היפותטיקהHypothetica
א׳
1HYPOTHETICA
ב׳
2(APOLOGY FOR THE JEWS)
ג׳
3Euseb. Praep. Evang. viii. 5. 11. Let us proceed to survey the constitution established by the legislation of Moses as described by authors held in high honour among the Jews. I will begin by quoting Philo’s account of their journey from Egypt under the leadership of Moses from the first book of the work which he entitled Hypothetica, where, while speaking in defence of the Jews as against their accusers, he says as follows:
ד׳
46. 1. Their original ancestor belonged to the Chaldeans, but this people who had emigrated from Syria to Egypt in past time removed from Egypt partly because of the vast size of the population for which the land was insufficient. Also it was due to the high spirit of enterprise in which they had been bred and to the revelations of God made by dreams and visions bidding them go forth, and what influenced them as much as anything was that they had providentially been seized by a yearning for their ancient fatherland. It was from there that this ancestor of theirs had passed over into Egypt either because God had so decreed or through some prevision of his own. There he had prospered to an unequalled degree so that from his time to the present day their nation has existed and survives and is so exceedingly populous.
ה׳
56. 2. Shortly afterwards he says:
ו׳
6Their departure and journey was made under the command of one who nothing differed from the ordinary run of men. So you may say if you like: indeed there were people also who abused him as an impostor and prating mountebank. Well, that was a fine kind of imposture and knavery which enabled him to bring the whole people in complete safety amid drought and hunger and ignorance of the way and lack of everything as well as if they had abundance of everything and supplies obtainable from the neighbouring nations, and further to keep them free from internal factions and above all obedient to himself.
ז׳
76. 3. And observe that these conditions lasted not for a little while but for a space of time during which even a household living in all comfort could not be expected to remain in unanimity. Yet neither thirst nor hunger nor bodily decay, nor fear of the future, nor ignorance of the course which events would take roused these deluded and perishing masses of men against that impostor.
ח׳
86. 4. How will you explain this? Shall we say that he had some kind of skill or eloquence or intelligence great enough to surmount so many strangely different circumstances which were carrying them all to perdition? Otherwise we must suppose that either his subjects were naturally not stupid nor discontented but docile and gifted with some prevision of the future or else that they were thoroughly bad though God softened their discontents and kept their present and their future state as it were in his charge. Whichever of these views you consider to be the truth it appears to redound mightily to his praise and honour and zeal for them all.
ט׳
96. 5. So much for the story of the migration. But when they came to this land the holy records show clearly how they established themselves there and occupied the country. Yet in discussing the probable facts of this occupation I think it better to go not so much by the historical narrative as by what our reason tells us about them.
י׳
106. 6. Which alternative do you prefer? Were they still superior in the number of their fighting men though they had fared so ill to the end, still strong and with weapons in their hand, and did they then take the land by force, defeating the combined Syrians and Phoenicians when fighting in their own country? Or shall we suppose that they were unwarlike and feeble, quite few in numbers and destitute of warlike equipment, but won the respect of their opponents who voluntarily surrendered their land to them and that as a direct consequence they shortly afterwards built their temple and established everything else needed for religion and worship?
י״א
116. 7. This would clearly show that they were acknowledged as dearly beloved of God even by their enemies. For those whose land they suddenly invaded with the intention of taking it from them were necessarily their enemies.
י״ב
126. 8. And if they got credit and honour in the sight of their enemies surely it shows that they exceeded all in good fortune. What qualities shall we put in addition to this good fortune in the second and the third place? Shall we give the preference to their respect for law and loyal obedience or to their religion and justice and piety? Whichever you choose the fact remains that so great was their veneration for that man who gave them their laws, whatever view we take of him, that anything which approved itself to him approved itself also to them.
י״ג
136. 9. So whether what he told them came from his own reasoning powers or was learnt from some supernatural source they held it all to come from God and after the lapse of many years, how many I cannot say exactly, but at any rate for more than two thousand, they have not changed a single word of what he wrote but would even endure to die a thousand deaths sooner than accept anything contrary to the laws and customs which he had ordained.
י״ד
146. 10. After these remarks he gives the following summary of the constitution laid down for the nation in the laws of Moses.
ט״ו
157. 1. Do we find any of these things or anything similar among the Jews; anything which so savours of mildness and lenity, anything which permits of legal proceedings or extenuations or postponements or assessments of penalties and reductions of assessments? Nothing at all, everything is clear and simple. If you are guilty of pederasty or adultery or rape of a young person, even of a female, for I need not mention the case of a male, similarly if you prostitute yourself or allow or purpose or intend any action which your age makes indecent the penalty is death.
ט״ז
167. 2. So too if you commit an outrage on the person of a slave or a free man, if you confine him in bonds or kidnap and sell him. So too with larceny of things profane and sacred, so too with impiety not only of act but even of a casual word and not only against God Himself (may He forgive the very thought of such a thing which should not even be mentioned), but also against a father or mother or benefactor of your own the penalty is the same, death and not the common ordinary death: the offender in words only must be stoned to death. His guilt is as great as if he were the perpetrator of impious actions.
