על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד, הערותOn the Special Laws, Book IV, Appendix
א׳
1APPENDIX TO DE SPECIALIBUS LEGIBUS, IV
ב׳
2(The title.) This, as it is given here, is taken from a list of some of the works of Philo, found in an eleventh-century MS., which itself contains only half of the De Opificio, but the list no doubt is the table of contents in the exemplar from which that MS. was taken. It agrees with that in the two MSS. (S and M) of this treatise, except that they omit ὅλης. All these omit the last word or words, which Cohn supplied by τέλος. The last six words so amended are translated in Goodhart and Goodenough’s Bibliography, p. 135, “and which (i.e. justice) is the objective of the whole code.” I understand ὅ to have the phrase περὶ δικαιοσύνης for its antecedent, and συντάξεως, which could hardly mean “code,” as referring to the whole of the four books.
ג׳
3The addition of τῶν εἰς ἕκαστον ἀναφερομένων seems quite needless. Compare the titles of the other three books.
ד׳
4§ 2. (Stealing open and secret.) As the distinction made by Philo, though natural enough, is not drawn at any rate directly from the Law it is a case where perhaps he may have been influenced by other legislation. Goodenough, Jewish Jurisprudence in Egypt, pp. 145 ff., and Heinemann, Bildung, pp. 421 ff., have some discussion on this. Goodenough notes that the Ptolemaic law in Egypt distinguished between open robbery (λεία) and ordinary stealing. He gives a reference to Taubenschlag, Strafrecht, pp. 26 ff., which I have not been able to see. In Roman law the person who committed a “furtum manifestum” was held to be a “fur inprobior” (Mommsen, Strafrecht, p. 601). In Attic law the distinction does not seem to be so clear. In Xen. Mem. i. 2. 62, which Goodenough cites, κατὰ τοὺς νόμους ἐάν τις φανερὸς γένηται κλέπτων … θάνατός ἐστιν ἡ ζημία, φανερός may mean “detected,” “clearly proved” rather than, as Goodenough, “openly.”
ה׳
5§ 2. Repay the stolen goods twofold. Mangey on these words and Driver on Ex. 22:4 give several examples of a similar rule. Among them are Solon’s laws as stated by Gellius xi. 18 and Dem. Adv. Timocrat., p. 467 (of conviction for theft in a private action) and Plato, Laws 857 A. Philo may have known these, but his generalization is not so inexact that we need suppose him to have been influenced by other legislations.
ו׳
6§ 4. General proclamation. Heinemann, Bildung, p. 421, dissents from the view that there is an allusion to Lev. 25:10, and regards the phrase as meaning merely a public announcement. The absence of the article may favour this, but he does not give any evidence of such a regulation from Philo or elsewhere. The Athenian ἀποκήρυξις which he quotes as an analogy, a term applied to a formal notice of disinheriting, does not help much.
ז׳
7§ 7. In the very place where he has broken in. L. and S. revised give “(the act of) breaking in” for διόρυγμα as a LXX usage, citing this passage, viz. Ex. 22:2 and Jeremiah 2:34. I do not think this is right. In neither passage, the second of which appears to be an allusion to the first, is there any necessity to understand the act rather than the place. Anyway, Philo is more likely to have understood the word, which he quotes from the LXX, in its usual sense.
ח׳
8For the law that a thief might be legally killed at night cf. the Attic law as stated by Demosthenes, Adv. Timocrat., p. 463, also Plato, Laws ix. 874 B νύκτωρ φῶρα εἰς οἰκίαν εἰσιόντα ἐπὶ κλοπῇ χρημάτων, ἐὰν ἑλὼν κτείνῃ τις, καθαρὸς ἔστω. In Roman law, the XII Tables have “si nox furtum factum sit, si eum occisit, iure caesus esto.” As Philo is reproducing Exodus, these are illustrations of that rather than of this. However, one point noted by Goodenough, p. 154, may be worth mentioning. The Roman law, as stated in the Digest, directed that the killing must be preceded by a call for help (“cum clamore”). If Philo knew this, it would agree with his insistence that the right to kill is founded on the inability to get help. Much the same point is made in another connexion in Spec. Leg. iii. 74–78.
