the Letter, where they were similarly described as having \u201cnot only mastered the Jewish literature, but had made a serious study of that of the Greeks as well\u201d (Let. Aris. 121).
\n2:33. When they arrived, they were offered hospitality and \u2026 requited their entertainer with a feast of words full of wit and weight Philo abbreviates here the longest scene in the Letter of Aristeas, which describes the symposium to which the translators had been invited with all the questions and answers on that occasion (Let. Aris. 172\u2013300). Philo obviously considers that account as too long and distracting from the main theme, namely the translation itself. For him, it is important to note that the translators showed themselves to be witty and serious. The Jews thus emerge as requiting the material wealth of the Greeks by spiritual nourishment.
\n2:34. the laws given by the Voice of God \u2026 but must keep the original form and shape The demand to preserve a text as received characterizes canonical texts as distinct from regular literary works. The first canonical formulations of the Jewish Scriptures have come down to us from the Jewish Hellenistic writers rather than from authors in the Land of Israel. Indeed, while the latter still used different versions of biblical verses and freely paraphrased Scripture up until the Rabbinic period, Alexandrian Jews had early become aware of the need to preserve the text of the Jewish Scriptures in an appropriately scholarly fashion.
\nit was full of every kind of living creatures and consequently the prevalence of diseases and deaths This choice of a place away from the hustle of the city life resonates well with Philo\u2019s detailed account of the Essenes and the Therapeutae, two groups of Jewish philosophers, one situated on the shore of the Dead Sea and usually identified with Qumran, the other on the Mareotic Lake near Alexandria.
\n2:35. In front of Alexandria lies the island of Pharos This reference to Pharos is clearly directed toward a Roman audience, who would require an explanation where exactly the island is situated. Alexandrian readers, by contrast, hardly needed such a reminder. Moreover, Philo adds the name of Pharos, not mentioned in the Letter, because he counts on its popularity in the Imperial capital. The lighthouse on Pharos was indeed praised by Roman writers as one of the wonders of the world and appeared on Roman coins and sarcophagi.
\n2:36. asking of God that they might not fail in their purpose Philo again invokes divine providence as a framework for the translation.
\n2:37. they became as it were possessed, and under inspiration, wrote \u2026 but the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter Philo introduces the notion of the translators\u2019 \u201cprophetic inspiration\u201d and \u201cdivine possession,\u201d thus dramatically changing the message of the Letter of Aristeas (Let. Aris. 302). Aristeas assumes that each translator wrote his own individual translation, which needed to be accommodated to that of his colleagues. Human work made possible the \u201caccord\u201d of efforts registered by the librarian. Philo inverses this image of cooperation, stressing that \u201cnot each scribe [wrote] something different.\u201d Being directed by God, they miraculously produced identical translations, which attest to the perfect nature of the translation itself. In Christian circles the story of the miracle quickly became popular. Approximately a century later Irenaeus gives this account: \u201cThe king, desiring to make trial of them privily, and fearing lest by some mutual covenant they might through their translation conceal the truth contained in Scripture, separated them from each other and commanded the whole company to translate the same portion of Scripture; and this he did with all the books. Now when they were assembled together in Ptolemy\u2019s presence and compared every man his translation (with his neighbor\u2019s), God was glorified, and the Scriptures were recognized as indeed divine, in that they had all expressed the same things by the same phrases and the same words from beginning to end, insomuch that even the Gentiles who were present perceived that the Scriptures had been translated through inspiration by God (Adv. Haer. 3.21.2).\u201d This earliest Christian account of the miracle of the translation implies some animosity toward the Jews. The motif of the miracle is used here to counter the Jews\u2019 wish \u201cto conceal the truth,\u201d a claim we often find in Justin Martyr (2nd century CE). While the Christians relied on the LXX, Jews of the Land of Israel naturally had access to the Hebrew original and often accused the Christians of ignorance and inaccuracy. Philo\u2019s shift of focus from the librarian Demetrius to King Ptolemy is used here for new purposes: the Hellenistic king is enlisted on the side of the Christians, helping to protect them against \u201cthe mutual covenant\u201d of the Jews. The Rabbis also encountered the story of the miraculous translation even though there is no evidence that they read any of the previously mentioned stories in their Greek original. Their version is sufficiently general to warrant the assumption that they had heard the story, probably in their encounters with Christians. While the earliest Rabbinic sources only mention \u201cthe things which they wrote for King Ptolemy,\u201d registering cases of difference between the Hebrew original and the Greek translation, later references in the Babylonian Talmud speak about God who \u201cput wisdom in the heart of each [translator] and they all agreed of one accord.\u201d Parallel to the Christian tradition, this divinely prompted accord is appreciated in light of the fact that the translators had been separated and worked in 72 different \u201chouses.\u201d The Rabbinic tradition furthermore responds to Christian claims about Jewish concealment of the biblical truth. Listing the differences between the Hebrew and the Greek versions under the rubric of divinely inspired translation, the Rabbis inverse the Christian rhetoric and argue that God is on their rather than on the Christian side.
\n2:38. Yet who does not know that every language, and Greek especially, \u2026 suiting the expression to the occasion? Philo problematizes the accuracy of a translation, highlighting the inherent gap between the thing named and its possibly multiple names. In the spirit of Aristotle he points also to the adaptability of names: expressions can be suited to the occasion. This fluidity implies the importance of historical context and social convention. Philo\u2019s Roman readers, used to translations from Greek sources in their own culture, would have been sensitive to such problems and can be expected to have appreciated Philo\u2019s thoughtful comments on the matter.
\nthe Greek words used corresponded literally with the Chaldean, exactly suited to the things they indicated Philo invokes Stoic notions of language according to which the name of a thing expresses the inherent nature of that thing. Assuming that the name of a god, for example, contains the key to understanding his or her nature, the Stoics inquired into the root meanings of the names and discovered hidden features of their gods. Philo uses this notion of language to explain how it is possible that the Greek translation of the Bible precisely corresponds to the Hebrew original. He suggests that both languages authentically reflect the nature of each thing named.
\n2:40. if Chaldeans have learned Greek, or Greeks Chaldean, and read both versions Philo refers to Greek speakers who had learned Hebrew in the third person plural, i.e., as an outsider looking upon others who have mastered the original language of the Bible. He himself obviously did not count among them. Philo claims that such bilinguals have compared the translation with its \u201cUrtext\u201d and found it highly satisfactory. It is possible that Philo encountered bilingual Jews especially in Rome, where he frequently met with King Agrippa and through him probably with other Jews from the Land of Israel.
\nthere is held every year a feast and general assembly in the island of Pharos Philo stresses the general popularity of Jewish matters and suggests that many Alexandrians would have celebrated the event of the Greek Bible translation. While it is rather unlikely that the island Pharos was overcrowded by such Gentiles, it is possible that Philo interprets people accidentally coming there for a picnic as pagans showing respect for Jews and Judaism. In any case, this image of general Alexandrian sympathy for the Greek Bible suits his overall purpose in the Moses, namely to induce a similar sympathy in his Roman audience.
\n2:43. when people are not flourishing their belongings to some degree are under a cloud Philo makes a wise comment about the connection between the political success of a nation and its cultural prestige. It is indeed remarkable that in the time of Varro, namely before significant political tensions arose between Romans and Jews, the latter enjoyed a highly positive reputation. Both Varro and Strabo saw them as a people of philosophers, who conveyed ancient wisdom. Following the pogrom in Alexandria, on the other hand, Apion and Chaeremon seem to have been very successful in circulating their polemics against the Jews. Josephus, writing after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, when the tensions between Romans and Jews had come to a new height, still makes considerable efforts to disprove them.
\n2:44. each nation would abandon its peculiar ways, and throwing overboard their ancestral customs, turn to honoring our laws alone These formulations express Philo\u2019s hope for proselytes, who will join the Jewish community.
\n2:46. They consist of two parts: one the historical, the other concerned with commands and prohibitions Never before in his Alexandrian writings has Philo discussed the different literary genres of the biblical books. His notion of a historical category resonates well with Roman tendencies for historiography. Josephus followed in this path one generation later. It is interesting that Philo includes here the biblical creation account in the historical treatises of the Bible, while elsewhere he identifies it as a separate category (Rewards 1).
\n2:48. He did not, like any historian, \u2026 entertainment which they give Philo repeats his notion of moralizing historiography. He makes similar remarks in the introduction to his On the Creation of the World, where he also stresses that the Jewish Scripture teaches a life in accordance with nature created by God.
\n2:49. Now other lawgivers are divided Philo distinguishes between a prescriptive and a practical approach to law. While he criticizes the former for treating its subjects as slaves without appealing to their moral sense, he speaks more generally of the second as being \u201cevidently not entirely satisfactory in the judgment of all.\u201d It is important for Philo to show that Mosaic Law does not belong to the former category, even though it contains many instructions without moral explanations as well as rituals which simply require to be observed. He uses the book of Genesis as evidence for Moses\u2019s position between the above mentioned extremes. The Jewish lawgiver is thus shown to have conceived of laws before founding a state, but did so by means of admonition rather than by straighforward commands.
\n2:51. the very numerous and necessary instructions \u2026 to exhort rather than to enforce Philo sounds a bit apologetic when stressing that Moses wishes to \u201cexhort\u201d rather than to \u201cenforce,\u201d the latter clearly being very negative. This attention to the moral personality of the subject, who should be convinced in a situation of freedom rather than coercion, resonates well with Stoic emphasis on freedom. Epictetus, for example, open his discourse on the subject by stressing that the moral agent should be free, not \u201ccoerced,\u201d to follow his own way toward virtue (Disc. 4.1). Philo has thus interpreted Mosaic Law in light of contemporary ethics and assumes a very important position in the development of halakhah between the Bible and the Rabbis. The latter, too, considered the individual self and the individual\u2019s intentions crucial for a proper functioning of the law.
\nhe inserted the story of the creation of the \u201cGreat City,\u201d holding that the laws were the most faithful picture of the world polity Philo concludes this section with a reference to a prominent Stoic theme, namely the \u201cGreat City,\u201d suggesting again that Mosaic Law extends beyond local customs and approximates universal structures.<\/p>\n
On the Decalogue<\/p>\n
Sarah Judith Pearce<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s work, whose full title is On the Decalogue, or On the Ten Words That Are the General Principles of the Laws, stands at the midpoint of his Exposition of the Law. It follows his accounts of the Creation and the lives of the ancestors, the \u201cunwritten laws,\u201d and marks the beginning of his treatment of the \u201cwritten laws\u201d of the Torah (1).
\nThis treatise begins with a series of questions and answers about the revelation on Sinai. First, why did God reveal the laws in the desert? Possible reasons include: 1. because we must leave behind the corruption of the cities in order to return to the law of nature; 2. the desert experience served to purify the people to receive the laws; 3. prepared them to live according to the law of nature; and 4. in exposing them to divine miracles (manna and water), proved the divine origin of the laws (2\u201317). Second, why were exactly Ten Commandments revealed directly by God? Because the number ten is supremely perfect, it is a sign of things that come from God (the perfection of ten, developed in 21\u201331, with examples from mathematics, music, and philosophy, is not included in this commentary). Third, how did God communicate directly with the people? Not with a human voice (God is not a created being), but through a miraculous voice created for the occasion (32\u201335). Fourth, why are the Ten Words addressed as though to one person (\u201cThou\u201d)? To teach that one just person is as valuable as the entire world; to call upon each person to observe the laws; and to teach kings to show the greatest care in addressing the humblest of their subjects (36\u201343). Philo concludes this preliminary section with explanations of the wonders that accompanied God\u2019s Revelation at Sinai (especially the voice that came from the fire) (44\u201349).
\nThe Torah specifies that God gave Ten Commandments or \u201cwords\u201d (Heb. aseret ha-devarim; in Rabbinic literature, aseret ha-dibrot, \u201cthe ten sayings\u201d) to Israel at Sinai\/Horeb (Deut. 4:13; 10:4; cf. Exod. 34:28). But it provides no clear statement of how these Ten Words, as given in Exod. 20 and Deut. 5, were to be divided into ten. Philo is in fact our earliest witness to a system for dividing up the commandments into ten and assigning them numbers. In this scheme, the First Commandment corresponds to the first imperative given in the account of the Revelation, \u201cYou shall have no other gods besides Me\u201d (Exod. 20:3; Deut. 5:7), while the Second Commandment is identified with the second imperative, the prohibition of graven images (Exod. 20:4\u20136; Deut. 5:8\u201310). The same division appears in Josephus (Ant. 3:91) and some Rabbinic sources (Sifre Num. 112; cf. B. Hor. 8a).
\nAnother way of dividing the first two commandments takes God\u2019s self-declaration, \u201cI am the LORD your God\u201d (Exod. 20:2; Deut. 5:6) as the First Commandment; the Second Commandment then begins with the prohibition of having other gods and continues with the prohibition of making graven images. The latter method of dividing the commandments is that adopted by Rabbinic Judaism.
\nAncient Judaism knows a variety of systems for ordering the commandments. According to the traditional Hebrew text (the Masoretic Text, MT), the command to honor parents is followed by the prohibition of murder (Exod. 20:13), adultery (Exod. 20:14), and theft (Exod. 20:15). The Greek translation (the Septuagint, LXX) preserves two other ways of ordering the same commandments: adultery, theft, murder (Exod. 20:13\u201315 LXX B); and adultery, murder, theft (Deut. 5:17\u201319 LXX B). Philo\u2019s writings are among a number of ancient sources that follow the ordering of Deuteronomy LXX B (e.g. the Nash Papyrus; L.A.B. 11:10\u201313).
\nIn the second part of this treatise, Philo explains the Ten Words (Gk. deka logoi) themselves. After introducing them as divided into two sets of five, engraved on two tablets (50\u201351), Philo discusses the first tablet as being concerned with duties toward God:<\/p>\n
1. You shall have no other gods before me. The prohibition condemns polytheism, and especially the worship of created things such as the elements or the heavenly bodies (52\u201365).
\n2. You shall not worship images. This prohibition shows the stupidity of worshiping lifeless images, of which the worst example is Egyptian animal worship (66\u201381).
\n3. You shall not take the name of God in vain. This prohibition applies to the use of God\u2019s name in oaths and to perjury (82\u201395).
\n4. You shall observe the seventh day and keep it holy. The lesson of this commandment is to follow God in setting aside time for contemplation. Philo explains why Scripture speaks of the seventh day as sacred, pointing to several reasons for the sacredness of the number seven (96\u2013105).
\n5. Honor your parents. This commandment stands at the borderline of the two tablets, because it is concerned with the subject matter of both: duties to God and duties toward created things. Because of their function in generating new life, parents are similar to God; by dishonoring parents, we dishonor God. Since children owe everything to their parents, they should at least follow the irrational animals in caring for their parents\u2019 needs (106\u201320).
\nThe second tablet deals with our duties to human beings:
\n6. You shall not commit adultery (121\u201331).
\n7. You shall not kill (132\u201334).
\n8. You shall not steal (135\u201337).
\n9. You shall not give false testimony (138\u201341).
\n10. You shall not desire your neighbor\u2019s wife, house, field, slaves, ox, ass or any other of your neighbor\u2019s animals, nor anything else that belongs to your neighbor (142\u201353).<\/p>\n
In the third part of On the Decalogue, Philo expands on the idea that the Ten Words are the general principles of the \u201cspecial laws.\u201d Taking each of the Ten Words in turn, he presents other laws of the Torah as \u201cspecies\u201d of each of the \u201cgeneral principles\u201d that are the Ten Words (summarized in 154\u201375, but not included in this commentary).
\nPhilo concludes the treatise with a final question: why did God not attach any punishments to the Ten Words? He explains that God is good and wishes that human beings might choose what is best of their own free will (176\u201378).<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
In describing the relation of the Ten Words to the other laws of the Torah, Philo uses several metaphors: the head vis-\u00e0-vis the other parts of the body, the genus to the species, and the general principles to the particular. As such, each of the Ten Words has an all-inclusive, universal scope, which reinforces the idea that these Words are the universal law of nature. They are therefore addressed to all people and apply to us in the here and now, wherever we happen to be. For Philo, it is fundamental that the Ten Words heard by the people at Sinai came directly from God, without a mediator. This gives them a very special status within the laws of the Torah, most of which were revealed through Moses as God\u2019s interpreter. Moreover, the first five words are of first importance, because they deal with duties toward God, while the second five are concerned with duties toward human beings. Both sets of commandments, however, are vitally important in guiding us toward the fundamental goals of piety and humanity. In this treatise, as in all the books of the Exposition of the Law, Philo promotes the idea that the Law is wholly reasonable; his commentary, therefore, emphasizes the need for the greatest care for detail in order to discover the logic and rational coherence of the content and arrangement of the Ten Words, as befits the words of God.
\nOn the Decalogue is the earliest known commentary on the Decalogue (though Philo himself acknowledges the influence of other interpreters, e.g., Decalogue 15). Many of the questions Philo raises about the Ten Words have also been taken up by later Torah interpreters: why were the commandments revealed in the desert; did God reveal all ten; why are the commandments addressed as if to one person; how do the ten relate to the rest of the laws of the Torah? However, very few large-scale studies have engaged specifically with this treatise. Within Jewish tradition, medieval commentators like Saadia Gaon may have followed certain aspects of Philo\u2019s thinking about the Decalogue. The earliest Jewish scholar known to explicitly discuss Philo is Azariah de\u2019Rossi (1511?\u20131577?), who writes approvingly of Philo\u2019s conception of the Ten Commandments as \u201cmothers\u201d to all the other laws.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
On the Decalogue is a commentary based on the Torah\u2019s accounts of the giving of the Law at Sinai, and in particular the Revelation of the Ten Words. Like other works in Philo\u2019s Exposition of the Law, this treatise is not a running commentary on each word of the scriptural text. Instead, Philo sets out to grapple with a series of questions prompted by the text and to explain why the Torah says what it says (whether in details or the big picture). This means that Philo assumes that his readers know the texts he is discussing. It is important to remember that Philo follows a Greek translation of the Torah, with some significant differences from the traditional Hebrew text, including the order of the Ten Words (which follow Greek Deuteronomy). In some parts of the commentary, such as Philo\u2019s explanation of the numbers ten (20\u201331) and seven (102\u2013105), he uses allegory to demonstrate the fullest meaning that can be derived from the words of Scripture by reading them with the eye of reason.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Amir, Yehoshua. \u201cThe Decalogue according to Philo.\u201d In The Ten Commandments in History and Tradition, edited by Ben-Zion Segal (English version edited by Gershon Levi). Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1990. German-language translation in Amir, Die hellenistische Gestalt des Judentums bei Philon von Alexandria. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983.
\nCalabi, Francesca. Filone di Alessandria: De Decalogo. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2005.
\nColson, Francis H. Philo in Ten Volumes (and Two Supplementary Volumes). Vol. 7. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press\u2013William Heinemann, 1934.
\nDaniel-Nataf, Suzanne. Philo of Alexandria: Writings. Vol. 2 of Exposition of the Law, pt. 1. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1991 (in Hebrew).
\nFreund, Richard A. \u201cThe Decalogue in Early Judaism and Christianity.\u201d In The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition, edited by Craig E. Evans and James A. Sanders, 124\u201341. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.
\nKugel, James. Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 633\u2013710.
\nNajman, Hindy. \u201cDecalogue.\u201d In The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, 526\u201328. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2010.
\nNikiprowetzky, Valentin. De Decalogo: Introduction, Traduction et Notes. Paris: Cerf, 1965.
\nSandmel, Samuel. \u201cThe Confrontation of Greek and Jewish Ethics: Philo, De Decalogo.\u201d In Two Living Traditions: Essays on Religion and the Bible, 279\u201390. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972.
\nWeinfeld, Moshe. Deuteronomy 1\u201311. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (The Anchor Bible). New York: Doubleday, 1991.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1. preceding treatises Refers to Philo\u2019s books on the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (of which only On the Life of Abraham and On the Life of Joseph have come down to us).
\nSacred Books Of the Torah. Philo does not refer more specifically to Genesis, the first book of the Greek Torah, in which the lives of these ancestors appear. Philo rarely refers to individual books of the Bible.
\nunwritten laws The patriarchs lived before the divine laws revealed at Sinai were written down. In Philo\u2019s earlier treatises, the lives of the patriarchs are presented as books \u201con unwritten laws\u201d (cf. the subtitle of Abraham). By living virtuous lives, based on the laws of nature, the patriarchs (Philo argues) observed the laws of God before they were written down after the Sinai Revelation. Their lives are thus models for the written laws (cf. Abraham 3\u20136, 276; Abraham as \u201ca law and an unwritten statute\u201d).
\nallegorical interpretation For Philo, the exegetical technique of allegory\u2014\u201csaying one thing by means of another\u201d\u2014is an essential tool in the quest for the most complete understanding of the divine Law. Philo speaks of the allegorical interpretation as what \u201cunderlies\u201d or is \u201chidden\u201d within the laws. As an interpreter, he aims to bring these interpretations into the open (Spec. Laws 3.6). Scholars disagree about how much \u201callegorical\u201d interpretation is in On the Decalogue. At a minimum, we should include the symbolic explanations of the numbers 10 and 7 (20\u201331, 102\u20135); and the vision of God\u2019s voice at Sinai (49).
\n2. To the question \u2026 we may answer Philo begins the commentary proper with a characteristic sequence of questions and answers, based on the problem (aporia) that the desert is a surprising place in which to promulgate a law code. Philo\u2019s argument implies that legislation is normally associated with cities.
\ndepths of the desert Emphasizes the solitude of the desert. Scripture places the Revelation of the commandments at the mountain of God in the Sinai desert.
\nin the first place The first of four possible interpretations, none of which Philo excludes. Philo holds that Scripture conveys multiple meanings.
\nmost cities are full of countless evils A common idea among philosophers. City life is marked by luxury and corruption of the laws of nature (cf. Plato, Resp. 2.371a\u2013372e). In biblical tradition, the prophets repeatedly condemn city rulers for injustice and impiety (e.g., Isa. 1). Philo may be thinking particularly of Moses\u2019s warning to Israel in the desert not to forget God\u2019s commandments in the future: \u201cWhen you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in \u2026 beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the LORD your God\u201d (Deut. 8:12\u201314).
\nboth acts of impiety toward God and wrongdoing between man and man Two classes of evil, corresponding to the two positive principles that Philo identifies with the two tablets of the Decalogue: the promotion of piety and justice for other human beings.
\n3. genuine \u2026 spurious Very Platonic formulations.
\n4. Pride Gk. tuphos; combines notions of arrogance and mental confusion; defined in philosophical terms as the (false) opinion that things exist that do not exist (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 8.5). Tuphos is one of Philo\u2019s favorite words for the \u201cvanity\u201d of false opinions that lead people away from God.
\nvain ideas Platonic theme of false impressions of reality; trapped in the body, the mind creates \u201cimages of things which are not, as though they are\u201d (Ios 126, etc.).
\ncars Vehicles. In Philo, the chariot symbolizes inequality, bodily pride, vanity (cf. Dreams 2.16).
\n5. boastfulness, haughtiness, inequality Characteristics of the tyrant (cf. 40). Some manuscripts read \u201cunholiness\u201d for \u201cinequality.\u201d
\n6. Yet why dwell \u2026? Rhetorical question, implying the much greater importance of the next topic: tuphos as cause of impiety.
\n7. keener vision To be sharp-sighted (oxuderk\u0113s) is to have the right conception of God, who is \u201cseen\u201d with the \u201ceye of the soul\u201d rather than that of the body (cf. 67, 82).
\nsculpture and painting In Plato\u2019s Republic (373b), sculpture and painting signify the corruption of the city from a state of original simplicity. Elsewhere, Philo appeals to this theme as justification for Moses\u2019s prohibition of imagery (Giants 59; cf. Ag. Ap. 2.16).
\n8. compared Technical term for allegorical interpretation.
\nin the sacred Scriptures Deut. 23:3 LXX, \u201cOne born from a prostitute shall not enter the congregation of the LORD\u201d; Heb. refers to \u201cone misbegotten\u201d (mamzer). Philo repeatedly interprets this text as prohibiting polytheists. In Scripture, the prostitute is a key symbol of idolatry.
\nfalsely so called Biblical theme of idolatry as worship of \u201cno-gods\u201d (Jer. 16:20; Hosea 8:6).
\n9. which was best Or differences \u201cconcerning the Most Excellent,\u201d i.e., the Supreme Being (as a title for God, Names 208, 216; Flight 195).
\ndiversity of opinion Associated with idolatry in Philo\u2019s interpretation of the Second Commandment (67).
