is a product of the Logos itself: it is so since everything is under God with the character istics he gave it in creation. W e are getting close to the problem of evil in a good world created by an omnipotent and good God, a problem which Philo solved no more than anyone else. God's hand, he compromises, never loses the general direction of human material affairs. Nonetheless the states organized by man are the product of their fallen natures. T o such a paradox theism always runs, in this or another form. T h e laws of states, which should, like the Mosaic law, be codifications of the L a w of Nature, are very far from being so. T h e actual state does not, as it should, reflect the heavenly state in matter. T h e selfish ambition of man against man, tribe against tribe, state against state makes it impossible for true law to exist in cities. M e n had recognized this, for ages before Philo. Was there no hope that the earthly city could ever be the material counter part of the heavenly city, and so itself a force in the lives of men to direct them to the truth? For millennia the answer had been the same. If a ruler could be found who would be more than human, he might be the link between the two cities which was so desperately needed. H e might be the divine son of God, miraculously born and sustained as he was in Egypt and Babylonia; he might be the incarnation of the Light-Law of the universe as he was in Persia, and came to be in the hellenistic kingdoms; he might be Plato's and Aristotle's philosopher king, whose perception of reality went beyond that of ordinary human beings. O r he might be the Lord's anointed of the Jewish kingdom, especially favoured by G o d so long as he faithfully obeyed the will of God in his rulership. T h e motive and essential result were always the same, the idea of a person who would bring the rule of the heavenly city to establish a just and happy city on earth. This dream was capitalized by the actual rulers, however villainous or indifferent they might be, to strengthen their power over the subjects. Every court required elaborate ceremonies of respect or worship. T h e king could do no wrong, it was everywhere held, because while he

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codified in his decrees the L a w of Nature for men, told them what was 'right' and 'wrong', he himself was essentially a citizen of the heavenly city: subject to its standards alone, men could not judge him by the laws which regulated the conduct of others. Still today the state has this superhuman prerogative. It may kill, imprison, confiscate property, do a hundred things which the citizen may not do. Only, in the ancient dream, the king was truly the state in all its departments, and other officials were merely his assistants. In such a condition, with men under the sway almost everywhere of despotic rulers who were in fact the state, the result was inevitable. People tried, by flattery, to keep the ideal before the actual rulers, however absurd it sounded when applied to them, in the hope that they would take it seriously and really try to make their requirements have at least a semblance of enlightenment and justice. As soon as democracy failed in Rome the idea began instantly to invade even the capital city, while it was applied freely to the Roman conquerors in the East a century before the final conquest of Octavian. T o the existence and the power of this conception of the king Philo is one of the most important witnesses, for he accepts it freely, and gives it many ramifications not found in other sources. He holds the ideal before the Roman rulers, and praises Augustus and Tiberius as he condemns Gaius, by its standard. Flaccus, the vicegerent, conformed to it in his early days as prefect, when Egypt was in an ideal condition, but wrecked society and himself when he later abandoned it. Philo introduces several interesting new points from Judaism into his predominantly Greek formulation of the theory. First he brings in the prophetic notion that the tyrant is a usurper whom God allows temporarily to get into power because of the faults of men. When the sinners have been adequately punished the tyrant will be removed. This is an expression of the king-theory which continued on into modern thinking. Again Philo says that since the early kings were priests (and Moses the king is 10

1 0

6

I h a v e elaborated this in Philo's Politics,

Chap. V .

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thereby priest) it is clear 'that those ruling over others must themselves be subject to those who worship God'. This state ment, buried in the Questions, meant that the Roman rulers must show respect to those who truly worshipped God, the Jews. The theory finds its most Jewish expression when Philo applies it to the Messianic A g e . A t a time when the Jewish people shall have at last developed political leaders who, like the guardians of Plato's Republic, are able to guide the people according to the truth of immaterial reality; when the Jews as a whole shall have been transformed into virtue; then a deliverer will come who will be more divine than human. He will lead them all back together from the ends of the earth, destroy the false growth of the power of nations, and set up a kingdom in which the true democracy of nature will at last appear, the equality of every man in the heavenly city of which all are at last citizens. T h e Jews will then be the bankers of the world, and not only will the lion lie down with the lamb, but bears, lions, and leopards, and those beasts found in India, elephants and tigers, will at the approach of man wag their tails like Maltese lap dogs with a cheerful motion. Here is the kingly ideal completely realized in the dream of the Messiah and the coming A g e . Philo could go the whole way with the theory for the Jewish Messiah, and, while he found the political implications of the notion realized in the past only in the work of Moses, we have seen and shall see in greater detail how the ideal was projected upon the saving Patriarchs. In describing the Patriarchs Philo felt no difficulty in talking about a nature that was more than human. But when he came to the claim of a superhuman or divine nature for the Roman rulers he suddenly drew the line. In theory he did not do so. One statement is preserved which might have come from any pagan: 11

1 2

1 1

1 2

QE, I I , 105; H A R R I S , Fragments, 6 8 . I mistranslated the statement in Philo*s Politics, 97. See m y Philo's Politics, 1 1 5 - 9 .

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7

1

In his material substance (ovvla) the king is just the same as any man, but in the authority of his rank he is like the God of all. For there is nothing upon earth more exalted than he. Since he is a mortal, he must not vaunt himself; since he is a god he must not give way to anger. For if he is honoured as being an image of God, yet he is at the same time fashioned from the dust of the earth, from which he should learn simplicity to all.

13

Here Philo, as often in speaking of the Patriarchs, uses the word god in the double sense so common in paganism. O n the one hand it could refer to the O n e G o d who, most thoughtful pagans believed, was the ultimate Being. O n the other it could be used as we use the term superhuman being. T h e pagans understood this usage very well, as Philo shows here that he did, and when they talked of the divinity of the king they meant simply that he was superhuman. N o educated pagan ever dreamed that in calling the king a god he was identifying him with the O n e G o d Almighty. Philo, let me repeat, shows in this passage that he understood this very well. If he recalls sharply the material body of the king, he is doing only the very thing which his pagan sources did. W h y , then, did he risk his life and that of his people rather than join the rest of the world in what all considered a formal gesture, the dropping of a pinch of incense on the emperor's altar? T h e question is of the greatest importance because not only was the fate of the Jewish people at stake; the young Christian movement was to be wracked with torture for the same distinction. In discussing the matter in more detail I have suggested three possible explanations of why Philo, and with him Jews and later Christians, stopped at this peculiar point in the cur rent attitude toward the king. First there was the real, if irrational, feeling, with Jews as later with Christians, that a dead saint is more holy than a living one, and hence that after death he can be recognized as 'more divine' in a way impossible during his life. T h e term 'divine sage' of pagan speculation was likewise applied, if to 1 3

Fragment from ANTONIUS, Ser. civ; Mangey, I I , 6 7 3 9

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any individual at all, to men safely removed by centuries from curious scrutiny. So Philo might well have talked about Abraham and Moses in language which he had to contradict for his contemporaries. This is a consideration which may have affected his attitude toward the emperor, but other considera tions seem to me more important. Secondly, Philo's deepest religious instincts were involved in this refusal to put Gaius, or even Augustus, really on a level with the Jewish Patriarchs. T o do so would have been to aban don the last stronghold of Jewish religious particularism. If terms used for Moses and his law could be applied to any Roman emperor, the unique value of Judaism would have been gone, and the raison d'etre of the distinctive people with it. Not monotheism, but religious Judaism must have perished with such a concession. With this, thirdly, went the instinct of Jewish patriotism, an equally important motive in the refusal. How much Philo re sented being subject to Roman conquerors has clearly ap peared. In the allegories ofJoseph for the inner circle of his own people there is a venom which shows that the suicidal patriotism of the Jews of his day burned in Philo no less hotly because he kept its light skilfully hid from Roman eyes. How could such a patriotism be expected to reason so logically that it was ready to admit that a gentile autocrat over Jewish liberties shared in divine nature ? T h a t Roman rule could be recognized as a divine dispensation to discipline the faithful for a time was entirely possible, and Philo and his friends intended to start no armed revolt. But death itself was better than admitting that these rulers, like Moses, had the 'greater share of divine nature' which made them saviours of the human race. Jews could take many hellenistic ideas into their religion, but not divine kings when they were Greeks or Romans who ruled over the Jews by force. It was not monotheism which was the issue, clearly, and I can think of no other motive than this politico-religious one as the reason why Jews stopped at this point in their hellenization.

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Nor can I believe that the issue was the Jewish detestation of images. T h e Jew was not asked, be it remembered, to go into pagan temples to venerate the emperor's statue with pagan rites. H e was asked to put the image into his own synagogues, and show respect to it in his own fashion. Discovery of Jewish art has recently taught us that no more than a century after Philo's time, and perhaps before him, hellenized Jews were making the freest use of pagan images in their catacombs and synagogues. W e are even told in the T a l m u d that rabbis of the late first and early second centuries put various images, including those of Greeks (what Greeks could they thus honour but Greek gods?), upon their sacred mazzoth. Again if Jews could put images of Nike, Demeter, Tyche, Helios, Orpheus and Ares in their synagogues, why not an image of the emperor, unless it was precisely the emperor whom they did not wish to recognize ? T h a t is, in another aspect of their hellenization the Jews have again stopped short, logic or no logic, at preci sely the same point. A n d again we must conclude that it was not the use of images any more than it was the idea of divinity in humanity which they refused to accept, but the Roman emperor as the realization of the kingly ideal for Jews. Indeed, the very fact that they completely accepted the pagan theory of kingship made their rejection of Roman imperial divinity all the more necessary. For if God could give to man his true royal representation from gentile stock, Judaism as a religion and a people alike had become meaningless. T h e Jew of that feverish day could, in the long run, take anything else from the gentiles, even death, but not this. 1 4

T h e power of an idea to survive is not determined by its logical origins. Christianity, which regarded itself as the true or completed Judaism, carried over from Judaism both the idea of the saving power of divinity in humanity and the prejudice against associating this idea with the Roman emperor. T o say nothing of the blending of humanity and divinity in Jesus Christ, the Christian veneration of the Virgin, and soon of the 1 4

J . D . EISENSTEIN, 'Mazzah.' The Jewish Encyclopedia, V I I I , 394.

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great company of saints, belied their political logic in which humanity and divinity were still kept in sharp contrast. Simi larly Christians could use images, but not images of the em peror. Christians followed hellenized Jews in regarding 'the powers that be', however malevolent, as 'ordained by God', and they had no inclination, when the empire became Christian, to modify the pagan theory of kingship otherwise than to dis card such statements of the emperor's relation to God as would imply an emperor cult. For the traditional distinction was so fundamental a part of the Christian heritage from Judaism that Christians insisted, when they came into power, upon changing the formula of 'divine nature' to 'divine right', in order that the 'divinity that doth hedge a king' might never imply such veneration as was given to images of the Virgin and the saints. What it is interesting to see is that the arbitrary logic of Christianity, which accepted ancient theories of the king on every point except that of the king's personal divinity, was itself a part of the Christian heritage from Judaism. When Philo refused to concede any measure of divinity to the Roman emperor which would imply veneration, and led his friends to Rome to try to get his attitude sanctioned by Gaius, it little appeared that the successors of this group in Christianity would ultimately be victorious, and force the distinction upon the empire, so that monarchy for the next fifteen hundred years would keep the kingly ideal of the ancients, but keep also the modification which the group feeling of hellenized Jews had required.

CHAPTER IV

THE

JEW

T H E problem of Philo's relation to Judaism is not an easy one. As has been seen already, Philo claimed in the name of Judaism everything which he took from the gentiles. T h e king theory, he assumed, was Jewish; the metaphysic of Plato, the numbers of the Pythagoreans, the cosmology of Greek science, the mysticism, ethics, and psychology of the hellenistic world, all this was, he says, nothing which he as a Jew took from the outside but something which the Greeks had taken from Moses. Even Greek and Roman law, he thought, found its highest expression in Jewish legislation. It is obvious, then, that Philo's own remarks about the nature and meaning of Judaism are no literal guide to what Philo actually drew from a Judaism un affected by Hellenism. There is good reason to think that much of Philo's Greek heritage came to him already assimilated by Jews, and that he did not himself borrow all the mass of hellen istic ideas de novo. They may have really become a part of his traditional Judaism. But to say this only puts the question back upon Philo's predecessors, the question of evaluating the con tribution of Jewish thought in the final mixture Philo presents. Even on the assumption that Philo's point of view had long been that of Jews in Alexandria and in other centres in the Greco-Roman world, we still must look to Philo to find what was properly Jewish in such a tradition, since that tradition, if, as I believe, it did exist, must be reconstructed largely from him. One chief difficulty in such reconstruction is the vagueness of what we mean by Judaism as a generic term in Philo's day apart from hellenistic influence. Hellenism is sufficiently hard to define, but Judaism even more so. W e know too much and

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too little about Judaism in this period to isolate definite criteria. The Judaism of the Baruch and Enoch traditions, as well as of Qumran, had many elements different from the Judaism of either the Pharisees or the Sadducees. For years before Philo the legalists and the apocalyptists had each a distinct concep tion of the Jewish religion and its basic elements and objectives. The origin and range of such Jewish Gnosticism as Scholem is now expounding are quite undefined. Further, as Heine mann saw when dealing with problems of law, many Jewish traditions had parallel developments within Hellenism. T h e central doctrine of Judaism, monotheism, for example, was the great contribution to Jews from the prophets, who made the tribal God into the one God of all men and the universe. But Greek thought had, at about the same time, been going in the same direction, though, as we shall see, by a different road. 1

Volker thought that because Philo spoke so much of virtue, and sometimes identified virtue with the avoidance of both voluntary and involuntary offences, his ethics were basically Jewish. But Philo had certainly read the Greek moralists carefully, and knew that Greek ethical teaching was concerned with virtue in precisely the way Philo himself usually described it. If Jewish thought centred in conduct, so did the speculation of all hellenistic schools: mysticism and ethics had entirely displaced the metaphysical rationalism of Plato and Aristotle, though even they can hardly be said to have been uninterested in ethics. T h e difference between the Greek-Philonic and the Jewish notions of virtue has been clearly, if inadequately, pointed out by G . F. M o o r e . 2

By such details we shall not come to understand Philo's re lation to Judaism. T o begin with details, such as the verbal similarity of the Logos and the Jewish Memra, is quite hopeless. This matter has once for all been settled by Moore and, by implication, by Finkelstein. T h e Logos has no essential 3

4

1

G E R S H O M S C H O L E M , Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Tradition, i960. Judaism, I I , 81-83. Ibid., I, 4 1 6 - 9 . Louis FINKELSTEIN, The Pharisees (Philadelphia, 1938), I, 161 f. 2