ט׳
9§§ 11, 12. (Value of Sheep and Ox.) Heinemann’s suggestion (approved by Goodenough), that the thought in these sections was developed from the Stoic doctrine that animals were created for the service of man, seems to me fanciful. Philo has to give a reason why the law requires a higher rate of compensation for a sheep and still more for an ox than for other goods, and this necessarily depends on their value to the owner. The passage he quotes from Cic. De Nat. ii. 158 ff. certainly says that the sheep was intended to supply man with wool and the ox to supply him with means for ploughing, but does not note the other abilities noted here. The two passages are also alike in not mentioning that either animal is good for food, but elsewhere the Stoics seem to have held that they were also created to be eaten (“ad vescendum”), Cic. De Leg. i. 8. 25 (S.V.F. ii. 1162).
י׳
10§ 13. (Kidnapping.) As the LXX (see footnote) does not deal with the crime of kidnapping a non-Israelite, Philo leaves the punishment to be determined by the “court,” cf. Spec. Leg. iii. 148, where the same is laid down in the case of death caused to a man by falling into an unguarded pit, whereas the law only prescribed compensation for the death of an animal. By the Court I do not understand him, as Goodenough does, to be thinking of the Jewish Court in Alexandria. What he says in these sections is that (1) the act is obviously a crime against humanity, and (2) would therefore have to be punished by a court, (3) should be, or at least might be, punished by something less than death.
י״א
11In Roman law kidnapping (“plagium”) was a serious crime, sometimes punishable by death (see Dict. of Ant.).
י״ב
12§ 21. (ἀγρονόμοι.) Nothing really is known of this office, except from two passages in Aristotle, Politics vi. 5, 1321 b and vii. 11, 1331 b, where he says that the ὑλωροί or forest-wardens are also called ἀγρονόμοι, but he does not specify the states where these are to be found. It is conjectured (see Pauly-Wissowa) that the πεδιανόμοι at Sparta, whose title is found in an inscription, are the same. But Plato in several passages of the Laws recommends the appointment of such officials to do for the country what the ἀστυνόμοι do for the towns. See particularly 760 ff. and 844 B, where they are empowered to redress civil injuries. Very little importance, I think, can be attached to Philo’s statement that the best governed cities have these officials. It is an inference which he would easily draw from Plato’s way of speaking of them. And indeed some modern scholars seem to have made the same assumption (see Dict. of Ant.).
י״ג
13§ 39. τῶν … μελλόντων. In support of the translation somewhat doubtfully given in the text it may be pointed out that Philo evidently sees in Lev. 19:11, 12 something like the rhetorical figure, technically called “the ladder” (κλῖμαξ), in which at each stage the crucial word of the preceding stage is repeated. (See Ernesti, Lex. Rhet.) A similar example in Demosthenes (speaking of the process by which a quarrel rises to bloodshed) runs μηδὲ κατὰ μικρὸν ὑπάγεσθαι, ἐκ μὲν λοιδορίας εἰς πληγάς, ἐκ δὲ πληγῶν εἰς τραύματα, ἐκ δὲ τραυμάτων εἰς θάνατον. Of course in Lev. itself it is not a proper “climax,” as the πρότερον is not repeated before the ἑπόμενον, but Philo’s exposition takes that form.
י״ד
14§ 40. Unscientific method of proof. The depreciatory note which Philo here puts into the word ἄτεχνος is very unfair. The ἄτεχνοι πίστεις are, as quoted from Cope in the note to De Plant. 173 (vol. iii. p. 499), “proofs not due to the artist’s invented skill, but supplied to him from the outside as it were of his art.” They are not opposed to ἔλεγχοι δίκαιοι but are indeed really more “just,” in so far as they cannot be perverted by the orator’s skill. In De Plant. the word was translated “inartistic” (perhaps better “unartistic”), and that or “unartificial” is the equivalent usually given. But “unscientific” seems to me in the usual English usage to come nearer to the meaning (or perhaps “non-scientific,” though I have kept the “un-” as giving something of Philo’s depreciatory note).
ט״ו
15§ 40. (Text of φύσει ἀγαθὸν καὶ θεῖον ὄνομα, etc.) As stated in the footnote Cohn expelled ἀγαθὸν καὶ on the grounds (1) that ἀγαθόν is an unsuitable adjective in this context, (2) that the fairly obvious corrections ἅγιον or ἀγαστὸν suggested by Mangey are ruled out by the hiatus after φύσει. This objection applies of course to ἀγαθὸν also.