י״ז
177. 3. Other rules again there are of various kinds: wives must be in servitude to their husbands, a servitude not imposed by violent ill-treatment but promoting obedience in all things. Parents must have power over their children to keep them safe and tend them carefully. Each individual is master of his possessions unless he has solemnly named the name of God over them declaring that he has given them to God. And if he has merely made a chance verbal promise of them he must not touch or handle them, but hold himself at once debarred from them all.
י״ח
187. 4. I need not consider the case of his robbing what belongs to the gods or plundering what others have dedicated; even with his own, I repeat, a chance word of dedication spoken unawares deprives him of them all and if he repents or denies his promise his life is forfeit also.
י״ט
197. 5. The same holds of any other persons over whom he has authority. If a man has devoted his wife’s sustenance to a sacred purpose he must refrain from giving her that sustenance; so with a father’s gifts to his son or a ruler’s to his subjects. The chief and most perfect way of releasing dedicated property is by the priest refusing it, for he is empowered by God to accept it or not. Next to this, that given by those who at the time have the higher authority may lawfully declare that God is propitiated so that there is no necessity to accept the dedication.
כ׳
207. 6. Besides these there is a host of other things which belong to unwritten customs and institutions or are contained in the laws themselves. What a man would hate to suffer he must not do himself to others. What he has not laid down he must not take up either from a garden or a wine press or a threshing floor. He must not filch anything great or small from a stack. He must not grudge to give fire to one who needs it or close off running water. If the poor or the cripple beg food of him he must give it as an offering of religion to God.
כ״א
217. 7. He must not debar dead bodies from burial, but throw upon them as much earth as piety demands, nor disturb in any way the resting places and monuments of the departed. He must not by fettering or any other means worsen the plight of him who is in hard straits; he must not make abortive the generative power of men by gelding nor that of women by sterilizing drugs and other devices. There must be no maltreatment of animals contrary to what is appointed by God or even by a law-giver; no destroying of their seed nor defrauding of their offspring.
כ״ב
227. 8. No unjust scales, no false measurements, no fraudulent coinage must be substituted.” The secrets of a friend must not be divulged in enmity. What need in heaven’s name have we of your Buzyges and his precepts? There are other matters to be noted: children must not be parted from their parents even if you hold them as captive, nor a wife from her husband even if you are her owner by lawful purchase.
כ״ג
237. 9. These no doubt are more important and serious matters, but there are others, little things of casual occurrence. Do not render desolate the nesting home of birds or make the appeals of animals of none effect when they seem to fly to you for help as they sometimes do. Nor commit any lesser offence of the kind. These things are of nothing worth, you may say, yet great is the law which ordains them and ever watchful is the care which it demands. Great too and appalling are the warnings and imprecations which accompany it. And such deeds are everywhere surveyed and avenged by God Himself.
כ״ד
247. 10. Shortly afterwards he says:
כ״ה
25Is it not a marvel that for a whole day they should have kept from transgressing on any occasion any of the ordinances, or rather for many days, not one only, days too which did not follow straight on each other but only after intervals, and intervals of seven during which habits belonging to the secular days naturally hold the mastery?
כ״ו
267. 11. You may ask: Is not this merely a case of practising self-control so that they should be capable of abstaining from toil if necessary no less than of toilsome activity? No, it was a great and marvellous achievement which the lawgiver had in view. He considered that they should not only be capable of both action and inaction in other matters but also should have expert knowledge of their ancestral laws and customs.
כ״ז
277. 12. What then did he do? He required them to assemble in the same place on these seventh days, and sitting together in a respectful and orderly manner hear the laws read so that none should be ignorant of them.
כ״ח
287. 13. And indeed they do always assemble and sit together, most of them in silence except when it is the practice to add something to signify approval of what is read. But some priest who is present or one of the elders reads the holy laws to them and expounds them point by point till about the late afternoon, when they depart having gained both expert knowledge of the holy laws and considerable advance in piety.
כ״ט
297. 14. Do you think that this marks them as idlers or that any work is equally vital to them? And so they do not resort to persons learned in the law with questions as to what they should do or not do, nor yet by keeping independent transgress in ignorance of the law, but any one of them whom you attack with inquiries about their ancestral institutions can answer you readily and easily. The husband seems competent to transmit knowledge of the laws to his wife, the father to his children, the master to his slaves.
ל׳
307. 15. Again with regard to the seventh year one can without difficulty use much the same though perhaps not identical words. For here it is not they themselves who abstain from work as on those seventh days, but it is the land which they leave idle against the days to come hereafter to give it fertility, for they believe that it gains much by getting a respite and is then tilled in the next year without being exhausted by unbroken cultivation.
ל״א
317. 16. You may see that the same treatment of our bodies tends to strengthen them. Physicians prescribe some intermissions and relaxations not merely when health has to be restored. For monotony without a break, particularly in work, is always seen to be injurious.