4

3

Talmudic

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counterpart with anything in Jewish writings not influenced by Hellenism, in spite of the fact that Philo himself roots the con ception so deeply in the Scriptures. Philo's Judaism must be approached from much more general considerations than these. What is a J e w ? Superficially he is the son of Jewish parents dedicated by them through the rite of circumcision. By this superficial test Philo of course qualified. More deeply, a Jew is, and was, one who was loyal to the Jewish people (Philo called it the 'race', but this word is now spoiled), and expresses his loyalty in an attempt to perpetuate the Jewish tradition. So far, I think, there will be agreement in describing the generic word 'Jew', but no farther. Judaism has always been divided, was even divided among its leaders within a single branch ofJudaism in Philo's day, on one central issue: is the tradition a growing, adaptable thing, whose spirit can be isolated from details as one generation or civilization succeeds another, or is it something once for all given, and beyond criticism or adaptation? As over against the Sadducees, the Pharisees (the early rabbis of Talmudic tradition) were the party of reformed Judaism, adapting the old ways and laws to new conditions. But this adaptation remained Jewish in stead of becoming as with other people a process of assimilation, because it insisted upon keeping Judaism and the Jewish people distinct and separate from gentiles. Mere loyalty to the group would not do this, essential as such loyalty was. T h e basis of differentiation had to be a distinct group of customs, ways of living. Only so long as the Jews continued to live differently from other people could they remain a distinct entity. T h e gypsies have for centuries preserved their distinctness precisely in this way, and a few groups like the Mennonites in America have likewise kept their integrity by clinging to customs unlike those of their neighbours. T o a lesser degree the religious loyalties and practices of Catholics make them a people distinct in American society. As soon as 'reform' and adaptation in Judaism mean the abandonment of the peculiar practices of Jewish life, loyalty to the group is bound to weaken, and the

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continued existence of the Jewish people is certain to be threat ened. A J e w or a Catholic may learn modern mathematics, medicine, and painting, but if the one discards the festivals and does not circumcise his sons, and the other neglects Mass, both cease to be propagators of the group. From this point of view Philo was a Jew of the Jews. H e left his early monastic isolation to help his people. His journey to Rome as an old man marks him as one of the great Jewish 'confessors', who escaped martyrdom only through the in difference of the Roman officials. What was at that time the highest symbol of Jewish differentiation, the freedom of the temple from any taint of pagan worship, was to be violated by the erection of a statue of Gaius, as Jupiter, in the very holy of holies. This, Philo realized, would be a destruction of the temple more complete than its being torn down. T h e next step was inevitable: 'for in the destruction of the temple there is reason to fear that Gaius will also order that the general name of our whole nation be abolished'. T h e lesser will collapse with the greater. A n d what is to be hoped from protest? Under the circumstances, nothing but death. 'Be it so; we will perish. For indeed a glorious death in defence of our laws is a kind of life. . . . A l l human considerations are discarded; let them go. But let the hope in God the Saviour, who has often saved the people from misfortunes and evils, abide unquenchable in our souls'. A n d true to their mission, the group stayed on and on with Philo, trying to dissuade the emperor from his attack on the Jewish customs. 5

This, it can be said without question, is the basic spirit of Judaism, what has kept it intact through the centuries. How ever much Philo may have enriched the meaning of the laws and customs with Greek metaphysics, science, and ethics, ideas for him could not take the place of active observance. A modern Jew may defend circumcision for its sanitary value, but, if he is a loyal Jew, his son will be circumcised by a mohel (or pos sibly a surgeon) with the traditional ritual; it will not be an 6

See Legat.

9

184-96.

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ordinary surgical operation as it is with gentiles, though from the point of view of sanitation the ritual adds nothing. From the point of view of Judaism, it is the ritual, not the sanitation, which is decisive. For Philo the same problem existed, but in a different form. T h e best minds about him were interested not in science in our sense, but in ethics and mysticism. These he claimed for Moses, as modern Jews claim that Moses knew the danger of trichinosis from pork. But again as the modern Jew betrays his Judaism when he takes the gentile solution, being careful that pork is well cooked before eating, so there was danger that the ethical and mystical principles of the Greeks, which hellenized Jews saw illustrated in their laws, should take the place of the often inconvenient laws themselves. In a fre quently quoted passage Philo says: There are some who, understanding the letter of the laws to be a symbol of intellectual things, are very particular about the latter but readily neglect the former. I, for my part, should blame such unscrupulousness; for it is necessary to attend to both, the exact investigation of the things not manifest [that is, the ethical and mystical principles evolved from the Torah by allegory], and the uninterrupted preservation of the manifest [that is, the literal observance of the law as the law]. But now, as though living in a desert alone by themselves, or as having become bodiless souls, and knowing neither city nor village nor family, no association of men of any kind, looking contemptously upon the opinions of the many, they explore the naked truth itself by itself. The sacred word teaches that such men have conceived an excellent idea [that is, the higher meaning is really in the Torah]; but at the same time not to relax aught of what is found in the customs which inspired men, better than those of our time, have ordained. 6

W e have no way of knowing how widespread was this 're form' movement in Philo's day. It was soon, in Paul, to have a leader of great consequence, and Philo was quite right in 6

Migr.

t

89 f., as translated b y G. F. M O O R E , Judaism,

83, 90. 236.

I I , 9. See By, Light,

Light,

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seeing that any 'reform' Judaism, which gave the individual freedom to select among the laws to be observed, struck at the very foundations of Jewish continuity. I cannot believe the Christian tradition that fie was converted to Christianity. But if the book of Acts is to be credited, the synagogues in which Paul preached were fertile ground for the doctrine of emanci pation from Jewish law, however much Jewish leaders of the synagogues may have fought it. There must have been many Jews of the sort Philo rebuked. T h e important fact here is that Philo did denounce them, and that, for all his Greek ideology, he was a fundamental Jew on the basic point of Judaism, the actual observance of the Jewish way of life defined in the L a w . Just as Philo was an observant Jew, so he was one who agreed with Jewish tradition fully, for all his syncretism, about the sin of polytheism. But monotheism to Philo did not mean the belief that above man there was only one higher order of being, the O n e God. It is dubious if it meant that to any writer of the O l d or New Testament. T h e point of Jewish monotheism in the ancient world was not the refusal to recognize that the sun and stars, for example, are animate beings of an order far superior to man, or that the air is filled with angels and demons. T h e strict Jew was distinctive in the East because, thinking such superhuman entities to be servants and helpers of God, he refused them any rites or cultus, and addressed his prayers only to the supreme principle behind them. T h e strict Jew was not unique in supposing that the ultimate principle was one. This statement cannot often enough be repeated. T h e Greek pantheon had become transcended by a single divine principle, to the point that the various gods appeared to be only personalizations of different aspects of divine rule. Ancient Egyptian thought seems to me to have long before experienced the same transformation. Behind the Egyptian god who was the physical sun was the supreme divine power of which the physi cal sun was only the visible type, and if there was still myth ology in the highest realm, it was mythology of the sort which made the sacred trinity, father, mother, and son, into a unity

THE JEW

8l

by insisting that the son had begotten himself by his own mother—that is making father, mother, and son relationship over into a rich description of the single divine power. In Philo's day, when hellenism was developing toward monotheism, the angels of Jewish tradition often had more definite personalities than did the gods of Greece and Egypt for thoughtful Greeks. Philo was himself fully aware of the universal tendency in paganism toward the doctrine of a single supreme deity. In one place he says: 'But if he exists whom with one accord all Greeks and barbarians acknowledge together, the supreme Father of gods and men and the Maker of the whole universe, whose nature is invisible and hard to grasp not only by the eye but even by the mind. . . . ' Colson in his note on this passage cannot believe his eyes that Philo thus ascribes monotheism to all pagans. So far as I can see Philo was telling the simple truth about paganism as he saw it, not as Christian propaganda has ever since misrepresented it. A n d he was just as well aware that the approach to this monotheism had been by the re duction of individual deities to aspects of the single divine power. So he does not oppose the gods or the polytheistic poetry of the Greeks even as strongly as, at times, did Plato himself, for Philo was willing to accept both gods and poetry as the intelligent people of his day, especially the Stoics, were doing, turning them, like the Scriptures, into allegories of higher principles. He says that if you read the poets under standing that Vulcan means fire, Juno air, Mercury reason or the Logos, 'then you who are an accuser will become one who praises the poets as people who celebrate divinity with praises truly and properly'. 7

8

9

Obviously Philo does not think that the Jew is unique in the ancient world by reason of his doctrine of monotheism. 7

G. F. M O O R E , Judaism, I, 223 f., says quite accurately that Philo h a d the con ceptions both of the immateriality of God, a n d of monotheism as a doctrine of the unity of G o d in the metaphysical sense, 'from Plato, a n d reads them into the Bible with the rest of his philosophy; but h e did not get them from the Bible or from Judaism at all.' Gf. ibid., 3 6 1 . Spec, I I , 1 6 5 . Provid., I I , 4 1 . 8

9

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T h e Jewish contribution was the belief that only the supreme God might be worshipped. There is every reason for supposing that all through the ages many if not most ordinary Jews had themselves worshipped the lesser and more accessible deities of their neighbours: the prophets continually try to recall the people to the worship of the O n e , and however we may have tended to think of Judaism as a whole in terms of the ideals of the prophets, they themselves felt very much apart from most Jews in their conceptions. By Philo's time to all appearances the issue was settled that Jews should do obeisance only to the Father of heaven and earth. This was the attitude of the strictest Judaism, the official position. There is, however, considerable evidence that Jews prayed not only to God but to the angels. T h e angel of Abraham is addressed in prayer by Joseph in The Testament of Joseph ( c 6 ) ; a similar prayer is in The Testament of Dan (6, 2 ) ; and in the Jewish prayers for revenge found in Rhenea, God and the angels are invoked. Philo likewise prayed to M o s e s . Y e t Jews never admitted the inconsistency of such prayers with their general position. Monotheism meant to them the belief in a single ultimate deity, and did not exclude belief in the existence of other superhuman beings beside God. But whatever other superhuman beings there might be, the O n e God could alone be worshipped as God. In this again Philo was a thorough Jew. H e discusses mono theism most directly when in the treatises On the Decalogue ( 5 2 - 6 5 ) and The Special Laws (i, 1 3 - 6 5 ) he deals with the First Commandment. T h e argument in both is quite similar. T h e large part of mankind, he says, has the delusion that the four elements, the sun, moon, planets, the heaven itself, or the uni verse as a whole, are gods with absolute p o w e r . Different names have been given these in different mythologies, but the 10

11

12

1 0

For this see A . DEISSMANN i n Phibhgus, L X I (1902), 252-65, a n d Licht vom Osten (1923), 351 ff. Gf. M . G A S T E R , Studies and Texts, I I (1925-28), 733 ff.; D I T T E N B E R G E R , SylL Inscr. Gr., 3d ed., I l l (1920), 337 f., no. i i 8 z . From M . B R A U N , History and Romance in Graeco-Oriental Literature (Oxford, 1938), 64, n. 3. See below, p. 149^ Spec., I, 13; Decal., 53. 1 1

1 2

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basic error is the same. T h e simple fact is that, as Philo says, 'all the gods which sense descries in heaven must not be sup posed to possess absolute power, but to have received the rank of subordinate rulers, subject by their natures to correction, though on account of their fine virtue not actually experi encing i t ' . Therefore, Philo goes on to conclude, it is the greatest impiety to give to lesser and created being the worship which is due the eternal Creator. T h e point is not the existence of other beings, whom Philo is willing here and elsewhere to call 'gods', but the fact that worship is due only to 'absolute power'. This word, avroKparaa, our word 'autocratic power', means self-originating power. T h e power of all created beings, including even that of the universe, is not self-originating, but is derivative from the One. Only God has power of his own right and nature. Where Plato and Aristotle, for example, or later the Catholic Church, would agree entirely with Philo's idea that self-originating power is single, they would not dream of saying that all forms whatever of prayer or cultus should be offered to God the Father alone. T h e statement of Philo shows us Judaism in its most essential position, not denying the exist ence of the lesser gods, but denying that they should be wor shipped. 13

14

Philo concluded as follows the sentence whose beginning has already been quoted: 'But if he exists whom with one accord all Greeks and barbarians acknowledge together, the supreme Father of Gods and men and the Maker of the whole universe, whose nature is invisible and hard to grasp not only by the eye but even by the mind . . . then all men should have cleaved to him and not have introduced more gods as by stage machinery to receive the same honours'. T h e crux was not the existence of 'gods', but the blasphemy of giving worship to lower super human beings. 15

When it came to the forms of worship used by the gentiles for their deities, Philo, like the best Jewish tradition, was most outspoken and bitter. Especially for the use of cult images, for 1 8

Spec, I, 19.

1 4

See also Spec., II, 2 5 5 - 6 .

1 5

Spec, II, 165.

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the sanctification of certain animals after the Egyptian manner, Philo has nothing but scorn. He relentlessly drives his logic on this point. Since it is the originating power that we worship, then we ought to worship the artists and sculptors rather than their images, or even the hammers or brushes with which they worked. That Philo was misrepresenting pagan cultus he must himself have been fully aware. T h e intelligent pagan no more worshipped a statue of Isis than does an intelligent Catholic worship, say, a picture of the Bleeding heart, nor an intelligent Jew worship the sacred scroll of the Torah. A l l three treat their cult objects with great respect, and would defend them from profanation with their very lives: each of the three prefers to make his devotions to God before the object sacred to his own faith. But for the Jew to say that the Catholic or pagan worships the image is just as unfair as for the Catholic or pagan to say that the Jew, because the scroll is before him in the synagogue as he prays, is praying to the scroll. Philo had so much under standing of the pagan world that he should have known this thoroughly. He should have known that the perversions of paganism by the illiterate horde which made a god of the statue itself were no more truly the teaching of Isis than do the ignorant misunderstandings of any religion represent that reli gion in truth. Y e t precisely such a misrepresentation of pagan ism was an important part of Jewish apology and propaganda, and Philo the Jew sets it forth in the most striking language. This could have come only from his profound loyalty to Jud aism. H e had been brought up like all orthodox Jews in the Jewish sense of religious superiority, the sense that the Jews alone know how to worship God in an acceptable manner. A n d all his later understanding of paganism never affected this pride of true worship, or his refusal to understand the meaning of pagan cult symbolism. T o accuse Philo of deliberate mis representation of paganism is perhaps unfair, but the only alternative is to ascribe to him such Jewish loyalty as blinded his eyes and mind to what must have been plain facts before 16

1 6

Decal.,

66-S1.

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him. Christianity continued the Jewish slanders against pagan religious life, to the point that still one who sees any good in pagan religions is accused of anti-Christian bias. This is a large subject. It need only be said here that on this point again Philo remained a typical Jew. With his hatred of idolatry went a hatred of the secret initi ations and rites of the Mystery Religions. These religions Philo mentions only rarely, but always with the utmost contempt, and says that none of the followers of Moses may be initiated into them. Philo's rejection of heathenism and his loyalty to the Jewish God, however, did not take only this negative form. T h e abiding appeal of Judaism, and the greatest gift of Judaism to Christi anity, was its doctrine of God the Father who is not only the Father Creator, as with the Greeks, but the loving protector and helper of his children. Far as Philo went in accepting the abstract Pure Being of the Greek philosophic deity, he never lost the personal and merciful God of the Jews. T h e two are logically strange company, but appear in constant juxta position. For example, when Philo is discussing the appeal of the daughters of Zelophehad to Moses, Philo says of G o d : And he, the Maker of all, the Father of the world, who holds firmly knit together heaven and earth and water and air and all that each produces, the Ruler of men and gods, did not disdain to give response to the petition of some orphan girls. And with that response he gave something more than a judge would give, so kind and gracious was he, who has filled the universe through and through with his beneficient power; for he stated his full approval of the maidens. O Master, how can one hymn thee? . . . Mark how the persons who seem thus lonely and unfortunate are not treated as nothing worth and negligible in the sight of God, of whose empire the least honoured parts are the kingdom found everywhere in the civilized world; for even the whole compass of the round earth is but the outermost fringe of his works. Mark this, I say, and learn its much-needed lesson. 17

18

1 7

Spec., I, 3 1 9 ff.; I l l , 40.