ט״ז
16In a note in vol. vii. p. 620 I said that I did not know how far Cohn’s argument that a certain reading was unacceptable on account of the hiatus was valid and that Cohn did not anywhere formulate his doctrine. Since then I have got more information originally through Cumont’s edition of the De Aeternitate, Prol., p. xx. Cumont refers to a publication by J. Jessen in a Festschrift to Hermann Sauppe entitled De elocutione Philonis Alexandrini (1889). Jessen’s article is largely occupied in showing that Philo uses μέχρι or ἄχρι according as a vowel or consonant precedes. But towards the end he discusses hiatus in general from a study of the De Opificio and concludes that it is only admitted when (a) Philo is quoting scripture or another writer such as Plato, (b) when any stop, even a comma, intervenes, (c) in familiar conjunctions of words forming a single phrase such as ἐτήσιοι ὧραι, (d) after the article, or the relative pronoun or prepositions or καί, μή, τι, ὅτι, etc. This last class means, I suppose, the little common words which recur so frequently that the writer would be hampered if he always had to follow with a consonantal word. Cumont finds that this rule also applies to the De Aet., the genuineness of which he is supporting.
י״ז
17Jessen however admitted that in the De Op. there was a certain residuum of cases, where the hiatus had no such excuse, and Cumont said the same of the De Aet., and probably an examination of the other treatises would give the same result. Most of those quoted by Jessen and Cumont are capable of emendation, sometimes easily, sometimes only with some straining. As a matter of fact I observe that Cohn, who had Jessen’s work before him, left all but one of these cases of hiatus as they stand in the MSS. in his own edition.
י״ח
18The real question is whether Philo put the hiatus on the same footing as a grammatical error, or whether he thought it a thing to be avoided generally, but not if the avoidance hampered his expression in any way. I should be inclined to take the second view and hold that while a hiatus may justly increase suspicion of a reading to which there are other objections, it does not in itself create a fatal or even a very serious objection. In the case under discussion I do not think that the expulsion of ἀγαθὸν καὶ is justified, particularly as the same hiatus after φύσει occurs elsewhere (ἑβδομάδος φύσει οἰκεῖα, Leg. All. i. 16), where neither is any easy emendation possible nor has Cohn or any other editor raised any objection.
י״ט
19As for the first objection, it may be granted that as ἀγαθός when applied to God regularly connotes His beneficence, ἅγιον would be more appropriate here. But it is going too far to call it unsuitable. It is applied to the Divine Name in Ps. 53(54):6.
כ׳
20§ 49. Heinemann refers on this passage to Plato, Ion 534. Here and in the parallels, Spec. Leg. i. 65 and Quis Rerum 265 f., Philo may have had in mind this passage, particularly διὰ ταῦτα δὲ ὁ θεὸς ἐξαιρούμενος τούτων (i.e. “poets”) τὸν νοῦν τούτοις χρῆται ὑπηρέταις καὶ τοῖς μάντεσι τοῖς θείοις … ἀλλʼ ὁ θεὸς αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ λέγων, διὰ τουτῶν δὲ φθέγγεται πρὸς ἡμᾶς. But Heinemann goes much too far, I think, in saying that this conception is derived (“entlehnten”) from Plato. The idea of the prophet as God’s mouthpiece is self-evident throughout the prophetical books, and the most striking point in Philo’s imagery here and in Quis Rerum, that the prophet is the musical instrument on which God plays, does not come so far as I know from Plato, at any rate not from this passage in the Ion.
כ״א
21§ 52. ὁλοστὸν. Stephanus gives for this word “integer totus,” Hesychius ὅλως ὡς ἔστιν (what does that mean exactly?) and L. and S. old and revised merely repeat this statement or part of it. It is a mis-statement to say that it is only known from Hesychius. It is found here in the MSS. of Philo in a passage the genuineness of which was not questioned till lately, but was overlooked by the lexicographers, who conceivably may have overlooked the word elsewhere. In fact it has the advantage over several other words only quoted from Philo that it has the support of Hesychius. But the formation is odd. If formed like other words in -στός, the ordinals and ὀλιγοστός, πολλοστός, it should be “one out of a whole”: a further difficulty here is that it seems to be used as a substantive, which is not the case, so far as I know, with the other words in -στός. I am inclined to think that the writer of the clause, whether Philo or another, actually wrote as Mangey suggests ὅλως αὑτὸν, which, as he says, would easily pass by abbreviation into ὁλοστὸν.