\n10. deep-set stains The marks of spiritual disease, inflicted by the passions (cf. Eternity 2). For the idea of the wilderness experience as a time of purification prior to the revelation at Sinai see Shir Rab. 2.15.
\nmotley promiscuous horde Recalls the \u201cmixed multitude\u201d that left Egypt with Moses.
\n11. dwelling apart Gk. dioikiz\u014d, \u201cto move home.\u201d Alludes to a central theme in Philo\u2019s interpretation of Scripture: the migration of the soul from the bodily passions toward the vision of God (cf. Rewards 15\u201321). For Philo, Israel\u2019s journey into the wilderness is a great symbol of this spiritual journey in which the passions die away as the soul gets farther from the objects that give life to them.
\n12. good physicians Adapts Plato, Sophist 230c\u2013d. Since wrongdoing is caused by the passions in the soul, the wise physician must remove the causes of these passions (cf. Sacrifices 121).
\n13. nourishment Deut. 8:3 (manna).
\n14. communities The tribes of Israel: cf. Num. 34; Josh. 13\u201314.
\nprinciples of justice lying ready for their use For Philo, the Law of Moses is not like the human-made laws of the cities, applicable to particular cities; created by God, identical with the laws of nature (Moses 2.14), the Law is applicable to all cities in the world, and thus serves in advance as the basis of a new constitution in a new land.
\nrendering to every man his due Definition of justice attributed to the Greek poet Simonides (Plato, Republic 331e).
\n15\u201317. a fourth reason Alludes to Israel\u2019s desert experience. For Philo, the desert was the setting for miracles, for proof of the divine power, and for proving Israel\u2019s loyalty to God: cf. Moses 1.164, 202, 225, etc. The Rabbis also suggest various reasons as to why the Torah was given in the desert: e.g., because the wilderness provided a public space, belonging to no one, in which the Torah might be offered to all who would accept it (Mek. R. Ish., Bahodesh 1.80\u201394; 5.92\u2013101); to avoid quarrels among the tribes of Israel, lest rival tribes should claim \u201cIn my territory the Torah was given\u201d (Mek. R. Ish., Bahodesh 5.95\u201398); to teach that unless we make ourselves ownerless like a desert, we will not be able to acquire Torah; and to show that as the desert has no end, so too the Torah has no end (Pesik. Rab Kah. 12).
\n15. not the inventions of a man Philo seems to know a tradition, not explicitly stated in Scripture, whereby some of Moses\u2019s opponents questioned the genuineness of the divine oracles revealed only to him (Moses 2.176\u201377, 260\u201362; QE 2.43; cf. Ant. 3.85\u20139).
\n16. evidence Gk. basanos, \u201ctouchstone\u201d; the test of genuineness for precious metals and, by extension, for other things. Philo uses the related verb to speak of the proof of the excellence of God\u2019s laws in 48.
\n17. the good life Classic expression of the goal of the philosophers.
\n18. probable surmises Platonic expression, often used by Philo: good interpreters aim for the truth, basing their arguments on reason (cf. 40), but the truth they find can only ever be \u201cprobable\u201d because the human condition prevents the soul from apprehending the complete truth within Scripture (Eternity 2; Spec. Laws 1.36\u201338).
\n19. in His own person Cf. 175. Philo holds that God gave all the Ten Commandments directly at Sinai. Other ancient interpreters take only the first two commandments (Exod. 20:2\u20136)\u2014spoken by God in the first person\u2014as being given directly by God (B. Mak. 24a; Shir Rab. 1.2), and the rest\u2014in which God is spoken of in the third person\u2014through Moses (cf. Deut. 5:5).
\nheads The Ten Words. Philo introduces his distinctive understanding of the Ten Words in relation to all the other laws of the Torah as the head to the parts of the body, the general to the particular, the genus to the species. Philo also describes the Ten Words as \u201croots,\u201d \u201csources,\u201d or \u201cfountains\u201d of the other laws (Congr. 120). Every commandment of the Torah is therefore fundamentally connected, as part of a logically coherent whole, to the Ten Words. This conception underlies Philo\u2019s elaborate treatment of the \u201cparticular\u201d or \u201cspecial\u201d laws of the Torah in relation to their \u201cheads\u201d in the Ten Words, summarized in 154\u201374 (not included in this commentary) and set out in great detail in the four books On the Special Laws. Nothing precisely like this is known from early Jewish Bible interpretation. Rabbinic sources may contain echoes of Philo\u2019s grand plan of connecting each commandment to one of the Ten Words; but the earliest known Rabbinic authority to implement Philo\u2019s plan (though without reference to Philo) is Saadia Gaon (in Siddur R. Saadia Gaon). (See further in introductory comments.)
\n20. number The significance of numbers is a central theme in Philo\u2019s interpretation of Scripture, and one to which he devoted a whole treatise (On Numbers, preserved only in fragments). His interpretations of number show an extensive knowledge of the theories of his day, particularly those identified with Pythagorean scholarship.
\nsupremely perfect Gk. panteleia; Pythagorean name for the number ten, because it is seen as containing all the real numbers (1\u201310), from which all other numbers are derived. Here Philo associates the perfection of the number ten with its ability to contain all numbers, ratios, progressions, and harmonies (21\u201329, not included in this commentary). In effect, ten symbolizes the nature of the Ten Words as a perfect whole that contains all the other commandments.
\neven-odd Classification of numbers attributed to the Pythagorean Philolaus. \u201cEven-odd\u201d numbers can be separated into two factors, one odd, and one even, e.g., 6 = 2 \u00d7 3.
\n6 The manuscripts read \u201cfive,\u201d which must be a scribal error, since Philo is very familiar with six as the first \u201ceven-odd\u201d number.
\nall ratios Philo uses Pythagorean terms (cf. Nicomachus of Gerasa, in Pseudo-Iamblichus, Theology of Arithmetic).
\nwhen a number is either increased or diminished by some part of itself Improper or proper fractions.
\n32. These points Philo\u2019s elaborate discussion of the perfection of the number ten (21\u201331, not included in this commentary).
\nten words Gk. deka logoi (hence \u201cDecalogue\u201d), as in Exod. 34:28 LXX; Deut. 10:4 LXX = Heb. aseret ha-devarim, \u201cten words.\u201d In Scripture, the accounts of the Sinai revelation do not specify the number of \u201cwords\u201d or commandments given (Exod. 19\u201320; Deut. 5).
\nDid He do so by His own utterance in the form of a voice? Interprets Exod. 19:16 LXX: on the third day on Mount Sinai, \u201cthere were voices [ph\u014dnai]\u201d and a \u201ctrumpet voice\u201d (ph\u014dn\u0113). Like Heb. kol, Gk. ph\u014dn\u0113 means both \u201csound\u201d and \u201cvoice.\u201d Scripture is full of references to God as speaking with a voice or in other ways acting like a being with a body (with a \u201cface,\u201d \u201chand,\u201d etc.). Philo repeatedly warns against the \u201cmonstrous folly\u201d of any interpretation of Scripture that takes such statements literally (e.g., Alleg. Interp. 1.36).
\nGod is not as a man Num. 23:19 LXX (words of the non-Israelite prophet Balaam). For Philo, this is a key statement underlining the nature of the Uncreated God (cf. Unchangeable 53, 60\u201369; QG 2.54).
\n33. on this occasion Philo explains that God causes extraordinary phenomena to serve particular occasions (cf. Moses 1.185 interpreting Exod. 15:22\u201326).
\ninvisible sound A sound coming from no visible source, interpreting Deut. 4:12, \u201cyou heard the sound of words but perceived no shape\u2014nothing but a voice.\u201d
\na rational soul Philo explains the \u201cvoice of God\u201d as an incorporeal, rational being, created by God for the purpose of directly communicating to Israel the words spoken by God \u201cin His own person.\u201d Philo also speaks of other prophetic agents of God, the divine spirit and angels, as purely rational, incorporeal beings (Moses 2.288; Spec. Laws 1.66); unlike the \u201cvoice of God,\u201d they are not created for particular occasions, but have a permanent presence and communicate with both Israelites and non-Israelites.
\nflaming fire The fire from which God\u2019s voice spoke at Sinai. Here and in 46, the \u201cflaming fire\u201d and the sound \u201clike the breath through a trumpet\u201d merge into one\u2014two apparent aspects of one reality. This interpretation is rooted in the doctrine that God\u2019s word is identified with the Oneness of God (cf. Unchangeable 82\u201384).
\nan articulate voice Interprets Exod. 19:19 LXX, \u201cThe voices [Heb. \u201cblare\u201d] of the trumpet, increasing, became much stronger.\u201d Philo takes this to mean that the sounds of the trumpet (the words of the voice of God), unlike human words (cf. 34), became clearer the farther they traveled.
\n35. more illuminating in its ending than in its beginning Another interpretation of Exod. 19:19: the divine words (the \u201csounds of the trumpet\u201d) became clearer and more luminous as the Revelation continued, and the effect of a spiritual, inner illumination took hold of the people at Sinai.
\nthe hearing of the mind possessed by God makes the first advance and goes out to meet the spoken words with the keenest rapidity Interprets Exod. 19:8 LXX: \u201cAll the people replied [to Moses] with one accord and said: \u2018All that God said we will do and we will hear\u2019 \u201d (cf. Exod. 24:7 MT: na\u2019aseh ve-nishma, \u201cwe will do and hear,\u201d i.e., \u201cwe will perform and obey\u201d). In Exod. 19:8, Israel makes an extraordinary commitment, coming forward to serve God, before the commandments have even been given. Whereas Philo connects the \u201ceye\u201d of the soul with intellectual understanding, he identifies the \u201cear\u201d of the soul more closely with the submission of the will and zeal for \u201chearing\u201d and \u201cobeying\u201d God\u2019s words (cf. Confusion 59).
\n36. we may properly ask why A new question, inspired by the formulation of the Ten Words as though addressed to one person (\u201cThou\u201d), even though all Israel was present at Sinai (Exod. 20:15; Deut. 5:1, 19). Ancient interpreters offered different explanations: that the plural \u201cyou\u201d was really meant; that Israel was being addressed as a unity (L.A.B. 11.6); or that there was a particular reason why God addressed the commandments to individuals (e.g., because God wished to plead with particular individuals, knowing that each of them would in the future violate a different one of the Ten Words, Pesik. Rab. 21.15). Philo suggests three possible reasons (36\u201343).
\nten oracles Gk. deka logia (50, 175); formulation given in the titles of the books of Spec. Laws. For Philo, it is fundamental that the laws revealed at Sinai were \u201coracles\u201d directly revealed by God (cf. 16).
\nThou shalt not steal Philo cites the commandments following Deut. 5:17\u201319 LXX.
\n37. each single person, when he is law-abiding and obedient to God, is equal \u2026 even to the whole world Elsewhere Philo also draws this lesson from other examples in the Torah (Adam, created alone; Noah, saved alone; God\u2019s address to Israel in the singular, as in the Decalogue, etc.; cf. Avot R. Nat. 31).
\n38. a certain just man Abraham.
\nI am thy God Gen. 17:1 LXX. Philo\u2019s argument, based on the singular \u201cthy,\u201d does not work in the Heb. (MT), \u201cI am El Shaddai.\u201d Philo gives a more elaborate interpretation of this verse in QG 3.39.
\n39. more ready to obey Example from the world of politics and rhetoric: it is easier to gain acceptance by addressing commands as though to one person. Similarly, Pesik. Rab. 21.16: God enticed Israel to accept the Ten Words by addressing the people as individuals.
\n40. A third reason Interprets Deut. 10:16\u201318. God\u2019s love for the ordinary individual, the model for the king\u2019s love for his humblest subjects (cf. Let. Aris. 187\u20138), is a teaching repeated many times by Philo (Spec. Laws 1.307\u20138, 4.73\u201374, etc.). The Rabbis also interpret God\u2019s address to Israel, \u201cas if to a single person,\u201d as an expression of God\u2019s love for Israel (Yal. Shimoni, Va-etchanan 829).
\nstudy in the school of the divine laws Or \u201cschools of holy laws.\u201d For Torah study as a royal duty: Deut. 17:19\u201320.
\nunlearn Gk. apomanthan\u014d, a Platonic term; in Philo, refers to unlearning passions by following reason and the example of Moses (cf. Migration 151).
\n41. as though he should be the sole guest According to the Mishnah, Adam was created alone so that every individual might say, \u201cFor my sake was the world created\u201d (M. San. 4.5). For Philo, God\u2019s love inspires a similar thought with regard to the Revelation of the Ten Words. Addressed to the individual, the Ten Words call the individual soul to journey toward the vision of God; they are, in the words of a great Philo scholar, \u201cthe mystical map for the individual soul.\u201d
\nwhat right have I, the mortal Philo takes on the voice of the king who should model himself on God\u2019s philanthropic nature. In Scripture, God is the model for Israel\u2019s duty of friendship to outsiders (Deut. 10:16\u201318).
\nnature No mortal should forget the equality of all human beings as children of the same \u201cmother,\u201d nature (cf. Job 31:15; cf. Moses 1.314, etc.).
\n42. the poorest \u2026 begot Cf. Deut. 10:18: God \u201cupholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger.\u201d Philo adds other striking examples that are sensitive to the realities of a world with very high mortality and affirm the comprehensiveness of God\u2019s love for human beings.
\n43. as I am a man Gk. anthr\u014dpos; a human being (cf. 41).
\nchange to the reverse Reversal of fortune is inherently part of the mortal experience, a lesson for kings to remember that they are God\u2019s subjects and that only God is the ruler of all.
\nSuch was the reason \u2026 alone Cf. Pesik. Rab Kah. Piska 12: according to R. Jose b. Hanina, interpreting \u201cI am the LORD thy God\u201d (Exod. 20:2 par.), God spoke to each individual according to their capacity.
\n44. natural Gk. eikos, \u201creasonable.\u201d Philo finds the reason that underlies these miracles of nature in the reality that all elements of nature obey God as their ruler.
\nall that was wonderful Refers to the scene at Sinai, following Exod. 19:16\u201318 LXX (thunder, lightning, trumpet sound [Heb. shofar], fire, and smoke) and Deut. 4:11 (flames and dense cloud from earth to sky).
\ninvisible trumpet See comment on 33\u201335, where Philo associates the trumpet sound with God\u2019s voice.
\n45. They had kept pure Adapts Exod. 19:14\u201315, with additions: abstinence from unnecessary pleasures (interpreting Moses\u2019s command to \u201cremain pure\u201d); washing for three days (cf. Exod. 19:15, \u201cBe ready for the third day\u201d); pure white clothes (cf. Exod. 19:14, \u201cthey washed their clothes\u201d).
\nabstained from all pleasures save those which are necessary for the sustenance of life In contrast, Josephus adds details that highlight expensive and festive preparations prior to the Revelation (Ant. 3:78\u20139).
\non tiptoe with ears pricked up Interprets God\u2019s words to Moses in Exod. 19:11 LXX, \u201clet them stand ready.\u201d
\n46. from the midst of the fire \u2026 a voice For the voice from the fire, see LXX Exod. 19:18\u201319.
\nin the language familiar to the audience Anticipates the question of how the people could understand God\u2019s words.
\nthey seemed to see rather than hear them Interpreting Exod. 20:18(18) (see comment below). Philo explains why those present thought that they had \u201cseen\u201d the divine words. The exceptional clarity with which the words were articulated created the impression that they were visible, just as the articulate voice sounded through the trumpet is said to have been so loud that it seemed to be audible at a great distance (33).
\n47. \u201cAll the people saw the voice\u201d Cites Exod. 20:18 LXX (cf. MT 20:18); the LXX reads the singular \u201cvoice\u201d for the Heb. plural kolot, \u201cvoices,\u201d or \u201csounds of thunder.\u201d Reading LXX, Philo takes the \u201cvoice\u201d as referring to God\u2019s voice, interpreting MT. Some Rabbinic traditions also understand the Heb. kolot as referring to God\u2019s voice, divided into seven voices or even seventy languages so that all peoples should understand (cf. B. Shab. 88b; Exod. Rab. 5.9).
\nfraught with much meaning Another interpretation of Exod. 20:18 LXX. In contrast with human words, there is no delay between God\u2019s speaking and the execution of God\u2019s words in visible actions. This notion of God has clear roots in biblical and Greek thought.
\n48. the voice proceeded from the fire See comment on 46.
\nthe oracles of God have been refined and assayed as gold is by fire The Psalms speak of God\u2019s \u201cwords\u201d as \u201csilver purged in an earthen crucible, refined sevenfold\u201d (Ps. 12:7; cf. 19:11). In 16, Philo refers to the genuineness of God\u2019s laws as proved by the \u201ctouchstone\u201d\u2014the test for pure gold\u2014of God\u2019s providential care for Israel in the wilderness.
\n49. symbolically A psychological or ethical allegory of Scripture. For a similar interpretation, see Mek. R. Ish., Bahodesh 4.3\u20136.
\nwill live forever as in unclouded light A life of continuous light. In the Psalms, the revelation of God\u2019s words and commandments is said to light up the understanding.
\nwith the laws themselves as stars illuminating their souls Inspired by Plato\u2019s Timaeus (47b\u2013e, 90d), Philo has a notion of the rational soul of human beings as an internal \u201cheaven,\u201d illumined by reason, identified here with God\u2019s laws.
\n50. two sets of five Cf. Mek. R. Ish., Bahodesh 8.69\u201372; Y. Shek. 49d, etc; an alternative interpretation holds that all ten were written on each tablet (Y. Shek. 49d; Y. Sot. 22d). Scripture states that God\u2019s words were written on two tablets (Exod. 32:15; Deut. 4:13), but it does not indicate which commandments were written on which tablet.
\nHe engraved Deut. 9:10: the stone tablets \u201cinscribed by (or \u201cwith,\u201d Exod. 31:18) the finger of God\u201d (cf. Ant. 3.101, \u201cAnd the hand of God was on the writing\u201d). Elsewhere, Philo explains this as meaning that the Law was inscribed by God\u2019s command, not by any humanlike \u201chands\u201d (QE 2.41\u201342).
\nbroad highroads Philo often speaks in these terms of the \u201croyal road,\u201d along which wise and virtueloving souls journey toward God, the true king (Posterity 101). For Philo, Scripture represents this highroad by many symbols, including the route by which God guided Israel through the \u201cpathless\u201d wilderness (Posterity 154) and the word of God (Posterity 102, interpreting Deut. 28:14).
\n51. begins with God An implicit explanation of why the first five commandments belong together (cf. Heir 168). They all refer to God\u2019s name, but it does not appear at all in the second set of five (cf. Pesik. Rab. 21).
\nThe other set of five contains all the prohibitions All the commandments on the second tablet are prohibitions; those on the first include positive commands as well as prohibitions. For the first three commandments on the second tablet, Philo follows the order given in Deuteronomy LXX\u2014adultery, murder, theft (Deut. 5:17\u201319; cf. Heir 173); cf. Exodus LXX\u2014adultery, theft, murder (Exod. 20:13\u201315). In the Hebrew Bible (MT), the order is murder, adultery, theft.
\n52\u201365. The First Commandment: Both Philo and Josephus (Ant. 3.91) take Exod. 20:2\u20133; Deut. 5:6\u20137 as the First Commandment. Philo focuses on the meaning of the prohibition, \u201cYou shall have no other gods besides me\u201d (Exod. 20:3 LXX; cf. Deut. 5:7 LXX, \u201cbefore me\u201d). Other traditions make this prohibition the beginning of the Second Commandment, connecting it to the prohibition of making graven images (Tg. Neof. on Exod. 20:2\u20133).
\n52. care Gk. akribeia; in Philo, refers to the fullest possible examination of the laws (cf. Decalogue 1; Creation 77, etc.). Josephus says that, of the different groups within Judaism, the Pharisees were considered to have the greatest concern for akribeia in their interpretation of the laws (J.W. 2.162). In contrast with Philo\u2019s commitment to the most detailed exposition of the Decalogue, Josephus follows a tradition that prohibits a person from speaking the commandments openly and verbatim, and he provides only a very abbreviated account of their contents (Ant. 3.90).
\ntranscendent Gk. aristos, \u201cexcellent.\u201d God is the \u201cexcellent\u201d source of creation because God is good (cf. Creation 21).
\npiety is the source of the virtues According to earlier Platonic tradition, \u201cThere is no human virtue \u2026 greater than piety\u201d (Epin. 989b). But for Hellenistic philosophers, piety was not one of the standard cardinal virtues (in Platonism, prudence, self-control, courage, and justice) from which secondary virtues were derived (e.g., piety from justice). In contrast, Philo holds that piety is the source or \u201cqueen\u201d of other virtues (cf. Spec. Laws 4.147). As a Jew, Philo puts God at the center of his thought.
\nvery necessary Philo emphasizes the logic underlying the order of the commandments. In the order of existing things, God has first place; in the order of virtues, piety comes first. That is the reason, Philo suggests, why these matters come first in the Decalogue.
\ndelusion Gk. planos, \u201cgoing astray\u201d; recalls Deut. 4:19 LXX, \u201cWhen you see the sun and the moon and the stars \u2026 do not go astray [plan\u0113theis] and worship them.\u201d
\n53. elements Stoic philosophers gave the names of Greek divinities to the elements. This was a way of expressing the extension of the divine power to the cosmos. Philo may also be thinking of Egyptian worship of the earth and the Nile\u2019s water, linked to devotion to Isis and Osiris (Moses 1.98; 2.194\u201395.).
\nsun, moon, planets and fixed stars Plato suggests that these are among the \u201cgods of many barbarians,\u201d and perhaps also of the earliest Greeks (Plato, Cratylus 397d). Philo may also be thinking of Deut. 4:19: God gave the sun, moon, and stars to other peoples; but Israel must not \u201cgo astray\u201d by worshiping them. Philo identifies Abraham\u2019s ancestors, the Chaldaeans, as \u201castrologers,\u201d who venerated the stars instead of God (cf. Abraham 69). This is what Abraham and his descendants left behind, to worship the uncreated God.
\nplanets Lit. \u201cthe other planets\u201d; counting the sun and moon as planets.
\nfixed stars In Greek astronomy, stars that were believed (incorrectly) not to change position, in contrast with the \u201cwandering\u201d planets (see 104).
\nWorld-city Gk. megalopolis, \u201cgreat city.\u201d Drawing on Stoic doctrine, Philo refers to the cosmos, the greatest city of all, in which the heavenly bodies serve as God\u2019s \u201cmagistrates\u201d in the divine government of the created world (Spec. Laws 1.13\u201314).
\n54. names The theme of name giving (cf. 55) goes back to Plato\u2019s famous dialogue on the correctness of names, the Cratylus. Philo is strongly influenced by Plato\u2019s theory that names are given by wise name givers who craft names representing the nature of the things named.
\nThey call air Hera \u2026 Hermes Each name involves wordplay, e.g., Gk. a\u0113r, \u201cair,\u201d is an anagram of Hera, wife and sister of Zeus. Plato is the first to suggest that Hera is a \u201cdisguised name for air\u201d (Cratylus 404c). Stoic philosophers took such explanations further: e.g., Hera is the name given to the divine power to show that the ruling part of the all-pervading divinity extends to the air (Diogenes Laertius 7.147).
\n55. myth-makers Poets and playwrights. Philo condemns mythmaking when it spreads impious notions of God, e.g., stories about the birth of a god (cf. Spec. Laws 1.28).
\n56. Dioscuri The sons of Zeus, twins Castor and Pollux, said to live on \u201calternate days\u201d (Homer, Od. 11.303), one day below the earth, the other above it (Pindar, Nemean Odes 10.80\u201382). For this reason they were identified with the hemispheres (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos 9.37).
\n57. hemisphere Assumes that the heaven is a sphere of two halves, one bright, one dark (cf. Empedocles, DK 31 A 30).
\nno upper or lower Since the world is a sphere, there is no \u201cabove\u201d or \u201cbelow\u201d except in relation to our place on its surface at any given moment (cf. Plato, Tim. 63a). Philo uses this point to show that the Dioscuri myth is based on a false view of reality.
\n58. Moses Gk. \u201che\u201d; Philo never refers explicitly to Moses in his description of the commandments in this treatise. It is more likely that Philo refers to God here, since it is God alone, in Philo\u2019s view, who gives the Decalogue.
\nthe omnipotent God Literally, \u201can omnipotent god.\u201d Interprets \u201cother gods.\u201d
\nomnipotent Greek autokrat\u0113s, \u201cself-ruling\u201d; refers to the idea that God depends on no other being for existence. For Philo, Moses teaches that all parts of the universe are created by and serve God; they have no independent existence apart from God (cf. Creation 46; Spec. Laws 1.13\u201319, etc.).