1 8

Mos., I I , 2 3 8 - 4 1 , abridged. 7

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Again, after Philo has described the absolute God from whom radiate the mystic Powers, he goes on: Yet vast as are his Excellences and Powers, he takes pity and compassion on those most helplessly in need, and does not disdain to give judgment to strangers or orphans or widows. He holds their low estate worthy of his providential care, while of kings and despots and great potentates he takes no account. 19

In the highly abstract and philosophical treatise On the Creation of the World there still appears the Jewish God who loves man and mercifully provides for his needs like a father for his children. So common is this note in Philo that over and over again 'the loving kindness of the great and bountiful God' appears in even the most metaphysical passages. V o l k e r has a fine collection of Philonic passages in which God the merciful and giver of good to men is spoken of and addressed in purely personal terms, and he is entirely right in saying that these passages are as like Jewish piety as they are unlike the philosophical Greek. He admits fully the presence of Greek philosophical descriptions of deity, but disagrees sharply with those who wish to leave the matter by describing Philo's God either as truly a double entity, Jewish and Greek, or as basically Greek. T o him the Greek element is essentially un important. 'Philo feels first of all as a Jew'. I cannot alter my original position that both the Greek and the Jewish were essential to him, and cannot see how anyone brought up in Christian tradition should see any difficulty in the double con ception. We have passed freely back and forth between the Father of Jesus of Nazareth, the Father of the Prodigal Son, and the abstract presentations of God in creed and theology, 20

21

22

1 9

Spec, I, 308; cf. I I , 1 7 6 - 8 2 . Philo takes the 'strangers,' in Greek 'proselytes,' in both passages to m e a n converts from paganism to Judaism. 2 0

Opif., 8 1 , 1 7 1 . See above, p. 38. See for example Cherub., 2 9 ; Abr., 137 LA, I, 34, etc. It is illuminating to take the passages indicated in LEISEGANG'S Index, 368, 369, under the attributes of G o d : iXetos L\dvdpa)7Tos, iA68ojpos,CTCJTIJP,and others. 2 1

2 2

Fortschritt,

50-54.

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until it would be impossible for us ourselves to choose one 'essential' deity between the two. When modern logicians make the choice for Philo they are doing what I warned against at the outset, forcing modern problems upon him and asking him to speak their language. He felt no contradiction between the two. True he does come nearer to calling the mystical appre hension the 'higher' apprehension than he does the Jewish, and he would lead the Jews of the inner circle into increasing apprehension of the abstract Being of God. But the fact was that as a Jew and man of everyday experience he needed the personal loving God, and as a thinker and mystic he needed the other. He did not give up one for the other, and apparently had no notion of their incompatibility. He would have been highly anachronistic had he done so. T h e whole question of 'personality' in God had not been raised by either Jew or Greek, and it never entered Philo's head to raise it. T h e matter had reached only the stage of questioning 'anthropomorphism' and here Philo stands firmly with the Greek philosophers, to the point of saying that the anthropomorphic passages in the Bible are non sense if taken literally. Since the question of personality had not been raised, Philo does not, like the scholastics and modern theologians, carry the divine personality from Judaism into the abstract Being of the Ultimate. T h e Jewish God is personal to him, but he discusses the philosophic deity with no impli cations of personality. Both were essential to him, the Jewish God for the man of everyday life, the abstract God for the mystic and philosopher. Let that man who has no such divided personality cast the first stone at Philo for his dualism. It will be a stone feebly thrown, for life cannot be strongly lived, as Philo lived it, in a monistic hothouse. Philo's loyalty to the Jewish people is an aspect of his Juda ism which has already appeared clearly enough in the account of his political activity for the Jews. His devotion obviously 23

2 3

Volker, Fortschritt, 5 4 - 5 8 , has a very interesting review of various interpreta tions of this dualism. T o his remarks about m y position in By Light, Light, I would answer that there I was attempting to present only the mystical Philo, not the whole m a n .

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went on typically to the Messianic dream, little as he has dis cussed it. Over and again through the treatises he is justifying the solidarity of Jews by allegories whose bizarre expression does not conceal the loyalty behind them. If Philo expressed his mystical longing in a desire to come as near as possible to a vision of God, then the very name Israel by which all Jews are named means 'the man or people who see God'. He called the Jews 'the people most beloved by God, the one which seems to me to have received the gift of priesthood and prophecy for every race of m e n ' . 'The Jewish people is to the whole in habited world what the priest is to the state.' Indeed it is the final test of Philo's Jewish loyalty that, however dualistic he may actually have been, the whole labour of his literary life was prompted by Jewish loyalty. He insisted always and on every occasion that the Jewish Scriptures taught Greek mys ticism in a perfect way which the Greeks themselves never approximated. T o show this he had to do some amazing things with the scriptural texts. But he refused to believe that anything so sublime as Greek philosophy and mysticism could have been unsuspected by Moses and the Patriarchs. 24

25

Philo's Judaism in the sense of his loyalty to the Jewish God, law, and people, his scornful refusal to sully his religion with any intermixture of pagan religious rites, must constantly be borne in mind if we are to understand the man and his motivations. His relation to the more technical aspects of Judaism, to one party or another, is quite a different problem. If Finkelstein's division of Jews of the day into patrician and plebeian, landed aristocracy and city people, is to stand for the rest of Judaism, Philo's place is going to be difficult to find. He was at once a city man and an aristocrat. What, if any, are the relations of his legal interpretations to one or another halachic tradition among the rabbis is still an open question, and one which, as I have said, is beyond my competence. From the traditional description of Sadducees I have thought him

2

4

Abr.,

98.

2 5

Spec.,

II,

163-7.

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closer to them than to the Pharisees, but that was a suggestion which many rabbinists have not received with favour. While specialists are debating this matter, we may well con tinue trying to understand Philo himself from his own writings. And as our acquaintance with Judaism is broader and more detailed, we shall see Judaism in more and more places. For example, I have in general presented the mystic side of Philo in terms of Greek or hellenistic conceptions, and that seems to me still to be right. That Philo was making the Greek idea over into something Jewish was perfectly obvious, but one detail in that connection has not hitherto been pointed out. As we have seen, and shall see in greater detail in a later chapter, Philo thought that the Patriarchs were mystic saviours of the Jewish people by their having gone from matter to the im material, and so having opened up the way for which hellen istic religions and mystic philosophies were, it seemed to him, vainly looking. T h e kind of salvation offered, the descriptions of the character and achievements of the Patriarchs, these are quite foreign to any Judaism of which I have heard, and en tirely at home in Greek thought. But the idea that the Jewish people was to be saved, and had special access to God, because of the personal merits of Abraham, Moses, and the others, was just-as common a Jewish notion as the other was foreign to Judaism. It had a special term in Jewish tradition, zekut abot, usually translated 'merits of the fathers', and was implied in the Jewish prayers to the 'God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob'. It was the merit of these and of Moses by virtue of which Israel was the chosen race, and what prayers God would not answer when even Moses asked him directly he readily granted, the rabbis pointed out, when Moses asked in the name of the three great Patriarchs. Those three were not dead but living, and heaven was often described as a return to their bosoms. Even Jesus shared this notion of heaven. With this belongs the pro tection given Joseph by the angel of Abraham and Joseph's 26

27

2 6

See G. F. M O O R E , Judaism,

I, 5 3 6 - 5 4 5 ; I I I , 164,11.249.

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prayer to the angel in The Testament of Joseph to which allusion has already been made. So in making the salvation of the Jewish Mystery a gift from the Patriarchs to the Jews, something available only to Jews and the proselytes whom he considered immigrants from their own people into the Jewish people, Philo has betrayed again his ineradicable Judaism. T h e Greek religious tendency was toward internationalism and universalism. In rejecting this and keeping the mystic salvation as a description of the Merits of the Fathers Philo demonstrated one of the basic contrasts between his hellenization and that of Christianity which early discarded all distinction between Jew and Greek. The point is that Philo is full of such Judaistic points of view. The deeper one goes into his writings, the more inextricably mixed Hellenism and Judaism appear. As one who has ap proached Philo more from the Greek than the Jewish point of view, I have, let it be freely admitted, hitherto stressed the Greek more than the Jewish, though I have by no means neg lected his Judaism. I have allowed myself to do so because I have always frankly written as a gentile scholar, and have never felt able to attempt a rounded picture of Philo in any of my writings. In this little presentation in the round the Jewish side must be emphasized as I have never had occasion to do before. But again let me warn the beginner. T h e true Judaism of Philo is so shot through with just as true and genuine hellenistic conceptions and ideals that one should not try to separate them too early. And, at the last, however much we may temporarily have to separate the two for the purpose of clarification and analysis, we cannot leave them apart, or we shall present only Philo's spiritual anatomy, not the living person in whom the two were a triumphant unit.

2 7

W . B O U S S E T — H . G R E S S M A N N , Die Religion des Judentums (1926), 361 f. F I N K E L STEIN discusses the doctrine for its bearings on determinism, The Pharasees (1938), I, 255 ff.

CHAPTER V

THE

PHILOSOPHER:

METAPHYSICS

PHILO grew up in Alexandria and received the best education which that brilliant city had to offer. With Greek as his native language he had early poured into his soul the treasures of Greek literature: Homer, the tragedians, the poets, the his torians, the philosophers, all had been devoured and accepted, as quick and receptive minds have always claimed for their own whatever is beautiful and true. Problems, vistas had opened for him which the uneducated peasant or tradesman of Palestine never suspected. He has always been called Philo Alexandrinus interchangeably with Philo Judaeus, and in his case Alexandrinus was not merely a place name: he was an Alexandrian as thoroughly and deeply as he was a Jew. There had been others before him, apparently for at least two cen turies, who had similarly been both Jews and Alexandrians, and who had tried to combine the two cultures. With the early crude attempts by which it would be stated that Moses was Osiris or Musaeus we need not here be concerned. For Philo, and perhaps for many of his predecessors and contemporaries, there was no longer a conflict in ideology, serious as the conflict might still be in matters of conduct and social relations of Jews and gentiles. Judaism, it must be recalled, gave him no science, no metaphysic, no theory of ethics. That there was a single supreme God who had created and now ruled all men injustice, and had in mercy told the Jews what to do and how to worship if they would please him, was a long step from the Greek theories of psychology, of the nature of reality, and of the basic 1

1

See the excellent chapter on Hellenism in the L X X by J E A N D A N I E L S O U , Philon d'Alexandrie, 8 5 - 1 1 7 .

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principles of virtue. Philo heard Socrates, as young men still should do, asking those eternal questions: What do you know ? What do you mean by the terms love, beauty, virtue, justice, piety? Your words are beautiful, but to what do they cor respond? T o these questions Judaism had no systematic replies, and Philo was bound to follow the answers of the Greek philosophers who now for four hundred years had been wrestling with the questions. Not that the Greek answers were final or even in agreement with one another. There were the Cynic and Sceptic refusals to consider such questions, and the popular Epicurean pretexts for living by and for momentary gratification of desires. T h e people of the ancient world must not be ideal ized: in every period the thoughtful and controlled are in the minority. But Philo was a Jew who, like the best Jews of all time, accepted the best rather than the worst from his gentile neighbours. In determining what Philo took from Greek philosophy we are desperately hampered at the outset by our almost complete ignorance of the philosophic atmosphere of Alexandria in his day. It is relatively easy to associate different phrases or terms as Philo uses them with similar phrases from the classical writings of the various schools. But what we do not know is the way in which these phrases reached Philo. His philosophical vocabulary is notoriously eclectic; that is, it can be traced to a variety of sources, but his philosophical position is, in prin ciple if not in details, quite consistent and homogeneous. Did his consistency originate with himself, or with his hellenistic Jewish predecessors, or was there a definite pagan school in Alexandria, itself already strongly eclectic, which he was largely following ? What was taught by the Stoics with whom he actu ally talked? How far had they developed Posidonius' inclina tion to effect a harmony with Platonism? A n d what of the Platonic and Pythagorean schools of his day ? We know that a hundred years after Philo's death Platonism at Alexandria had developed into the final school of Greek tradition, Neoplatonism; but was that the culmination of a movement which

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had already well begun by Philo's time ? For answering any of these questions we have no adequate documents. There survive a number of fragments of Pythagoreanism which seem to have come from a considerable development of that school, but whether they represent Pythagorean thought of a century before Philo or two centuries later there is again no way definitely to establish. Stylistically the documents have been dated after Philo, but they are written in an artificial Greek, a late imita tion of the South Italian Greek of the sixth and fifth centuries before Christ, and hence, lacking the decisive contemporary features of any later period, they cannot be dated with any certainty. A n d if these documents were themselves composed after Philo, their contents may be traditional, and hence be quite the sort of doctrine taught by Pythagoreans in Philo's day. T h e y become a particular problem in connection with Philo, for they seem closer to him on the whole than the frag ments from any other school. That is, we have to be very careful about method, again, when we discuss Philo's philosophic position. T o align this detail or that with one school or another is of only preliminary importance. Phrases and terms, always the most important consideration in the history of philosophy, have to be watched with the closest scrutiny, or they mislead us as much as they can help us. Such a danger I have already pointed out else where in connection with the phrase 'Law of Nature'. Here is a phrase often used by the Stoics, and in view of the fact that Philo often uses the Stoic definition of law it is natural to sup pose that Philo's 'Law of Nature' was taken also from the Stoics. But when one looks deeper the matter is not at all so easy. T h e phrase, while it appears first as a technical term among the Stoics, was used by Plato and expressed apparently a traditional idea among the Greeks. T h e Sophists had dis credited the law of actual states by demonstrating that it was 2

3

2

By Light, Light, 50 ff. See the Laws, 8god, where it is stated that the ancient laws which establish the existence of the gods are vaa. 3