ל״ב
327. 17. Here is a proof that their object is as I describe. If anyone offered to cultivate this same land during the seventh year much more strenuously than before and to surrender to them the whole of the fruits they would absolutely refuse. For they do not think that it is only themselves who should abstain from work, though if they did so it would be nothing to wonder at, but that the land should gain at their hands a respite and easing off to make a fresh start in receiving renewed attention and husbandry.
ל״ג
337. 18. For what in heaven’s name was to hinder them from letting out the land during the year and collecting the produce of that year at its end from the others who tilled it? But, as I have said, they entirely refuse anything of the kind, doubtless out of consideration for the land.
ל״ד
347. 19. We have a truly great proof of their humanity in the following also. Since they themselves abstain from labour during that year, they think that they should not gather or lay by the fruits produced which do not accrue to them from their own toil, but since God has provided them, sprung from the soil by its own action, they should grant them to be used freely by way farers and others who desire or need them.
ל״ה
357. 20. You have now had enough on this subject, for you will not require me to show that these rules for the seventh days are established firmly among them by the law. Probably you have often heard ere now from many physicians, scientists and philosophers what influence it has over the life of all things and of mankind in particular. This is what I have to say about the seventh day.
ל״ו
3611. 1. Multitudes of his disciples has the lawgiver trained for the life of fellowship. These people are called Essenes, a name awarded to them doubtless in recognition of their holiness. They live in many cities of Judaea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members.
ל״ז
3711. 2. Their persuasion is not based on birth, for birth is not a descriptive mark of voluntary associations, but on their zeal for virtue and desire to promote brotherly love.
ל״ח
3811. 3. Thus no Essene is a mere child nor even a stripling or newly bearded, since the characters of such are unstable with a waywardness corresponding to the immaturity of their age, but full grown and already verging on old age, no longer carried under by the tide of the body nor led by the passions, but enjoying the veritable, the only real freedom.
ל״ט
3911. 4. This freedom is attested by their life. None of them allows himself to have any private property, either house or slave or estate or cattle or any of the other things which are amassed and abundantly procured by wealth, but they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common.
מ׳
4011. 5. They live together formed into clubs, bands of comradeship with common meals, and never cease to conduct all their affairs to serve the general weal.
מ״א
4111. 6. But they have various occupations at which they labour with untiring application and never plead cold or heat or any of the violent changes in the atmosphere as an excuse. Before the sun is risen they betake themselves to their familiar tasks and only when it sets force them selves to return, for they delight in them as much as do those who are entered for gymnastic competitions.
מ״ב
4211. 7. For they consider that the exercises which they practise whatever they may be are more valuable to life, more pleasant to soul and body and more lasting than those of the athlete in as much as they can still be plied with vigour when that of the body is past its prime.
מ״ג
4311. 8. Some of them labour on the land skilled in sowing and planting, some as herdsmen taking charge of every kind of cattle and some superintend the swarms of bees.
מ״ד
4411. 9. Others work at the handicrafts to avoid the sufferings which are forced upon us by our indispensable requirements and shrink from no innocent way of getting a livelihood.
מ״ה
4511. 10. Each branch when it has received the wages of these so different occupations gives it to one person who has been appointed as treasurer. He takes it and at once buys what is necessary and provides food in abundance and anything else which human life requires.
מ״ו
4611. 11. Thus having each day a common life and a common table they are content with the same conditions, lovers of frugality who shun expensive luxury as a disease of both body and soul.
מ״ז
4711. 12. And not only is their table in common but their clothing also. For in winter they have a stock of stout coats ready and in summer cheap vests, so that he who wishes may easily take any garment he likes, since what one has is held to belong to all and conversely what all have one has.
מ״ח
4811. 13. Again if anyone is sick he is nursed at the common expense and tended with care and thoughtfulness by all. The old men too even if they are childless are treated as parents of a not merely numerous but very filial family and regularly close their life with an exceedingly prosperous and comfortable old age; so many are those who give them precedence and honour as their due and minister to them as a duty voluntarily and deliberately accepted rather than enforced by nature.
מ״ט
4911. 14. Furthermore they eschew marriage because they clearly discern it to be the sole or the principal danger to the maintenance of the communal life, as well as because they particularly practise continence. For no Essene takes a wife, because a wife is a selfish creature, excessively jealous and an adept at beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing him by her continued impostures.
נ׳
5011. 15. For by the fawning talk which she practise and the other ways in which she plays her part like an actress on the stage she first ensnares the sight and hearing, and when these subjects as it were have been duped she cajoles the sovereign mind.
נ״א
5111. 16. And if children come, filled with the spirit of arrogance and bold speaking she gives utterance with more audacious hardihood to things which before she hinted covertly and under disguise, and casting off all shame she compels him to commit actions which are all hostile to the life of fellowship.
נ״ב
5211. 17. For he who is either fast bound in the love lures of his wife or under the stress of nature makes his children his first care ceases to be the same to others and unconsciously has become a different man and has passed from freedom into slavery.
נ״ג
5311. 18. Such then is the life of the Essenes, a life so highly to be prized that not only commoners but also great kings look upon them with admiration and amazement, and the approbation and honours which they give add further veneration to their venerable name.