\nthe world Ancient philosophers were fiercely divided on the question of whether the world is eternal. In his treatise on this question, Philo argues that Plato followed Moses in teaching that the world is created but will not be destroyed; God can destroy the world, but never will (Eternity 13\u201319; cf. Plato, Tim. 41a).
\n59. the greatest and primal God The first cause of all. Different philosophers identified this with a single element (e.g., fire, water, air), or with the sky, sun, or earth. Philo is no doubt also thinking of Egyptian religion and its veneration of water as the first element (cf. Moses 1.98). Those who venerate created things as first cause have foolishly forgotten God, the only true Cause (Virtues. 179; cf. Wis. 13:2).
\nno invisible and conceptual cause outside what the senses perceive Doctrine that Philo attributes to the Chaldeans, the ancestors abandoned by Abraham in his search for the Uncreated God (Migration 179), and to a wide range of philosophies (Dreams 2.283).
\n60. the soul \u2026 the natural stepping-stone to the conception of the Uncreated Adapts Plato\u2019s well-known comparison of the invisible human soul to the soul that directs the whole world (Plato, Laws 898d\u2013e). By soul, Philo means the human intellect, modeled on God: \u201cit would seem that the same position that the Great director holds in the entire cosmos is held by the human intellect in the human being. It is itself invisible, yet it sees all things\u201d (Creation 69). The Rabbis draw the same comparison, but in different terms: \u201cJust as the Holy One, blessed be He, sees but is not seen, so the soul sees but is not itself seen\u201d (B. Ber. 10a).
\n61. satraps Provincial governors in the Persian Empire (ca. 550\u2013330 BCE), subordinate to its supreme ruler, the Great King. The title satrap continued in use in the Greek and Roman East.
\n62. a further excess of impiety Deliberate refusal to allow that God matters in human affairs. In Scripture, \u201cThe benighted man thinks, \u2018God does not care\u2019 \u201d (Ps. 14:1). In philosophical terms, Philo associates this type with Skeptics and Epicureans, or, following Plato, Sophists. Philo is well aware of challenges to Scripture\u2019s conception of God, probably from within the Jewish community (cf. Names 60\u201362; similarly, Wis. 2; 1 En. 104:7\u201310).
\nremembering Him.\u2026 misery To forget God is to transgress the first two commandments of the Decalogue (cf. Deut. 8:11\u201319; Sacrifices 55\u201356).
\n63. whet the edge of their evil-speaking tongue Biblical image, cf. Ps. 52:4; Sir. 51:2.
\nto grieve the pious Adapts biblical themes, e.g., Isa. 53:7 (\u201cmaltreated \u2026 he did not open his mouth\u201d); Ps. 69:7\u201310; cf. Wis. 2:12\u201320.
\n64. brothers The stars. Inspired by Platonic tradition (cf. Tim. 38c\u201339e), Philo holds that stars are a superior form of creation, composed of body and purely rational mind (cf. Giants 8). Stars are related to human beings by virtue of being created and rational, but they lack the irrational element of human beings.
\nmind and speech and every faculty Adapts Deut. 6:5.
\nsaved Philo returns to the theme of preserving the purity of the soul from corruption.
\n65. to acknowledge and honor one God Who is above all A positive formulation interpreting Exod. 20:3; Deut. 5:7.
\nidea that gods are many Polytheism allows the worship of many gods, since no one god is seen as ruling the whole world. In contrast, the First Commandment teaches that God is the only ruler of the world.
\n66\u201381. The Second Commandment interprets Exod. 20:4\u20136 LXX; Deut. 5:8\u201310 LXX. Philo focuses on the prohibitions of making and serving images.
\n66. their offense is less The notion that astral worship ranks as a lesser offense than that of idolatry is found elsewhere in Philo and other Hellenistic Jewish authors. Among some ancient Jews, a relatively tolerant view of astral worship seems to have been inspired by Deut. 4:19, which suggests the divine appointment of the heavenly bodies for worship by non-Israelites, though not for Israel (cf. Deut. 29:25). By contrast, Rabbinic traditions reject the idea of divine sanction for astral worship (e.g., Sifre Deut. 148, citing R. Jose the Galilean). In other contexts, Philo develops the idea that contemplation of the heavens may lead to knowledge of God.
\nsticks and stones and silver and gold In Scripture, the stuff of which the gods of the nations are made. For the prohibition of making gods of gold and silver, cf. Exod. 20:23 LXX, from which Philo also derives the prohibition of making gods of any inferior substance (Spec. Laws 1.22).
\nfilled the habitable world In Philo\u2019s terms, the \u201cgods of the cities\u201d are invented by those who believe that material things are the cause of existing beings (Drunkenness 109; Moses 2.205).
\n67. support Gk. ereisma, the prop that keeps the boat upright on shore. Philo returns to the theme of 9: God must be the measure of all things (cf. Plato, Laws 716c); otherwise the human soul gives up truth for illusions, upset (\u201cwithout ballast\u201d) by passions, vices, and false opinions (Providence 2:8). Such idolaters are like Plato\u2019s \u201clovers of opinion\u201d in contrast with the genuine philosophers who are able to contemplate the simple and unchanging truth (Resp. 480a\u2013b).
\n68. eye of the soul In Plato and Aristotle, the part of the human being that, with the aid of philosophy, can \u201csee\u201d reality or divine truths. Philo uses this image repeatedly to express the human ability to grasp something of the reality of God\u2019s nature (cf. Spec. Laws 3.4).
\n69. punishment Implies that the idolaters\u2019 \u201cignorance\u201d amounts to a deliberate offense, deserving punishment, cf. 68.
\n\u201ca witless infant knows\u201d Proverbial expression going back to the ancient poets. Like Philo, the author of the Wisdom of Solomon speaks of idolaters as \u201cmost foolish, and more miserable than an infant\u201d (15:14). Both look back to traditions of the Bible in which idolatry is seen as fundamentally stupid (e.g., Jer. 10:8).
\nthe craftsman is superior to the product of his craft Philo frames this idea in philosophical terms\u2014the superiority of the active to the passive element. Fundamentally, Philo presents a typically Jewish notion of idolatry as the worship of dead things (cf. Wis. 15:17).
\n71. artists In Philo\u2019s world, great value was placed on art and artists (Drunkenness 109; Providence 2:15). The case of artists fallen on hard times while their works are \u201cglorified\u201d sets up a shocking contrast between the treatment of artists and their creations.
\nthe birth of priests Bodily wholeness was required not only of the priests of the Jerusalem Temple, but also of non-Jewish priests (cf. Plato, Leg. 6.759).
\n72. appearing egotistical A reputation for \u201cself-love\u201d in a bad sense; \u201cselfishness\u201d (cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1168b14). Plato defines self-love as the greatest evil: \u201cthe cause of all sins in every case lies in the person\u2019s excessive love of self\u201d (Leg. 731e). For Philo, self-love is more than ordinary selfishness; it is an intellectual attitude that makes human beings \u201cthe measure of all things\u201d (Posterity 35). To love God, on the other hand, is to recognize human nothingness, and accept God as the cause of all things (Alleg. Interp. 3.29).
\n73. to become like God Philo\u2019s doctrine of the imitation of God is rooted in two principal sources: the Platonic tradition (cf. Plato, Theaet. 176b; Leg. 716c\u2013d) and Scripture (cf. Lev. 19:2; Deut. 13:5). Philo repeatedly speaks of the goal of becoming as much like God as possible. What this means, in practice, is to try to imitate what Scripture reveals about God, e.g., God\u2019s love for human beings or God\u2019s Sabbath rest (cf. 100).
\n74. eyes that see not A fundamental theme in Jewish tradition: idols have no power to do anything.
\n75. imprecations Recalls the curselike language of Ps. 135:18: \u201cThose who fashion them [idols], all who trust in them, shall become like them.\u201d
\n76. soulless Or lifeless (apsuchos), cf. 7, 133. Philo reflects widespread criticism of idolatry as the worship of lifeless things: in Jewish tradition, cf. Ps. 135:17; Wis. 13:17; 14:29; among Greek intellectuals, cf. Heraclitus on the lifelessness of images (DK B.5), Timaeus of Tauromenium on lifeless statues of the gods (FGH 566, F 32), etc.
\nworks of nature Probably refers to human beings, formed in the \u201claboratory of nature\u201d (Moses 2.84), contrasted with idols, the works of \u201chuman hands\u201d (cf. Deut. 4:28).
\nEgyptians Philo consistently treats Egyptian animal worship as the worst form of idolatry. irrational animals Whether animals have reason or not was a hotly debated topic in antiquity, and Philo wrote a whole treatise on the subject (On Animals). Philo agrees with Stoic philosophers that animals lack reason and are therefore inferior to rational human beings.
\nbulls and rams and goats Some of the most important of Egypt\u2019s sacred animals belonged to these species: the Apis bull of Memphis, the ram of Thebes, the goat of Mendes (cf. Herodotus 2.42, 153). For Philo, the Israelite worshipers of the Golden Calf (Exod. 32) were copying the animal worship that they had learned in Egypt (e.g., Spec. Laws 1.79).
\n77. useful Philo assumes that domestic animals are designed by nature to serve human beings. He alludes here to the ancient belief expressed in Egyptian temple hymns that certain animals were venerated because of their usefulness to human beings.
\nclothing For the notion of clothes as \u201cshelter,\u201d cf. Aristotle, Politics 1336a17; often repeated in Philo (e.g., Names 246, \u201cFor clothing prevents harm from frost and heat, and by veiling what nature would have hidden promotes decency in the wearers.\u201d).
\n79. fishes Philo is probably thinking of the famous \u201csharp-nosed fish,\u201d worshiped in the \u201ccity of the sharp-nosed fish,\u201d Oxyrhynchos.
\n80. strangers Philo warns repeatedly against what he sees as the dangerous influence of Egyptian animal worship. He was certainly right about the huge popularity of animal worship in Roman Egypt; from Alexander the Great onward, Greeks\u2014and later Romans\u2014in Egypt were quick to embrace this very distinctive aspect of traditional Egyptian religion.
\ndie with laughing Philo can count on the idea that most outsiders to Egypt would find animal worship absurd. Certainly, this was a great source for satire among Greek and Roman intellectuals. Even Socrates had made a joke about it (Plato, Gorgias 482b), and, in more recent times, Virgil had written of Rome\u2019s defeat of \u201cbarking Anubis\u201d and the \u201cmonstrous gods\u201d of Egypt (Aen. 8.698\u2013700).
\ntransformed Adapts Plato\u2019s theory of metempsychosis\u2014the passage of the human soul into an animal whose nature resembles the character of the human soul in its previous embodiment (Plato, Tim. 42c, 92c, etc.). The Platonist Plutarch reports an Egyptian version of this doctrine: Egyptians regard as fit for sacrifice animals that \u201chave embodied in them souls of unholy and unrighteous men who have been transformed into other bodies\u201d (Plutarch, Is. Os. 363b).
\n82. not to take God\u2019s name in vain Adapts Exod. 20:7 LXX; Deut. 5:11 LXX, \u201cYou shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not purify one who takes His Name in vain.\u201d Neither in LXX nor in the MT is it precisely clear what is forbidden. In LXX, the expression epi matai\u014d, \u201cin vain,\u201d can mean \u201cfalsely,\u201d \u201cpointlessly,\u201d \u201cprofanely.\u201d Philo\u2019s interpretation reflects these possible meanings.
\nshadow which follows the body Implies that the name is the shadow of what it represents (cf. Names 243), and inevitably follows it. Thus, the commandment about God\u2019s name logically follows the first two commandments, which deal with God\u2019s nature.
\n84. To swear not at all is the best Philo follows an ancient tradition that takes the Third Commandment as referring to the use of God\u2019s name in oaths. Philo does not prohibit oaths, but recommends avoiding them if possible. The ideal of avoiding oaths for reasons of piety is particularly associated with Pythagoras, who is said to have taught his students \u201cnot to call the gods to witness, man\u2019s duty being rather to strive to make his own word carry conviction\u201d (Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of Eminent Philosophers 8.22). In our passage, Philo appeals to another Greek tradition, namely that an oath is unworthy of the wise, who do not need to be forced by an oath to speak the truth (cf. Spec. Laws 2.2\u201323). Pythagorean influence is probably behind the most radical Jewish attitudes toward taking oaths, e.g., the Essenes, described by Philo and Josephus as avoiding oaths (though they swore oaths of commitment to their community), and the outright prohibition of oaths attributed to Jesus in Matthew\u2019s Gospel (Mt. 5:33\u201337).
\nits words are regarded as oaths Because these words are true (cf. Spec. Laws 2.2). For Philo, those who speak truly imitate God: God\u2019s words are oaths because they are always true (cf. Alleg. In-terp. 3.204).
\n\u201csecond-best voyage\u201d The next-best way; a proverbial expression, borrowed from Plato (Phaedr. 99d, etc.). Applied to taking oaths, this means that if you cannot make others believe your words, you must persuade them with an oath.
\n85. repeated postponement Elsewhere, interpreting the \u201cspecial laws\u201d of the Third Commandment, Philo praises those who swear \u201cYes, by\u201d or \u201cNo, by,\u201d adding no names by which to swear (Spec. Laws 2.4).
\nnecessity In Philo\u2019s world, oaths were required in many different settings, public and private. Philo mentions, e.g., the oaths sworn by judges (141).
\n86. an oath is an appeal to God as a witness on matters in dispute A key definition in Philo, probably from a Greek source. Biblical oaths appeal to God as witness, e.g., \u201cGod Himself will be witness between you and me\u201d (Gen. 31:50 MT); \u201cLet the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us!\u201d (Jer. 42:5). And in the Greek world, oaths normally appealed to the gods to witness the truth of what was being said.
\nto call Him as witness to a lie is the height of profanity Cf. Lev. 19:12, \u201cYou shall not swear falsely by My Name, profaning the name of your God.\u201d This is the central theme of 86\u201391. The vain oath may include a gratuitous lie, or the denial of what is well known, or swearing to do what is impossible or against the Law (cf. M. Shevu. 3.8). According to the Rabbis, this means the prohibition of the pronunciation of the name of God in vain (Mek. R. Ish., Bahodesh 7).
\nBe pleased, I beg you, to take a look with the aid of your reason With characteristic politeness, Philo invites readers to engage directly with his argument: to peer right inside the perjurer\u2019s mind to see what is really going on. Such scrutiny is the hallmark of reason.
\n87. monitor Conscience, the cause of the mind\u2019s sufferings (cf. 86). Philo\u2019s conception of conscience as an internal monitor (elenchos) combines Greek and Jewish ideas. It is like the \u201cdaemon\u201d of Platonic tradition, the God-given inner voice that holds us back from wrongdoing and urges us to do good (e.g., Plato, Apol. 40a). Philo\u2019s elenchos figure also reflects the Jewish tradition of the LXX where the elenchos (Heb. tokhahat) is the voice of divine wisdom, bringing discipline and education (e.g., Prov. 6:23).
\n88\u201391. Philo takes on the voice of conscience, cross-examining the perjurer. The conversational style of argument is typical of the diatribe genre.
\n89. supposed comradeship Recalls Plato\u2019s statement that \u201cthe good man is a friend to the good man only\u201d (Lysis 214c\u2013d). Elsewhere, Philo attributes this idea to Moses (Spec. Laws 3.155 on Deut. 24:16).
\n91. If in ignorance, you are an atheist In antiquity, the charge of atheism (Gk. atheot\u0113s) was applied disapprovingly to those considered to hold wrong beliefs about the gods. For Philo, atheism is essentially the failure to recognize God, whether by denying God\u2019s existence or God\u2019s providence, or by holding false beliefs.
\ncut the ground from under the oath Implies that atheist perjurers deliberately deceive when they swear by a power that, in their view, will not punish any failure to uphold the oath (cf. Wis. 14:28\u201331). The teaching that the gods have no providential concern for the created world was especially associated with Epicurean philosophy, and strongly opposed by the Stoics. For Philo, the reality of divine providence is one of Moses\u2019s fundamental teachings (e.g., Creation 171).
\nno further height of impiety Emphasizes the key idea announced in 86, i.e., to call God as a witness to a lie \u201cis the height of profanity.\u201d
\n\u201cWitness to a falsehood for me\u201d Cf. Spec. Laws 2.11.
\n92. swearing incessantly and thoughtlessly Cf. B. Ber. 33a: \u201cWhoever says a blessing which is not necessary transgresses the command of \u2018thou shalt not take [God\u2019s name in vain]\u2019 \u201d (cf. B. Tem. 3b).
\nfrom much swearing springs false swearing and impiety Cf. Spec. Laws 2.6; Sir. 23:11.
\n93. pure Literally, \u201cif he is pure\u201d (kathareuei), recalling Exod. 20:7 LXX; Deut. 5:11 LXX, \u201cthe LORD will not purify [katharis\u0113].\u201d In LXX, kathariz\u014d means \u201cto purify,\u201d while in MT, the Heb. n-k-h (Piel), is usually translated \u201cto clear,\u201d \u201cto leave unpunished.\u201d Following LXX, Philo explores what it means to be \u201cpure,\u201d before finally dealing with the fate of those who remain \u201cunclean\u201d (95).
\nthe holiest of names The Tetragrammaton. Only the high priest might pronounce this Name, and only on the Day of Atonement. The purity of the oath taker must be like that of the high priest, i.e., the highest possible degree of purity (cf. Moses 2.114).
\n94. profane and impure places Implies that oaths require purity of place as well as person.
\nmany forms of the divine name For Philo, the Name of God (Gk. theos) contains many names expressing God\u2019s attributes, e.g., as Creator. Elsewhere, he interprets the Third Commandment as forbidding misuse of the names of God\u2019s powers, i.e., \u201cGod\u201d (theos) and \u201cLORD\u201d (kurios).
\n95. polluted and unclean The perjurer has \u201cpolluted the good name which is by nature unpolluted, the name of God.\u201d
\nheaviest punishments Scripture leaves punishment to God (Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11; cf. Spec. Laws 2.27, the penalty is to remain in \u201cwell-nigh hopeless uncleanness,\u201d \u201cignored\u201d by God). Philo follows Scripture in leaving retribution to God (Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11). God\u2019s transcendent goodness implies that \u201cGod as he really is\u201d does not punish sinners directly, but delegates this activity to Justice, personifying God\u2019s ruling power at work in the world (cf. 177\u201378). Philo\u2019s explanation of the delays of Justice affirms God\u2019s providence (cf. Ios 170; On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance 8).
\n96. The fourth commandment Exod. 20:8\u201311; Deut. 5:12\u201315.
\nseventh day Gk. hebdom\u0113 (\u201cthe seventh\u201d) = Heb. yom hash\u2019vi\u2019i. Philo also refers to this day as the hebdomas, the hebdomad or number seven (99, 102, 103, 105; cf. Ant. 3.91). Philo knows the Gk. sabbaton for Heb. Shabbat, \u201cSabbath\u201d (Exod. 20:8, 10; Deut. 5:12; etc.), but it does not appear in our passage, because Philo wishes to emphasize the meaning of the seventh day of Creation.
\nsome states In the Greek world the seventh day of each month marked Apollo\u2019s birthday (Works 770; cf. Hist. 6.57, referring to Sparta). For Philo, the laws of Moses make every seventh day of the week a universal festival, commemorating the birthday of the world, a reminder of its divine Creator (Creation 89; Moses 2.209). The human world forgot this in early times; only Moses showed the right way to observe the seventh day (Moses 1.207; 2.263).
\n97. story of Creation Gen. 1:1\u20132:4.
\nGod \u2026 began to contemplate what had been so well created Not stated in Scripture. The LXX says only that God \u201cceased\u201d from work on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2\u20133). In good Greek fashion, Philo holds that \u201ccessation\u201d from work is not an end in itself but has a positive purpose, defined here as contemplation. To contemplate means essentially \u201cto see\u201d; the divine contemplation on the seventh day recalls the repeated statements in Gen. 1 that God \u201csaw\u201d and approved what he had created on the first six days (cf. especially Gen. 1:31).
\n98. world- order The \u201cconstitution\u201d (politeia) of Moses, as set out in the Torah (cf. Ant. 1.10). The translation brings out Philo\u2019s conception of this constitution as a universal body of law, identical with the laws of nature.
\nfollow God The task of the philosopher, as defined by Pythagoras and later philosophers. By observing the Sabbath, one imitates God (Exod. 20:11; Gen. 2:2\u20133; cf. Pesik. Rab. 23.5). Deuteronomy gives a different explanation of the origins of the Sabbath (Deut. 5:14\u201315).
\nthe study of wisdom Gk. philosophe\u014d. The Sabbath is set aside for the practice of philosophy; cf. Creation 128. This means, above all, the study and practice of the Torah. In contrast to other philosophies, the law of Moses is the true philosophy (Creation 8, etc.); synagogues are \u201cschools of wisdom\u201d where Jews practice their \u201cancestral philosophy\u201d every Sabbath (Dreams 2.126\u201327; Moses 2.216, etc.).
\ntruths of nature Perhaps the Creation story in Genesis. In any case, Philo means any study of creation that aims at understanding its Creator (cf. Moses 2.216). Philo borrows the language of Stoic philosophy, in which the study of nature (\u201cphysics\u201d) is really the study of theology.
\nthey should also consider \u2026 sin Ethical study of the self.
\ncouncil-chamber of the soul Implies the tribunal of conscience (cf. 87; Worse 40, etc.).
\n99. no further need of time periods Time is characteristic of the created world. As Eternal Creator, God does not need time to create the world (Decalogue 101; Creation 13, 26\u20138; etc.). But human creatures must use the six-day time periods to provide for their creaturely needs.
\n100. piety For Philo, the commandments on the first tablet of the Decalogue promote all the virtues, especially piety.
\nhappiness In ancient philosophy, happiness (eudaimonia) is the goal of life; for Philo, the goal is to know God.
\n101. great archetype God.
\nthe two best lives See 108\u201310.
\nelsewhere Creation 13; Alleg. Interp. 1.2\u20134.
\n102. virgin \u2026 motherless Pythagorean traditions apply these names to the number seven. Seven is \u201cvirgin\u201d because it generates no other number in the decad; and \u201cmotherless\u201d because seven is produced by no other number. Seven was identified with Athena, perpetual virgin, born motherless from the head of her father Zeus (cf. Alleg. Interp. 1.15; Moses 2.209\u201310).
\nclosest bound Greek sources associate the number seven and the monad (the number one), based on the idea that the seven neither generates nor is generated (cf. Creation 100). For Philo, this means that the number seven is especially associated with God, the one Creator and ruler of all. In our passage, the intimate connection between these numbers is illustrated by the harmony of the spheres (see below).
\ninitial Unit Philo assumes that numbers belong to the created world and are copies of archetypes in the intelligible world. He refers here to the original Monad or One, which he, reflecting Greek traditions, often associates with God and the intelligible world (cf. QG 4.110). Pythagoras is said to have taught that \u201cthe starting point of all things is the monad or unit\u201d (Diogenes Laertius 8.25).
\n\u201cidea\u201d Or \u201carchetype.\u201d
\nincorporeal heaven In Platonic terms, the original model of the material heaven that is visible to us. Philo adapts Plato\u2019s account of the \u201cworld soul\u201d as comprising two revolving spheres: the one, undivided outer circle of the fixed stars; and the inner circle divided into seven concentric spheres, one for each planet (Tim. 36c\u2013d; cf. Cherubim 22).
\n103. planets, or wanderers Gk. plan\u0113t\u0113s, from which we get the English \u201cplanet,\u201d originally means \u201cwanderer\u201d; the planets came to be so called because they seemed to \u201cwander\u201d among the fixed stars.
\n104. Not that any \u2026 wander Recalls Plato, Laws 822a.
\n106. the fifth commandment. Adapts Exod. 20:12 LXX; Deut. 5:16 LXX. Philo does not refer explicitly to the reward for keeping this commandment (prosperity and long life in \u201cthe good land,\u201d Exod. 20:12 LXX; Deut. 5:16 LXX).
\nthe honor due to parents Recalls Plato, Laws 717b: proper piety begins with the gods, but includes honors (timai) paid to living parents (cf. 118).
\nthe honor Gk. h\u0113 tim\u0113. Adapts Scripture\u2019s direct command: \u201chonor [tima] your father and your mother\u201d (LXX). Philo\u2019s interpretation emphasizes the requirement of honoring parents through action, not just words. The Rabbis make the same point (cf. Mek. R. Ish., Bahodesh 8).