כ״ב
22§ 54. (Last sentence.) Heinemann remarks on these words that both the expression and the thought are derived from the Stoics, who, while combatting the sceptical doctrine that certain knowledge was unattainable and ἐποχή was universally necessary (cf. the sceptical sections in De Ebr. 171–205), allowed that there were cases where for want of evidence ἐποχή was necessary. Cf. S.V.F. ii. 121 πᾶς δογματικὸς ἔν τισιν ἐπέχειν εἴωθεν, ἤτοι παρὰ γνώμης ἀσθένειαν ἢ παρὰ πραγμάτων ἀσάφειαν, ἢ παρὰ τὴν τῶν λόγων ἰσοσθένειαν. ἐπέχειν and ἐποχή are the accepted technical terms in this sense, but need such a commonsense observation as that, when two things are equal, you cannot decide in favour of either, be necessarily traced to Stoic sources?
כ״ג
23§§ 63 ff. These sections have a close parallel in Plato, Laws 955 C–D “those who serve their country ought to serve without receiving gifts, and there ought to be no excusing or approving the saying ‘Men should receive gifts as the reward of good but not of evil deeds’—for to know what is good and to persevere in what we know is no easy matter. The safest course is to obey the law, which says ‘Do no service for a bribe’ ” (Jowett). That Philo had Plato in mind is made more probable by his introduction of another Platonic word ἡμιμόχθηροι, Rep. 352, used to describe the half-way house in injustice.
כ״ד
24§ 64. Awarder (or umpire) of justice. Heinemann may be right in regarding this as a direct quotation from Aristotle. Philo however also knew the expression βραβεύειν τὰ δίκαια from Demosthenes, Ol. iii. 96. βραβεύς, βραβεύειν and βραβευτής, originally applied to the games, easily lend themselves to metaphor and Philo has used the last several times in other connexions. But see on § 149.
כ״ה
25§ 73. One of the men of old. Mangey supposed that this refers to the passage in the Theaetetus of Plato quoted below on § 188. But imitation is not quite the same as assimilation, nor is showing kindness there specifically marked. Heinemann’s note is “this frequently quoted saying was ascribed to Pythagoras and Demosthenes,” and refers for the evidence of this to Vahlen’s edition of Longinus, De Sublimitate, p. 216; Cohn gives the same reference. I am sorry that I have been unable to see this edition, but presumably the evidence is the same as or includes that quoted by Roberts in his edition of the De Sub., p. 244. (a) Aelian, Var. Hist, xii. 59 “Pythagoras said that the two best gifts of the gods to men were speaking the truth and showing kindness (τό τε ἀληθεύειν καὶ τὸ εὐεργετεῖν), and he added that both resembled the works of the gods.” (b) Arsen, Viol. 189 “Demosthenes, being asked what man has like God, said ‘showing kindness and speaking the truth.’ ”
כ״ו
26§ 85. ἔρως. This is a word for which there is no real equivalent in English when the context does not allow it, as no doubt it often does, to be rendered by the single word “love.” The phrase “sexual love” is not attractive, and does not cover the whole of the Greek conception. The Stoic definition of ἔρως as one of the seven different forms of ἐπιθυμία, Diog. Laert. vii. 113, is ἐπιθυμία τις οὐχὶ περὶ τοὺς σπουδαίους· ἔστι γὰρ ἐπιβολὴ φιλοποιίας διὰ κάλλος ἐμφαινόμενον, which Hicks translates “a craving from which good men are free, for it is an effort to win affection due to the visible presence of beauty.” An interesting study of the four words στοργή, ἔρως, φιλεῖν, ἀγαπᾶν, particularly as used by Plato and Aristotle, is given in an Appendix to Sandys’s edition of Aristot. Rhet., vol. i.
כ״ז
27§ 104. μακρόθεν. As Heinemann, Mangey and Cohn generally give quite a different sense here and elsewhere from myself to this adverb and πόρρωθεν, I take the opportunity of collecting the passages I have noted in this book and the preceding and the De Virtutibus. In nearly all the clear intention is to show that the injunction actually given leads on to another principle of a higher kind, which I have generally translated by the adverb “indirectly” or “by implication,” on which see below.