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contrary to Nature. All their reasoning implied a major pre mise, which was not stated apparently because it was so familiar and axiomatic to all Greeks, that Nature is the true Law, and that not even the state can properly compel a man to go against Nature and Natural Right. T h e Sophists justified the individual in asserting himself against his fellow citizens on the ground that to do so was to follow the higher Right of Nature rather than the lower law of cities. When the Sophists called this Nature, and the Stoics the L a w of Nature, it is clear that both were talking of the same thing, though each thought differently about its connection with actual civil law, and to each the word Nature meant something different. The question with Philo, then, at once becomes more difficult. If all Greeks had for centuries taken Nature to be the ultimate Law, and had disagreed only on the character of ultimate Nature, and so of the Law therein implicit, there is little gained in noting that Philo and the Stoics both talk of the 'Law of Nature': we have shown no essential dependence of Philo upon Stoic thought until we have seen whether each meant the same thing by Nature. As a matter of fact Philo's Nature is so unlike that of the Stoics that we can be deceived much more than illuminated by associating the two. T h e same warning applies to the Logos, which is almost always referred to as Stoic, and which seems to me essentially unlike anything in Stoicism except the term, which traditional Stoics used for something different. And the same is true of many other terms in Philo. The second warning should be against too rigid an adherence for Philo's sources to documents which can confidently be dated before him. Had we anything approaching an adequate record of hellenistic philosophy this might be done. But, although we know that the various philosophical schools continued through the hellenistic age, we have not a single philosophical tractate complete between Aristotle and Philo himself, except the pseudo-Aristotelian De Mundo. If the history of hellenistic philosophy is ever adquately written, the place of Philo will be most important. For he was not an original philosopher at all,

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and anything philosophic to be found in his writings can con fidently be taken as genuine teaching of his environment. His task was to show that the best of Greek philosophic teaching was derived from, and got its highest expression in, the Torah, and his whole objective would have been lost had he been inventing anything especially novel. If, as has often happened, a modern fundamentalist wishes to square biblical teaching with modern science, his science may be inaccurate, but it will be as close to the teachings of actual scientists as he knows how to make it. Otherwise there will be no point in his vindication of its harmony with the Scriptures. Philo certainly knew his philosophy better than most modern fundamentalists know modern science, but his vindication of the thesis that Greek philosophy was the real meaning of Scripture would have had no point if the Greek philosophy he read into the Bible were not recognizable Greek philosophy. I do not see in Philo one who was at all recondite in philosophical studies. He knew the Timaeus, and probably some other works of Plato. But except for the elaborate parallelism of the Timaeus with Philo's treatise On the Creation of the World I can see few places where Philo was trying to work more than the general ideas and popular myths and terms of Plato into his exposition of the Bible. A n d his Stoic and Pythagorean elements are no more recondite than his Platonic. Always, it seems to me, we may assume that the philosophic elements in Philo were of the most obvious sort and taken from contemporary presentations, oral or written. If occasionally he brings in an echo of Heraclitus, as in the democracy of the Logos already mentioned, or in a peculiar doctrine of creation which I have discussed elsewhere, still I am convinced that Philo seems to us to be referring to obscure aspects of Greek tradition only because we have not the hellen istic interpretations of the earlier teachers. As his philosophic ideas must be assumed to be contemporary 4

5

4

See above, p. 64 See m y *A Neo-Pythagorean Source in Philo Judaeus,' Tale Classical III (1932), 117-64, and below, pp. 1 o6f. 5

Studies,

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commonplace because of his own lack of originality and his aim to make the 'philosophy' of the Torah obvious to his readers, so Philo's background and meaning can often be illumi nated from passages in philosophic treatises written long after his own death. Volker was shocked because I saw the original of some of Philo's remarks reflected in Proclus, who flourished in the fifth century after Christ. But it must be recalled that there is not a single pagan author who is remotely to be sus pected of ever having read Philo. Clement and Origen and many others in Christian tradition undoubtedly used Philo with great admiration, but not one pagan of whom we know did so. T h a t Proclus got ideas from Philo we have no reason whatever for assuming. O n the other hand we do know that the later Neoplatonists and Aristotelians had a vast philosophic literature from the hellenistic age on which they freely drew, since from them come most of our fragments of that period. Accordingly, when a passage in Philo is illuminated by a pas sage in a later pagan writing, an idea to which Philo only casually refers and which takes on meaning in the light of the later passage, the assumption must be that the later writer has drawn on a source, or preserved a conception, which was not only accessible in Philo's day, but was a commonplace to which he could make passing allusion. Wolfson has rightly pointed out that Philo (or his school) made a great contribution to western thought in combining Greek metaphysics with biblical 'revelation'. But I am still convinced that, although Philo's contributions to philosophy proper were negligible, the contribution he can make to our knowledge of philosophy in the hellenistic period has never been exploited. T o learn what Philo has to tell of hellenistic philosophy a most elaborate study will be necessary. First Philo's philosophic position on its main lines must be established from his own writings, and then the eclectic elements analysed 6

7

8

6

V O L K E R , Fortschritt und Vollendung bei Philo von Alexandrien (Leipzig, 1938), 209, n. 1. See the Bibliography, p. 250, n. x. In this connection it is necessary only to mention Stobaeus. 7

8

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which are not in harmony with this position. Then not only the writings of his predecessors, but the great forest of writings for the next four or five centuries must be closely studied for parallels and amplifications of his ideas, with the assumption that ideas common to the later philosophers and Philo must be put back, at least in essence, into the hellenistic age. T h e work of gathering this material, and of separating early core from later amplification, would be long, but I am convinced that at the end we should have a body of material on hellenistic philo sophy which we do not now have at all. I am far from being a student of Proclus, for example, but I never read a few pages of Proclus without finding something which strikingly illuminates Philo, and which, since Philo was so unoriginal, and so unknown to Proclus, must have been, in some form, current in hellenistic philosophy. T h e preamble to a discussion of Philo's philosophy has been thus extended because, in spite of the amount which has been written on Philo and the philosophic schools, the main work seems to me still to be done. What I can say on the subject here must be not only abbreviated but quite tentative. It is to be hoped that someone interested in the history of philosophy may soon discover Philo and his importance for the subject. Ancient philosophies, like modern philosophies, get their most important classifications from their conceptions of the nature of reality. T h e basic distinction for Philo is the one between matter and the immaterial, for while he says little about matter directly, he everywhere assumes the complete disparity of the two. T h e immaterial alone has reality and being, and within the immaterial only God is real. That is, Philo begins and ends his thinking with pure Being. This Reality is described in Platonic terms which go beyond Plato in ab straction. God is, and nothing can be said of deity except this. He, or It, is utterly self-contained and self-sufficient. Re peatedly Philo insists that God is not a avyKpifxa, but is vais a 7 r A ^ ; that is, he is of a single and uncompounded nature. He 9

9

Mut., 184; LA, I I , 2.

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is not to be identified with the world: he is the mind of the universe, contains the universe, yet is in no sense contained by or within the universe. His most comparable material counter part is the sun, shining eternally, self-contained, the source of light and life to all other existence. Yet God is not the sun, as he had not been the material sun in Egyptian philosophy, but is the 'sun of the sun, the conceptual object behind the object comprehensible by sense'. Such a deity is comparable to Plato's Idea of the Good if Good is read with the Aristotelian meaning, that of the ultimate and determining objective or goal, a meaning which I am sure the word had for Plato also. The Good in a moral sense Philo took to be a derivative from the pure existence and character of God, and so he called God 'the one who is greater than the Good, antecedent to the Monad, purer than the One, impossible to see by another being, since he is apprehensible to himself alone'. But this should not be pressed into a contrast between Philo and Plato, for Philo frequently calls God the 'Prime Good, the Perfect One, the unfailing Source of intelligence, justice, and every virtue'. T o say that God is the perfect Good, but is beyond the Good, is a paradox, but is not at all confusing, for the shift in the mean ing of the term is quite obvious. God is beyond the Good in the sense that he is beyond any of the particular aspects or con ceptions of Good which we human beings must always have in mind when we use the term, since the ultimate source of that Good which we can understand must itself be utterly incom prehensible. A similar contradiction appears on many other points. For example, Philo says of the relation of God with space that it is utterly wrong to think that God is in space, since on the con trary it is God who contains the w o r l d ; more abstractedly the space which God represents contains the immaterial ideal world, not the material w o r l d ; still more abstractedly God is 10

11

12

13

14

15

1 0

Spec, Gig., 4 5 .

1 1

1 2

I, 2 7 9 . Praem., 40; cf. Cont., 2. Spec, I, 2 7 7 ; cf. Legat., 5 ; DecaL, 8 1 ; Spec, I I , 5 3 . LA, I I I , 5 1 . Cher., 49. 1 3

1 4

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16

his own space and contains himself. Yet the universe is the material house of G o d . So with the Good, Philo has almost every gradation of expression. God is the ultimate moral Good as well as being beyond this Good. It all depends upon the mood, and how much the Jewish God is invading Philo's meta physics at the time. When he says that God is not the cause of anything evil, but only of good things, since God is both the oldest of realities and himself the perfect G o o d , there is a real mixture of Plato with Jewish feeling. When he says that the storehouse of bad things is in us, of good things in G o d , we are still farther from the metaphysical Good, and we come yet another step when he tells us that the cause of creation was the goodness and grace of G o d . W e are now ready for a God who displays all the moral qualities which Jewish piety indi cated. If Philo's thinking is thus vacillating between religion and philosophy, between the Greek and Jewish ways of thinking, this must not confuse us to the point that his own philosophical position seems confused. As a philosopher, and as a mystic also, Philo quite consistently defends the absolute and self-contained deity. Ancient thought was divided chiefly on the issue whether God was an absolute immaterial Being, or was to be identified with the universe as a whole: on this point Philo never weak ened. T o identify the material universe with God, as the Stoics did, was to him not only one of the most shocking of impieties but also the most erroneous of metaphysical conceptions. And while as a Jew he could talk intimately of the goodness of God, which prompted God to create the world and men, he was driven by no less active a philosophic compulsion to construct or adopt an elaborate machinery through which God could be connected with the world, since as true Being God was ontologically distinct from it. Everywhere in Philo's writings ap pears this machinery of mediation, described with great im aginative freedom, and its very omnipresence, more than the 17

18

1 9

2 0

1 6

LA, I, 44. In Fug., 7 5 , G o d is space, to which created things can take refuge.

1 7

Post., 5.

1 8

Con/.,

180.

1 9

Fug., 7 9 .

2 0

LA, I I I , 78.

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scattered if repeated assertions of God's absoluteness, shows how real that absoluteness was to Philo. For the whole idea of mediation presupposed absolute Deity. T h e most important single formulation of this mediation is in terms of the Logos and Powers of God, which represent God in his dealings with the world, sometimes described elaborately, more often, and more strikingly, referred to in so casually assured a way that it is apparent they must have been traditional and accepted in his group. Philo abbreviates the conception in one passage as follows: 21

While God exists ontologically after the analogy of the O n e he is yet two with respect to his highest and first Powers, Goodness and Authority; by Goodness he begat the universe, and by Authority he rules what he has begotten. And there is a third thing which, being in between them, brings the two together, his Logos, for by Logos God is both ruler and good . . . The Logos was conceived in God's mind before all things and is manifest in connection with all things. 22

That is, the O n e God gives forth a Stream from himself, the first representation of which is the Logos, most like God be cause it is the primal emanation; it becomes differentiated in lower types of manifestation, and the Logos is always a term which can be used to include all the lower manifestations. Similarly, since the Logos is a projection of divine reality and being, it can be called God, and all the workings of the Logos can be called the acts or works of God. Clarity on this first point is essential if the rest is to be intelligible. T h e logic of the ancient world had gone unerringly to the conception that God is uniquely O n e and self-contained, quite independent of and unrelated to anything but himself. As Wolfson has well empha sized, God is 'incomprehensible' even to human intellect. Yet God must be not only existence, but cause and source of exist2 1

Philo puts it this w a y because actually G o d was beyond the M o n a d a n d the O n e , which, accurately, exist after analogy with G o d rather than God after analogy with the O n e : LA, I I , 3. Cher., 2 7 f. 2 2

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ence in everything else. That is, there must be an Unrelated Being who is yet somehow related. Ancient thought had early turned to two figures to represent this, light and rulership, and Philo uses both repeatedly. T h e figure of light has already been mentioned, but must be re-emphasized. It is the primary guide to Philo's philosophy and mysticism alike. T h e sun, that most fascinating natural phenomenon, typified the highest reality as much to Plato and Aristotle as to the religious devotees of Egypt. For, as did nothing else, the sun combined self-sufficiency with influence upon the world. Burning aloof in the sky etern ally, it needed no fuel or renewing, was complete in itself as were not even the other stars, which early, after the analogy of the moon and planets, seemed to shine with light reflected from the sun. O u t of the sun's complete self-sufficiency there yet flowed forth to the universe its life and light. All existence and life seemed completely the product of the solar stream. No wonder that Philo, like his neighbours, saw in this unique thing the most satisfactory figure of the unique Being of the im material God, who also, and even more so, was existence of and for himself, and at the same time was the Creative and Ruling Power in the universe by means of a Stream which went out from him. The ruling power of God suggested analogy with the absolute powers of the king who governed his subjects though never seen by more than a handful of them. From the king in his isolation went forth representatives, like the satraps of Persia, whose power over other men lay in the fact that they transmitted to the subjects the ruling power and will of the unseen monarch. So widely was this figure used that even in Christian writings the frequent title De Monarchia should be translated for moderns On Monotheism. In the passage just quoted, and frequently throughout his writings, Philo shows that this current notion was self-evident for him to use in expressing the relation of God with the world, and the way in which a measure of reality has come to the material world from the one and only Reality. T h e projection 8

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of God no more reduces God's powers than the rays of sunlight seem to reduce the apparently eternal sun. And as sunlight even today is often called the sun in such expressions as 'The sun is bright in a south room', so the Stream from God was often spoken of as God's presence in the world. And as we at one time identify the sun's rays with the sun, and at another sharply distinguish the two, so the Logos, Philo's commonest term for the Stream, could be referred to as an entity in itself, even called the Son of God, while its lower manifestations, Ruling Power and Creative Power, could be discussed as things of independent existence. This vacillation in language has provoked a library of debate on t h e question whether in Philo the Logos is personal or not. If we are to follow Philo rather than our own categories we shall have to learn with him to answer the questions Yes and No simultaneously. If Philo were asked the question he would undoubtedly have fallen back into his purer metaphysics and denied that the Logos was anything but the flow of divine Reality, and that the Logos had no more reality in itself than has a ray of sunshine apart from the sun. Yet his soul was so warmed by the Logos-ray of God that he often thought of that ray as a thing in itself, something which could be made vivid by personification, even a rudimentary mythology, as he tried to express the fullness of his thought and experience. T h e ancient world was presented with an entirely new sort of problem when the Christians later identified the Logos with the extremely personal and individual Jesus of Nazareth, and so were compelled to solve the metaphysical difficulties which the elevation of that personality to deity presented to monotheism. Philo is completely unaware of the possibility of such a problem. He was not even committed to the term Logos: Sophia or Virtue would do just as well. T h e fact that in one place he says that Sophia is the source of the Logos, in another that the Logos is the source of Sophia, need not bother us any more than it bothered him, when we come to recognize with him that any description of the Stream has only relative value, value for us; that is, in helping us to visu-