\nparents Scripture speaks of \u201cyour father and your mother.\u201d
\nborderline Philo is concerned with the order of the commandments in the Decalogue, cf. Spec. Laws 2.224. On the division of the two tablets, 51.
\n107. The reason Philo repeats this explanation in other commentaries (Heir 171\u201372; Spec. Laws 2.225, referring back to 107).
\nI consider Gk. oimai, implies a tentative suggestion.
\nassimilates The act of generating new life makes parents similar to God, a central motif in our passage: parents are \u201cimitators of God\u201d (111); \u201cservants of God for the task of begetting children\u201d (119); they \u201ccopy the Uncreated in His work as the framer of life\u201d (120). In Philo\u2019s theory of creation, the transcendent God has no contact with matter, but delegates the job of creating the mortal world to his immortal powers. As Philo explains elsewhere, mortal parents are \u201cthe final form which immortal powers take\u201d; God\u2019s powers allow human parents \u201cat the final stage to copy their creative art and to beget\u201d (Heir 172). This implies that human parents, like the immortal powers, serve God in the task of producing living beings composed of immortal and mortal elements. Their role is to attach the immortal soul to the mortal body; they do not generate this immortal soul, but simply transmit it, just as they themselves received it from God through their parents. A key influence behind this conception is Plato\u2019s Timaeus, where the creator God (\u201cDemiurge\u201d) commands the created gods to make mortal creatures, \u201cimitating my power in generating you\u201d (Timaeus 41d). The task of the gods is to \u201cweave together\u201d the mortal and immortal elements to make living beings. What Philo says about parents gives them the same role: they are \u201cinstruments of generation\u201d (Heir 171), transmitters of the divine element in the human being.
\n108\u201310 For Philo, the contemplative life and the active life are the two main models of \u201cthe good life.\u201d Philo sometimes presents the contemplative life as the best (e.g., Migration 47). But he also insists throughout his writings on the necessity of not neglecting either way of life (cf. especially Names 39\u201345). Philo is particularly critical of contemplatives who have not proved themselves by first living a life of virtue in the practical sphere (e.g., Flight 33\u201338). The active life is essential training for the contemplative life\u2014for Philo, this principle is illustrated by the examples of Abraham, Jacob, and the Levites, as well as the contemplative Jewish community of the Therapeutae who dedicate themselves to contemplation only after a lifetime of active service. Above all, dedication to the contemplative and active lives is grounded in Jewish tradition, following every six days of activity with a seventh day for contemplation (Spec. Laws 2.64).
\n112. far exceeding any possibility of repayment Philo often repeats this idea, which is rooted in Greek and Jewish traditions (Nicomachean Ethics 8.16; Sir. 7:28).
\n113. \u201cbeasts ought to become tame through association with men\u201d Assumes that wild creatures are tamed through contact with domestic creatures (QG 2.27). Since human beings are the most civilized of all creatures (115), it follows that wild animals should become tame through contact with humans.
\nto follow the superior in hope of improvement Recalls various statements in Plato on how to progress in wisdom (e.g., Laws 732b). For Philo, Moses teaches the principle of self-improvement through our imitating those better than us (cf. Dreams 1.178).
\n115. the most civilized Because human beings have been given reason that allows them to control their passions (cf. Eternity 68). In ancient philosophy, there was much debate over whether nonhuman animals have reason. Philo sides with Aristotle and the Stoics in defining animals as \u201cirrational\u201d and, based on Gen. 1:26\u201328, subordinate to humans.
\n116. storks In Greek culture, storks symbolized the mutual love of children and parents. Following the same line of thought, the Rabbis explained that the Hebrew name for stork is hasidah, \u201cpious one,\u201d because this bird practices \u201cacts of loving-kindness\u201d among its companions (Midr. Teh. on Ps. 104:14; B. Hul. 63a). Philo also speaks of storks as \u201cmoved by piety\u201d (117).
\n118. children have nothing of their own which does not come from their parents Recalls Plato, Laws 717b\u2013c: a child \u201cshould acknowledge that all that it owns and has belongs to those who begot and reared it\u201d and should serve its parents in every way possible.
\n119. he who dishonors the servant dishonors also the LORD Other interpreters also associate the command to honor parents with the duty to honor God: \u201cOur Rabbis taught: It is said, \u2018Honor thy father and thy mother\u2019; and it is also said, \u2018Honor the LORD with thy substance\u2019 [Prov. 3:9]: thus Scripture assimilates the honor due to parents to that of the Omnipresent.\u201d For Philo, impiety works both ways: \u201cRefusal to reverence God implies refusal to honor parents and country and benefactors\u201d (Moses 2.198). On the foremost place of the fifth commandment among Rabbinic interpreters: M. Pe\u2019ah 1.1; Y. Pe\u2019ah 1:5, 15d.
\n120. Some bolder spirits Philo is one of them, given what he says in Spec. Laws 2.225: \u201cParents, in my opinion, are to their children what God is to the world, since just as He achieved existence for the nonexistent, so they in imitation of His power, as far as they are capable, immortalize the race.\u201d For Philo, boldness is a very positive quality, associated with Moses and Plato because of their ability to understand the deeper levels of reality.
\nthe gods who are near at hand and seen by the eye Parents. Plato\u2019s Laws contrast honors given to parents with the worship of lifeless statues of the gods: \u201cin the eyes of the gods we can possess no image more worthy of honor\u201d than that of our parents (930e\u2013931e). Later philosophers take this idea much further, e.g., Hierocles the Stoic speaks of parents as \u201cimages of gods that are supreme likenesses \u2026 domestic gods, dwelling with us\u201d (in Anthology 4.79.53).
\n121. He begins with adultery Gk. moicheia, adultery. Adapts Exod. 20:13 LXX; Deut. 5:17 LXX, \u201cYou shall not commit adultery\u201d (ou moicheuseis). Philo follows the order of the LXX in which adultery follows the commandment to honor parents (cf. 51; in the MT the Sixth Commandment is \u201cYou shall not murder\u201d).
\nholding this to be the greatest of crimes Philo explains why the prohibition of adultery is first on the second tablet of the commandments (cf. 131). Retelling the story of Potiphar\u2019s wife and her attempt to seduce Joseph (Gen. 39), Philo has Joseph declare that adultery is \u201cthe greatest of crimes\u201d (Ios 44).
\n122. love of pleasure The root of all evils (Posterity 180, cf. Sacrifices 32). Elsewhere, Philo explains that adultery is first on the second tablet \u201cbecause pleasure is a mighty force felt throughout the whole inhabited world, no part of which has escaped its domination\u201d (Spec. Laws 3.8).
\n123. there must necessarily be two acting in common Philo explains how adultery inevitably doubles wrongdoing. Following Scripture (e.g., Lev. 20:10), Philo assumes that adultery is sexual intercourse between a married woman and a man who is not her husband.
\n124. the real truth The adulteress as the student corrupted by her teacher; what is really at issue is the ruin of her soul as she learns to hate her husband. Elsewhere, Philo explains that with adulterers \u201cit is the soul which is incurably diseased\u201d (Spec. Laws 3.11).
\n125. the matter would be less terrible if the hatred were shown openly Philo holds that wrongs by deception are worse than open attacks because it is so difficult to detect and defend against deception (cf. Spec. Laws 4.185, interpreting Lev. 19:16). The theme of a wife\u2019s power to deceive her husband is commonplace in Philo\u2019s world (cf. Embassy 40).
\nit eludes suspicion and deception On this theme, and how God exposes the adulterer\u2019s deception: Pesik. Rab. 24.2.
\n126. it makes havoc Adultery. Some manuscripts make the verb plural, i.e., \u201cthey [the \u201cknaveries\u201d or \u201cwiles\u201d] make havoc.\u201d
\nof three families Philo highlights the power of adultery to destroy whole households as a reason for its prohibition (cf. Spec. Laws 3.11: adulterers must be destroyed \u201cas the common enemies of the human race\u201d).
\nhopes of legitimate offspring Philo holds that the purpose of marriage is to produce legitimate children (Ios 43); one of the basic wrongs of adultery is that it destroys \u201cany honest hopes of begetting a legitimate family\u201d (Spec. Laws 4.203; cf. Sir. 23:23).
\n127. the whole State Emphasizes the all-embracing evil effects of adultery. Philo\u2019s comments are echoed by Greek thinkers of the same era (e.g., Epictetus 2.4).
\n128. form an alien and bastard brood Lit. \u201cthey (i.e. the children of adultery) corrupt a family that is not their own.\u201d
\nthey have no right The argument in 128\u201329 suggests that illegitimate children do not (when their illegitimacy is known) inherit from their mother\u2019s lawful husband. In contrast, the general view among the Rabbis is that an illegitimate child (included in the phrase \u201cany kind of son\u201d) is reckoned as a member of the family of their mother\u2019s husband (cf. M. Yev. 2.5). The Talmud interprets \u201cany kind of son\u201d as referring to an illegitimate with rights of inheritance (B. Yev. 22b).
\n130. most unfortunate With no lawful father, illegitimate children have no family. Philo does not spell out the consequences of this status. Some Hellenistic Jewish authors take a more pessimistic view: that the children of an adulterer will not prosper (Sir. 23:24\u201325), or will live without honor and without hope of consolation on the Day of Judgment (Wis. 3:17); more positively, according to Rabbi Judah ben Pazzi, \u201cEven illegitimates enter the world to come\u201d (Midr. Kohelet Rab. 4.1).
\n131. naturally For Philo, the \u201cdisasters\u201d caused by adultery provide the reason for its first place in the list of prohibitions.
\nGod-detested sin of adultery Cf. Pesik. Rab. 24.2.
\n132. The second commandment On the second tablet, i.e., the Seventh Commandment, following Deut. 5:18 LXX and the Nash Papyrus (in Exodus MT and Deuteronomy MT, the sixth commandment; in Exodus LXX, the eighth).
\nto do no murder Gk. m\u0113 androphonein, \u201cnot to kill a man.\u201d Adapts Exod. 20:15 LXX; Deut. 5:18, \u201cYou shall not kill\u201d (ou phoneuseis). Philo makes it clearer than LXX or MT (Exod. 20:13; Deut. 5:17) that the prohibition concerns homicide.
\nsubverting the laws \u2026 enacted for the well-being of all Philo presents the killing of fellow human beings as an evil that affects society as a whole.
\n133. sacrilege Gk. hierosulia, robbing a sacred place. For Philo, the human body is a temple housing the rational soul (cf. Creation 137; Spec. Laws 3.83). Our passage recalls Plato\u2019s Laws (869 b), which compare the killing of parents to temple robbery (hierosulia), the theft of the soul from the temple of the body. A century later, R. Akiba is said to have taught that shedding blood is analogous to damaging the image of God (Midr. Gen. Rab. 34.14)
\n134. that higher part of his being \u2026 the soul The intellect or rational soul that, based on Philo\u2019s interpretation of Gen. 1:27, is made in the image of God.
\nas most admit In another passage, Philo makes plain that this is his preferred view: that Moses (in Gen. 1:27; 2:7) presents the rational soul as made in the image of God, \u201csigned and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of which is the eternal Word\u201d (Planting 18\u201320).
\n135. The third commandment On the second tablet, i.e., the Eighth Commandment. This ordering of the prohibition of stealing agrees with Deut. 5:19 LXX; Exod. 20:15 MT; Deut. 5:19 MT (Exod. 20:14 LXX puts the prohibition of stealing between the prohibitions of adultery and killing, i.e., as the Seventh Commandment).
\nforbids stealing Gk. m\u0113 kleptein. Adapts Exod. 20:14 LXX; Deut. 5:19 LXX, \u201cYou shall not steal\u201d (ou klepseis).
\nthe common enemy of the State Philo presents theft as a social evil. Interpreting this commandment elsewhere, Philo says that the robber who robs openly and violently \u201cmust be written down as a public enemy \u2026 because he combines shameless effrontery with defiance of the law\u201d (Spec. Laws 4.2). The Rabbis interpret this commandment as applying to kidnaping, based on the view that the Decalogue\u2019s prohibition of theft must be concerned with a type of theft that is punishable by death: this applies only to the theft of persons (B. Sanh. 86a).
\ncovetousness In Gk., pleonexia, the desire to have more than necessary; a vice condemned by Greek thinkers as undermining the principles of equality and care for fellow citizens. Elsewhere, Philo emphasizes that covetousness is the vice of bad rulers (e.g., Spec. Laws 4.84\u201389, 158).
\n136. So all thieves \u2026 leadership Recalls the portrait of the tyrant in Plato\u2019s Republic (343a\u2013d): in contrast with the petty thief, the tyrant commits \u201ccomplete injustice\u201d by subjecting whole cities and is rewarded with great titles for doing so.
\noligarchically-minded persons People with natures (phuseis) inclined to oligarchy. Oligarchy, \u201cthe rule of the few\u201d; defined by Aristotle as government in the interest of the rich (Pol. 3.1279 b 1). Philo rarely refers to oligarchy (155; Good Person 45), but insists that Mosaic laws require rulers to follow God by governing in the interests of their subjects (e.g., Worse 95).
\n137. custom is stronger than nature Implicit justification for this commandment\u2019s place in the Decalogue: it teaches the custom (ethos) of taking \u201cnothing by stealth\u201d and thus prevents the growth of the oligarchical nature (phusis), which aims at theft on a huge scale.
\n138. false witness Gk. pseudomarturein, \u201cto be a false witness.\u201d Adapts Exod. 20:16 LXX; Deut. 5:20 LXX, where pseudomarturein represents Heb. anah, \u201cto answer\u201d (i.e., as a false witness; cf. Exod. 20:13 MT; Deut. 5:17 MT).
\nguilty under many important heads The idea is that the false witness is guilty of many serious offenses (172; Spec. Laws 4.41\u201372). Here Philo emphasizes three transgressions.
\nIn the first place, they corrupt truth, the treasure as sacred as anything that we possess in life Recalls Plato\u2019s Laws (730 c): \u201cof all the goods, for gods and men alike, truth stands first.\u2026 [The true man] is trustworthy; but untrustworthy is the man who loves the voluntary lie.\u201d Interpreting the \u201cspecial laws\u201d of the Ninth Commandment, Philo emphasizes that the false witness deceives the judge by assuming \u201cthe mask of good faith and truth\u201d (Spec. Laws 4.53).
\n140. a third transgression even more heinous than the first two Because false testimony extends wrongdoing to the judges who wrongly convict the innocent (cf. Spec. Laws 4.43).
\nwhen there is a lack of proofs, either verbal or written The speeches and documents of the litigants.
\ndisputants have resort to witnesses Implies that witnesses were used only if there was no better means of proof. The distinction between reliance on documentary evidence and on the less reliable testimony of witnesses is characteristic of Greek procedure and attitudes (cf. Rhet. 1.15). Other early Jewish traditions do not present witnesses as a second-class form of testimony, but they do express widespread concern about ensuring the reliability of witnesses (e.g., Ant. 4.219; M. Avot 1.9).
\n141. jurymen must be put on their oaths Neither Scripture nor the Rabbis refer to an oath taken by judges before judging a case. Philo may know of such oaths from practice, or from Plato\u2019s Laws (856 a), which presents the judge as \u201cswearing by the altar to pronounce true and just judgment to the best of his power.\u201d
\nvictims The judges who are deceived.
\nset the oaths at nought Literally, \u201c[the false witnesses] scheme deliberately,\u201d in contrast with the judges who unintentionally violate their oaths.
\n142. The last commandment Exod. 20:17 LXX (20:17 MT); Deut. 5:21 LXX (5:20 MT).
\ncovetousness or desire In contrast to the translation, Philo uses one word, epithumein, \u201cto covet,\u201d \u201cdesire.\u201d Philo takes this word from Exod. 20:17 LXX; Deut. 5:21 LXX, \u201cYou shall not desire [ouk epithum\u0113seis] your neighbor\u2019s wife; you shall not desire [ouk epithum\u0113seis] your neighbor\u2019s house.\u201d In comparison to the traditional Hebrew text, LXX uses epithumein to represent two different Heb. verbs: \u201cYou shall not covet\u201d (lo tachmod) (Exod. 20:14; Deut. 5:20) and \u201cYou shall not crave\u201d (lo tit\u2019aveh) (Deut. 5:18). This heightens the importance of epithumein for readers of LXX like Philo. In contrast to the biblical prohibitions, Philo does not address the objects of desire (your neighbor\u2019s wife, etc.), but the emotion of desire (epithumia) itself. An early Rabbinic interpretation also explains at least the first prohibition of the Tenth Commandment as a prohibition of the emotion of desire: \u201cYou shall not crave\u201d (Deut. 5:18) prohibits the desire for what belongs to another, while the prohibition \u201cYou shall not covet\u201d forbids both the desire and the action taken to obtain what is desired (Mek. d\u2019Rashbi on Exod. 20:17 [14]).
\nall the passions of the soul which stir and shake it out of its proper nature Echoes the Stoics, who defined passion or emotion as \u201can unnatural movement of the soul\u201d (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta 3.389, etc.). Stoics organized the passions into four main classes\u2014grief, fear, desire, and pleasure (Diogenes Laertius 7.110). Philo\u2019s comments on the passions in 142\u201346 are close in substance and language to the teaching of the Stoics.
\nhard \u2026 hardest Introducing this commandment in On the Special Laws, Philo says: \u201cEvery passion is blameworthy.\u2026 But none of the passions is so troublesome as covetousness or desire of what we have not, things which seem good, though they are not truly good. Such desire breeds fierce and endless yearnings; it urges and drives the soul ever so far into the boundless distance while the object of the chase often flies insolently before it, with its face not its back to the pursuer\u201d (Spec. Laws 4.79\u201380).
\ndesire alone originates with ourselves and is voluntary Philo seeks to explain why, of the four passions, desire is the only one prohibited in the Decalogue. To answer this problem, Philo begins by arguing that pleasure, grief, and fear all originate with impressions of external things, and that these passions attack the soul, against its will, creating a sense that something good or bad is actually present (or about to be) (143\u201345). Desire comes from bad judgment, misled by false impressions of the external objects.
\n143. elation For the Stoics, pleasure is an \u201cirrational elation,\u201d responding to what seems desirable (Diogenes Laertius 7.114).
\n144. depression and dejection Stoics used similar expressions for defining grief (Diogenes Laertius 7.111\u201312).
\nforces its way in Gk. eisbiasamenon; a correction for the original ekbiasamenon, \u201cpressing upon.\u201d Both readings make sense in the context.
\n145. trepidation and distress For the Stoics, fear is \u201can expectation of evil\u201d (Diogenes Laertius 7.112).
\n146. an idea of something good which is not present Unlike the other passions, desire begins with a person conceiving an idea of something that is not present; this forces the soul to chase what it can never reach (cf. Spec. Laws 4.80\u201381). The idea that desire comes from within is consistent with Plato\u2019s image of the human soul as imprisoned \u201cby the prisoner\u2019s own active desire, which makes him first accessory to his own confinement\u201d (Phaedr. 82 e). For Philo, desire is characteristic of the fool, and the opposite of imitating God, who \u201chas no wants\u201d (Virtues 9).
\nstretched upon a wheel A form of torture (cf. Embassy 206). Philo compares desire\u2019s effect on the soul to the body\u2019s sufferings on the torturer\u2019s wheel (cf. Spec. Laws 4.82).
\n149. Tantalus Legendary king and son of Zeus; sentenced to eternal punishment by the gods for abusing their hospitality (cf. Od. 11.582\u201392). For Philo, Tantalus is always a figure for the soul tortured by desire: forced to stand in water that drains away when he is thirsty and to gaze at fruit that vanishes when he wants to eat it (cf. Heir 269; Spec. Laws 4.81).
\n150. unless philosophical reasoning \u2026 checks the stream of desire The notion that the passions, diseases of the soul, can be controlled by philosophical reasoning is typical of Socratic teaching and commonplace for Philo (e.g., QG 4.72) and his contemporaries, Jewish (e.g., 4 Macc.) and non-Jewish (e.g., Tusc. 4.11.25\u201326). Philo equates the practice of \u201chealing\u201d the passions of the soul with the observance of Mosaic law (e.g., Contempl. Life 2).
\nall life\u2019s affairs \u2026 universal destruction Highlights the universal danger that desire threatens to evoke (cf. 151).
\n152\u201353. Is it not the cause \u2026 tragic stage? Desire is seen as the source of wars throughout the world. A famous example is the Trojan War, fought over Helen of Troy, a popular subject for Greek tragedies performed in Philo\u2019s Alexandria.
\n153. one source, desire, the desire for money or glory or pleasure Objects of desire that seem to be things that are good but are not really good. In his discussion of this commandment in On the Special Laws, Philo suggests that desire is the source of almost everything forbidden in the commandments (Spec. Laws 4.84\u201392; cf. Virtues 100). Rabbinic interpretations of this commandment also link its transgression to transgression of the other commandments (Mek. d\u2019Rashbi on Exod. 20:17; Pesik. Rab. 21.17).
\n176. without laying down any penalty Ignores the threat of \u201cvisiting the guilt of parents upon the children\u201d for transgression of the second commandment (Exod. 20:5; Deut. 5:9).
\nHe was good God\u2019s goodness is fundamental in Scripture (e.g., Job 34:10\u201315). Philo is also deeply influenced by Plato\u2019s doctrine that because God is only good, it is wrong to speak of God as causing evil (e.g., Resp. 379a\u2013380d). Accordingly, Philo normally avoids referring to God as directly punishing, preferring instead to describe God as delegating punishment to his ruling power, often identified, as here, with the figure of Justice. Philo\u2019s doctrine of divine punishment has close parallels in Stoic teaching (cf. Stoicoruim Veterum Fragmenta 2.1176).
\n177. choose the best Cf. Deut. 30:15\u201320.
\nsenseless fear \u2026 counsellor Recalls Plato, Tim. 69d, referring to \u201crashness and fear, foolish counselors both.\u201d In Stoic ethics, fear is one of the four passions that the wise must struggle against. For Philo, freedom from the passions is the ideal taught by Moses, leading to knowledge of God through reason alone. Though the Bible demands both fear and love of God (Deut. 10:12\u201313), Philo holds that love of God is a higher form of piety than fear of God, though fear can also lead to love (cf. Unchangeable 64, etc.; B. Sot. 31a: \u201cgreater is he who does the commandments out of love than he who does them out of fear\u201d).
\njustice \u2026 hatred of evil Philo often represents divine justice in these terms. In the Greek world, this description would recall Dik\u0113, the personification of Justice and \u201cassessor\u201d of Zeus (cf. Works 259). Philo applies the same terms to the figure of divine Justice, representing the ruling power of God.
\n178. Prince Gk. prutanis, \u201cLORD,\u201d \u201cRuler\u201d; in Greek tradition, applied to Zeus (e.g., Pyth. 6.21).<\/p>\n
On the Special Laws 1\u20134<\/p>\n
Naomi G. Cohen<\/p>\n
In contrast to Philo\u2019s allegorical treatises, where the biblical narrative is used as the building blocks of what are by and large philosophical and\/or theosophical allegorical constructions, On the Special Laws employs the biblical laws to serve as scaffolding for the recounting and explanation of central facets of Jewish tradition and practice. On the Special Laws also includes, in the manner of midrash, matters of tangential relation to the text, but of close relevance to the reader. Yet it is not a law book like the Mishnah or Maimonides\u2019s Mishneh Torah; nor is this treatise an ancient equivalent of an academic composition.
\nHere, a highly educated writer addresses a sophisticated Jewish audience. The primary audience must have been Jews who, like Philo himself, were fully acculturated to Hellenistic culture and society, and at the same time loyal to their Jewish roots, for only they would have had the requisite knowledge to understand his writings. Philo constantly stresses his loyalty to both the written law and the traditional customs. The avowed object of On the Special Laws 1\u20134 is to recount and explain central facets of Jewish Law in relation to the Decalogue. Among the facets selected for commentary here are the significance of the Jewish feasts, the Shema, and tefillin, and the symbolic explanations of Temple sacrifices and high priest vestments.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
No consensus exists regarding the chronologic order in which Philo composed his works. But it is quite possible that Philo worked on different parts of his work simultaneously and\/or made additions to works already completed. For more on Philo, see the essay \u201cThe Writings of Philo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Jewish law is a sweepingly comprehensive set of rules for daily life\u2014covering not only prayer and divine service, but also food, drink, dress, sexual relations between husband and wife, and the rhythms of work and patterns of rest\u2014and does in fact constitute a way of living. First and foremost, On the Special Laws 1\u20134 presents many of the most pertinent of these \u201crules\u201d in a manner intended to enhance the meaningfulness of their practice. The Mishnah, Talmud, and Codes are devoted to just these matters, and hence much Philonic scholarship has focused on determining the links between Jewish law as expressed in Philo\u2019s writings and in the later traditional codification.