כ״ח
28(1) Spec. Leg. iii. 48 μακρόθεν δʼ ὡς ἀπὸ σκοπῆς ἐσωφρόνισεν ἀνθρώπους.
כ״ט
29Here, where ἀπὸ σκοπῆς fixes the meaning beyond question, the guilt of unlawful unions among men is deduced from the prohibition of mixed matings of animals. Heinemann “wie von einer Warte”; Mangey “longe quasi e speculo.”
ל׳
30(2) Ib. 63 πόρρωθεν μοιχείας ἀνείργων. (Guilt of adultery from the injunction of ablutions even after lawful intercourse.)
ל״א
31Here Heinemann translates πόρρωθεν ἀνείργων by “fern zu halten”; Mangey “longe submovens.”
ל״ב
32(3) Ib. 117 πόρρωθεν τὴν βρεφῶν ἔκθεσιν ἀπεῖπε διʼ ὑπονοιῶν. (Guilt of infanticide from the punishment decreed against causing a miscarriage.)
ל״ג
33Here the addition of διʼ ὑπονοιῶν gives the same thought in a different form. The one prohibition is an allegory of the other. Heinemann “in versteckter Andeutung,” apparently translating διʼ ὑπονοιῶν and ignoring πόρρωθεν; Mangey “procul vetuit.”
ל״ד
34(4) Spec. Leg. iv. 104 (this passage) μακρόθεν ἀνεῖρξαι βουλόμενος τὴν ἐπὶ τὰ λεχθέντα ὁρμήν. (The evil of cruel vindictiveness from the prohibition of carnivorous animals for food.)
ל״ה
35Heinemann “recht fern zu halten”; Mangey “procul remoturus.”
ל״ו
36(5) Ib. 203 πόρρωθεν ἀνακοπὴν μοιχῶν ἐργάζεσθαι. (Guilt of adultery from the mixed mating of animals, cf. iii. 48.)
ל״ז
37Heinemann “offenbar” (“openly” or “plainly”?); Mangey “quanto magis.”
ל״ח
38(6) Ib. 218 αἳ μακρόθεν τῶν ἐπʼ ἀνθρώποις πλεονεξιῶν τὴν λύσσαν ἀνείργουσι. (Duty of restraining coveteousness from the prohibition of sowing the vineyard.)
ל״ט
39Heinemann “nachdrücklich”; Mangey “procul arcet.”
מ׳
40(7) De Virt. 21 πόρρωθεν ὡς ἀνδρογύνους οὕτως καὶ γυνάνδρους φυλαξάμενος. (Womanliness in general from the single item of womanly dress (see the next sentence ἑνὸς γὰρ κτλ.).)
מ״א
41Cohn “fernhalten”; Mangey “longe submovens.”
מ״ב
42(8) Ib. 116 πόρρωθεν ἀναδιδάσκων τὸ μὴ ἐφήδεσθαι. (Avoidance of ἐπιχαιρεκακία, from the injunction to help an enemy’s beast.)
מ״ג
43Ignored by Cohn; Mangey “in minimis quoque docet.”
מ״ד
44(9) Ib. 137 ὑπὲρ τοῦ μακρόθεν ἐπισχεῖν τὴν εὐχέρειαν. (Guilt of infanticide from the prohibition of killing a pregnant animal.)
מ״ה
45Cohn “schon von vornherein”; Mangey “ad longe compescendum.”
מ״ו
46(10) Ib. 160 πόρρωθεν ἀναδιδάσκεται τῶν λογικῶν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι. (Consideration for men from kindness to animals.)
מ״ז
47Cohn gives this well, “zieht durchaus die weitere Lehre”; Mangey “inde dixit rationalibus potiorem curam inpendere.” To these may be added De Virt. 151 τὸ μέλλον ὥσπερ ἀπὸ σκοπῆς μακρόθεν … καθορᾶσθαι, where the same phrase is used as in iii. 48, but has no reference to Moses’ teaching. Cf. also De Virt. 129.