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alize the richness of a conception through its varied figurative presentations, not in being a literal statement of metaphysical fact in the way that the doctrine of the Trinity was later presented. The term Logos is itself not the least difficulty for a modern in understanding what Philo meant. Logos has for centuries been translated by the English 'Word', following the Vulgate Latin Verbum, but of all the scores of nuances in the Greek term, that is one of the few meanings which Logos never has. Even Colson has continued the utterly misleading translation. A reader of Philo or of early Christian thought must first of all wipe that meaning from his mind and use the untranslated term Logos as he would use a new term in chemistry. T h e Greek for 'word' was not logos but prjp.a or 6Vo/xa, or other expressions. Logos means primarily the formulation and expression of thought in speech, but from this it took on a variety of associated meanings. For example, it could mean the formula by which a thing is constituted, like a formula in chem istry; so Aristotle most commonly used it. It could mean a phrase or speech of almost any kind or length, even an oration, but never a single word. And it could be turned back upon the process by which utterance was formulated in thought, and so come to mean reason. In this sense study of logos as reason is logic, the science of formulation of thought. The Stoics dis tinguished two types of logos, that within the mind, or reason, and that projected in speech. For either of these the term logos could be used without the distinguishing modifiers, and the context must show us to which type of logos, reason or speech, reference was being made. The term logos had many other special meanings: it should often be translated 'ratio' or 'pro portion' in the mathematical sense; the 6pQ6s Ao'yo?, the 'right logos', was reason producing proper formulations with special reference to legal thought, so that the 'right logos' of Nature was Natural L a w ; the ZSios Ao'yo?, the 'private logos', was a 23

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private account in the sense of the privy purse; the Upos \6yos, the 'sacred logos', was the secret revelation given to an initiate in the Mystery Religions. Logos, then, is almost anything except the English 'word', though occasionally Philo takes O l d Testament passages on the 'word' of God, the pfjp>a, and alle gorizes them in terms of the Logos. But since he can also alle gorize the rivers of Eden or almost anything else for Logos, the allegory does not indicate that to him logos and prjp.a had the same meaning. Logos is then Philo's favourite term for the Stream of God's radiation, and almost all these special meanings come in to enrich his conception. T h e Logos is now the reason of God and now the projected reason; it is the L a w of Nature, and, for mystic purposes, the ultimate Reality given an initiate. Upon the world and man the effect of this radiation from God is so rich that it could be described only in terms of basic differentiations within the Logos. T h e first two differentiations have already appeared in the passage quoted, in which God, ontologically a unit, is really a trinity in external relation; namely, the Logos and its two primary manifestations in a Creative Power and a Ruling Power. These are the two aspects of deity most generally important for the universe, and their meaning is quite clear: they are the functions of God as the Creator and those as the Ruler of the world. Both are united in the Logos itself, since both are but aspects of the single flow of divinity to the world. But each shows peculiar character istics. T h e more popular division of God's character into his mercy and justice are subsidiary to these, the Mercy to Creative Power, and L a w to the Ruling Power, first as Law of Nature and then as L a w of Judaism. Philo often contrasted these two Powers as the merciful as over against the punitive activity of God. The tendency to divide the Logos-Stream into particular manifestations led Philo to define the total radiation in terms of seven constituent members: first, G o d ; then a group of three consisting of the Logos with the two primary Powers,


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Creative and Ruling; then a second group of three whose names are less standardized. In one carefully detailed description the Creative Power subtends Merciful Power, Ruling Power sub tends Legal Power, and all together are subtended by the Platonic World of Forms. That is, God and the Powers to gether constitute a sevenfold deity, with the O n e Being trans cending the other six and ultimately alone having existence, just as the lower five are only aspects of the single radiation, the Logos itself. For convenience one of the diagrams is repro duced from my By Light, Light, in which work the subject is more fully discussed and documented. By the progressively heavy shading of the different Powers I have attempted to portray Philo's notion that the lower Powers are progressively less pure manifestations of Deity, which is pure only at the very top. T h e heavy black transverse lines which divide the different groups correspond to a distinction which Philo himself re peatedly makes. Pure Being is off by itself in complete isolation. T h e Logos and first two Powers are God in projection, but are themselves utterly apart from anything material. Separated from them are those aspects of the Stream which, while them selves as completely separable as are the Forms in Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, are yet, like the Forms even in Plato, capable of some sort of representation in matter. Just how this Stream impressed itself upon matter to make the universe Philo discusses in two places, in each of which he presents a different theory. Nowhere does he show the relation of this particular sevenfold formulation of the Stream with creation. The first, and on the whole much more important, descrip tion, of creation is in the treatise On the Creation of the World, where the problem is attacked, as we have seen, in a purely Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean way: creation was the process by which the 'passive element', unformed matter, was given motion, form, and life by the transcendent active Cause. First was projected what we have come to see was the lowest Power, 24

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that is, the World of Forms, here identified with the whole Stream, the Logos itself, the true world of which the material world is a defective copy. The copy is defective because of the limitations of matter itself. The story is told, for all the em bellishments of number speculation, very much after the story of the six days in Genesis, and the only suggestion of the exact relation of the World of Forms to the material world is in the figure of the seal. For the World of Forms, collectively and indi vidually, seems to be a great seal which God stamps upon matter to give it form. Philo shows that Platonists had met Aristotle's criticisms of the uselessness of the World of Forms by making them not ultimate existence but the thoughts of a higher principle, God. For there had to be something ultimate beyond the World of Forms, even beyond the Form of the Good, to produce the Forms and to be in such domination over them that it could unite the Forms, however imperfectly, with matter. The idea is so slight an extension upon the Timaeus, though so important, that I cannot believe it was not by Philo's time a tradition in the Platonic school. 25

Philo's second account of creation is one found in the peculiar treatise, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? Here Philo discusses creation more as a technical philosopher, and gives us again Pythagorean Platonism with the emphasis this time definitely upon the Pythagorean side. God projects the Logos which is the principle of unity and which at the same time is given the peculiar name, the 'Cutter'. T h e Logos-Cutter forms first the intelligible world and then the material world after the manner and model of the intelligible world. Crude matter, which is again a datum of creation, was first bisected by the LogosCutter into light and heavy, then these two were each bisected to produce four, which became the four elements. Each of these was again divided, as earth into mainland and islands, water into fresh and salt. T h e process of division kept on until 26

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Opif., 18, 20, 25. For expansion and documentation of this, see m y 'A Neo-Pythagorean Source in Philo Judaeus,' Tale Classical Studies, I I I (1932), 1 1 7 - 6 4 . 2 6

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it had produced animate and inanimate objects, wild and cultivated fruits, wild and tame animals, male and female, and the rest. In every case the division was not only a separa tion but a reunion, for the Logos was the Glue as well as the Cutter; that is, it was the principle of cohesion which makes the universe a unit in spite of its manifold divisions. The object of this process was to make the universe according to the basic principle of equality, and material creation had its ideal counterpart when the Logos as the Monad by repeated bisec tions in the Unlimited Dyad had produced the whole system of arithmetical numbers. Both of these theories of creation emphasize the fact that creation is not something done by a remote force or mind, but that the divine is left permanently in the world to be its guide, to fill it with providential care. Philo's repeated, almost un broken, emphasis upon the providence of God in the world has often been taken to be a result of Stoic influence, but it seems to me to be much more a Stoic term used for the God of Jewish piety, who had, throughout the Bible, close contact and control in natural and human affairs. Certainly Philo insists repeatedly that the world is not cut off from God, and his making the universe into a 'house' of God is an expansion of the Jewish tabernacle or temple rather than a Stoic notion that God was to be identified with the material world. In this sense Philo's Logos too stands in sharp contrast to the Stoic Logos. For Philo's Logos was the collective term for im material reality, in the Platonic sense, though a radiation from God, while the Stoic Logos was the basic fiery substance of matter itself. True the Stoics divided the Logos early in the process of creation into active and passive principles, the reason ing and unreasoning, but that these two were ultimately one was the major premise, the distinctive major premise, of the whole Stoic metaphysic. Philo's Logos had many of the func tions of the Stoic Logos: it was the reasoning principle in the universe, Natural Law for all men and matter, but it was something projected into matter from God, and was never in


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any sense to be considered a property of matter, or matter a property of it. T h e Logos of the Stoics was the ultimate prin ciple ; Philo's Logos had even existence only relatively, like the existence of a sunbeam or speech which is relative to its source. Yet the Logos seemed all the more powerful a force in the world by the very fact that it brought into the world something utterly different from any property of matter, while in itself it was so exalted that it could be represented in matter at all only in a secondary manifestation, that is by those Powers which he assigned to the lowest group of the Seven. All natural phenomena partook of its abstract nature in which was equality, to Philo the principle of number, and the Logos worked out that principle in the whole range of numbers, time, and space, so that what was implicit in principle in the Logos became at least in part explicit in the multifarious balance and attunement of the universe. T h e universe, while thus as intimately under the providence of God as any Stoic imagined, had mean ing at all only with reference to something essentially beyond and foreign to what was inherent in or possible for matter. Such a view of the universe seems to me to be not at all a thing to dismiss lightly. It is a serious and sensible philosophy of nature. M a n y modern scientists seem to me to be approach ing a very comparable sort of solution in their feeling that the universe cannot be understood simply in terms of a description of material phenomena without some point of reference, some principle of mathematical relationship. But this is a problem quite beyond my competence. Whatever the scientists may be doing, here is still a philosophy which gives a possible answer to the demand of human hearts that we square science in some way with human experience and hope, the experience that man is living in a world where order becomes intelligible ultimately in mathematical terms, and the hope that the universe is not indifferent to human values. In Philo's presentation the formalization of the Logos-Stream into distinct Powers is its most difficult aspect for modern minds, as it was the most helpful in an age when the growing

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popularity of Neoplatonism and of Gnosticism alike showed that such a division of divine power into descending principles was highly acceptable. But Philo is to be distinguished from most others of his age in the fact that he so often insists that these Powers are not independent realities. They are formulations merely for our convenience. We cannot understand the rule of God or Nature unless we understand that the ultimate reality can express itself in mercy quite as much as in a system of law and inevitability. Mercy and law appear from the human level to be distinct, antithetical. T h e full nature of God cannot be apprehended without both, else we have either a God of spine less sentiment or one of demonic grimness. But these aspects or forms of divine manifestation are two, or six, or seven, only from our human point of view. T h e complete mystic, Philo tells us, who rises beyond human limitations, comes finally to perceive how truly they are one in the Logos. Only the full mystic is the philosopher who really can apprehend the oneness of the Stream above its multiple functions and mani festations, just as the complete Platonist was one not who had had the Forms explained to him and had accepted them, but who had had the flash of intuition which enabled him to apprehend them. In an Introduction there can be no attempt at presenting Philo's ramifications of this basic idea of the O n e and its rela tion to the world. The details are indeed elaborate, often contradictory and confusing, but can be understood at all only if this general conception is borne in mind throughout. And the orientation of Philo's thinking with the different schools cannot be discussed adequately without consideration of the details. Platonism as it had been elaborated in Pythagorean schools or under continued Pythagorean influence seems the system which as a whole Philo most closely followed. God has taken the place of the Idea of the Good, and become, what Aristotle said Plato's Forms failed to present, the Moving Cause. How much this represents a change in Platonism from the way in which Plato himself taught it we shall never know unless we find more of

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Plato's Lecture on the Good. And how much Philo's Pythagoreanism comes from an elaboration of Platonism with Pytha gorean elements introduced into Platonism after Plato's death we shall likewise not know unless we get more of Plato's other lectures to the inner circle of the Academy. The elaborate use of Pythagorean number in the Timaeus suggests that such number speculation as Philo presents was by no means foreign to Plato's own thinking. T h e difficulty is that when we compare Philo with the Neo-Pythagorean fragments we are without any criterion to determine how much of what resembles Platonism in them has been brought into Pythagorean tradition from Plato's teaching, and how much of it is genuine early Pythagoreanism which Plato knew and was himself elaborating. Until this problem is solved, which has never been done, or even, so far as I know, seriously attacked, it will be impossible to determine what Philo took from each of these schools. The 'vast amount of Stoicism' which Colson rightly saw in Philo seems to me much more a matter of terminology and minor detail than anything which seriously affected Philo's main position. But since Colson himself admits that Philo opposed Stoic materialistic metaphysics and the 'kernel of Stoic ethics', it does not seem to me, in spite of the number of times we must turn to Stoicism in explaining Philo's language, that 'whether the Stoic outweighs the Platonist would be a difficult question to decide'. We shall see in the next chapter how Philo continues in the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition when he discusses man and ethics. W e keep ourselves in need less confusion in reading Philo if, for all our recognition of Stoic elements, we do not read him as one whose basic philo sophical outlook was that of the Platonists and Pythagoreans. 27

In the Introduction to his Loeb translation, I, xviii.

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IN the universe described in the last chapter, man has a unique place. He was created out of matter like the rest, but given something higher and immaterial. Here the biblical description of G o d breathing into man formed from the dust of the earth led with no difficulty to Greek theories that the mind or soul of man is an immediate presence of immaterial reality within him. In all of Philo's approach to purely philosophical problems there is great indifference to consistency. W e have seen that he can without difficulty present two utterly different theories of creation so long as both represent creation as the invasion of matter by the Logos from God. When Philo comes to describe man he is even more inconsistent. In the Appendix to my By Light, Light, I have traced the great variety of his descriptions of the human mind, and shown what even in Philo is a surprising jumble of contradictions. Into those details we need not go here. It is sufficient to say that Philo's basic point of view is again constant: that the human personality is a mixture (avyKpLfia), made up of a higher part, the mind, and a greater or less number of subsidiary, bodily, parts. He can follow the Platonic, the Aristotelian, or the Stoic formulation for those lower parts, but the higher principle is always kept in distinct isolation. Even at this point the student will at first be confused because, if the passages in which Philo discusses mind are put together, Philo will be found now to praise and now to disparage the human mind. O n the one hand the mind is a hopeless dupe of the senses. Before it came into the body it was blind, deaf, and impotent. It is earth-born and a lover of the body. Mind,

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from this point of view, depends upon the senses for all its data, has memory, produces impulses, but its conclusions are only opinion, not knowledge. In contrast Philo says in other passages that the mind is an extension (aTroWaoy^a) of God or the Logos, not a separated fragment, Tor no part of the divine existence is cut off into something separate, but only is extended'. That is, the mind in us is a direct ray in the Stream of divine radia tion. As such our own mind, when it classifies the divisions of creation, follows the creative process of the Logos itself. In mystic experience the same contradiction appears. In some passages the human mind seems in mysticism to be restored to its proper unity with the divine, and in others divinity comes as a beam of light from the outside which we cannot apprehend until the light of our own mind is extinguished. 1

Philo's contradictions on this point largely disappear when we recall that in Aristotle there was a distinction between two minds within us, a higher and a lower, and that Philo's remarks about the human mind no longer clash when what Philo says of the mind at any one time is referred to one or the other of these two minds. T h e conception is in any case not an obscure one. T h e nearest parallel for us is the modern popular distinc tion between our reason and our conscience. Reason, we popu larly believe, is a faculty by which sense perceptions, memories, and ideas received from others are blended in such a way that we come to conclusions through the processes described by logic. If this is now complicated by the addition of fixed ideas in the subconscious, and of the disruption of disinterested logical processes by emotions and desires, the picture is still largely the same. In contrast we popularly think that conscience is an immediate awareness of truth, especially in the realm of moral judgments. T h e two are so distinct that we can speak of reasoning with or against our conscience, as we might make formal protest or argument with another person. In the ancient world the higher mind which has survived with us as conscience was an apprehension of much more than moral imperative; 1

Heres, 235.