\nPhilo and Rabbinic Judaism are at one in their expectation that both the laws and the customs must be observed. However, while the Mishnah and the literature that developed in its wake concentrated on the details of how to perform these laws and customs, the vast majority of Philo\u2019s writings, including On the Special Laws, belong to the genre of homiletic midrash, whose object is to invest maximum spiritual meaning into Torah.
\nThe ancient world had no word for what we call \u201creligion,\u201d so Philo and others used the term \u201cphilosophy\u201d to refer to writings on the subject, since the term had already come to be used to indicate knowledge that leads to the good life\u2014that is, a recipe for right living, similar to the purpose of religion. The presentation of Judaism as a philosophy is found also in Philo\u2019s On the Life of Moses (2.216) and in Josephus\u2019s Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities (e.g., J.W. 2.119; Ant. 13.171. In Ag. Ap. 2.170, Josephus writes that Judaism subsumes within it the entire complement of the Virtues).
\nPhilo is probably the first and only source we have for the arrangement of the commandments under the rubrics of the Decalogue until this approach reappears in the writings of theologian and philosopher Rav Saadia Gaon (882\u2013942), who, like Philo, was conversant with Greek philosophy, albeit in its Arabic formulation. In Philo\u2019s day the Decalogue was not only recited as part of the daily Temple service (M. Tam. 5:1), but also formed an integral part of the morning and evening recitation of the Shema; it is in fact found in the tefillin from Qumran. In view of this, it is not surprising that Philo chose the Decalogue as an appropriate frame of reference for the discussion of the commandments. However, the Decalogue was later omitted from the daily recitation of the Shema as well as from the tefillin, apparently because of the predominant place it came to have in heretical discourse (B. Ber. 12a), or, in the words of the Sages: \u201cbecause of the allegations \/ complaints \/ criticisms of the sectarians \/ heretics.\u201d
\nThis development probably explains the adoption of a very different arrangement in Rabbinic literature, where the commandments are midrashically classified as Taryag mitzvot. Taryag is an acronym for the number 613, which in B. Mak. 23b\u201324a is described as being composed of 248 positive commands and 365 negative ones, with the positive commands equalling the number of the parts of the body, and the negative commands corresponding to the number of days in the solar year. The shift from the Decalogue\u2019s inclusion in the recitation of the Shema and in the tefillin to its omission and the introduction of the Taryag classification would not necessarily have occurred all at once. But the overwhelming and unquestioned acceptance of the new midrashic classification hints that the Rabbis felt an urgent need for an alternative to the association of the commandments with the Decalogue exclusively. Over the years, Rabbinic authorities such as Maimonides have attempted to identify exactly which positive and negative commandments make up the total of 613, but no consensus has been reached, and today the word Taryag has become a virtual synonym for \u201call the commandments\u201d\u2014that is, the halakhah.
\nThe most significant benchmark of Philo\u2019s writings is his indissoluble intertwining of Jewish and Greek conceptualizations (see, e.g., Spec. Laws 1.13\u201320). What has earned him lasting fame is his presentation of Judaism as a spiritual path in terms of Hellenistic philosophic thought. The frame of reference and values are Jewish, while the thought patterns are Hellenistic.
\nDevoting himself to reading the Pentateuch (or perhaps more accurately, to reading into the Pentateuch the ideas and values that he deemed most important), he penned a manyfaceted library of hermeneutic works whose conceptual frame of reference is philosophic. His historical and allegorical writings have attracted the most attention over the generations, but it is primarily in On the Special Laws that he addresses himself to the actual performance of the commandments.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
On the Special Laws follows immediately upon Philo\u2019s On the Decalogue, which commences with the epiphany at Sinai and proceeds to present and discuss each of the Ten Commandments. In On the Special Laws, Philo discusses the simple meaning of each of the Ten Commandments in more detail, following the order in which they appear in the Septuagint (LXX) rather than in the Masoretic Text (MT) (see comment below on 1.12). Under each rubric, he subsumes other biblical commandments as he deems appropriate, making no attempt to be comprehensive. Philo\u2019s expositions of the biblical text of the commandments provide the framework, but what would have made the work interesting to his readers were, of course, his elaborations.
\nAt the very beginning of On the Special Laws, Philo tells the reader that he now intends \u201cto examine the particular ordinances\u201d in some detail. However, instead of continuing directly with the study of the commandments under the discrete headings of the Decalogue, he opens Book 1 with a long disquisition justifying the commandment of circumcision (1\u201311; see also the comment on 1, I will begin).
\nBook 1 is devoted to the First and Second Commandments: \u201cYou shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image\u201d (Exod. 20:3\u20134; cf. Deut. 5:7\u20138). Under these Philo includes matters referring to the worship of God\u2014many of which are embroidered with allegorical significance\u2014such as the proof of God\u2019s existence, regulations of worship, the description of the Temple in Jerusalem, the sacrifices, and the vestments of the high priest.
\nBook 2 discusses matters associated with the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Commandments: \u201cYou shall not swear falsely by the name of the LORD your God\u201d (Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11); \u201cRemember the Sabbath day and keep it holy\u201d (Exod. 20:8; Deut. 5:12); and \u201cHonor your father and your mother\u201d (Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16). The focus in this volume is Philo\u2019s handling of the Fourth Commandment, where he discusses not only the seventh day, but also, by association, matters that are a function of seven (such as shemitah, the sabbatical year, i.e., the seventh year in which the land is left fallow) and all the festive days of the Jewish calendar.
\nBook 3 deals with the Sixth and Seventh Commandments, including miscellaneous matters associated with them, in the order of the Decalogue found in the LXX: adultery and murder, rather than that of the MT: murder and adultery. (The excerpt presented here covers only adultery.) Philo prefaces his discussion by an impassioned lamentation over the tidal wave of political concerns that has engulfed him and made it impossible to devote himself, as formerly, to spiritual pursuits. While it is of course well known that during many of Philo\u2019s mature years the political situation was extremely volatile, at the same time there are degrees of emergency. Hence, on the face of it, the allusion here is to the monumental crisis of 38\u201341 CE that Philo so eloquently describes in Against Flaccus and On the Embassy to Gaius.
\nPerhaps Philo\u2019s lament appears only in the middle of On the Special Laws because it was then that the crisis came to a head, or because he hoped that by then it would have already passed; indeed, as Colson has noted in a footnote to Spec. Laws 2.262, an alternative translation of the final sentence in Spec. Laws 2 might be: \u201cWe will proceed to examine the contents of the second table when opportunity offers\u201d\u2014rather than \u201cin due season.\u201d Anyone who has ever been torn between concerns of the spirit and public obligations will empathize with Philo\u2019s description.
\nBook 4 includes Philo\u2019s discussion of matters associated with the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Commandments: \u201cYou shall not steal\u201d (Exod. 20:13; Deut. 5:17); \u201cYou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor\u201d (Exod. 20:13; Deut. 5:17); and \u201cYou shall not covet\u201d (Exod. 20:14; Deut. 5:18). The first excerpt presented in this volume (Spec. Laws 4.58\u201377) concerns the Ninth Commandment. Philo takes the context of false witness as the point of departure for legal justice in general, since it belongs to the domain of the law courts. Along with several digressions, 58\u201377 contain the first installment of Philo\u2019s discussion of justice. He returns to the subject in 136, from a very different vantage point.
\nToward the end of Spec. Laws 4, Philo turns from his discussion of which laws fit under which specific rubric in the Decalogue to \u201csome things, common to all, which fit not with some particular number such as one or two, but with all the Ten Great Words\u201d (4.133). He concludes the book with an encomium on \u201cequality,\u201d whose daughter is \u201cJustice\u201d\u2014meaning, in this context, that each receives what is fitting for him (4.230\u201338).
\nMuch of Philo\u2019s writing appears to our 21st-century eyes as rambling and long-winded verbiage, yet at least two of his works, On the Embassy to Gaius and Against Flaccus, make fascinating reading even in our day. It is our knowledge of the current events described by Philo in them and our empathy for them that make the difference. Readers should keep in mind that Philo wrote in a specific time and place, for a specific audience. Reading him with the eyes of his contemporaries often clarifies Philo\u2019s message and at times even transforms a passage, revealing its vitality and leading to insights that are more likely to be true than conclusions drawn from a surface reading.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Belkin, Samuel. Philo and the Oral Law: The Philonic Interpretation of Biblical Law in Relation to the Palestinian Halakah. Harvard Semitic Series 9. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940.
\nBorgen, Peder. Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 86. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
\nCohen, Naomi G. Philo Judaeus: His Universe of Discourse. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Jewish Dimension of Philo\u2019s Judaism: An Elucidation of De Specialibus Legibus IV 132\u2013150.\u201d Journal of Jewish Studies 38 (1987): 165\u201386.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Greek Virtues and the Mosaic Laws in Philo: An Elucidation of de Specialibus Legibus IV 133\u2013135.\u201d The Studia Philonica Annual 5 (1993): 9\u201323.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Elucidation of Philo\u2019s Spec. Leg. 4:137\u20138: \u2018Stamped Too with Genuine Seals.\u2019 \u201d In Classical Studies in Honor of David Sohlberg, edited by Ranon Katzoff with Yaakov Petroff and David Schaps, 153\u201366. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1996.
\nRunia, David. \u201cHow to Read Philo.\u201d Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 40 (1986): 185\u201398.
\nSchenck, Kenneth. A Brief Guide to Philo. Louisville KY: Westminster\u2013John Knox, 2005.
\nUrbach, Ephra\u00efm Elimelech. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, translated by Israel Abrahams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Reprint, 2006.
\nWolfson, Harry Austryn. Philo. 2 vols. (particularly 1:217\u201326). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
two heads Colson renders this as \u201cthe two heads,\u201d but the definite article is misleading and is not found in the Greek.
\nother sovereign gods Better: other gods as sovereign. The change in the word order is essential, for otherwise the chapter heading, even though it is not original, would be very misleading. Colson recognizes this and refers the reader to Spec. Laws 1.13\u201314, where it is obvious that the gods described there are not sovereign, nor do they have absolute powers. The term \u201cgods\u201d appears in Scripture as a common noun, and unless otherwise indicated, does not signify more than phenomenological existence\u2014that is, that people believed in their existence and worshiped them.
\nPhilo also sometimes refers to divinely created \u201cpowers,\u201d as well as to the heavenly bodies, as \u201cgods,\u201d even while he stresses that they were created by and are subordinate to God (see his explanation in 13\u201320; see also comments on Spec. Laws 2.1). He uses the term \u201cPowers\u201d quite often (see comments on Spec. Laws 1.45 and on 46, The Powers). The terms \u201cPowers,\u201d \u201cPotencies,\u201d and \u201cGlory\u201d are virtual synonyms in Philo\u2019s writings.
\n1.1. as the sequence of our dissertation requires Mangey and Heinemann read, \u201cin the order indicated in the Scriptures,\u201d but this is not convincing since it is patently not the case. Colson cites Drunkenness 1 (I believe he intends Drunkenness 11.1), and Dreams 1.1.1, in support of the understanding that this refers to Philo\u2019s own composition.
\nI will begin Instead of beginning with the First Commandment, as we would have expected, Philo commences with a lengthy apologetic discourse on the commandment of circumcision. Indeed, in Hellenistic cities such as Alexandria, where the Greeks exercised naked in their gymnasia and nude statuary abounded in the central plazas, circumcision must have been the most noticeable sign of Judaism and was undoubtedly a very live subject in the Alexandrian Jewish community. Furthermore, in Alexandria, being circumcised not only distinguished between Jew and Greek, but also\u2014since the Egyptians practiced circumcision as well\u2014identified Jews with the Egyptians, who were of a lower civil status than the Greeks. Hence the position that Philo gives to this commandment before proceeding to classify other \u201cordinances\u201d under the rubrics of the Decalogue. Philo might have justified discussing circumcision first by reminding his readers that this commandment preceded the Decalogue\u2014since Scripture relates how Abraham received this commandment long before the revelation at Sinai\u2014but he does not. Note, however, that Colson reports that Thomas Mangey and Isaak Heinemann render this as \u201cin the order indicated in the Scriptures.\u201d
\nOn Circumcision Colson notes that in the manuscript, this heading appears just before Spec. Laws 1.1\u2014but it actually refers only to 2\u201311, so I have placed it here.
\n2. genital organs Better: organs of generation. Colson renders this as \u201cgenital organs,\u201d but \u201cgenital\u201d refers to the physical organ, while what is meant here is \u201cgeneration\u201d or \u201cprocreation.\u201d
\nthe Egyptians Egypt was perceived as an ancient civilization even in Philo\u2019s time, and was viewed as the cradle of Greek philosophy (cf. Philo, QG 3.47\u20138). Still, considering the inferior legal and social status of the contemporary Egyptians relative to the uncircumcised Greeks who were Philo\u2019s social frame of reference, it is surprising that Philo begins his encomium on circumcision with a reference to the Egyptian practice of it. His decision to do so lends credence to his statement in Spec. Laws 1.8 that he is relating traditional exegesis.
\n3. mockery Better: scoffing.
\nCircumstances Better: reasons.
\nthe men of old Though it is tempting to consider this to be a synonym for \u201cancient rabbis,\u201d a comparison of the phrase\u2019s connotation in Decalogue 23 and Spec. Laws 1.195; 2.153 shows that this cannot be automatically assumed.
\n4. slow fire Or \u201cinward and secret fire\u201d (lit., \u201cburns smoldering\u201d).
\n5. the consecrated order Better: the people consecrated to God. I have here followed Yonge\u2019s translation because clarifies that Jewish circumcision is discussed; the next words in this section confirm that the reference is not to the Egyptians.
\n6. assimilates the circumcised member Better: the resemblance of the part that is circumcised. Literally: \u201cthe likeness of the circumcised part.\u201d
\nto the heart This does not mean that they are initially alike, but rather that they are made so by circumcision.
\nthought being generated by the spirit force in the heart While this was a Hellenistic conceptualization, Philo also must have been well aware of the scriptural passages that speak of a circumcised (or uncircumcised) heart. See, for example, Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16. Philo refers explicitly to these verses in Spec. Laws 1.304\u20135.
\nthe earliest men Better: ancients. \u201cThe earliest men\u201d is more literal, but misleading.
\n7. its adaptation to give fertility of offspring Many Rabbinic sources emphasize the paramount importance of having children.
\n8\u201311 Following these \u201ctraditional explanations,\u201d Philo adds two considerations of his own. The first clearly reflects his ascetic bent, while the heat with which he makes the second comment suggests that he may be speaking on the basis of his own experience. We have no reliable information whatsoever respecting Philo\u2019s personal life.
\n8. from the old-time studies of divinely gifted men In contrast to the term \u201cmen of old\u201d in Spec. Laws 1.3, which does not necessarily refer to ancient Rabbis in the Jewish tradition, here it is clear from the context that the reference is to traditional Jewish exegesis, which apparently explains Philo\u2019s mention of the practice of the Egyptians in a positive light. Philo now adds his own justifications for circumcision to the traditional ones he has just listed. Note the difference in the types of argument.
\n9. palm Better: the first place. Palm no longer has this connotation in English.
\nmaking circumcision the figure of the excision Colson notes that the Greek here contains a play on words: peritome = circumcision, and ektome = excision.
\nexcision of excessive and superfluous pleasure One of many examples of Philo\u2019s rejection of pleasure in general, and except for procreation, of sex, which he considers to be the quintessence of pleasure. In contrast to this, the mainstream Rabbinic approach has a positive attitude respecting sex for pleasure (See M. Ket. 5:6, 7; B. Ket. 61b\u201362a.)
\n10. know himself This echoes the famous maxim \u201cKnow thyself,\u201d which expresses the idea that one must recognize the limitations of one\u2019s human nature. See also Spec. Laws 1.44; 2.83; Plato, Prot. 343b3; Phileb. 48c.
\nthough they might find in their familiars a corrective for their delusion One may perceive here an echo of emotional involvement. As already noted, absolutely nothing reliable is known respecting Philo\u2019s personal life\u2014not even whether he had a wife or children.
\n12\u201320 The numbering of the commandments differs between the LXX (Codex Alexandrinus) that is followed by Philo and Josephus (Ant. 3.31), and the accepted order in Rabbinic tradition, which considers Exod. 20:2 (\u201cI the LORD am your God\u201d) to be the First Commandment or \u201cWord\u201d of the Ten Commandments, and Exod. 20:3\u20136 (\u201cYou shall have no other gods,\u201d etc.) to be the Second. However, Philo and Josephus consider Exod. 20:2 (\u201cI the LORD am your God\u201d) to be part of the introduction; verse 3 (\u201cYou shall have no other gods\u201d) as the First Commandment, and verses 4\u20136 (\u201cYou shall have no other gods\u201d) as the Second Commandment. There are also differences in the order of the last three commandments, but they do not interest us at this point. The treatment of the First and Second Commandments by Philo in Spec. Laws 1.12\u201331 is similar to that found in On the Decalogue, except that in addition to the literal understanding of \u201cidols\u201d in the Second Commandment, Philo adds the idea that this commandment also proscribes the worship of \u201cwealth\u201d (Spec. Laws 1.23\u201329; not included in the selections here). The following sections (13\u201320) provide a good example of Philo\u2019s hallmark intertwining of Jewish and Greek conceptualizations.
\n13. the universe \u2026 is \u2026 the greatest of commonwealths The comparison of the universe to a commonwealth reflects both Philo\u2019s conception of good government and the Stoic conception of the nature of the world. Philo was apparently the first to use the term kosmopoliths (cosmopolitan) to mean \u201ca citizen of the world.\u201d (See also Philo, Creation 3, 143.) As another example of this viewpoint, Philo uses the term megalopolis\u2014which in other ancient sources means \u201cgreat city\u201d\u2014to refer to the world (see Spec. 1.34; Creation 19; Joseph 29; Moses 2.51).
\n14. the Charioteer mounted above This is an echo of the figure of the Charioteer and horses found in Plato (Phaedrus 246ff; Statesman 266e9), but the image is not identical.
\n16. the preservation of the All \u201cThe All\u201d (Greek to Pan) is a standard Greek locution for the universe. Philo accepts the conception of the sun, the moon, and the stars as having power and influence over all that has been created, but at the same time he strenuously objects to looking upon them as independent powers.
\nsupposing that they alone are gods Philo repeatedly stresses that while the sun, moon, and stars have influence on the course of events, they themselves were created and are subordinate to their Creator. It is unlikely that the difference between this belief system and astrology, which is accepted as a \u201cfact\u201d in talmudic sources, is more than a question of semantics.
\n17. just as sense is the servitor of mind Philo compares the relation between the inscrutable realm of the transcendent and the realm of perceptible physical existence with the relation between the human mind and the organs of sense.
\n18. if the mind in us \u2026 the mind of the universe Philo reiterates the same idea even more strongly (see previous comment). God is described here as the transcendent and inconceivable \u201cmind of the universe.\u201d
\n19. the gods which sense descries in heaven \u2026 received the rank of subordinate rulers The very fact that the heavenly bodies are visible defines them as subordinate.
\n20. God of gods This locution is found in Deut. 10:17 (KJV, OJPS), which is the same verse that contains the three attributes of God mentioned in the first \u201cblessing\u201d of praise in the Amidah. The NJPS translation reads: \u201cFor the LORD your God is God supreme and LORD supreme [lit., \u2018the God of gods and the LORD of lords\u2019], the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe.\u201d It is a very central verse in Jewish tradition. Philo\u2019s lengthy discourse here may well reflect a desire to explain a scriptural text that, on the face of it, recognizes other \u201cgods.\u201d Massekhet Soferim 4:6 explains this succinctly: \u201cThe first [reference] is Holy [kodesh], and the second profane [hol].\u201d
\nthe Maker of all This sums up Philo\u2019s description of the Jewish conception of God: immaterial, invisible, apprehended by the understanding alone, with special stress on his being \u201cthe Maker of all.\u201d
\n32\u201357 These verses relate to the problems of God\u2019s existence and his essence. Philo first brings the argument from design (Spec. Laws 1.35: \u201csurely [this universe] has been wrought by one of excellent knowledge and absolute perfection\u201d) to prove his existence. Then in 36\u201340 there is the attempt to fathom his essence. Philo describes the exquisite joy of this pursuit, even while he recognizes that it is unattainable.
\n33. any \u2026 work \u2026 involves the knowledge of a workman This was a familiar argument in ancient times (Colson, e.g., here cites SVF 2.1009, particularly Cicero, Nat.d. 2.16\u201317; 3.26). In Alleg. Interp. 3.97\u201399, Philo calls it \u201cdiscerning the Artificer by means of his works.\u201d
\n34. must he not \u2026 gain the conception of the Maker and Father and Ruler Cf. Gen. Rab. 39:1. \u201cNow the LORD said to Abram: \u2018Get thee out\u2019 R. Yitschak said: After he [Abram] went from place to place and saw a castle lit up, he said, \u2018Can you say that the castle doesn\u2019t have a ruler?\u2019 The Holy One, blessed be He, appeared and said to him, \u2018I am the ruler, the Master of the entire world.\u2019 \u201d (my translation). Note that in the midrash, the logical conclusion is accompanied by a direct divine revelation to Abraham.
\n36. As for the divine essence, though in fact it is hard to track and hard to apprehend Better: untrack-able and inapprehensible. Philo\u2019s subsequent text (cf. Spec. Laws 1.40) requires the definitive statement here. In Exod. 33:18\u201320, Moses asks God, \u201cLet me behold Your Presence!\u201d and God tells him that \u201cman may not see Me and live.\u201d This is traditionally understood to imply that the \u201cdivine essence,\u201d by its very nature, cannot be apprehended by a living human being; see, e.g., Maimonides, Hilkhot Yesodei Hatorah 1:10.
\n37. philosophy To understand the nuances of this word in Philo\u2019s day, it is important to bear in mind that, in the ancient world, the word \u201creligion\u201d connoted demon worship, superstition, and so on. At the same time the Greek word filosofia (philosophy) indicated \u201ca recipe for a good life,\u201d and in certain Jewish contexts it came to refer to what we would call today \u201cthe ideological aspects of Judaism.\u201d Josephus frequently uses the term \u201cphilosophy\u201d in this sense. Here it is apparently used to refer to what we would call \u201cthe tenets of Judaism\u201d (cf. also Philo, Virtues 65).
\nreasonings and conclusions Gk: log\u014dn kai dogmat\u014dn; this semantic unit appears only in Philo\u2019s writings. Perhaps the text might better be rendered in its Judeo-Greek connotion, as \u201cbiblical laws and other regulations.\u201d
\nthe reason soars away from earth into the heights Rabbinic Sages and scholars renowned for their halakhic prowess are sometimes also associated with esoteric flights. Note, too, that the metaphor calls to mind the myth recounted by Plato in Phaedr. 246d\u2013249d. Philo uses the image of \u201csoaring\u201d in similar contexts elsewhere (see, e.g., Spec. Laws 1.207; 2.45; 3.1\u20135).
\n41\u201350 In this passage, Philo uses the dialogue between Moses and God (Exod. 33:13\u201323) as a vehicle to present his own conception of God\u2019s essence and God\u2019s relation to the world. Sections 41\u201344 treat Moses\u2019s request to God: \u201cReveal Thyself to me\u201d (41, referring to Exod. 33:13 LXX [my translation]). Philo reads into Moses\u2019s request an argument for God\u2019s existence (\u201cThis universe has been my teacher, to bring me to the knowledge that Thou art and dost subsist\u201d; Spec. Laws 1.41), while Moses\u2019s further petition in Exod. 33:18 is used in Spec. Laws 1.45\u201350 to introduce Philo\u2019s conceptualization of God\u2019s essence. He perceives God\u2019s \u201cglory\u201d as indicating God\u2019s \u201cPowers,\u201d which in turn are equated with the Platonic ideas or forms; and these he compares to the seals with which his readers are familiar. For they too impress their form on matter without changing anything of their own essence.
\n41. Reveal Thyself to me Exod. 33:13. The MT has \u201cShow me now Thy ways (derakhekha).\u201d Philo\u2019s quotation is identical with the LXX, which is of course his point of departure.
\nyet find in no part of the All Yet do not find in any parts of the universe.