מ״ח
48While taking the adverbs in an intensive sense “to keep far away” will suit (7) and perhaps (2, 4, 6), if the adverbs in -θεν can bear this sense, which seems to me doubtful, it is hardly compatible with ἀπειπεῖν (3), or ἀνακοπὴν ἐργάζεσθαι (5), or ἐπισχεῖν (9), and quite impossible with σωφρονίζειν (1), and ἀναδιδάσκειν (8, 10). It is clear to me that throughout, as indicated by (1), both adverbs express Philo’s conception of the Law as a code in which those who have eyes to see may discern other lessons far away from the primary and literal. I do not feel that the translation “indirectly” or “implicitly” is at all adequate. “A lesson reaching far beyond the actual words” would express the meaning better, but be too heavy a rendering for this single word.
מ״ט
49§ 106. (Dividing the hoof.) In this treatise the phrase is used of ethical questions only and signifies the distinguishing of the desirable from the undesirable. In De Agr. 131–145 the treatment is somewhat different. In § 133 as here it is taken to mean distinguishing the beneficial from the injurious, but as the discussion proceeds it is applied to analysis and distinction in the arts and sciences—grammar, music and logic. The sophists in fact are represented by the pig, because although they divide the hoof they do not chew the cud.
נ׳
50As Philo’s interpretation of διχηλεῖν or something like it appears in the letter of Aristeas 150, which though of uncertain date is by general agreement considered to be earlier than Philo, it is not altogether original with him. As to whether it was accepted later, I have no information as far as Rabbinism is concerned. Heinemann’s silence in Bildung would suggest that it was not. But there is an interesting passage in the Pilgrim’s Progress, where Faithful discoursing about Talkative says that he reminds him of Moses’ saying that the clean beast must both chew the cud and part the hoof. “The hare cheweth the cud, but yet is unclean because he parteth not the hoof. And this truly resembles Talkative. He cheweth the cud, he seeketh knowledge; he cheweth upon the word; but he divideth not the hoof; he parteth not with the way of sinners; but as the hare, retaineth the foot of a dog or bear, and therefore he is unclean.” This is not very different from Philo’s interpretation. Is Bunyan here following a tradition of the Christian pulpit? Christian’s reply is “You have spoken, for aught I know, the gospel-sense of these things.”
נ״א
51§ 109. πολύχηλα. This word is not recorded by Stephanus or the earlier L. & S. The revised L. & S., citing this passage, erroneously gives it as “dividing the hoof, opposed to μονώνυχα.”
נ״ב
52§ 113. Cormorant. αἴθυια (“sea-gull”?) is taken as a type of voracity with the same verb ἐμφορεῖσθαι in Leg. All. iii. 155 and Quod Det. 101. Philo is the only author quoted for this usage, as the other passage cited by Stephanus, Athenaeus vii. 283 c, is not to the point. L. & S. do not notice it at all.
נ״ג
53§ 116. (Clean and unclean birds.) Aristeas 145–147 gives the same definition of the unclean birds and mentions doves, pigeons, geese and partridges as specimens of the clean. He also adds the moral that the prohibition is intended as a warning against injustice and tyranny among men.
נ״ד
54§ 128. ἀνδρὸς εὐζώνου. While εὔζωνος in a general sense is common enough, the phrase as a standard of measurement is not quoted in the Lexicon from any writers later than Herodotus (i. 72, 104) and Thucydides (ii. 97). If the absence of quotation reflects the facts, we may fairly set its presence here as a conscious literary reminiscence or imitation of the historians.
נ״ה
55§ 137. Shaking before the eyes. Though Philo does not actually use σαλευτά nor get nearer to it than σάλον δʼ ἐχέτω below, there can be no doubt that this is what he read. It is equally clear that it is a misreading, and his explanation is fantastical. But the mistake is not confined to him. The Apparatus Criticus in Brook and Maclean’s edition of the LXX shows that one MS. has σαλευτόν in Deut. 11:18, though not apparently in 6:8, and that the Old Latin version had “mobilia.” This is also supported by a treatise of Origen, which only survives in the Latin. The reference to this is not given. Otherwise it would be interesting to see whether Origen owed the idea to Philo and gave it further currency.
נ״ו
56§§ 149, 150. Unwritten Laws. Heinemann rightly notes the resemblance to Aristot. Rhet. i. 14. 7, where Aristotle says that on the one hand it may be argued that “the better man is he who is just without compulsion; now the written laws of right are compulsory, the unwritten are not.” This is the view taken here. From another point of view it is worse to offend against the written, “for he who commits offences which are dangerous and liable to penalty will still more do so when there is no penalty.” Our passage looks like a definite reminiscence and strengthens the probability that the phrase in § 64 is a direct quotation (the same can hardly be said of the allusion to ἄτεχνοι πίστεις in § 40). The distinction between ἄτεχνοι and ἔντεχνοι πίστεις, though originating with Aristotle, runs through the whole of later rhetoric and must have been “known to every schoolboy.”