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it was the organ by which all metaphysical truth could ideally be comprehended, though it, like the modern conscience, could be, and usually was, dulled by neglect. Unfortunately we have no way to trace the idea of the double mind from Aristotle to Philo. Y e t it seems necessary to assume, if we are to believe that Philo would have been understood by his contemporaries, that they were so familiar with this idea of the double mind that they would have understood without difficulty the mind to which Philo was at any time referring. T h e double mind is something which had, I am sure, an important development in the hellenistic age. When these difficulties are past, Philo's ideas of psychology become much easier. T h e Stoic eightfold division of the soul into the ruling reason, the five senses, and the two powers of speech and generation; the Platonic division into reason, spirit or emotion, and desire; the Aristotelian division into the parts which are nourished, those which have sense perception, and those which reason; all these Philo can use interchangeably, guided largely by the numbers or details involved in a scriptural passage he may at the time be allegorizing. O r he may say that man consists of the body, sense perception, stomach and its pleasures, as well as the other aspects, in fact the human com posite as a whole. T h e soul appears to be now the higher mind, and now the principle of animation in matter which animals have as well as men: it is the mind which is the distinct pre rogative of man. M a n , then, is man because of his lower mind, but to a greater degree because of the presence of the Logosextension which is his higher mind. The personality, which Philo comes nearer to recognizing as a problem than any of the ancients, is not in the higher mind, but in the mixture, that is in the composite of bodily parts, soul, and mind. 2

We have ourselves, and all that goes to make these selves, as a loan. I, indeed, am a combination of soul and body, seeming to have in mind, reason (or speech) and sense perception, yet I a

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find that none of these is my own property. For where was my body before I was born, and whither will it go when I have died ? And what has become of the distinct life-periods of this 'self which appears to be a constant ? Where is the babe that once I was, the little boy, the strippling, the young adolescent, the youth, the young buck, the young man, and the adult? Whence came the soul and whither will it go, and how long will it live with us? Can we tell what is its essential nature? And when did we come to possess it? Before birth? But then we did not exist. After death ? But then we, who, in our junction with our bodies, are mixtures and have qualities, shall not exist, but shall push on into the rebirth, by which becoming joined to immaterial things, we shall become unmixed and without qualities. 3

Philo goes on directly to a further contrast between 'us' and our souls. T h e soul knows 'us' but 'we' do not know the soul. It commands, 'we' obey. It secures a divorce from us when it wishes and leaves 'our house' bereft of life. Its nature is so subtle that it gives the body no grip upon it. Philo was so anxious to deny the identity of the ego with the soul that he temporarily almost confuses the ego with the body. Yet his point is clear. T h e human personality on earth is a mixture, in which a soul, here a generic term for what would more accurately be called the higher mind, has become united to the body. Our personalities when babies are different from the same personalities when adult because the mixture is different. And it is clear that the personality which survives death can not be the earthly personality, for the immaterial part in us will then be joined to the immaterial, no longer to the material, and that will be a new birth, that is, a birth of a new person ality. W e shall see that through mystic experience Philo, like the Christians later, hoped to anticipate that experience while still joined to the body. With this in mind the 'new creature' of Christian experience becomes so freshly intelligible that I cannot believe a philosophy of the soul or mind similar to 4

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Cher., 1 1 3 f. * It is the higher mind in a parallel passage, Ebr., 1 0 1 ; cf. 144.

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Philo's did not lie behind many early Christian expressions. Since man is made up of such a variety of things, in which one element stands out in unique supremacy, Philo in one mood saw the purpose of life to be escape into rebirth in the immaterial, but more generally to be the acceptance of the fact of the mixture, and the domination of the lower elements by the higher. T h e two solutions were not opposed to each other in his mind, any more than they were in later Christianity. If Paul wanted, in Christian terminology, to crucify the flesh, and Philo wanted to escape from it, drown it in the Red Sea, both were talking of an experience after which they still had to carry the body, dead or alive, with them. A n d on no point is the thinking of the two so similar as on the ideal adjustment of the soul and body for one who has found the higher reality. T h e whole personality, which has been seen by various formulations to be always quite complex, was to Philo a city within itself, as it had been to Plato, and as, by implication, it was to Paul. Plato's elaborate approach to the subjective com monwealth through study of the civic commonwealth had be come so proverbial that later writers thought and spoke in terms of the parallel without any need of stating the comparison explicitly. Every man is made up of a great diversity of emo tions, desires, and senses, along with the mind or minds, and the problem is how to get them all to live together in peace. One solution is for the lower impulses to swamp the mind, so that a man becomes a helpless subject of their whims. This is a state of anarchy, in which there is no single principle of rulership. Almost as bad a state is tyranny, where the lower mind, the mind typified by Pharaoh in Egypt which looks only to ward material things, gives out laws by which virtue and truth are violated. T o all this the higher mind is an alien. As much a part of us' as any other, the higher mind is yet of totally different character, since it is an extension or presence of the immaterial in contrast to the material nature of our other parts. It alone has the power of making true order within us. Each part of our constitution, to be sure, has its own function c

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and proper objective. T h e law of the stomach is that it should nourish the body, and create the sensation of hunger when food is needed. Each bodily organ, the eye, the hand, the sexual member, the foot, has its proper contribution, and is destined by nature to certain activities. It is by Natural Law that each does its work and demands its recognition. Even the human, the lower, mind, we infer, though Philo does not speak of this directly, has its proper place and duty: obviously that duty is the direction of the sense impulses and functions through its power of co-ordination and memory. But the trouble is that while each member functions according to Natural Law, it has in itself no control. T h e stomach, the eyes, the sex organs, can, if allowed to go unchecked, throw all balance to the winds, and produce a glutton, a spineless esthete, or a sexual pervert. O r the lower mind can produce, if itself unchecked, a man of some balance in his physical life, but one still directed wholly to material gratification. Only one of our elements, the higher mind, has the power to produce a law or rulership which can bring true legal balance into the conflict of laws of our individual members. For just as in the universe the activities of each part have to be subordinated and controlled by a principle of universal law which is the immaterial Logos, so into man that Logos can bring the higher, the true, law through the extension of itself which is within him. One of the frequent names in Philo for that higher principle is 'Spirit' {irvevyLa), as well as Logos, and, because of the scriptural account of the 'breath' ( w c t ^ a ) of God given to man at creation, Philo often prefers to use the word Spirit when he speaks of the Logos in relation to man, how it comes in at inspiration, and abides in him as the higher mind. Hence Philo would fully have approved Paul's words: 'The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the flesh is enmity against G o d ; for 5

5

T h e identity of m-eC/ua and A o y w in this sense is made very clear in Opif., 1 3 5 , nvevtjui is elaborately the higher mind, the presence of God, in contrast to the 'mind which was made out of matter' in LA, I , 3 6 - 4 2 . See also Det., 83. 139. T h e

9

Il8

AN INTRODUCTION

TO PHILO

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it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.' The laws of the members, including the lower mind, conflict with the law of the higher mind or Spirit of God, that Spirit both as the universal law and as the highest principle in man. The only possible solution is that the higher mind conquer the lower members, not annihilate them, though their first defeat is so complete that they seem crucified or drowned in the sea. The permanent adjustment is not, during this life at least, disembodied existence, but complete regeneration, the goal which Paul called 'the redemption of the body', but which he more commonly, like Philo, called by the legal-ethical term, SiKaiovvvrj, or justice. This term with both men still has the meaning which Plato gave it in the Republic: namely, a perfect regimentation of the state, civic or subjective, by which the higher faculties are in command, and the lower members perform their functions freely and fully, but keep each to its own business according to the laws fixed by the proper gover nor. T h e law which would bring this true regimentation, for Philo as for Paul, could not possibly be the product of the mixed personality which is 'ourselves'. It must be the L a w of Nature, the Law of the Spirit, or the L a w of God, by whatever name it might be called at the moment, else we are 'seeking to establish our own justice, not subject to the justice of God'. Nothing distinguishes both thinkers more sharply from Stoic ethics than the refusal to build up the inner ethical harmony from within, to conquer the lower impulses by what of the higher we naturally have at birth. For we shall see that Philo, like Paul, despaired of achieving the end without a new union with the Universal Spirit: the fragment or extension within him was helpless against the forces of his lower nature unless it was freshly united and augmented in the divine Spirit or Logos as a whole. For this inner adjustment Philo has many names. He calls it peace, harmony, virtue, justice, salvation, and when he has 7

6

R o m . , V I I I , 6, 7.

7

R o m . , X , 3.

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special elements in mind he can give names of special virtues. O r he can in allegory personalize any specific virtue and discuss it as though it were the equivalent of the Logos or Sophia itself. Junction with this is that higher union by which the state of true virtue or justice is introduced into the soul. Virtue is for Philo. then, primarily an inner state, in which one lives guided by and in harmony with God and the Logos. When the lure of pleasure becomes seductive, Philo, like Socrates in the Symposium, urges: 'Look rather on the genuine beauty of Virtue, gaze on her steadfastly, till yearnings sink into thy marrow, and until, like a magnet, she draw thee on and bring thee nigh and bind thee fast to the object of thy desire.' This heavenly Virtue Philo represents elaborately in allegory in terms of Rebecca, who gives men to drink; that is, gives of her own beauty to men who come to her apart from sense perception. T h e figure begins as Virtue and soon be comes Sophia, but that is because the two are one, not only in the Socratic sense that virtue is knowledge, but in the mystical sense in which all particular names for the Stream from God blend as inextricably into one another as that Stream unites in itself all human distinctions of value. For the particular virtues, justice, intelligence, bravery, and self-control, the four Greek virtues with a fifth, piety, are subsumed in 'generic virtue', which 'was created after the analogy of the Logos of G o d ' , though the four rivers of Eden are the four particular (Greek) virtues, each of which is so beyond humanity that they all exist thus differentiated in the World of Forms which Eden represents. Indeed all earthly virtue is an imitation of heavenly Virtue which G o d has given to man. Growing as a plant in man, and synonymous with the Right Logos (6 6p66s \6yos), 8

9

10

11

1 2

8

This must be emphasized because Volker has quite misunderstood Philo's to be obedience to law and hence obedience to the Jewish code. Philo's posi tion is traditionally Greek, for with Aristotle dpenj is a His\ Eth. Nic., I I , 1 io6ai 1 1107327. Gig., 44. Post., 132-57. LA, I, 59 and frequently elsewhere. See LIESEGANG'S Index, 109, §4. LA, I, 65.

dpcTij

9

1 1 1 2

1 0

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virtue is like the sun which illuminates the dark places of the soul, and nothing can be more impious than to think—as the Stoics did—that virtue is an achievement of our own rather than a divine gift. Philo thus carries on the Platonic or Socratic idea that virtue is one, but like Plato, when he praises a single virtue, Philo is apt to subordinate the others to it in such a way that the single virtue itself seems to become generic virtue. Each is in turn the 'queen' of virtues, and often others beside the Greek four. So piety is the q u e e n , also faith. And the praises of justice which we have been considering are really a description of generic virtue considered from the point of view of justice. All this may seem to have little ethical value as we usually think of ethics. Justice is entirely a subjective state thus far, and virtue seems to be something man would achieve in the closet rather than the market place. T h e point is that Philo considered the external act the fruit of an internal state. Justice in acts toward one's fellow men grows out of inner justice. Not only in theory, but in burning fact, the whole of natural and human existence depends for its reality upon its connection with the immaterial. Hence Philo's scorn of Stoic self-righteoueness. Virtue begins not with the effort to treat other men justly, but with a sense of our weakness, a new and God-given regimenta tion of our inner lives, after which just acts will follow as a matter of course. T h e judge must be animate justice, and then give to men the divine justice in his soul. Philo did not at any point disregard the practice of justice. Virtue has its double aspect, the theoretical or mystical, and the practical. It is represented by the tree of life in Eden, which should grow in all our hearts as the dominant mind. It should produce fruit, like the tree, which is both 'good to look upon', that is, of mysti cal value (the Greek pun on OccoprjTLKrj is untranslatable), and 'good to eat', that is, fructifies in daily life. In this I think that 13

14

15

16

1 3

LA, I, 4 5 - 5 2 . Christianity soon used this same contrast in rejecting the righteousness of Jewish legalism. 1 4

Spec,

I V , 147.

1 8

Abr.,

270.

1 8

LA,

I, 5 6 - 5 8 .

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the Calvinistic scorn of the 'merely normal man has only exaggerated an idea that was central in the early Church, and likewise in Philo. Philo does not use the vivid Pauline expression that the virtues are 'fruits of the Spirit', but this allegory of the fruit of the tree of life is very close to it and indeed seems the same thing in Philo's more laboured and circuitous diction. Hitherto it would be extremely difficult to find vital parallels from Judaism for Philo's conception of virtue. True, many Jews, particularly the prophets, had made virtue a thing of the heart, not merely of act. But nothing in Jewish tradition had made virtue a thing in itself which, as Logos or Sophia, could become the dominant mind within man and introduce into his soul the divine order of Natural Law. Our ignorance of contemporary thought within the Mystery Religions and our almost complete dependence upon Plutarch for con temporary mystical philosophy make it impossible for us to estimate what Judaism has contributed to this view, but I cannot help feeling that the contribution was very great. T h e skeleton of Philo's thought is found complete in the NeoPythagorean fragments, which like Philo say that human virtue is the ruling of the lower members by the mind, and the attunement of the mind with the Right Logos of Nature, along with many other details of Philonic thought. But the mystical warmth of Philo is entirely lacking from their coldly analytic presentations. M u c h passion and devotion must have gone into the Mystery Religions, as Apuleius shows us; yet as our sources stand, Philo's vivid sense of God along with his theory, his passion for achievement of virtue within himself, cannot be reproduced from paganism. Philo's intellect seems to me en tirely hellenistic, as well as his formulation of the goal and of the path to the goal, but his fervour is prophetic Judaism still, the overwhelming sense that man is lost if he does not put him self into right relation with the divine. Unfortunately this Jewish feeling cannot be isolated and documented: into notes whose pitch and scale follow the Greek modes have come new 17

1 7

See m y By Light, Light, 4 0 3 - 1 3 .