\n42. Thou alone canst tell me of Thyself This world provides knowledge of God\u2019s existence through his works, but only God himself can provide knowledge of his essence.
\n43. the request cannot fitly be granted to any that are brought into being by creation That is to say that God\u2019s infinite and incorporeal essence cannot be grasped by created corporeal finite being.
\n44. Know thyself This famous maxim has already been used by Philo above in 10, also in the context of the limitations of human nature.
\n45. the glory The MT has kevodekha; the LXX reads doksa, \u201cglory.\u201d
\nThy glory The scriptural term \u201cGod\u2019s glory\u201d is identified by Philo here as well as elsewhere with God\u2019s \u201cPowers\u201d (dunameis), which are then equated with the Platonic ideas or forms.
\n46. The Powers Philo stresses that like God himself, God\u2019s Powers are grasped only by pure intellect.
\nI speak not of those which are now actually apprehended Colson notes that Heinemann and Mangey emend the text to read: \u201cI do not mean that they are now discerned,\u201d which provides a smoother reading.
\n47. seals Philo uses the term \u201cseals\u201d (sphrageis) to describe the \u201cideas\u201d or \u201cforms,\u201d both here and in other works: in Drunkenness 133.4, the seal on the plate on the holy crown of the high priest (Exod. 28:36) is equated with \u201can incorporeal idea\u201d; in Migration 103.4, it is defined as \u201cthe original principle behind all principles (sphragis idea estin ide\u014dn)\u201d; and similarly in Names 135.1, it is described as \u201cthe seal of the universe, the archetypal idea.\u201d It has been suggested that Philo\u2019s use of \u201cseal\u201d (sphragis) for the \u201cideas\u201d originated in his allegory of the vestments of the high priest, where the LXX (Exod. 28:36) has the word \u201cseal\u201d (sphragis) for MT hotam.
\n48. ideas Colson\u2019s text reads: \u201c\u2019forms\u2019 or \u2018ideas,\u2019 \u201d but \u201cforms\u201d is not found here in the Greek text.
\nthey bring form into everything It appears that the only other place where Philo explicitly identifies the Powers (dunameis) with the Platonic Ideas is Spec. Laws 1.329, where the context (beginning in Spec. Laws 1.327) categorizes under five heads those who do not recognize the true God.
\n49. I bid you come and contemplate \u2026 a spectacle apprehended \u2026 by the unsleeping eyes of the mind Elsewhere Philo allegorizes the name \u201cIsrael\u201d as \u201cthe [nation] who sees God.\u201d Although Philo does not use the name \u201cIsrael\u201d here, this invitation to understand God by contemplating the universe with the \u201ceyes of the mind\u201d may be understood as part of the same conceptualization.
\n51\u201353 Philo writes in 51\u201353 that both native-born Jews and proselytes are included in the category of those \u201cwho spurn idle fables and embrace truth in its purity.\u201d The native-born Jews are enjoined to treat proselytes with particular consideration, and they, in turn, are warned against reviling other gods, lest the adherents of those gods respond by reviling the true God.
\n51. obtain His approval This is the way Colson has understood the text. Yonge renders: \u201cAnd he [i.e., Moses] receives.\u201d
\nproselytes This is the word regularly used by the LXX to render the Hebrew word ger\u2014of whatever sort. While the word has many meanings depending upon the context, here it indicates complete conversion to what Philo describes in Spec. Laws 4.159 as \u201cone citizenship, and the same law and one God.\u201d
\nor newly joined, because they have joined the new and godly commonwealth Better: from the fact of their having come over to \u2026 unalloyed truth. Colson omits the rest of the sentence found in the Greek text. I have here followed Yonge\u2019s translation, which includes it.
\n52. the old nobility By this Philo means \u201cnative-born Jews.\u201d
\nwith special friendship and with more than ordinary goodwill Cf. Lev. 19:34: \u201cThe stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt\u201d; see also Exod. 23:9 and Deut. 10:19. Note that Philo, in line with his general practice in this respect, makes no mention of the fact that the Jews had once been \u201cstrangers in the land of Egypt\u201d for this might well cause discomfort to his contemporary readers who considered themselves as distinguished citizens.
\nAnd surely there is good reason for this \u2026 to honor the one God While I have let Colson\u2019s text stand, Yonge\u2019s text appears to me to be more lucid: \u201cIs not this a reasonable recommendation? What he says is this. \u2018Those men, who have left their country, and their friends, and their relations for the sake of virtue and holiness, ought not to be left destitute of other cities, and houses and friends, but there ought to be places of refuge always ready for those who come over to piety; for the most effectual allurement and the most indissoluble bond of affectionate good will is the mutual honoring of the one God.\u2019 \u201d
\nvirtue and religion Better: virtue and holiness. See the introductory comments and also the comment on Spec. Laws 1.37, philosophy, for why the word \u201creligion\u201d is inappropriate.
\n53. them The reference is to the proselytes.
\nthe gods whom others acknowledge The King James Version (KJV) understands Exod. 22:27 MT in the same way as Philo: \u201cThou shalt not revile the gods\u201d (KJV)\u2014\u201cgods\u201d with a lowercase g; that is, gods of other nations. Since the LXX has the plural theous for MT elohim, it is natural for Philo to have understood this to mean \u201cgods\u201d rather than the one God. In Moses 2.205 he explicitly states that the reference is not to \u201cthe Begetter of the Universe but to the gods of the different cities who are falsely so called.\u201d Josephus paraphrases Exod. 22:27 in a similar vein: \u201cLet none blaspheme the gods which other cities revere\u201d (Ant. 4.207; see also Ag. Ap. 2.237). On the other hand, Rabbinic tradition understands elohim in this verse as a reference to \u201cjudges,\u201d and in accord with this, OJPS renders the verse: \u201cThou shalt not revile God,\u201d explaining in a footnote that this refers to \u201cjudges,\u201d while NJPS reads: \u201cYou shall not revile God,\u201d without any explanation.
\nlest they This apparently refers to the Gentiles whose gods are being reviled.
\n54\u201357 This passage has given rise to a vast amount of discussion, because on first read, the lynching of apostates appears to be prescribed, and some scholars have even proposed that this reflected either the law of the Jewish community in Alexandria, or, at the very least, contemporary practice there. Yet, most passages in which Philo recounts the zeal of Phinehas (cf. Num. 25) are clearly intended allegorically: the battle is within the soul. And even in the remaining passage where, as here, Philo recounts Phinehas\u2019s act as an historical event (Moses 1.300\u2013304), it is described not as a norm, but as a one-time emergency measure. Finally, see Moses 1.314: \u201cFor though the slaughter of enemies is lawful, yet one who kills a man, even if he does so justly and in self-defense, and under compulsion, has something to answer for, in view of the primal common kinship of mankind.\u201d
\n54. members of the nation Refers to those who were born Jewish, in contrast to proselytes.
\npiety and religion Better: piety and holiness. Since the word \u201creligion\u201d did not have the same meaning in Philo\u2019s day as it does today, its use here in the translation is misleading. Further, the word combination found in the text is a Judeo-Greek locution for what we today would call \u201cJewish religious observance.\u201d Cf. also Spec. Laws 1.186, where Colson also renders this word combination as \u201cpiety and holiness.\u201d Respecting the Day of Atonement, Philo writes there, \u201cOn the tenth day is the fast (Num. 29:7\u201311), which is carefully observed not only by the zealous for piety and holiness but also by those who never act religiously in the rest of their life.\u201d
\nthe mind which had the power of keen vision Philo often understands the name \u201cIsrael\u201d metaphorically, as those who have the power of (intellectually) \u201cseeing God.\u201d While there are dozens of examples of this in his writings, a single one will suffice. In Alleg. Interp. 3.186 we read: \u201cwhen the mind lifts itself up away from mortal things and is borne aloft, that which sees God, which is Israel, gains strength.\u201d Philo takes it for granted that his readers would have this in mind, even though he has not stated it explicitly.
\n55. all who have a zeal for virtue should be permitted to exact the penalties offhand The decisive words in this sentence are should be permitted. The passage must be read as hyperbole, an overstatement used to express Philo\u2019s burning anger respecting apostates. The grammatical construction supports this understanding, and the vehemence suggests a reaction based on personal experience. Perhaps it is worth reminding the reader that Philo\u2019s nephew Tiberius Julius Alexander was almost certainly an apostate.
\njury or council \u2026 councilors, jurymen, high sheriffs Note too that the passage specifies the normal procedure: \u201cjury or council,\u201d and a few lines after this, catalogues those normally involved in the procedure: \u201ccouncillors, jurymen, high sheriffs, members of assembly, accusers, witnesses, laws, people\u201d and perhaps \u201cRoman magistrates\u201d (suggested by Goodenough) as well.
\nholiness Here, Colson again translates the Gk. hosioths (lit., \u201choliness\u201d) as \u201creligion.\u201d In Philo\u2019s day the word \u201creligion\u201d did not have the same meaning as today.
\n56. the example of one who acted with this admirable courage The reading of this section together with other Philonic passages shows clearly that this was neither the law nor the custom, and the parallel in Moses 1.301\u20136 stresses the emergency nature of the situation described in Scripture\u2014that here the very survival of the people was at stake.
\nrites of a fabulous religion Better: mythical rites.
\n57. the gifts of peace and priesthood See Num. 25:12\u201313.
\n66\u201397 The intervening sections, Spec. Laws 1.58\u201365, dealt with the prohibitions against divinations and like practices and concluded the discussion of the proper conception of God. What follows, in 66\u2013298, are practical regulations of worship, which are intended to provide spiritual lessons conveyed in the form of symbolic ritual (e.g., 66\u201373 identifies the \u201cTemple of God\u201d proper with the entire universe, following which it describes \u201cthe temple made by hands.; 96\u201397, refers to the vestments of the high priest as \u201ca copy of the universe\u201d).
\n66\u201373 As long as it stood, the Temple in Jerusalem served as the principal focus of Jewish consciousness not only for those who lived in Judea, but for the entire Diaspora. At the same time, in line with the conceptualization of the \u201cGod of the Jews\u201d as the \u201cLORD of the Universe,\u201d Philo introduces his description of the Temple in Jerusalem by the statement that the entire universe is in fact the Temple of God, with heaven as its sanctuary. It is only after this that he turns to portray the \u201cthe temple made by hands\u201d\u2014that is, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
\n66. temple \u2026 sanctuary The term \u201ctemple\u201d is used by Philo to indicate the structure as a whole, while the holiest part, the \u201cHoly of Holies,\u201d is referred to by Philo as the \u201csanctuary.\u201d
\ntemple of God \u2026 the whole universe It is recounted in 1 Kings 8:27 that at the time of the consecration of the Temple in Jerusalem, King Solomon is quoted as praying: \u201cBut will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their utmost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!\u201d. Though reminiscent of this, Philo\u2019s statement is conceptually different, for he defines the entire universe as God\u2019s Temple, with heaven as its sanctuary, adorned and inhabited by the stars, the angels, and unbodied souls of pure intelligence as inhabiting its \u201csanctuary.\u201d
\nthe angels The term has different connotations in different contexts. Here the angels are called priests and described as subordinate assistants of God\u2019s Powers (see next comment).
\nHis Powers This term has already been used several times by Philo; see, for example, Spec. Laws 1.45\u201348 (and the comments there), where it is equated simultaneously with the scriptural concept \u201cGod\u2019s Glory\u201d and with the Platonic ideas. Likewise, in 1.329 we read, \u201cHe [God] made full use of the incorporeal potencies, well denoted by their name of Forms\u201d (this is Colson\u2019s rendering. The Gk. here is \u201cideas,\u201d not \u201cforms.\u201d. \u201cPowers\u201d in 49 and 66 and \u201cpotencies\u201d here and in 329 are different English words for the same thing). Philo conceived of the relation between God and the cosmos as being achieved by a process of emanation, God\u2019s Powers serving as a stage between the transcendent and the immanent.
\nunbodied souls \u2026 pure intelligences One can gain further insight into this concept by reading Philo\u2019s description of the immortality of the soul in Moses 2.288: \u201cAfterward the time came when he [Moses] had to make the pilgrimage from earth to heaven, and leave this mortal life for immortality, summoned thither by the Father Who resolved his twofold nature of soul and body into a single unity, transforming his whole being into mind, pure as sunlight.\u201d
\n67. sacrifices This rings like an apologetic justification of the sacrifices\u2014as fulfilling the innate human need to offer something tangible together with prayers of intercession and thanksgiving.
\nthere should not be temples built either in many places or many in the same place See Deut. 12:5\u20137, 11\u201314, 17\u201318. Colson, quoting Cohn and Heinemann, notes that Josephus (Ant. 4.200; Ag. Ap. 2.193) uses the same reasoning to explain this directive as Philo does here: \u201cthat since God is one, there should be also only one temple.\u201d This may possibly also be a veiled criticism of the Temple of Onias, situated at Leontopolis.
\n68. perform the rites in their houses In the Greek tradition, Hestia, the guardian of the hearth, was worshiped in all homes. I know of no parallel to this in Jewish tradition. It was not prayer that was forbidden outside the Temple, but sacrificial offerings. Philo explains the significance of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as an expression of true commitment on the part of the pilgrim.
\nreligious Gk. euaghs, \u201cpure, holy.\u201d As noted above (see, e.g., the comment on Spec. Laws 1.52, virtue and holiness; and on 54, piety and holiness), while in modern English this can be translated as \u201creligious,\u201d this rendering does not reflect the original connotation of the word religio.
\n69\u201370. And we have the surest proof of this in what actually happens In addition to noting its ritual aspect, Philo describes the pilgrimage experience as a refreshing interlude in the cares of daily life and an opportunity to initiate friendships. His only mention of a visit of his own to the Temple in Jerusalem is in Providence 2.64, where he writes, \u201cwhen I was on my way to our ancestral temple to offer up prayers and sacrifices.\u201d Josephus very graphically describes the multitudes of pilgrims who came from all over the world (see, e.g., J.W. 5; Ant. 15).
\n70. they devote the leisure, as is their bounden duty Colson notes here that the Greek literally reads, \u201cthey are at leisure with the most necessary leisure.\u201d
\n71\u201373 The Temple described by Philo was as it had been renovated by Herod the Great (born ca. 73\u201374 BCE), and was famous for its beauty.
\n71. Each of them is twofold Colson explains this to mean two rows of pillars (as does Heinemann). The double stoa can be discerned on any picture of the reconstruction.
\n72. Right in the very middle stands the sanctuary Philo uses the Greek word for \u201cnews\u201d to denote the Holy of Holies (see the comment on Spec. Laws 1.66, temple \u2026 sanctuary). It was indeed in the center of the width of the edifice from a spectator\u2019s viewpoint, even if it was not actually in the center of the entire Temple from a bird\u2019s-eye vantage point.
\nthe high priest \u2026 charged with the duty of entering once a year The mishnaic tractate Yoma is devoted largely to a detailed description of the ritual activities of the high priest on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). To this day central features of the Musaf prayer service on the Day of Atonement are the liturgical compositions, couched in solemn words, that portray the high priest performing his liturgical duties in the Temple, climaxing with his entry into and safe exit from the Holy of Holies. M. Yoma 5:1 merely states that upon his exit he recites \u201ca short prayer,\u201d but B. Yoma 53b provides more detail of the prayer: \u201cMay it be Thy will, O LORD our God, that this year be full of heavy rains \u2026 and permit not the prayers of travelers to find entrance before you\u201d (for they would of course pray that it wouldn\u2019t rain). Parallels are found in B. Ta\u2019an. 24b, and Vayikra Rabba (Vilna) parasha 20, incipit: (d) R. Yudan.
\n73. of the sanctuary I have added these words for the sake of clarity.
\ndespite its comparatively low situation as prominent an object as any of the highest mountains This calls to mind Ps. 125:2: \u201cJerusalem, hills enfold it, and the LORD enfolds His people now and forever.\u201d Even today, the Temple site itself is not visible from afar on all sides. But, as one comes closer, the Dome of the Rock, believed to stand directly over the site of the Holy of Holies of the Holy Temple, comes into view as the most striking object on the skyline.
\n96\u201397 The intervening sections contained a general description of the Temple (74\u201375), its revenues (76\u201378), the qualifications of the Priests and Levites (79\u201381), their dress, including a detailed allegorical depiction of the vestments of the high priest (82\u201395). Sections 96\u201397 provide a summary of the allegorical symbolism of the high priest\u2019s vestments (see also Spec. Laws 4.69).
\n96. of the All This is a standard Greek locution for the entire universe (to pan).
\nhis own life worthy of the sum of things Apparently an allusion to the Hellenistic ideal (referred to often by Philo) of \u201cliving in accord with nature,\u201d from which he deduces, elsewhere in his writing, the ideal of \u201cliving according to the Torah.\u201d
\nsum of things Or: \u201cworthy of the nature of the universe.\u201d Gk. reads: ths twn olwn fusews.
\nhave the whole universe as his fellow ministrant The high priest\u2019s vestments (which have been allegorized in detail in the preceding paragraphs) are represented as allegorically symbolizing the entire universe.
\nFather\u2019s son, the universe Other examples of this metaphor in Philo\u2019s work include Spec. Laws 1.41; Unchangeable 31.
\nCreator and Begetter The word \u201cBegetter\u201d is not infrequently used by Philo as a metaphor for God as creator of the world. God is also sometimes described as \u201csowing\u201d qualities in humankind (e.g., Alleg. Interp. 1.79; 3.181; Spec. Laws 2.29). But Philo\u2019s use of this metaphor differs from his description of God as \u201cconsorting\u201d with Wisdom in order to \u201cbeget\u201d the universe\u2014an image that is rare in Philo\u2019s writings. When speaking of the \u201cact of creation\u201d of the cosmos, and not merely as a metaphorical manner of speech, Philo uses the image of \u201cbegetting\u201d only in Drunkenness 30\u201331. There he depicts God as creating the cosmos by consorting with Knowledge, whereupon he immediately equates Knowledge with Wisdom (sophia) and modifies the image by the comment, \u201cnot as men have it.\u201d In fact, Philo uses the word sun\u014dn in the sense \u201cto consort with,\u201d respecting God, only in Drunkenness 31; the word is not found in the LXX. The only parallel to this image apparent in Philo\u2019s writings is Cherubim 42\u201347, which he introduces \u201cas a divine mystery \u2026 for the initiated\u201d (42).
\n97. the high priest of the Jews makes prayers Philo contrasts the parochialism of other peoples with the universalistic horizon of the Jewish high priest that is represented as encompassing not only all humankind, but even all of nature, by means of his vesture (garments). In Spec. Laws 2.163\u201364, the Jewish nation as a whole is likened to a priest: \u201cthe Jewish nation is to the whole inhabited world what the priest is to the State.\u201d
\nearth, water, air, fire The premise that everything was formed from these four elements was developed by the Greek philosopher Empedocles of Sicily, and dominated natural philosophy for over 2,000 years, until the rise of modern science.
\n2. oaths Colson notes that this is a very inadequate term to describe what is discussed in Spec. Laws 1.1\u201338.
\n2.1. other sovereign gods See the above comments on Spec. Law 1, Title, other gods as sovereign; on 1.16, 19; and on 1.20, God of gods, where Philo explains how he understands Deut. 10:17.
\nwork of men\u2019s hands Compare, for example, Moses 2.205, where Philo writes in his explanation of Lev. 24:15\u201316 \u201cclearly by \u2018god\u2019 he is not here alluding to the Primal God, the Begetter of the Universe, but to the gods of the different cities who are falsely so-called \u2026 idols of wood and stone.\u201d
\n39\u201342 In Spec. Laws 2.2\u201338, Philo discussed matters associated with the Third Commandment, the prohibition against using God\u2019s name in vain. He included under this various facets of swearing, perjury, laws concerning vows, and the pecuniary valuation of votive offerings. Section 39 introduces his discussion of the Fourth Commandment, on observing the Sabbath day (Exod. 20:8\u201311; cf. Deut. 5:12\u201315), and Philo hastens to inform the reader that he intends to include under this heading all of the Feasts. He begins in Spec. Laws 2.40 with a summary discourse on the significance of the number seven, and by association, of the number ten. Then in 41 he lists ten feasts, and from there to 222 he presents each of them in quite some detail.
\n39. the lowlands and the uplands The idea of \u201clowlands and uplands\u201d is found in the Pentateuch only once (Deut. 8:7), where one finds \u201cvalleys and hills.\u201d Philo uses it both here and in Decalogue 163 in connection with the seventh year (shemitah, sabbatical year), while elsewhere in Philo it appears to be no more than a stylistic nuance (see, e.g., Moses 1.235; Embassy 47).
\n40. the part played by seven \u2026 with ten itself, and with four, which is the origin and source of ten Seven, four, and ten are significant numbers in Pythagorean number symbolism: 4 + 3 = 7, and 4 may be considered a \u201csource of ten\u201d because 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 (see Creation 47, 96. A considerable part of On the Creation of the World is devoted to number symbolism (cf. also, e.g., Moses 2.210; Decalogue 158\u201364). The present passage is one of many examples of Philo\u2019s fascination with \u201cnumber,\u201d which he considers to be the organizing principle of the cosmos.
\nin an earlier place That is, in Creation 90\u2013127.
\na sevenfold addition \u2026 produces 28 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 = 28 (cf. Creation 101).
\nequal to the sum of its factors The factors of 28 are 1, 2, 4, 7, 14 (cf. Creation 101).
\na geometrical progression \u2026 produces \u2026 a square and a cube Examples given in Creation 92\u201393 include: 64 = 43 and 82; 729 = 272 and 93.
\n41. There are in all ten feasts \u2026 recorded in the law Philo discusses the holidays several times. In Decalogue 96\u2013105, he discusses the Sabbath and the number seven. In Spec. Laws 1.168\u201389, he discusses the \u201choly days\u201d under the rubric of the first two Commandments, in the context of the regulations of worship, particularly the required sacrifices. In Spec. Laws 2.41\u2013222, he discusses them in detail in association with the Fourth Commandment. Philo\u2019s focus on the \u201cten feasts recorded in the law\u201d does not rule out the possibility that he knew of other holidays besides those mentioned in the Pentateuch. Like the Rabbis, he may not have considered them \u201cfestivals\u201d in the same sense as the biblical holidays.
\nthe feast of every day The feasts included here are those on which sacrifices were offered in the Temple. This explains why the \u201cfeast of every day\u201d is included as a feast, since two sacrifices are required daily. See my comment above on 41.
\nten feasts \u2026 a perfect number ten Since the particular \u201cfeasts\u201d listed here by Philo are not always so considered, particularly \u201cthe feast of every day,\u201d this may be a numerical construct. At the same time, as I pointed out in the previous comment, the list reflects the occasions when sacrifices were offered on the altar in the Temple.
\nthe \u201cCrossing\u201d festival called Pascha The word pascha used here by Philo is the LXX\u2019s transliteration of the Heb. Pesach. In English it is Passover. Philo\u2019s understanding of the term \u201c \u2018Crossing\u2019 festival\u201d (diabathria) both here and elsewhere is not the same as that found either in the LXX or in Josephus. For an explanation of Philo\u2019s use of this term, see the comments on Spec. Laws 2.145, the fourth feast, called the Crossing-feast \u2026 Pascha; on 147, Crossing-festival; and on 150; With the Crossing-feast he combines\u201361 below, where the feasts are also discussed at greater length.
\nthe offering of the first ears, the sacred Sheaf Refers to the bringing of the barley offering\u2014that is, the Omer (Sheaf)\u2014on \u201cthe day after the Sabbath\u201d (Lev. 23:11). For further discussion of this, see the comment on Spec. Laws 2.162.
\nThe sixth is the Unleavened Bread Philo lists the Pascha and the Festival of Unleavened Bread as the fourth and the sixth holidays respectively, placing \u201cthe sacred Sheaf\u201d between them, as the fifth. Philo, Josephus, and (for the most part) the Rabbis were aware that the Pascha and the Unleavened Bread were not the same, since they referred to different aspects of an ongoing holiday period. Accordingly, these terms are rarely used synonymously in their works. It was only later, after the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of the Passover sacrifice, that they often came to be used interchangeably.
\nemphatically Colson: \u201cemphatically\u201d or \u201ctruly.\u201d The date of the Feast of Weeks is determined by a counting of seven weeks (Lev. 23:15). For the differences of opinion respecting the date of the beginning of the counting, see below, to 162. Philo associates this feast with \u201cthe blameless life of righteous men who follow nature and her ordinances.\u201d
\n42. every day is a festival The idea of the feast of every day is most probably an echo of Num. 28\u201329. The LXX version of Num. 28:2 ends with \u201cat my feasts\u201d (MT b\u2019moado, \u201cat its correct time\u201d), and following this, Scripture contains a list of sacrifices that begins with the daily sacrifice (the tamid, or \u201cburnt offering\u201d).