נ״ז
57It is to be observed that the sense of ἄγραφοι νόμοι here is totally different from that of De Virt. 194, where see note b.
נ״ח
58§ 158. (Footnotes b and c.) In De Agr. 84 ff. Philo takes ἵππον, which he here paraphrases by θρέμματα, in its regular sense of cavalry and introduces his allegory by declaring that the literal interpretation is untenable because Moses would not recommend that a ruler should forgo such an indispensable part of his armament. Cf. note on De Virt. 28 ff.
נ״ט
59§ 160. Ἐπινομίδα. Philo has used this name for Deuteronomy in Quis Rerum 162, 250. As so applied it is not quoted from any other writer, and if the application is due to him it is a reasonable supposition that it is modelled on the pseudo-Platonic treatise of that name.
ס׳
60§ 188. Assimilated to God. Philo no doubt here and elsewhere where he uses this expression is thinking of Plato, Theaetetus 176 A–B, which he quotes, naming the treatise, in De Fug. 63, “to fly away (from earth to heaven) is to become like God (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ) as far as this is possible, and to become like him is to become just, holy and wise.”
ס״א
61§ 188. Σῶμα σῆμα. This play of words appears also in Leg. All. i. 108 in connexion with a saying of Heracleitus, from which “the editors of Heracleitus infer that σῶμα σῆμα was originally said by him” (Thompson on Gorg. 493 A). Plato himself in the Cratylus ascribes it to the Orphics. Heinemann refers to Philolaus fr. 14 Diels, which I have had no opportunity of verifying. Possibly it is the same as the saying attributed to Philolaus by Clement Al. Strom. iii. 17 a ἁ ψυχὰ τῷ σώματι συνέξευκται καὶ καθάπερ ἐν σάματι τούτῳ τέθαπται.
ס״ב
62§ 190. (Footnote a.) According to Josephus, Ant. iv. 218, this court of appeal consists of the high priest, the Prophet and the council of elders. Is there some connexion between this inclusion of the Prophet and Philo’s insistence in § 192 on the prophetic character of the true priest?
ס״ג
63§ 191. νηφάλια θύειν. This use of the neuter accusative plural is too well attested in Philo (see footnote) to be disposed of by correction to -ους. But the usage is strange and calls for more explanation than I can give with any confidence. May we suppose that in the wineless offerings to various deities the abstention of the offerer was felt to be an essential element (cf. νήφων ἀοίνοις, Soph. O.C. 100), and so the phrase acquired this personal meaning? Two passages quoted by Stephanus from Plutarch suggest something of the kind, Mor. 464 C ἀμεθύστους καὶ ἀοίνους διαγαγεῖν, ὥσπερ νηφάλια καὶ μελίσπονδα θύοντα, and 132 E αὐτῷ τῷ Διονύσῳ πολλάκις νηφάλια θύομεν ἐθιζόμενοι μὴ ζητεῖν ἀεὶ τὸν ἄκρατον.
ס״ד
64§ 193. Market-controllers. “Agoranomi existed both at Athens and Sparta, and, as inscriptions prove in almost every Greek state, … they regulated the price and quantity of all things which were brought into the market and punished all persons convicted of cheating, especially by false weights and measures.” (Dict. of Ant.)
ס״ה
65§ 199. (ἀδικοπραγεῖν.) Stephanas quotes five examples of this word, one from Plutarch, the other four all from Philo. Of these one as Stephanus has it, and as it stands in Mangey’s text, is transitive, viz. Spec. Leg. iii. 182 ἐὰν περὶ τὰς οὐσίας ἀδικοπραγῶσι τὸν πλησίον, and so the majority of MSS. F however has τῶν πλησίον and S apparently τῶν πλησίων. I feel no doubt that Cohn is right in following F. The corruption of τῶν to τὸν to bring it into supposed agreement with πλησίον is very natural.
ס״ו
66The converse δικαιοπραγεῖν is commoner or at least is cited from a much greater range of authors and seems to be always intransitive.