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overtones and rhythm which make the song Jewish. Perception of the Jewish fervour must grow as one becomes better acquain ted with Philo. But it should not lead, as it occasionally has done, to deny reality to the Greek skeleton to which Judaism is now attached. For all the similarities between Philo and the Psalms, they differ as much as do Philo and the Neo-Pythagoreans. Philo is not one or the other, he is both, or a new thing made out of both, as, I am sure, was the whole tradition of Judaism in the Diaspora. T h e child may resemble the father and mother in this or that, but the child is a new personality who must be understood in himself, not as a mere combination of aspects of his parents. W e shall not have learned to read Philo until we learn that Philo's group was 'neither Jew nor Greek', but a new creature in being both, and in being probably itself unconscious of what it owed specifically to either parent. As Philo thought that any aspect in matter manifested the immaterial, so he regarded all special virtues in conduct as applications of the general principle, itself the only reality, of virtue. Accordingly when he came to the detailed laws of the Torah, he treated them from two points of view: first how they were all concrete applications of the general principle of law expressed in the Decalogue, which code itself was a formulation of Natural L a w ; and, secondly, how they likewise manifested the primary (Greek) virtues. That is, Philo throughout considered ethical conduct to be the counterpart of inner virtue; in it the Logos or Natural L a w is realized in the material world. W e can dismiss Philo's elaborate arguments to show the relation of Jewish L a w to Natural L a w on the ground that he is a Jew rationalizing and defending a loyalty quite antecendent to its justification : but such a dismissal is only half a truth. Philo has kept a practical loyalty to Jewish observance, and yet he has sacrificed every Jewish sanction of that observance to give a Greek sanction to the whole. This Philo may have done incidentally, as Volker thinks, but it does not seem to me to be so. T o the Greek scheme of social ethics he adapts his Judaism as completely as he made

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the Greek psychology and metaphysics the core of his personal ethics. It must throughout be remembered that Philo regarded virtue, even virtuous conduct, not merely as a social matter. He divides the Decalogue into two tables indicating the rela tions of man with God and with society respectively, and points out that while some men cultivate the love of God, and others the love of man, when anyone does either to the ex clusion of the other, he is only 'half perfect in his virtue', whereby virtue is clearly a term which includes all of a man's rela tions. T h e all-inclusive words for social ideals are justice and love of fellow man, faXavdpwTrla. Justice is a term which connects human conduct with the Law of Nature, for it is an expression of that Pythagorean ultimate principle, equality, Ivorr)?, on which all the distribution of creation, especially in the sense of proportional equality, is based. Justice in society is equality in the sense of giving to each man his due. T o a superior person this means the gift of power and wealth to which the inferior soul cannot without impertinence aspire. T h e wise are the natural rulers of the human race, and only when they rule can man hope for a happy society. Justice or equality puts the man of lower gifts in a lower station, while to the truly slavish minds the best thing that can come is slavery, since slavery in a way trains t h e m . This is all a matter of equality, the giving to each man what is his due. But the criterion is still the inner one. In his essay On Nobility Philo points out that true nobility, by which man should expect prestige and rewards in society, by no means consists in what possessions a man actually has, or in his inheritance. Nothing is noble but the noble soul. Philo has many beautiful passages in praise of i\av$pwma love or kindliness to one's fellows. W e cannot doubt his sin cerity in these passages. He certainly reflects the Jewish coup18

19

20

9

1 8

DecaL, 1 0 8 - 1 0 . Virt., 209. F . G E I G E R , Philon von Alexandria als sozialer Denker (Stuttgart, 1932), 75, n. 256, compares this especially with Aristotle. Immut., 64. 1 9

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ling of love of God with love of man when he calls the latter 'the twin sister of piety', 'the plain and level road leading to holiness'. But it must frankly be admitted that Philo shows no great humanitarian passion, at least in his remarks on slaves and slavery. Philo accepts slavery without any protest. T h e Jewish slave is marked for very special treatment. Not only is he to be liberated after seven years, and with gifts to allow him a fresh start as a free man, according to biblical law, but he must be treated throughout his period of servitude rather as a hired servant than as a slave. O f gentile slaves Philo has little to say except that one will get more out of them if one treats them well than if one abuses them. It is a thoroughly immoral man who will treat his slaves like c a t t l e . But Philo has throughout the typical attitude of a slave owner. Masters are not to become too dependent upon slaves, to the point that they are helpless in an emergency without slaves' attendance. 21

22

23

Let so-called masters therefore cease from imposing upon their slaves severe and scarcely endurable orders, which break down their bodies by violent usage, and force the soul to collapse before the body. You need not grudge to moderate your orders. The result will be that you yourselves will enjoy proper atten tion, and that your servants will carry out your orders readily and accept their duties not merely for a short time to be abandoned through their wearing out too quickly, and indeed, we may say, as if old age had prematurely overtaken them in their labours. On the contrary, they will prolong their youth to the utmost, like athletes. 24

After he has spoken of the consideration a master must show a Jew who has become his slave seven years for debt. Philo adds: But the law permits the acquisition of slaves from other nations for two reasons: first that a distinction should be made between fellow-countrymen and aliens; secondly, that that most 3 1

VirUy 5 1 .

2 2

Virt.y 1 7 3 .

2 3

Spec., I I , 67 f.

2 4

Spec,

I I , 90 f.

THE


125

indispensable possession, domestic service, should not be ex cluded from his commonwealth. For the course of life contains a vast number of circumstances which demand the ministra tions of slaves. 25

Philo has little patience with the brutal slave driver, and supports the Jewish law that a master who kills his slave shall himself be executed. But he will give every benefit of doubt to the master, and plays up especially the biblical law which exonerates the master if a slave live two days after a flogging. The basis of this law, Philo argues, is that a master has himself lost property in the death of a slave, and so the presumption is that the master would not wish to kill him. Philo says: 26

And it is true that anyone who kills a slave injures himself far more (noXv irpor^pov iavrov j8Aa77T€i), as he deprives himself of the service which he receives when the slave is alive and loses his value as a piece of property, which may possibly be very con siderable. 27

For the law that a master who knocks out the eye or tooth of a slave must set the slave at liberty, Philo has no appeal to ethics: such a law clearly did not reflect his general attitude to slaves. Philo must defend these particular provisions, since they appear in the Bible, but can do so only on the basis of elaborate allegory of the eye or tooth as metaphysical symbols, and he conspicuously does not suggest that these laws are principles which restrict the general right of a master to abuse a slave in other ways if he wishes. He thinks corporal punishment of slaves quite a part of the institution, for he points out that bad slaves impose upon the gentleness of good masters, and need to be given the medicine of punishment, and at such times 28

29

26

2

Spec, I I , 123. « Spec., I l l , 1 3 7 - 4 1 . Spec, I I I , 143. This statement of Philo has a definite precedent in A R I S T O T L E , Eth. Mc, V , 113409 ff.: 'Injustice cannot exist in a man's relations with what is absolutely his own, like a slave or a child (until the child has reached a certain age and become a n independent being), since these are parts of the man himself, and no one chooses deliberately to injure himself (afodv . . . p A d r r m v = Philo's iavrdv P\dlTT€t). Spec, I I I , 184-204. Som., I I , 294 f. 2 7

2 8

2 9

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their slavish nature will appear in their abject submission to the r o d . What a slave in ancient society could do but yield, at least in appearance, Philo does not stop to consider. When Philo is discussing at length the fact that the Jewish laws teach men gentleness and love of one's fellows, he devotes less than a fifth as much space to humanity to slaves as he does to kindness to animals. In praising love of fellow men Philo was obviously thinking of his fellows by no means in the modern ideal sense of the term. This it would be unfair to expect. A man of his age, a rich man of his age, he expresses the spirit of one who, by the criteria of slave owners themselves, would have been a good master of slaves. But the idea of the general brotherhood of man in the Logos, which some of Philo's contemporaries were preaching, and which soon, as brotherhood in God or Christ, was to get fresh emphasis, does not appear. Philo lays great stress upon the sanctity of the family, but displays a low opinion of women throughout. In this he shows his popular rather than Greek philosophical background, for Plato and the Stoics alike had been emphasizing the equal value of w o m e n . His remarks about the conduct of women reflect the restrictions of contemporary society. Women are to be kept in the interior parts of the house, allowed out only under the most favourable conditions. They are supreme in matters of household management, and only there. 'In nature men take precedence over women.' 'The female is incomplete and in subjection, and belongs to the category of the passive rather than the active.' I have pointed out elsewhere that Philo's remarks about women's activity in society much re semble those of Phintys, a Pythagorean woman philosopher, but I missed the fact that while she, like the best Greek philo sophers on whom Philo usually drew, says that a woman may 30

31

32

33

34

35

3 0

LA, I I I , 201 f. Virt., 1 2 1 - 4 ; cf. on humanity to animals, 1 2 5 - 4 7 ; and, on humanity to the vegetable world, 148-60. Geiger, pp. 42 f. Spec, II, 124. Spec, I, 200. Jurisprudence, 130 f. 3 1

3 2

3 5

3 3

3 4

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and should have virtues of mind and body like a man, Philo throughout identifies woman with weakness, incompleteness, and actual sin. Sexual relations Philo permits only for the sake of begetting children. 'They are pleasure-lovers when they mate with their wives, not to procreate children and perpetuate the race, but like pigs and goats in quest of the enjoyment which such inter course gives.' Divorce may apparently be had on several grounds, but Philo does not specify them. If a woman is barren she ought properly to be divorced, since intercourse with her can produce no children; but a man who does not divorce a woman whom he married as a virgin and has loved for years, even though she has proved barren, must be excused if he cannot bring himself to do so. T h e only mention of a woman's right to divorce a husband is in case a husband brings false accusation that on marrying her he found her not a virgin. The man loses his right to divorce on any ground after such action if she chooses to continue to live with him, but she is free to leave him if she will. As to children, Philo relaxes in no sense the complete power of parents over children expressed in the O l d Testament. It would have been strange had he done so, since the Romans likewise, if not even more than the Jews, gave the father un restricted dominion. Philo sanctifies the duty of filial obedience by bringing from the Greeks the notion that the parent's relation is that of God to the child. This he argues from the analogy that God's pre-eminence in the universe is based on God's having created it, and so the father is God to the c h i l d . But on one point he opposes the ideas of gentile civilization sharply: he joins the protest which all Jews were making against the exposure of undesired children. Philo's words are beautifully eloquent, picturing the helpless infants being slain, or torn by beasts, and, far from regarding the killing of children 36

37

38

39

40

3 6

3 7

4 0

Spec, I I I , 1 1 3 . Spec. I l l , 30. Spec, See Geiger, pp. 4 4 - 4 6 . 8 8

III, 35.

Jurisprudence,

98; Spec., I l l , 7 9 - 8 2 .

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as blameless, he thinks that their very innocence makes infanticide much worse than the killing of an a d u l t . We get Philo's ideas of justice in society more by inference from his remarks on the penalties for various crimes than from any direct discussion. It is clear that he would have penalties carry out the cosmic principle of proportional equality, to each thing according to its due. 41

It is right to reproach those who impose penalties which are not equivalents of the offences, such as a penalty in goods for assault, or public stigma for wounding or mutilating some one, or banishment from the country and perpetual exile for deliberate murder, or imprisonment for theft. For any element of inconsistency or inequality is opposed to the constitution which has truth for its ideal. But our law, which is the exponent of equality, commands that those who do wrong shall suffer in the same way as those whom they have injured. That is, if they have done wrong in respect to the property of their neighbours they must be punished in property; if they have committed offence against a neighbour's body, in any of its parts, sections, or sensory organs, they must be punished in body; but if they have gone so far as to plot against life, the law commands that they shall be punished with their lives. For it would mean not the confirmation, but the destruction, of law if one thing which has nothing in common with another thing, but belongs to a remote category, should suffer for that other thing, and this we say when there are no complicating circumstances: for it is not the same thing at all to inflict blows upon an ordinary person as upon one's father; or to revile a public officer and a private citizen; or to do a forbidden thing upon profane ground as to do it on sacred ground; or to offend during a festival or a religious assembly or a public sacrifice, as on a day when none of these holiday provisions applies, or on a quite ordinary day. All these matters must be taken into con sideration in augmenting or diminishing the punishment. 42

43

This passage I have shown elsewhere to be largely a criti cism of Greek penology, while it is a very clever expansion of 4 1

4 2

Jurisprudence, 1 1 5 f.; Geiger, pp. 46-49. Spec, I I I , 1 8 1 - 3 .

4 3

Jurisprudence, 1 3 5 - 4 2 .

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the Lex Talionis, the 'eye for an eye', of Scripture. Philo also stresses the fact that only the guilty may pay the penalty of crime, as over against the general custom of punishing the whole family of a serious offender. Philo also emphasizes the duty of gentleness and humanity to enemies; the remarks are undoubtedly on a higher ethical plane than most current practice, but are far from ideal. Enemy states are to be approached first with invitations to peace: one's own state may thus make a friend; it will have justice on its side, and be stronger to attack, if the overture is rejected. A woman prisoner of war is to be allowed a month of mourning before her captor uses her sexually. He is to treat her as honourably as he does a wife, and if he tires of her he is to set her free, not sell her. O n e does a kindness to one's enemy, such as returning a straying beast of his, in the hope of winning the enemy to friendship, for only on the basis of friendship can humanity hope to be happy. 'But up to the present', he shrugs his shoulders, 'such recommendations are only pious wishes'. Where does all this lead us? Clearly Philo had a strong sense ofjustice in society, and was anxious that human relations be tempered with loving-kindness. 44

45

May not our passionate affection well go out to laws charged with such kindly feeling, which teach the rich to give liberally and share what they have with others and encourage the poor not to be always dancing attendance upon the houses of the wealthy. 46

Philo's alternation between statements of complete friendli ness to man as man, and what clearly expresses the attitude of a man of wealth and position of his day, recalls his vacillation on other points such as the value of the material world itself. I cannot help feeling that Philo cultivated so much the inner ethic that, for all his obvious kindliness in spirit, social ethics had not ever so deeply interested him. Should we seek to find in the medley of life one who is perfectly just or wise or temperate or good as a whole ? Be satisfied, if you 4 4

Virt.

y

109-14, 150-4.

4 5

Virt., 120.

4 6

Spec,

I I , 107.