\n48. But if only everywhere men had thought and felt as these few Philo was aware that this was a Utopian dream.
\n56. the sacred seventh day As in his discussion of the Sabbath in Spec. Laws 2.40, Philo devotes some time here to the mathematical properties and philosophical aspects of the number seven. He then describes how the Sabbath is celebrated; following this, he associates the remaining holy days with it.
\nSome have given it the name of virgin Philo uses the term \u201cvirgin\u201d both here and elsewhere to connote \u201cunmated,\u201d and not only in respect to women.
\nthe ideal form of the male sex with nothing of the female Philo, like many of his generation, perceived the male gender as superior to the female. A far from isolated example of his expression of what he obviously considered to be the \u201caccepted truth\u201d of his day appears in Alleg. Interp. 2.97: \u201cFor as on the roads it is possible to see the distinctions of existences \u2026 so in the soul too there are lifeless, incomplete, diseased, enslaved, female, and countless other movements full of disabilities; and on the other hand movements living, entire, male, free, sound, elder, good, genuine\u201d (emphasis added).
\n57. seven is a factor common to all the phenomena which stand highest in the world of sensible things Philo here enunciates the generally accepted concept that the number seven informs the transitions in nature.
\n58. six \u2026 seven Philo combines Scripture with number conceptualization whereby the \u201codd\u201d is masculine and the \u201ceven\u201d feminine. Hence the first six numbers, divided into three pairs, provide the source of generation, and the single, masculine number seven, which follows them, represents the completion of Creation. See, for example, Exod. 20:9\u201311: \u201cSix days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God: you shall not do any work.\u2026 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day\u201d (cf. also Exod. 31:17; Gen. 2:1\u20133).
\n59. the birthday of the world The seventh day is the day of birth, following, as it does, the six days of gestation; see also Creation 89; Moses 1.207; 2.210.
\n60. On this day we are commanded to abstain from all work Rabbinic tradition differentiates between labor as such and creative work. This is explained in terms of imitatio Dei (imitating God; cf. Lev. 19:2, B. Shab. 133b)\u2014just as God created all things in six days, so too must humans complete their labors in six days (Exod. 20:11). Rabbinic sources define these labors according to activities performed in the construction of the Temple. These are categorized under 39 major headings, each with many subheadings. On the Life of Moses (2.219\u201320) also reflects a division into major categories and their subheadings, though the words used are not the same (see the comment on Spec. Laws 2.65).
\nnot because the law inculcates slackness That Jews did not labor on the Sabbath was a matter of criticism and ridicule in the ancient world. The statement that the injunction included working six days, and also the description of the recuperative effect of keeping the Sabbath, apparently reflect an apologetic need on Philo\u2019s part. In light of this cultural background, Philo\u2019s subsequent remarks in Spec. Laws 2.60 may easily be read as defensive rather than merely descriptive.
\nthe law \u2026 is plain in its directions to work the full six days Rabbinic sources contain not only the commandment to keep the Sabbath by desisting from labor, but also the injunction to work on the other six days (see, e.g., Mek. d\u2019Rashbi 20 to Exod. 20:9). The approach of the Sages was by and large that if one labored during the week, whatever work remained undone would, so to speak, \u201cdo itself\u201d; in any event, on the Sabbath one must comport oneself as if there were no work waiting to be done (Mek. d\u2019Rashbi 20). See also Avot R. Nat. A.11: \u201cLove work: What is that? This teaches that a man should love work and that no man should hate work. For even as the Torah was given as a covenant, so was work given as a covenant; as it is said: [Exod. 20:9] \u2018Six days shalt thou labor\u2019 \u201d; similarly T. Shab. (Lieberman) 1:31; cf. further The Ethics of the Fathers 2:2: \u201cIt is good to combine Torah study with a worldly occupation, for working at them both drives sin from the mind.\u201d
\n61. the higher activities, namely, those employed in the study of the principles of virtue\u2019s lore. For the law bids us Better: those activities that bring to further perfection, these are the study of the Biblical laws and other regulations\u2014bidding us. Philo sometimes uses the term logoi to refer to biblical commandments, and dogmata often means \u201cregulations\u201d of whatever kind, both in Philo and elsewhere. The phrase log\u014dn kai dogmat\u014dn found here should be understood as a reference to \u201cbiblical laws and other regulations.\u201d See also the comment on Spec. Laws 2.142, the law.
\nfor studying philosophy It has already been pointed out in the comment on Spec. Laws 1.37 that what we call \u201creligion,\u201d both Philo and Josephus term \u201cphilosophy.\u201d
\n62. good sense Better: wisdom. Colson here renders phronesis as \u201cgood sense,\u201d but elsewhere he too renders it as \u201cwisdom\u201d (e.g., twice in Spec. Laws 4.134\u201335, the second time in the same combination as here: phronesis and s\u014dphrosyn\u0113).
\ngood sense, temperance, courage, justice These are traditional \u201ccardinal virtues\u201d in philosophical ethical parlance in the ancient world. These are of course not the only virtues, and while Philo uses them as his overall frame of reference, he does not hesitate to add others. For example, in Moses 2.216, where\u2014as here\u2014Philo describes the Sabbath activities in the synagogue, he first lists these same four cardinal virtues in a slightly different order, and then adds \u201cpiety and holiness\u201d as a synonym for living like a good Jew (see also Spec. Laws 2.63).
\nthe scholars Better: \u201cthe listeners.\u201d
\n63. particular truths and principles Better: Biblical laws and other regulations. See the comment on 2.61.
\nthere stand out practically high above the others I prefer Heinemann\u2019s suggestion to render this expression: \u201cthere stand out, so to say, high above the others.\u201d
\ntwo main heads \u2026 duty to God \u2026 duty to men The Talmud uses several halakhic categories for the division of the commandments, such as \u201cpositive and negative,\u201d \u201ctime bound and not time bound,\u201d \u201cbiblical and rabbinic.\u201d (For a similar division on Philo\u2019s part, see Heir 168.)
\n64. The practical life has six \u2026 The theoretical has seven Philo does not mean by this that only on the Sabbath can one attend to the spiritual aspects of being, but that this day is specially devoted to it; further, this imagery implicitly produces an association with imitatio Dei (cf. the comment on Spec. Laws 2.60, On this day we are commanded to abstain from all work).
\n65. forbidden to light any fire on this day From Exod. 35:3. In Moses 2.219\u201320 Philo differentiates between \u201cthe lighting of a fire on the seventh day \u2026 as the primary activity\u201d and the gathering of kindling wood as \u201cbrother to, and of the same family as the sin of burning them\u201d (220). Philo\u2019s differentiation is similar to the halakhic recognition that this single act involves two separate transgressions\u2014breaking \u201cthe commandment to rest from work\u201d and collecting \u201cmaterials for fire.\u201d But such variations merely indicate that Philo approaches the topic from slightly different vantage points in different passages (cf. also Spec. Laws 2.250\u201351).
\n70. the ox See Deut. 5:14 and its parallel Exod. 20:10 in the LXX (they are both part of the Deca-logue). As Philo himself notes, in the ancient world the ox was indispensable to agriculture. Hence the singling out of the ox is of particular significance.
\nthe birthday festival of the world See Gen. 2:1\u20133, and Exod. 20:11 (Decalogue). The reason given in the parallel version of the Decalogue (Deut. 5:15) is: \u201cRemember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and that the LORD your God freed you from there.\u201d Not surprisingly, Philo refrains from mentioning the slavery in Egypt, not only here, but whenever possible. One should bear in mind in this context that Philo of Alexandria is writing to a Jewish audience in Egypt.
\n71\u2013110 In much of the material that follows, there is a clear distinction made between behavior toward a fellow Jew, and that toward a stranger. Though the justification for this is not explicitly spelled out either in Scripture, in Rabbinic sources, or in Philo, it is that privileges and obligations go in pairs. The fellow Jew is obligated to behave in a certain manner, whereas the foreigner is not. Hence, it would not accord with the rules of justice if foreigners, according to their laws, charged interest on loans made to Jews and purchased Jewish slaves in perpetuity, while Jews could not act in the same manner in their relations with the foreigners. This would not be in accord with what Philo terms \u201cequality\u201d (isoths)\u2014see also the comment on Spec. Laws 4.74, equality, and on 4.165, the spirit of equality. Different treatment for citizens, resident aliens, and women was the norm in the ancient world. This was so in Alexandria, where Philo lived; respecting classical Athens, the accepted hypothesis is that only 10 percent of the inhabitants were citizens with full rights.
\n71\u201373 These sections contain the biblical prohibition against usury, as well as the enjoining of a humanitarian attitude toward Jewish slaves. These two topics are connected by the assumption that the primary reason for being sold into slavery is poverty\u2014namely, the inability to defray loans, which Philo discusses in connection with the sabbatical cancellation of debts. He uses this provision against usury as a springboard to inveigh sharply and at length against the cruelty of contemporary loan sharks (74\u201378) and of tax collectors (92\u201395). See also the comment on 89\u201396 and its note.
\n71. for cancellation of debts in every seventh year See Deut. 15:1\u201311. It is clear from the context in Deuteronomy that these loans are meant to be acts of kindness to people in dire financial straits, not commercial business transactions. However, the cancellation of the debt by the sabbatical year caused people to refrain from lending money to the poor. Accordingly, Hillel the Elder introduced the Prozbul (a Greek word whose literal meaning is: \u201cdelivering to the jurisdiction of the courts\u201d). This is \u201ca declaration made in court, before the execution of a loan, to the effect that the law of limitation by the entrance of the sabbatical year shall not apply.\u201d Hillel the Elder was probably a younger contemporary of Philo, yet there is no hint of the Prozbul in Philo. But this is hardly surprising, because even if it was already instituted by the time Philo was writing, it probably would not yet have become well known and generally accepted.
\nthey may expect to receive the same kindness themselves The reason given here for the cancellation of debts every seventh year is intended to encourage those who have given loans, by addressing their self-interest.
\n73. brethren We would term this \u201cfamily.\u201d
\n74\u201378 Philo\u2014as he often does\u2014uses a biblical prohibition as a springboard to refer to problems of his own time. He now inveighs at length against social problems, beginning with the cruelty of moneylenders. His caustic address to the money shark (usurer) in Spec. Laws 2.75\u20136 follows naturally upon the biblical injunction to cancel debts on the sabbatical year; similarly, in 89\u201395, he proceeds to the atrocities committed by tax collectors, describing their practices in lurid colors, after which he reconnects with the major subject of the pericope in 96.
\n74. lending money on interest is a blameworthy action For the biblical prohibition see Exod. 22:24; Lev. 25:35\u201337, and Deut. 23:20.
\n77. \u201cvice has no sense of sight;\u201d Quotation marks added. Colson notes that the source of this quotation is unknown.
\n78. the law\u2019s charity, and pay neither simple nor compound interest, but just the principal This is in respect to loans in general, not their sabbatical remission. The same is stated again in Spec. Laws 2.122 (not included here).
\nthey will make the same sacrifice to their present creditors Repeats what has been said in 71 respecting the moratorium of debts that Scripture prescribes on the sabbatical year.
\n79 \u201cIf,\u201d he says, \u201cone of your brethren is sold to you.\u201d What follows is a homily on Deut. 15:12\u201318.
\n80 Here again he uses the term brother of a fellow-national. The \u201che\u201d refers to Moses. Philo notes that this is a repetition of what he said above in 73.
\n81. [hired] laborers In the text, Colson has merely \u201claborers,\u201d but in a footnote ad loc., he suggests adding \u201chired,\u201d because what is implied is a specific legal status, above the slave but lower than the other citizens. These laborers are in fact indentured servants rather than slaves, since they are required to serve only a specific number of years (see Deut. 15:12\u201318).
\nsome may bluster This too sounds like an echo of the behavioral norm in Philo\u2019s day.
\n82. the same tribe and ward This is almost certainly a modernizing of the scriptural statement, for these classifications were current in Alexandria.
\n83. Deal with him as your hired servant Here, Philo spells out the rights of servants, with the common humanity between master and slave given as their ideological justification.
\n\u201cnot too much of anything\u201d This is a proverbial aphorism. See, for example, Plato, Prot. 343b3: \u201cThe temple at Delphi \u2026 [has] the far famed inscriptions \u2026 \u2018Know Thyself\u2019 and \u2018Nothing too much,\u2019 \u201d echoed also in Spec. Laws 1.10.
\n84. when the truly sacred number of the seventh year is about to begin This is in accord with Rabbinic tradition, which also stipulated that the slave is freed after six years of servitude (without reference to the sabbatical year). This tradition held sway even while the biblical laws concerning the Hebrew slave were no longer in use in the days of the Second Temple (see, e.g., B. Arak. 29a; Git. 69a). The obligation to release one\u2019s slaves after six years is comparable to the obligation to keep the laws concerning shemitah, the sabbatical year (see Spec. Laws 2.86\u201388, 96\u2013109). In any event, these passages, as well as the ensuing ones, remain relevant to the appropriate behavior of masters to servants and slaves, whether Jewish or Gentile, and the context here shows that this is what Philo had in mind.
\n85. Otherwise the same thing may happen again This section stresses the need to send the manumitted slave on his way with financial assistance, lest he again be reduced to slavery. Compare similarly Midr. Tan. to Deut. 15:14, which makes the same remark in the name of R. Yishmael.
\n86\u2013109 While these sections are primarily devoted to the various aspects of shemitah (sabbatical year), Philo also takes this opportunity to inveigh against an acute contemporary problem: the cruelty of the tax collectors. The associational link between the sabbatical year and tax collectors may have been that in Judea, the requirement to pay taxes to the Roman government was most onerous during the \u201cseventh year\u201d (shemitah year) when many farmers did not have any income from the land to enable them to defray the levy. Philo gives four reasons for the institution of the \u201cseventh year\u201d (the scriptural basis for which is Exod. 23:11 and Lev. 25:2\u201327:1) the holiness of the number seven as reflected in the hallowing of the seventh day (the Sabbath), the seventh month (Tishrei), and the seventh year (sabbatical year) (Spec. Laws 2:86); 2) training in the ability to have generosity of spirit and to bear privation (87\u201388); 3) the mandate to \u201cabsolutely abstain from putting oppressive burdens on others\u201d (89\u201396, which includes the bitter attack on tax collectors); and 4) to restore the fertility of the land (97\u2013103).
\n86. to give seven its honorable position Philo considers this to be part of the series of \u201cseven\u201d that forms the foundation of the Jewish calendar, as well as of the cosmic order.
\nthe chief of all the feasts Refers to the Day of Atonement.
\n88. true disciples I have argued in my Philo\u2019s Scriptures that Philo uses the adjective \u201ctrue\u201d here to contrast these \u201cdisciples of Moses\u201d with others who, in Philo\u2019s eyes, are not \u201ctrue.\u201d
\n89\u201396 The mandate to refrain from \u201cputting oppressive burdens upon others\u201d is used as a springboard to introduce an appalling description of the excesses of tax gatherers. In Spec. Laws 2:89\u201391, Philo leads up to his tirade against the tax collectors gradually and elegantly, arguing initially from the lesser to the greater, then from the inert to the sentient, and following that, from private masters to the rulers of cities; it is in this context that he voices his harsh criticism of the tax collectors appointed by the rulers of cities (92\u201395). Finally, having described the atrocities committed by the tax collectors in lurid colors, Philo reconnects with the major subject of the pericope\u2014the sabbatical year (96).
\n90. so-called masters See 81\u201383, where Philo declares that Israelite slaves \u201care in reality [hired] laborers,\u201d or perhaps indentured servants. Philo and his readers would presumably have been familiar with Lev. 25:55, which states: \u201cFor it is to Me that the Israelites are servants.\u201d Rabbinic literature uses this verse as a prooftext for the idea that the Children of Israel are not slaves of any human being, but only of God. The assumption that nobody is the true master of any other human being is a Stoic notion as well; see, for example, Seneca\u2019s Epistles 47. Seneca was a contemporary of Philo, so the notion must have been a familiar one not only in Jewish circles in their day.
\n91. like athletes The literary reference is to Plato\u2019s Phaedr. 239c. Philo frequently uses the image of athletes. Though the specific sports differed, sports and athletic prowess were at least as important in the Greco-Roman world as they are today. Rabbinic tradition differs markedly in its attitude toward sports.
\n92\u201396 In these sections, Philo engages in a bitter tirade against the rapaciousness of tax collectors. He contrasts their callous behavior with the sabbatical laws that enjoin leaving even the land fallow periodically in order to regain its strength, and he cites the laws of nature to illustrate the natural alteration between labor and rest.
\n92. So too let rulers of cities cease This is the subject of what follows.
\n94. I have heard of persons Note the use of the first person rather than the neutral \u201cthere are persons.\u201d This is another indication that the tirade is in fact triggered by Philo\u2019s personal experience of current events.
\n96. are you competent to induce others to show pity A rhetorical question.
\nwhich have relieved even the land from its yearly tolls and provided it with a rest and respite Philo uses this association to reconnect with the central subject of the passage: the sabbatical year.
\n97. give it a fertility in the next year This is both a biblical promise (Lev. 25:20\u201322) and a physical reality. Even today, in spite of modern fertilizers, many farmers the world over not only rotate their crops, but once every few years let some of their fields lie fallow.
\n98. trainers of athletes See the comment on Spec. Laws 2.91 and its note.
\n100. wisdom of nature The reference is to the cycles of the day. Nature also prescribes the alternation between stress and relaxation as a means to achieving renewed strength.
\n104. the prophetic author Philo refers to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, under divine inspiration. Indeed Scripture regularly calls the Torah \u201cThe Torah of Moses\u201d (e.g., 1 Kings 2:3; Mal. 3:22 || 3:24 LXX), and this is also the case in the Rabbinic tradition. For example, M. Yoma 3:8 states, \u201cas is written in the Law of thy servant Moses.\u201d Similar locutions are found in other writings of the time (e.g., NT Luke 2:22; 24:44; John 7:23; Acts 28:23; and Appendix to 3 Enoch, 48d4; T. Jac. 7:3. Even today, when the scroll from which the Torah is read in the synagogue is raised for all to see, the congregation recites, \u201cThis is the Teaching that Moses set before the Israelites [Deut. 4:44], which Moses and Aaron recorded [Num. 4:37], at the LORD\u2019s bidding through Moses [Num. 9:23].\u201d This practice, customary in all Orthodox synagogues, is already mentioned in Massekhet Soferim 14:8.
\n105. quite as much, if not more so, than to the owners While Lev. 25:6\u20137 assigns the produce that grows by itself to one\u2019s personal use, this does not exclude the permission granted in Exod. 23:11 for all to use it. Later, the Rabbis forbade the owner to enjoy these fruits because of the fear that farmers would sow their land clandestinely at the end of the sixth year, and then claim that the produce had grown on its own.
\n108. share with the owners The combination of the injunction in Exod. 23:11 and Lev. 25:6\u20137 has already been noted in the previous comment.
\n140\u2013144 In the intervening sections (Spec. Laws 2.110\u2013139), Philo discusses various aspects of the jubilee year (Lev. 25:8\u201355)\u2014also a function of the number seven\u2014such as the returning of landed property to its original owners (Spec. Laws 2.110\u201315), among other relevant and more tangential matters. At this point Philo returns to his review of the ten biblical feasts that he listed above in 39 under the rubric of the Fourth Commandment: the Festival of the Sabbath. In 140 he proceeds to \u201cthe third feast,\u201d the New Moon, which he discusses at surprising length. Colson has suggested that Philo devoted so much space to the New Moon holiday because the lunar calendar used by the Jews differed from the solar calendar that was employed in Egypt. Although Philo makes no mention of the lunar calendar in his list of reasons for placing the New Moon among the holidays, this faithfully reflects the far greater importance it once had in Jewish consciousness, when the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem announced the appearance of the new moon every month, thereby determining the exact day that the Jewish holidays were to be celebrated (see the comment on 140, the length of which has been accurately calculated).
\n140. the New Moon, or beginning of the lunar month See too, Spec. Laws 1.177\u2013179 (not presented in this volume) where the sacrifices to be offered on the New Moon in the Temple in Jerusalem are listed, and provided with symbolic meaning.
\nthe length of which has been accurately calculated According to M. RH 2, the official time of the appearance of the new moon was determined by means of witnesses who came from all over Judea to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, which then made a pronouncement; and this established the exact day of the celebration of the Jewish holidays. It is related there in the Mishnah that this date was publicized by means of bonfires lit from hilltop to hilltop all the way to the eastern Diaspora (Babylon), and later by messengers. However, it makes no mention of similar measures respecting the western Diaspora to which Alexandria belonged. This may perhaps explain Philo\u2019s comment that the exact time of the appearance of the new moon was known scientifically.
\n141. And this is surely an obvious lesson inculcating kindness and humanity Philo gives four reasons for the celebration of the new moon as a feast. The first two refer to natural phenomena. The other two reasons belong to the realm of ethical teachings.
\n142. the law In Jewish contexts, such as here, the Gk. ho nomos clearly means \u201cthe Torah.\u201d
\nagain to teach us an admirable lesson \u2026 make the ends correspond with the beginnings The lesson is the requirement to keep one\u2019s animal instincts under control.
\n143\u2013144. the services that the moon renders to everything on earth Philo here writes that the singling out of the moon and its place among the feasts is justified by the large number of beneficial natural phenomena connected with it.
\n145\u2013161 Although today they are considered to be different aspects of a single entity, the Pesach (the Passover sacrifice, the offering of the paschal lamb) and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were originally distinct. Exodus 23:14 and 34:18 describe the Feast of Unleavened Bread as commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. In Leviticus, the \u201cpassover offering\u201d and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, though connected, are presented as distinct; see Lev. 23:5\u20138. Leviticus 23:5\u20136 commands that the passover offering (i.e., the paschal lamb) be sacrificed toward evening on the 14th of Nisan, and that the Feast of Unleavened Bread be celebrated for the ensuing seven days. Philo distinguishes among Passover (pascha, which he also calls diabateria, \u201cofferings made before crossing a boundary\u201d), the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Hag ha-Matzot), and the Sheaf (the bringing of the omer) as separate and distinct feasts. (For more on the Sheaf, see the comment on Spec. Laws 2.162.) The Mishnah, even though it was redacted well over 100 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, remains sensitive to the fact that the word Pesach refers specifically to the slaughtering and offering of the Passover sacrifice on the 14th of Nisan in the afternoon and its eating at the festive meal in the evening that is the beginning of the 15th of Nisan. The Mishnah preserves this distinction in spite of the fact that after the destruction of the Temple neither the Passover sacrifices nor the offering of the Sheaf (the bringing of the omer) could continue to be celebrated, and all that was left was their remembrance. In time, the three formerly distinct holidays became merged in the popular consciousness and often came to be referred to collectively as \u201cPassover.\u201d In spite of this, in purely liturgical contexts\u2014such as in the holiday addition to the Grace after Meals, and that found in the Amidah\u2014the term \u201cthe holiday of the unleavened bread\u201d (Hag ha-Matzot) is preserved.
\n145. the fourth feast, called the Crossing-feast \u2026 Pascha In his Migration 25 and Alleg. Interp. 3.94 as well as immediately below in 147, Philo allegorizes the fourth feast as a crossing over from the passions of the body, symbolized by Egypt, to the purified soul. But the allegory does not replace the literal connotation.
\nmany myriads of victims from noon till eventide are offered According to Scripture, the proper time of day to slaughter the paschal lamb is \u201cat dusk\u201d (Exod. 12:6; Lev. 23:5; Num. 9:3). The halakhic sources define this as \u201cafter midday,\u201d with the Korban Pesach (Passover sacrifice) being offered after the Korban Tamid (the afternoon daily sacrifice). Similarly, M. Pes. 5:3 states: \u201c[If the Passover offering] \u2026 was slaughtered before midday it is invalid.\u201d So, too, Maimonides writes in Hilkhot Korban Pesach that \u201cit is a positive commandment to slaughter the [Korban] Pesach on the fourteenth of Nisan after mid-day.\u201d And since the paschal lamb was in fact slaughtered after the daily afternoon tamid, in practice the time allotted for the sacrifice of the Korban Pesach was even shorter. Both the Talmud (B. Pes. 64b) and Josephus (J.W. 6.9.3) describe the myriads of victims offered by the pilgrims from the Diaspora who filled Jerusalem at the Passover feast in the years shortly preceding the destruction of the Temple. Even though, barring a miracle, such a large number of sacrifices could not possibly have been offered in the Temple during the few hours between the afternoon tamid and nightfall in the existing parameters of time and space, it remains abundantly clear that the actual number of people must have been exceedingly great.
