על אברהם, הערותOn Abraham, Appendix
א׳
1APPENDIX TO DE ABRAHAMO
ב׳
2§ 5. Laws endowed with life and reason. Here we have the common idea that the king is a “living law” (given in that form in Mos. ii. 4, where see note) extended to the good and wise in general, cf. De Virt. 194 νόμοι δέ τινες ἄγραφοι καὶ οἱ βίοι τῶν ζηλωσάντων τὴν ἀρετήν.
ג׳
3§ 12. Enos … is fourth. That the number is obtained by the omission of Cain rather than Abel is suggested by Quaest. in Gen. i. 81 “quare neque terrigena patris successorem eum (i.e. Cain) indicat neque caput posteriorum generationum.”
ד׳
4§ 17. Transferred him. In this passage Philo, to support his idea of Enoch as signifying repentance, takes μετετέθη as referring to a moral change in this life. The common view (cf. Hebrews 11:5 “translated that he should not see death”) is adopted in Quaest. in Gen. i. 86, and perhaps also in De Mut. 38.
ה׳
5§ 51. Relative instead of absolute. Philo, as often, shews his familiarity with grammatical terms. The distinction between relative nouns (πρός τι, Lat. ad aliquid) and absolute (usually ἀπολελυμένα, whence Lat. absoluta) is regularly given by Greek and Latin grammarians. θεός is usually an “absolute,” but the addition “of Abraham,” etc., makes it a “relative,” as “father” or “king” always is. Cf. De Mut. 27 and note.
ו׳
6§ 99. Natural philosophers. The Stoic view of the higher study of nature is well illustrated by S. V. F. ii. 42 (from Chrysippus) τῶν δὲ φυσικῶν ἔσχατος εἶναι ὁ περὶ τῶν θεῶν λόγος, and ibid. 44 the study of φυσική comes later than λογική and ἠθική—θειοτέρα γάρ ἐστι καὶ βαθυτέρας δεῖται τῆς ἐπιστάσεως.
ז׳
7§§ 100–102. The thought of these sections is not quite clear and the translation might perhaps be improved. Philo seems to be criticizing an allegorization, which is not his own, on the ground that it reverses the spiritual connexion between the mind and virtue, though as a matter of fact he adopts the same interpretation of Abraham’s relation to Sarah in De Cher. and elsewhere. The criticism begins with ἐναντιώτατοι δέ (§ 100), where δέ = “but” rather than “now,” and ends with σωτήριον (§ 102), so that ἅπαντες μὲν οὖν might be translated “however that may be, all men …” In § 101 ἢ μήποτε, “or perhaps,” is not very clear, nor is the “perhaps however” of the translation. One would like to read καὶ μήποτε or μήποτε δὲ.
ח׳
8§ 118. Gave the appearance of both eating and drinking. So Josephus, Ant. i. 197 οἱ δὲ δόξαν αὐτῷ πάρεσχον ἐσθιόντων, and so later Rabbinical writers (references in Cohn’s translation of this book, p. 121). This is a point sometimes supposed to shew Josephus’s dependence on Philo. But the doubt whether angels would really eat and drink would naturally be felt and noted in any discussion of the story. The same may be said of § 170, where the statement that Abraham told no one in his household of the divine command to sacrifice, is compared by commentators to a similar statement in Joseph. Ant. i. 225.
ט׳
9§ 182. The practice of “Suttee” seems to have been well-known from the time of Alexander. Strabo xv. 30 and 62 quotes Onesicritus and Aristobulus, both companions of Alexander, as having reported the existence of the custom in different tribes. Diodorus Siculus xix. 33 gives a long account of the competition between the two wives of the Indian prince Keteus, who was killed in the wars of Antigonus 316 B.C., for the honour of dying on their husband’s pyre, and of the joy with which the one chosen went to her death.
י׳
10§ 244. The supremely perfect number. The term Panteleia seems to have been rather a divine name for ten in Pythagorean use than a mere epithet. Stobaeus, Ecl. 1:1. 10 (p. 22 H.) says that Pythagoras gave the name of Apollo to one, Artemis to two, Aphrodite to six, Athena to seven, Poseidon to eight, and Panteleia to ten. The word is once applied by Philo to seven, but to ten in the other five cases, in which he uses it of a number.
י״א
11§ 257. This passage is quoted by Wyttenbach in his note on Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium 102 D. Plutarch there advocates μετριοπάθεια in bereavements in similar terms and proceeds to quote Crantor the Academician Περὶ πένθους to the same effect. The same passage from Crantor is quoted by Cic. Tusc. Disp. iii. 12, and his book may very possibly have been in Philo’s mind.
י״ב
12§ 261. Here once more we have the Stoic paradox of the sage as king (see S. V. F. iii. 617). See note on De Mut. 152 (where the saying is founded on the same text as here) for other references in Philo.