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do but find onewho is not unjust, is not licentious, is not cowardly, is not altogether evil. We may be content with the overthrow of the vices; the complete acquisition of the virtues is impossible for man in his present state. We should indeed pray that our course may lie amid the virtues collectively; but if this be too great for human nature let us be content if it be granted one of us to have a share in some one of the particular virtues, self-control or bravery or justice or humanity. 47

48

That is, in his praise ofjustice Philo was undoubtedly sincere. He believed that in justice and kindness to our fellows lay the essential meaning of the laws of both nature and Judaism in so far as social relations are concerned. But he did not go into Jewish casuistry in the best sense of the Talmud, or criticize the accepted canons of his class. He was not an ethical Utopian who expected more than was reasonably possible from human nature. His idealism, like the idealism of the pagan world, was turning increasingly inward as society became less and less hopeful. Philo's ethics are further disappointing, to thoughtful Jews as well as to gentiles, because they are so clearly dualistic, one ethic for the Jew with Jews, and another for the Jew with gentiles. This has already appeared in the complete contrast of tone Philo reveals when he turns to the gentile slaves after he has discussed the Jew who was in temporary slavery for debt. The question of property brings out this distinction also. Property is only a loan from God to man. All property should be regarded in this sense and no man should develop a sense of superiority because of wealth. 49

Let not the rich man collect in his house vast quantities of silver and gold, and store them up, but let him bring them for ward freely in order by his cheerful bounty to soften the hard condition of the poor; nor let any man who is of high social 4 7 4 9

MuU, 50. Mut., 225. Geiger, p p . 30 f., has a fine collection of passages to this point. 4 8

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position exalt himself and swagger boastfully, but let him honour equality and give a share of freedom of speech to the lowly. 50

This means that we should lend with open hand and willing mind to our brothers, and without a charge for interest, but here Philo holds sharply to the original text: he makes the law apply only to brother Jews. W e should not lend on interest because the recipient's gratitude is adequate interest, and because the lender will also have gained in kindness, public spirit (KOLVCOVICL), magnanimity, a fine reputation, and glory, and will have built up virtue in his own soul. Another passage makes it seem all the more likely that Philo had no intention of apply ing to gentiles this reasoning about interest. In the fine biblical commands to be kind to aliens, the Hebrew word for 'sojourners' was translated in the Septuagint 7rpoarjXvTOL, or possibly in Philo's text the equivalent A n J A i m u , which Philo interpreted in the new sense of'proselytes'. That is, Philo makes the law apply to those who had left polytheism and come 'by a beautiful migration' to the worship of the true God. T h e law means, then, that proselytes are not to be dis tinguished against in Jewish society: the general obligation of kindness to one's gentile neighbour, which the Torah certainly intended, has been explained away. T h e law that the Israelites shall not curse the Egyptian since the Egyptian allowed the Jew to dwell in his l a n d is one which Philo says goes beyond the limits of equity. There is a sharp contemporary ring in his treatment of the problem. T h e Egyptians have never ceased, he says, to heap new inhumanities upon old ones. Philo inter prets the law with no generalization for treating the vile and spiteful Egyptians with love. He says that if an Egyptian wants 51

52

53

54

5 0

Spec, I V , 7 4 ; cf. Virt., 1 6 6 - 7 4 . Virt., 83, 84. See Geiger, p p . 3 2 - 3 5 . Spec, I I , 1 2 2 - 3 . Lev. X I X , 33, 3 4 ; Deut. X , 1 9 ; Virt., 102-4. This m a y have been a general contemporary change for which Philo himself was not responsible. T h e Hebrew root took on the meaning 'proselytize' in Aramaic (see B R O W N , D R I V E R and BRIGGS, S.V. *73) • 5 1

5 2

5 3

5 4

Deut. X X I I I , 7, 8.

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to be converted to Judaism he is not to be treated as an enemy, but at the third generation he is to be allowed to attend the synagogue and hear the Scriptures. T h e biblical command gave admission into the temple to the third generation. By making it admission to the synagogue Philo has practically excluded Egyptian converts. He obviously did not want them. Philo's lack of ethical idealism and passion is felt no less by a Talmudist than by a follower of Jesus. There has been a good deal of remark upon Philo's ethics, but little close study of it. Geiger has recognized that Philo's loyalty to the Jewish group made him unable to do more than Up service to the Stoic ideal of humanity, while long ago one of the most penetrating students of Philo, Z . Frankel the Talmudist, pointed out the inferiority of Philo's Jewish particularism to the general humanitarianism of the Talmudic tradition. In treating Philo's ethics E . Brehier has, as so often, indicated Philo's basic contribution. This contribution was not a finer ethical code, or deep ethical penetration, but the association of the higher mind of man with immediate apprehension of eternal Right, the L a w of Nature, by whatever term it might be called, as a result of which in Philo the higher mind became conscience for the first time. In bringing out this point it seems to me that Brehier has been less than just to the inwardness of Stoic ethic, which Geiger recognized, and which had gone a long way toward conscience, while he has quite disregarded, and Geiger after him, the still greater subjectivity of Pythagorean ethic with which Philo seems to me most closely akin. But Philo does show the identity of the guiding law of human conduct with the guiding and ultimate datum of mystical experience, the Logos, in a way which seems to me the product of hellen istic Judaism. For here the sense of the ethical absolute and 55

56

57

58

5 5

5 6

Virt., 105-8. Op. cit., 1 1 2 f. In his essay, still the best on Philo's ethics: 'Zur Ethik des judisch-alexandrinischen Philosophen Philo,' Monatsschrift fur die Geschichte und Wissenschqft des Judentums, X V I (1867), 2 4 1 - 5 2 , 2 8 1 - 9 7 . Les Idies philosophique et religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1908 or 1925), 251, 2 9 6 - 3 1 0 . 5 7

5 8

T H E P H I L O S O P H E R : MAN A N D E T H I C S

133

imperative which the Jew had from the Torah gave even his mystical thinking a concreteness and vividness which pagan aspiration for conformity to the L a w of Nature had lacked, and which it had to have before the higher mind could become what we, and Philo, call conscience. Still, Philo's basic desire was primarily for inner adjustment, inner harmony, inner victory, and only secondarily for social righteousness. Philo's political activity for Jews must not confuse us about the fact that his ethics came from a rapidly growing ascetic view of society, in which external problems were fading into insigni ficance as the problems of a man within himself, and of man with God, increasingly monopolized attention. It was no acci dent that as the Christians became increasingly hellenized, more developed in their power to spiritualize and formalize their religious experience, more responsive to the ethical ideals of the hellenistic world, Christian ethic became increasingly a matter of the inner man, or personal salvation, inner beauty expressed, to be sure, in deeds of kindness, and less a passion for social justice, or impulse to basic and general humanitarianism.

10

CHAPTER VII

THE

MYSTIC

W E have seen that to Philo the real was the immaterial, and that life for society and the individual alike took on reality in proportion as it became more filled with and imitative of the immaterial. T o this conclusion Plato had come. T h e next question which the man, if not the philosopher, must imme diately ask is how we are to make more vital and conscious our relation with immaterial reality. T o this all Philo's philoso phical remarks are subordinated. It was pointed out that he was not interested in philosophy as an end in itself. His philoso phical position is not elaborated with such an interest in pro ducing a coherent account as we associate with philosophers, but must be pieced together from disjointed and passing allusions which frequently contradict one another. T h e reality of the immaterial, the relative unreality of the material, this he assumes but does not argue. He frequently alludes to God and the Powers, and occasionally describes them, but never co-ordinates them systematically with theories of creation. He wants not to demonstrate that the immaterial is the only reality, but to experience that reality. If man's higher mind must somehow win the struggle against the lower members, and orient man in G o d and not in the world, how is this to be accomplished ? Plato's answer had been that the only hope was correct education. T h e uneducable mass he would train in useful tasks and in compliance with the guidance of the community's better minds. T o the intelligent minority he would give a most comprehensive discipline in the sciences of the day, particularly in mathematics; this would be succeeded by a rigid questioning

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*35

of all hypotheses, until to some there would come a higher flash of perception which revealed the world of Forms, and ultimately the supreme Form from which all lesser ones sub tended. People with such insight would then learn from ex perience in state and army to integrate their higher knowledge with social life, and to those who coupled the supreme vision with marked skill in practical adjustments would be committed responsibility for the state. U p to a point Philo accepted this programme, at least to the extent that he considered the exact sciences the proper intro duction to metaphysics, and that for the ordinary man who could not hope to have the higher vision the guide was the formal precept of law. Again and again he stresses the value of the encyclical studies; that is, the scientific education of the day. All men except such as Isaac and Moses must begin with them. They not only prepare us for true knowledge, but also give a rudimentary and highly valuable introduction to the virtues: grammar leads to vo-qois, knowledge; music to rhythm and concord; mathematics to justice; rhetoric and dialectic to true perception and deduction. But these studies are milk for spiritual babes, and are good, like childhood itself, only as a stage to pass through. When one remains in them, one remains in the material, since all these studies are based upon sensory observations, and hence they are earthly, not heavenly. With the school discipline the soul cannot mate in the full sense; repeatedly Philo brings in the allegory of Abraham who first has relations with his concubine, Hagar, the introductory studies, and produces Ishmael, the sophist or pedagogue. These must be banished when the soul rises to appropriate the 1

2

3

4

5

1

C O L S O N has a good collection of typical passages on the encyclical studies in his translation of Philo, I , xvi f. Congr., 1 5 - 1 8 ; cf. Cher., 1 0 1 - 5 ; Agr., 9, 18. Congr., 19. By a peculiar misunderstanding of the effect of suckers on a tree, it is once represented that the encyclical studies are suckers whose function it is to nourish the young tree, later to be trimmed a w a y : Agr., 18. Congr., 20 f. All of this is entirely in the spirit of the seventh book of P L A T O ' S Republic. *Cher.,8;Sobr., 8. 2 3

4

I36

AN INTRODUCTION

TO PHILO

JUDAEUS

true knowledge and virtue, as Ishmael and Hagar had to be sent out from the presence of the fully developed Abraham and Sarah. Sarah, heavenly Sophia or Wisdom, has herself urged Hagar, the school studies, upon Abraham in the early stages, but Abraham had later to divorce her to come into the higher life. Philo seems to me to be saying in his figurative way what we have been saying very much during the last years, that attention to, and development of, scientific knowledge is no guarantee, to say the least, of increase in our spiritual growth or perception. Plato had still unbounded faith that a study of mathematics and astronomy would lead any properly endowed person to perceive the spiritual realities of justice, courage, beauty, and the good. In the centuries between Plato and Philo, when the greatest flowering of exact science occurred which the world ever saw until very recent times, the 'pure' mathe matician or physicist had first appeared; that is, the man who gives his life to study everything about mathematics or physics except their spiritual implications. And I am sure that Philo was again putting into Judaism a protest which was widespread among Greeks, that, for the development of the soul, studies which could be of great introductory value become impediments when they are made ends in themselves. T h e hellenistic world had no spiritual leaders among its scientists, so that the cleft between religion and science had begun. A century after Philo, Justin Martyr, who was still looking for Truth from philosophic schools, found that the Pythagoreans were continuing to insist upon the encyclical studies for admission to their group, but that the Platonists had abandoned such prerequisite altogether. Plato's programme had proved itself a fallacy. Material things seduce the scientist no less than the sybarite, though in so different a way. Factual knowledge, even factual ingenuity, must still be Hagar to Abraham. T h e great soul which finds reality must be more than a scholar. The failure of the hellenistic scientist to be a spiritual leader resulted, I have said, in the beginning of the chasm between religion and science. In spite of the fact that Philo still knew

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and loved science, he belongs with the religious group. In the hellenistic world something momentous had occurred, of which we can see only the result, since records of the process itself are lost. T h e dream of ordinary men was taken into philosophic religion, the dream of revelation and of the possibility of assimi lating man with the immaterial by means of God-given rites. The pure philosophers seem to have kept to the abstract idea rather than the concrete rite. T h e philosophers sought to ex perience the immaterial immediately in a process of contempla tion, by which the material aspect of man faded into insignifi cance, then into complete nonentity, as the liberated soul rose, the pure into the Pure. T o Plotinus a century and a half after Philo, this was sufficient: objective revelations, myths, and sacraments played no part, apparently, in his life. W e have no record that any people in Philo's time contented themselves with so abstract an approach to reality, though some of the Neo-Pythagorean fragments may have come from men of such a type. It is safe to assume that Plutarch, a few years after Philo, was more generally typical of his own and of Philo's generation, just as he was more typical of Plotinus' own contemporaries: for he supplemented the purely abstract with a philosophic interpretation of the Mystery Religions and their rites, so that one did not go out alone into the Alone, but was led into the eternal by Isis, Dionysus, or some other saving god, as one was initiated and shared in the celebrations. T h e saving god was himself, or herself, for that purpose identified with the philo sophical Logos or Sophia. This was the paganism which Julian the Apostate tried to keep alive. Plato had thought that his philosophy was a mystery in the truest sense, the thing toward which the popular mysteries were groping. In apprehending immaterial reality he entered not a 'figurative' mystery but the only true mystery, compared with which 'carrying the thyrsus' was in itself a meaningless farce. M a n y other philosophers had apparently had the same notion. T h e people of the hellenistic age, who had failed to discover, like Plato, immaterial reality through scientific discipline, had combined the Platonic mys-

I38

AN INTRODUCTION

TO PHILO

JUDAEUS

tery with the popular mystery: by allegory they made the myths of the gods into cryptic revelations of metaphysical real ity, and the ceremonies into sacraments of the immaterial. The myth vivified the abstract by personalizing it, so that the coming of Dionysus or Osiris was the coming of the Logos or Sophia in its immaterial power. T h e rites presented the acts and sufferings of the saving god in such a way that through the rite the initiate might take the divine Stream into himself in a convincing way. Dialectic had been too hard a road. T h e revelation and impartation of eternal reality through a per sonal saving deity and mystic rite took the place of dialectic to attain an end which was still described in Platonic terms. O f course every initiate into Isis or Dionysus did not understand in it what Plutarch did. T h e contrast between the immediately 'magical* and the truly mystical, to judge from our divergent sources, was as great in those days as it has always been on the varied levels of mystic perception in the taking of Christian sacraments. Yet, for high or low in perception, the eternal was made accessible in mystic rite. T h e Graeco-Roman world became fascinated with this conception. M e n looked everywhere for new myths and rites, new to them but, if they were to have any value, age old in their original homes, because it was believed that the truth about the eternally real was contained in the stories the ancients had taught their children, if only men could understand the stories; that is, allegorize them correctly. Story, allegorized, and religious rite, also allegorized, went together. O u t of them, and through them, man could get that measure of the eternally true immateriality which would ennoble life and banish any significance from death. This was true mystery in the ancient world for thoughtful men. Some, I have said, could get on without rites altogether; most of them needed the rites, the myths, and the saviours. But from Plato to Proclus, for thought ful men 'true' mystery meant the miraculous elevation of the soul through its assimilation of and by the immaterial, though most men needed the myth and the rite to assist in the great

T H E

M Y S T I C

l

39

transition, and though for probably the great majority what was found was not the 'immaterial' but only the superhuman. The term 'mystery' became as multifarious in its ancient usage as the term 'science' today. Yet this meaning I have defined seems the common denominator in all its applications. T o a Jew as impressed by Greek ideas as was Philo, this con ception of mystery appealed with irresistible force. Associated from ancient times with philosophy, in spite of its old and continuous use for pagan rites which the Jews detested, the idea of mystery belonged to no specific rites. It was being freely associated in Philo's day with new importations, and had become a type of thought which was quite as transferable to Judaism as to any other traditional religion. T h e basic elements in the transformation of a traditional myth and cultus into a mystery were twofold: the traditional myth was allegorized into a story of the saving approach of divinity to humanity, of the breaking down by divine act of the barrier between the immaterial and the material: the traditional rite became a representation in matter of the divine life and being, so that immaterial reality, the only true reality, became accessible for man increasingly to appropriate it. Philo and his group could make this same transformation in Judaism without ever once violating the Jewish principle of refusing to share in pagan rites. H e could, as we have seen, accept the whole idea of kingship, the king a superhuman being linking man and God, could insist that Moses had taught the doctrine, that Moses and Joseph had exemplified it as no pagan had done, so long as the Jew did not have to share in the pagan cultus of the king. Similarly he could accept the idea that man's salvation was the mystic approach to immaterial reality so long as he could scorn 6

6

There is little point in listing the variant usages of the term. O f course mystery was essentially the teydntva a n d 6pd>txevafora great m a n y men. But those w h o have opposed m y use of the term mystery may be interested to know of one scholar w h o told m e that after he h a d resisted m y conception for several years he took Liddell and Scott and looked u p the actual usages of such words as tivortptav. rcM

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