\nraised for that particular day to the dignity of the priesthood On this occasion the whole nation performs the sacred rites and acts as priest. Philo recounts this in a similar manner in Moses 2.224: \u201ca public festival called in Hebrew Pasch, on which the victims are not brought to the altar by the laity and sacrificed by the priests, but, as commanded by the Law, the whole nation acts as priest, each individual bringing what he offers on his own behalf and dealing with it with his own hands.\u201d Talmudic sources explicitly state that the offering of the sacrifices, but not their slaughter, was the prerogative of the priest. M. Zev. 3:1 states that \u201cslaughtering is valid if it is done by them that are not priests, or by women or by bondservants \u2026 provided that none that is [ritually] unclean touches the flesh.\u201d The scriptural basis given for this is the wording of Lev. 1:5, where the work of the priests is differentiated from the slaughtering, and commences after it: \u201cThe bull shall be slaughtered before the LORD; and Aaron\u2019s sons, the priests, shall offer the blood.\u201d That in Philo\u2019s day the Passover sacrifice was indeed slaughtered by many of those who brought it\u2014and that this act may even have been seen as particularly righteous\u2014can be concluded from the tradition found in B. Pes. 66a. This talmudic passage relates how, when the day for slaughtering the Passover fell on the Sabbath, the people asked Hillel the Elder (a virtual contemporary of Philo) what those who forgot to bring the knives needed for the sacrificing should do, given that they were forbidden to carry them on the Sabbath. He said, \u201cLet us wait and see what happens,\u201d and it transpired that they put the knives in the wool of the lamb or between the horns of the goat that was brought for sacrifice. In the case of the paschal sacrifice it is clear that the laity, though not necessarily the person who offered the sacrifice, slaughtered the animal\u2014see M. Pes. 8:2: \u201cIf a man said to his slave, \u2018Go and slaughter the Passover offering for me\u2019,\u201d and M. Pes. 5:6 explicitly states that \u201can Israelite slaughtered his [own] offering and the priest caught the blood.\u201d Respecting the apparent discrepancy between Spec. Laws 2.145 and what was actually done, it is reasonable to suppose that Philo may not have clearly distinguished between the slaughtering of the animal and the ritual sprinkling of its blood. In any event the description in the Mishnah is in line with 2 Chron. 30:16\u201317.
\n146. more than two million Exodus 12:37 and Num. 11:21 both give the number 600,000 for the men who went out of Egypt. Philo\u2019s number is reasonable when the women and children are factored into the number found in Scripture.
\nthe facts as discovered by the study of ancient history In contrast to halakhic traditions.
\n147. those who are accustomed to turn literal facts into allegory Philo does not state that he considers the allegory to be in place of the \u201cliteral facts.\u201d What he suggests is that the ritual can be imbued with this symbolical meaning. It reflects Philo\u2019s conviction that reining in the bodily passions is a precondition for the purification of the soul.
\nCrossing-festival Gk. diabathria (= crossing) is understood here in allegorical terms as \u201ccrossing over from Egypt,\u201d the symbol for the body and its passions.
\n148. every dwelling-house is invested with the outward semblance and dignity of a temple Since it is abundantly clear that the vast majority of Jews could not, and hence did not, come to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the three major festivals, it is not surprising to learn from a careful reading of Philo that already in his day a seder eve ritual had developed. Philo\u2019s description contains the major elements of the Passover seder celebrated in the home as we know it today. There is the meal, the people are dressed for the festivities, and there is a ritual of traditional prayers and hymns.
\n149. the 14th of the month, a number formed of the sum of two sevens Here too Philo ascribes symbolic meaning to the number seven. It is given a very prominent place in Scripture; for example, the Sabbath that completes the days of Creation; shemitah; and the jubilee year (7 \u00d7 7). Rabbinic midrash, though different in content from that of Philo, also gives it a prominent place.
\n150. With the Crossing-feast he combines Philo clearly and explicitly distinguishes between the \u201cCrossing-feast\u201d (pascha) and the \u201cFeast of Unleavened Bread,\u201d while also recognizing their close connection.
\none peculiar to the nation \u2026 the other universal, following the lead of nature This is in line with Scripture and Rabbinic tradition, both of which reflect the dual aspect of all of the major festivals. Note that even in the Decalogue, the reason given in Deut. 5:15 for the commandment to keep the Sabbath is that the Sabbath should serve as a recollection of the redemption from slavery in Egypt, whereas in Exod. 20:11 the reason given is: \u201cFor in six days the LORD made heaven and earth and sea.\u201d
\nThis month comes seventh in order and number as judged by the cycle of the sun The solar cycle used by the Egyptians starts in the autumn, but Scripture places the beginning of the year in the spring (the month of Nisan, which corresponds roughly with March\u2013April). This is discussed by Philo at greater length in Creation 116, QG 2.17, and QE 1.1. Note that what Jews today call the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) occurs in Tishrei, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar where it is referred to as \u201ca memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns\u201d and not the New Year (Lev. 23:24; OJPS). On this see comment on Spec. Laws 2.188. Cf. also Num. 29:1.
\n151. In the spring equinox we have a kind of likeness and portraiture of that first epoch in which this world was created Philo presents Creation as the ordering of the elements and the revelation of the world \u201cin its prime\u201d (153). Parallel to this we find in Pesikta Zutrata (Lekach Tov) to Gen. 1:12: \u201call that was created was created in its prime \u2026 And why did the Holy One, blessed be He, create them thus? So that man will find what to eat \u2026 [Prov. 9:1\u20132] \u2026 this is the way of the world, [one] prepares a meal, and then brings in the guests\u201d (my translation). Rabbinic midrash also brings the alternate possibility that the different components of the cosmos were created in their potential stage, and only after rain fell upon them did they grow to maturity (Gen. Rab. parasha 13.1, to Gen. 2:5). The most commonly cited talmudic passage illustrating these viewpoints is B. RH 10b, where the different opinions are stated in the names of R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua. See also Spec. Laws 2.173. In any event the numbering of the months in Scripture reflects the assumption that the beginning was in the spring.
\nelements were then separated and placed in harmonious order Philo generally describes Creation in terms of the creation of order (cosmos) from unordered matter.
\n152. the spring \u2026 is an image of the primal origin reproduced from it like the imprint from an archetypal seal The idea expressed echoes the image of the Platonic ideas. Though Plato does not use the term \u201cseal,\u201d Philo both here and elsewhere associates the term with seals.
\n153. But the month of the autumnal equinox M. RH 1:1\u20132 reads: \u201cThere are four \u2018New Year\u2019 days: on the first of Nisan [at the beginning of spring] is the New Year for kings [of Israel in Scripture] and feasts; \u2026 on the first of Tishri [at the beginning of autumn] is the New Year for [the reckoning of] the years [of foreign kings] \u2026 and Jubilee years.\u201d There is no reference here to the season of the Creation, but the text continues immediately, \u201cAt four times in the year is the world judged: at Passover through the grain, at Pentecost through the fruits of the tree, on New Year\u2019s Day all that come into the world pass before him like flocks of sheep \u2026 and at the Feast [of Tabernacles] they are judged through water.\u201d
\n155. The feast begins at the middle of the month, on the fifteenth day What follows is a fairly straightforward recapitulation of the scriptural narrative, but embroidered by a stress on the importance of the number seven, which is a central facet of Philo\u2019s conception of the world and of the definition of time intervals.
\n157. a past which adjoins the first day and a future which adjoins the last The integral and indissoluble connection between the past, the present, and the future is a very basic concept in Judaism. The Gk. arch\u0113 and telos used here by Philo also have a technical philosophic connotation. The idea that for the man of worth, the whole cycle of the year is an ongoing feast has already been presented by Philo in Spec. Laws 2.48.
\n158. they brought the lumps of dough unleavened Reflects Exod. 12:34, 39; Deut. 16:3.
\nfruit of the corn The Gk. is sitou karpos; \u201cwheat\u201d is the intended meaning.
\nthe unleavened food, which is also imperfect Perhaps one can read this as a Hellenized version of the term \u201cbread of affliction\u201d used to describe the unleavened bread.
\n160. children of earth in the first or second generation In Gen. 2:7 and 3:19 it is the original first man who was created, while all of his descendants were reproduced together with Eve. Hence Philo\u2019s reference to \u201cthe first or second generation\u201d hardly reflects the Pentateuch, but rather the ancient classic myth. In any event, except for the much later poetic composition (piyyut) recited on the High Holy Days that contains the line \u201cMan, his origin is from dust\u201d (my translation), the traditional conceptualization is expressed rather in Pirke Avot 3:1, which is recited at funerals: \u201cAkavya the son of Mahalalel says: \u2018Reflect upon three things and you will not come to commit sin: From where you came \u2026 from a fetid drop.\u2019 \u201d
\nto rekindle the embers of the serious and ascetic mode of faring This is yet another example of Philo\u2019s ascetic bent.
\n161. the twelve loaves \u2026 unleavened While the instructions respecting the \u201cshowbread\u201d in Lev. 24:5\u20136 do not explicitly mention the term \u201cshowbread,\u201d or that the loaves are unleavened, B. Men. 57a\u2013b includes with it Lev. 2:11, where the unleavened aspect is mentioned, and Philo also understood it in this way.
\n162. another feast \u2026 directly after the first day \u2026 called \u201cthe Sheaf\u201d According to Rabbinic tradition, the bringing of the barley offering (the omer or \u201csheaf\u201d) occurred on the day following the first day of Passover\u2014that is, in the evening of the 16th of the first month (Nisan), which is the second day of Passover. (Note that in Jewish tradition, the day commences with nightfall; see, e.g., Gen. 1:5, 8, 13.) The second day of Passover is also the time when the counting of the seven weeks commences that ends in the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot). Determining what \u201cthe day after the Sabbath\u201d (Lev. 23:11) meant was an important bone of contention between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
\n163. the Jewish nation is to the whole inhabited world what the priest is to the State This reflects Exod. 19:5\u20136, which is in the chapter that introduces the Decalogue. There God promises the Children of Israel that if they keep his commandments they will become \u201ca kingdom of priests and a holy nation.\u201d In Spec. Laws 1.97, the high priest makes prayers on behalf of the entire human race as well as the \u201cparts of nature.\u201d
\nand the horde \u2026 setting reason to guide the irrational senses This lacuna (after \u201chorde\u201d) is found in Colson\u2019s text.
\n164. a life led in conformity with the laws Here, as well as elsewhere in Philo\u2019s writings, the word \u201claws\u201d serves as a Judeo-Greek locution for living according to the precepts of Torah. See comment on Spec. Laws 2.142, the law.
\nThe gods of the foreigner they do not regard as gods at all It is not merely polytheism that is criticized here, but the lack of respect on the part of the Gentiles for the gods of others.
\n165. But if He exists whom all Greeks and barbarians unanimously acknowledge Compare Mal. 1:11: \u201cFor from where the sun rises to where it sets, My name is honored among the nations, and everywhere incense and pure oblation are offered to My name \u2026 said the LORD of Hosts.\u201d Even though Malachi reflects the period of the Persian Empire (c. 550\u2013330 BCE), Philo\u2019s statement indicates that he considered this to be an existing phenomenon. The reference is not to Zeus, \u201cthe father of gods and men,\u201d because the \u201cbarbarians\u201d (non-Greeks) did not acknowledge him.
\nFather of gods and men The locution calls to mind Plato\u2019s reference to Zeus as having \u201cempire over gods and men\u201d (Symp. 197b3), but it is not the same thing, for Zeus was not thought to be the \u201cMaker of the whole universe.\u201d
\nastronomical science The Gk. is mathhmata. Heinemann suggests, \u201cNaturforschung\u201d: study of nature.
\ngods staged as by machinery This alludes to the mechanical device used in the ancient theater, which at the crucial moment in the drama introduced a god hovering over the stage in order to resolve the seemingly insoluble conflict. The idiom deus ex machina, \u201ca god from a machine,\u201d comes from this, and refers to providential intervention.
\n167. using its prayers and festivals and firstfruit offerings as a means of supplication for the human race in general This is one of many examples where Philo uses explanations in terms of universal values.
\n168\u201370. But the nation in particular also gives thanks for many reasons After mentioning the universal aspect of the Jewish nation\u2019s benevolence and thanksgiving, Philo brings \u201cnational\u201d reasons, beginning with the gratitude of the nation for receiving a good and fruitful land of their own as a heritage and explaining that this is why they offer the firstfruits to God from whom they received it.
\n170. a consequence of their strange and monstrous practices of iniquity The allusion is to the \u201cseven nations\u201d that lived in Canaan before the Israelite conquest and whom\u2014according to Scripture\u2014God destroyed because of their iniquity and as a warning to the Israelites not to follow in their footsteps (see, e.g., Gen. 15:16; Deut. 9:5). Deuteronomy 18:9, 12 stress the second, didactic aspect: \u201cWhen you [the children of Israel] enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations \u2026 it is because of these abhorrent things that the LORD your God is dispossessing them before you.\u201d
\n171. that we make requital \u2026 to Him Who is the true cause of the good harvest That is, that we thank him for his bounty.
\n172. fields irrigated by fountains or rivers Perhaps because Philo lived in Egypt, whose water came from the Nile, he waxes ecstatic about the Promised Land as it is described in Scripture, for example in Deut. 8:7\u20139: \u201cFor the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill.\u201d
\n173. God Who provides for His guests the whole earth as a truly hospitable home See comment on Spec. Laws 2.151. In the spring equinox we have a kind of likeness and portraiture of that first epoch in which this world was created.
\n175. is of barley Although Scripture does not mention barley as the grain to be brought, it is also taken for granted by Josephus, Ant. 3.250 (= 3.10.5), and the same is indicated in T. RH 1:12; T. Suk. 3:18; J. RH 1:2 (56d).
\nmost of them are made to give pleasure rather than to be used as necessaries This is yet one more illustration of Philo\u2019s ascetic bent.
\nunlawful to enjoy and partake of any form of food for which thanks had not been offered in the proper and rightful manner This has been incorporated as an integral part of the individual\u2019s daily life in traditional Jewish religious practice. Before partaking of any food one is commanded to recite an appropriate blessing.
\nwheat holds the first place Philo may perhaps here be explaining why the injunction respecting the Sheaf ceremony (of barley) is not considered to belong to the celebration of \u201cthe Firstfruits,\u201d the name that is popularly given to the next festival, The Feast of Weeks\u2014see Spec. Laws 2.179 and the comment there.
\n176. the sacred number by the monad A single day is added to the 7 \u00d7 7 to reach the date of the Feast of Weeks, which is on the 50th day. Philo takes advantage of this to introduce the concept of the monad as \u201cthe incorporeal image of God.\u201d
\n177. the right-angled triangle Philo elaborates on the significance of the numbers 12 and 50. See also Philo\u2019s Moses 2.80 and Contempl. Life 65, where these numbers are also discussed and the right-angled triangle is called \u201cthe source from which the universe springs\u201d; similarly the significance of numbers is discussed at length in On the Creation of the World, where the right-angled triangle is described as \u201cthe starting point of figures of a definite kind\u201d (Creation 97\u201398).
\n179. The feast \u2026 has acquired the title of \u201cfirst-products\u201d This is similar to the name it bears in Num. 28:26: \u201cfirstfruits,\u201d and perhaps it is also indicated in Exod. 23:16 (and cf. Lev. 23:20.). But while the name \u201cFeast of Weeks\u201d is found in Deut. 16:10, 16, the name \u201cthe holiday of the giving of the Torah\u201d is found neither in the Bible nor in Philo or Rabbinic sources.
\n180. not indeed as a gift, for all things and possessions and gifts are His Philo stresses that this is not a gift to God, but an expression of appreciation. His sophisticated readership would have appreciated this.
\n181. Another reason for the name Here too Philo explains the giving of the name bikkurim (\u201cfirsts\u201d) to what comes after the Sheaf.
\n182. The loaves are leavened This is an exception to the categorical statement in Lev. 2:11 that all baked loaves offered on the altar are unleavened. Philo suggests that this is so because after being offered, they are immediately given to the officiating priests to be eaten. It is also worth pointing out that the showbread was given to the priests a week after it had been placed on the altar, and hence would not have been edible had it been made of leavened bread. However, the bikkurim were eaten immediately, and so, even though they were leavened, would be fresh.
\n183. a privilege granted The reasons Philo gives here for the priests\u2019 right to eat consecrated food accord with Scripture, in lieu of payment for the priests\u2019 service and because the priests have not been allotted land along with the other tribes.
\n184\u201386. a symbol A symbolic justification is given for the unusual facets of the offering. Leaven symbolizes joy and the elevation of the soul, wheat is the best grain, and the loaves symbolize completeness. The symbolic explanation for the prohibition of leaven on the altar (Lev. 2:11) may be found in Spec. Laws 1.293\u201395.
\n188\u2013214. the sacred month In classic Greek the term hieromhnia, \u201csacred month,\u201d indicated the month during which the great Greek festivals were held and hostilities were suspended. However, in all 10 instances of Philo\u2019s use of this term, the reference is to the month of Tishrei (seventh month), which contains three major Jewish holidays. This is another example of Philo\u2019s giving a Greek word a Jewish connotation when the context invites this.
\n188\u201392 The name for this holiday is Rosh Hashanah (the \u201cNew Year\u201d). This is the name used in mishnaic sources. In the Bible it is called \u201ca memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns\u201d (Lev. 23:24; OJPS) or \u201ca day when the horn is sounded\u201d (Num. 29:1; OJPS). Philo explains the name as being due to the fact that the trumpet was sounded in the Temple when the sacrifices were offered. It has therefore been suggested that the shofar was not blown in Alexandria in Philo\u2019s day, but as will become evident as we proceed, this is not necessarily so.
\n188. \u201ctrumpet feast\u201d Unlike the Mishnah (e.g., M. RH 3:3), which refers to a \u201cram\u2019s horn\u201d (shofar), Philo uses the word \u201ctrumpet\u201d (Gk. salpinks; Heb. hatzotzrah) and not \u201chorn\u201d (= shofar). This is insignificant, since the word regularly used by the LXX for MT shofar is \u201ctrumpet\u201d (salpinks). This is the case not only in Lev. 23:24, but even in Exod. 19, where the epiphany at Sinai is described. Different languages have fewer or greater differentiations for certain things, perhaps at least in part depending upon the centrality of the concept in their culture. For example, in the English language, where animal\u2019s horns are hardly, if ever, used as musical instruments, the biblical shofar is called \u201ca ram\u2019s horn\u201d to differentiate it from other \u201chorns.\u201d
\n189. the general laws which came from the mouth of God The reference is to the Decalogue received at Mt. Sinai, and Philo\u2019s statement echoes Exod. 20:15\u201316 and Deut. 5:22. While this is in line with the majority Rabbinic opinion that the entire Decalogue was received directly at Sinai, there is also the well-known view relayed in the name of R. Simlai in B. Mak. 23b\u201324a, and R. Yehoshua [b. Levi] in the Midrash that only the first two of the Ten Commandments were delivered directly, while the rest were given through the mediation of Moses. R. Simlai was an early Palestinian Amora (a generation noted for its particular sensitivity to the threat presented by heterodox positions, such as the view that only the Ten Commandments were divine).
\n191. due to the impiety Philo ascribes the catastrophes of nature to impiety. This is implied in the second paragraph of the Shema (Deut. 11:13\u201317), which already in Philo\u2019s day was recited twice daily. (See also comment on Spec. Laws 4.136, the other parts of the subject.)
\n192. the trumpet Philo follows Num. 10:9\u201310 in combining the peaceful dimension of the \u201ctrumpet\u201d with its warlike association. Numbers 10:10 is quoted in the third section (Shofarot) of the Tekiata d\u2019bai Rav, which is a central part of the Musaf synagogue prayer service for Rosh Hashanah.
\n193\u2013203 \u201cThe Fast,\u201d as Philo calls it, or \u201cThe Day of Atonement\u201d (Yom Kippur) as it has become generally termed, is the holiest day of the year. Philo writes in Spec. Laws 1.186\u201388, \u201cOn the tenth day is the fast (Num. 29:7\u201311), which is carefully observed not only by the zealous for piety and holiness but also by those who never act religiously in the rest of their life.\u201d This phenomenon is a familiar one even today.
\n193. perversely minded The word found here in the Greek text is \u201cheterodox.\u201d While in some contexts it means no more than \u201cdifferent\u201d or \u201cholding opinions that differ from the norm,\u201d in others Philo uses the word in the sense of \u201chaving deviant opinions\u201d (see QG 4.217; Sobriety 68; Migration 175). It is thus the converse of the modern term orthodox.
\n194. Sabbath of Sabbaths This is the LXX\u2019s rendition of MT Shabbat shabbaton in Lev. 16:31; 23:32.
\nseven of sevens Philo relates to this in terms of number symbolism. See Philo\u2019s discussion of the holy nature of the number seven, for example in Spec. Laws 2.40, 56\u20139, 149.
\n196. the holy day is entirely devoted to prayers and supplications This description fits today no less than in ancient times. However, it is worth bearing in mind that for those who made the pilgrimage to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the day provided a very different experience\u2014one full of \u201chappenings.\u201d The major events were the sacrifices offered in the Temple; the reading from the Torah by the high priest, also in the Temple; and the ceremony of the \u201cscapegoat\u201d (Lev. 16:5\u201310). All of this is described in M. Yoma 6:2\u20137 and 7:1\u20132, where it even states that one had to choose which event to attend, since they occurred at different places at the same time. See further M. Ta\u2019an. 4:8 for yet another facet of the day.
\n197. when all the annual fruits of the earth have been gathered in The Day of Atonement falls less than a week before the Feast of Tabernacles, whose major significance is on the one hand a thanksgiving for the harvest, and on the other, a remembrance of the People of Israel\u2019s 40 years of wandering in the desert, where God provided for all of their needs (see the next comment).
\n199. neither more nor less than what sufficed for each day See Exod. 16:14\u201326.
\n200. Why on the tenth? What follows is yet another example of Philo\u2019s fascination with Pythagorean notions of number. See similarly Decalogue 20\u201322. Other examples of Pythagorean number symbolism are found in Moses 2.115 and Creation 52.
\n201. instructor in the mysteries The Gk. here is hierophant. It sometimes means \u201cinstructor in the mysteries,\u201d but Philo, like many in his generation, almost always uses this and similar words metaphorically. This is not to say that he never recounts personal mystical experience. See, e.g., Cherubim 27: \u201cit comes from a voice in my soul, which oftentimes is god-possessed, and divines where it does not know.\u201d But while the existential experience of \u201cpossession\u201d as well as central tenets of Philo\u2019s philosophic\/theosophic thought are described in On the Cherubim, neither there, nor in the present passage do we find the recounting of what we would define as mystic lore. Here, as well as elsewhere, the tenets of Judaism are the \u201cmystery.\u201d
\n202. this would ensure that the stream from the fountain of reason should flow pure and crystal-clear While this is an expression of Philo\u2019s ascetic strain, the idea that fasting is good for the soul and that it helps induce mystical experience is found to some degree in the traditions of many religions.
\n204\u201314 Tabernacles (Sukkot) is the last of the three major, or \u201cpilgrimage\u201d festivals: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles; and in Jewish sources it is the festival par excellence. The New Year and the Day of Atonement belong to a different category.
\n204. Tabernacles, recurs at the autumn equinox This is the fifteenth of the seventh month (Tishrei).
\n206. to dwell in tents See Lev. 23:42\u201343, where MT uses sukkot. Unlike the MT, the LXX (and Philo in its wake) does not use different words for \u201ctents\u201d (MT ohalim) and \u201cbooths\u201d (MT sukkot). As Philo does here, Josephus (Ant. 3.244) also uses the Gk. skhnh, \u201ctents,\u201d for MT sukkot. See also the comment on Spec. Laws 2.207, to seek a more weatherproof mode of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
the Letter, where they were similarly described as having \u201cnot only mastered the Jewish literature, but had made a serious study of that of the Greeks as well\u201d (Let. Aris. 121). 2:33. When they arrived, they were offered hospitality and \u2026 requited their entertainer with a feast of words full of wit and weight Philo … <\/p>\n