ס״ז
67§ 231. (Footnote c.) For this Pythagorean thought see Zeller, Presocratic Philosophy (Eng. trans.), vol. i. pp. 420 f. τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἴδιον … το ἴσον, and the statement “that the first square number (ἰσάκις ἴσον), i.e. four or nine, is justice.” So in De Plant. 122 the saying “that equality is the mother of justice” is connected with the equality of the sides of a square.
ס״ח
68§ 237. Democracy … the best of constitutions. Democracy is equated here to ἰσότης, cf. De Conf. 108, “which honours equality and has law and justice for its rulers.” There it is opposed to mob rule, ὀχλοκρατία, and so also De Agr. 45 and De Virt. 180, but in De Abr. 242 to tyranny, while in Quod Deus 176 we have the curious idea that the world is a democracy because each nation in its turn gets supremacy. From all this one can gather little more than a vague idea of order, justice and a government under which every one receives the rights and duties for which he is best fitted.
ס״ט
69On the puzzling question how Philo comes to apply to this ideal constitution the name of democracy repeated so emphatically six times (see note on Quod Deus 176) a good deal has been written lately. Dr. Eric Langstadt in his essay Zu Philos Begriff der Demokratie, Dr. Martin Braun in an essay called Social and Political Aspects of Philo’s Philosophy, Professor Goodenough in his Philo’s Politics, Practice and Theory, have all dealt with the subject. Langstadt in the body of his essay gives a careful and interesting analysis of Philo’s conceptions of good government, conceptions which he may be supposed to have summed up under the name of democracy, but which only serve to make the name more surprising. For an attempt to explain the name we must turn to his Nachwort. In this he suggests that the name is taken from the Platonic or pseudo-Platonic Menexenus 238 C, where Socrates is represented as saying of the Athenian constitution as it was and is “one man calls it a democracy, another by any name which pleases him. In reality it is an aristocracy carried on with the approval of the multitude.” There are some good points in favour of this theory. Philo quotes another part of this description as from Plato in the De Op. 133, and there are features in this idealized picture of the Athenian constitution which remind us of Philo. A notable example is the insistence on equality of birth as the source of its excellence, and some more recondite resemblances are pointed out by Langstadt. But on the whole it is difficult to suppose that this casual mention of the name democracy can so have impressed Philo as the theory supposes.
ע׳
70Braun finds the solution of the puzzle in the use of δημοκρατία as the Greek equivalent for the Latin “Res publica,” particularly in the sense of the republican constitution which was superseded by Caesarism. He gives many examples of this from Dion Cassius, and what is more important as nearer to Philo, from Josephus. His main point is that δημοκρατία had become the battle-cry of the senatorial opposition, though to say this does not do justice to his full analysis of the political situation both at Rome and Alexandria.
ע״א
71Goodenough also takes this use of δημοκρατία as his starting-point. But he lays more stress on the acceptance of the term by the upholders of the principate. He points out that in the chapters in Dion Cassius 52, where Augustus is advised by Agrippa to refuse and by Maecenas to assume supreme power, while Agrippa extols democracy, Maecenas declares that a monarchy will insure the true democracy, and that Dion also remarks that the emperors were careful to build up their power by assuming democratic titles. So he finally comes to the conclusion that to Philo the ideal government is monarchy in its Roman form of democracy, kingship in its best sense.
ע״ב
72If one may take as a working hypothesis that Philo’s use of the term springs from this special sense, while I think Braun is nearer the truth, I should suggest a middle course between the two views. Perhaps we may say that reverence for the great Roman Republic, S.P.Q.R., had by Philo’s time raised the name from the disparagement cast on it by Plato and Aristotle to a position of high respect. On the lips of the opposition its meaning was unmistakable, and I think Braun might strengthen his argument by the fact that this opposition was largely Stoical, though not perhaps so markedly so as some decades later (see Arnold’s Roman Stoicism, pp. 392 ff.). But the imperialist would not allow his opponent to monopolize the term. He claimed, as Maecenas says, that the Principate gave a freedom which, unlike the freedom of the mob, awarded equally to all according to their deserts, and was, in fact, government of the people for the people though not by the people. Philo thus adopts this slogan or catch-word as Braun calls it and, as he well says, surrounds it with a religious and metaphysical halo, not caring very much how far it fitted in with his Platonic conception of the philosopher king.