APPENDIX TO DE VIRTUTIBUS
(The title.) This as given by Cohn is based mainly on Eusebius’s description of the treatise (Hist. Eccl. ii. 18) Περὶ τῶν τριῶν ἀρετῶν ἃς σὺν ἄλλαις ἀνέγραψε Μωυσῆς (see Gen. Introd., p. xvi), and on the title in S, the oldest MS., Περὶ γʹ ἀρετῶν ἃς σὺν ἄλλαις ἀνέγραψε Μωυσῆς περὶ ἀνδρείας καὶ φιλανθρωπίας καὶ μετανοίας. Cohn seems to me to have dealt somewhat arbitrarily with these. Since the other MSS., which do not have either τριῶν or ἃς … Μωυσῆς, persist in including the non-extant Περὶ εὐσεβείας (see Gen. Introd., p. xiii. note b), he has added it against the authority of S and consequently has to exclude τριῶν.
Mangey gives περὶ τριῶν ἀρετῶν ἤτοι περὶ ἀνδρείας καὶ φιλανθρωπίας καὶ μετανοίας. I presume that he thought, as I should be inclined to think, that Eusebius did not intend the words ἃς … Μωυσῆς to be part of the title, but a note added to avoid any misconception to the effect that Moses only recognized three virtues. Incidentally, I am not clear about the correct meaning of ἀνέγραψε. I have followed Cohn’s “geschildert” in translating it by “described.” But Moses can hardly be said to have “described” the virtues. Goodhart and Goodenough give “discussed.” Perhaps rather “set forth” (as laws), i.e. “enjoined.”
§ 17. ἀτυφίας … τῦφος. These two words are of course opposites and are definitely named together below, §§ 178 and 195, as well as here. In De Cong. 138 and Mos. ii. 96 ἀτυφία is contrasted with οἴησις (“conceit”) and may be given by “humility” or “modesty,” but this is exceptional. τῦφος itself constantly recurs in Philo, but in rather different senses. Goodenough on pp. 34 f. of his Philo’s Politics has a description of it with useful references, but the word which he adopts, “arrogance,” seems to me to be rarely if ever applicable. Nearer to it is “vanity,” meaning either the disposition which follows vain things or the vain things themselves. Very frequently it is applied to the vain imagination of idolaters, as for example in § 178, and sometimes, particularly when coupled with “Egyptian,” to the object of the false worship, e.g. Spec. Leg. iii. 125. Elsewhere as here it is the love of the vanities of life in general and particularly its pomps, and in In Flacc. 4 he gives it this meaning in a not unfavourable sense, for in describing Flaccus’s earlier good government he says that “he upheld the dignity of his position (σεμνότερον ἦγεν αὑτόν), for τῦφος is very useful to a ruler.” In a more general sense ἀτυφία is coupled with ἀχρηματία (De Fug. 25), and opposed to φιλοδοξία (De Abr. 24, 104), while in De Vit. Cont. 39 it is applied to the more extreme asceticism of the Therapeutae. In such cases it is fairly well given by “simplicity,” but when it is contrasted with τῦφος in the sense of false beliefs or worship, I do not know of any suitable word. When Philo says that everything he has said about ἀτυφία connotes the idea of courage he means no doubt all that he has said against τῦφος in the sense of the pomps and vanities of life.
I may take this opportunity of correcting a very careless slip in the version of Mos. ii. 96, where ἀτυφίας was translated as if it was τύφου.
§ 28. (Comparison of these sections with De Agr. 148–156.) This is the most striking example of the way in which Philo alternates between a penetrating criticism of the Pentateuch and literal orthodoxy. In the De Agr. the law on this point is discussed in a dialogue between a hostile critic (A.) and a defender (B.). A. remarks first, that those who hope to enjoy their possessions will make better soldiers than those who have no possessions to fight for, secondly, that if their country is conquered they will not enjoy them. To this last B. replies that they will not be captured. A. “On the contrary they will fare the worst, since being non-combatants they will not be able to protect themselves.” B. “But they will be protected by the strength of their fellow-countrymen.” A. “How shameful then that they should be living at ease, when their fellow-countrymen are suffering the hardships of war.” B. “But it is hard that they should lose their lives before they have enjoyed what they have worked for.” A. “Far less hard to die in battle and leave their property to their kinsfolk, than to live to see it fall into the hands of enemies.”
Philo does not actually say that he agrees with A., but he feels his arguments so forcible that he prefers to meet them by interpreting the passage with one of his most fantastic allegories. The war is the war of the wise against the clever sophist, which only those who are specially trained can undertake with success. He who is betrothed to a maiden represents the beginner in wisdom, the planter of the vineyard is anyone who is “progressing,” and the builder of the house is he who has reached perfection. Yet all three without special training are unfit to undertake such a contest and had better hold their tongues.
§ 28. (See end of footnote 2.) I think Clement’s introduction of στρατηγικῶς can be satisfactorily explained without supposing that he found anything corresponding to it in his text of Philo. In the chapter of the Stromateis in which this comes (ii. 18) he is showing that all the virtues, including φρόνησις and σωφροσύνη as well as δικαιοσύνη and ἀνδρεία, are enjoined in the Scriptures, and to prove this he makes a number of unacknowledged borrowings, almost extracts, from the De Virtutibus (see Gen. Introd., p. xii.). But while constantly reproducing Philo’s phraseology he often adds explanations of his own, as for instance that noted on § 111 (p. 446). So too in quoting “thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian” (cf. § 106) he adds that by “Egyptian” a gentile may be meant, or indeed any κοσμικός (“worldly person”?). In dealing with § 28 he follows Philo very closely, even quoting Deut. 20:5–7 from Philo’s paraphrase instead of from the LXX, but he seems rather at a loss as to what moral is to be drawn. He reproduces Philo’s φιλανθρωπίᾳ νόμου by ὁ φιλάνθρωπος νόμος κελεύει, but rightly observes that the second reason is not “philanthropic” but “strategic.” He then passes on to the “philanthropic” side and, finally catching at Philo’s words in § 29 about not rendering hopes futile, declares that the law is encouraging ἀνδρεία by pointing out that those who have built or planted may hope to enjoy the fruits of their labour. By στρατηγικῶς he may mean, I think, that the law is enjoining φρόνησις also. That the wise man is στρατηγικός, as well as having other qualities, is a Stoic maxim (S.V.F. iii. 567, i. 216).
§ 29. ὡς οὐ δεῖν. Both Cohn and Mangey think that a causal clause giving the reason for χαλεπὸν ἔδοξεν is required rather than a consecutive. I do not feel this. “It is not right, because it is cruel” is as logical as “it is cruel, because it is not right.” Cohn, Hermes, 1908, p. 211 gives as an additional reason that οὐ with a consecutive infinitive is bad grammar. This, I think, is quite wrong. In Oratio Obliqua, as this is, οὐ in such cases is a recognized, perhaps indeed the regular, usage (see Goodwin, Moods and Tenses, p. 227). But while Mangey would correct δεῖν to δέον, Cohn retains it as an example of the Attic use of δεῖν for the participle. He refers to an article by Usener, Jahrb. class. Philol. cv. 743 ff.), where examples of this usage, which is mentioned by the Greek grammarians, are quoted from Lysias, Xenophon and Plutarch. They seem to be authentic and suggest that the form is better extablished than the notice of it in L. & S. revised would lead one to think. Still, there seems no need to invoke it here.
§ 31. ἣν ἀδυνατοῦν ἀπορρίψει. Lit. “which being without strength it will cast off.” This is a strange expression, both in assigning the action to the body instead of the man and in the use of ἀδυνατέω without the infinitive expressed, as it is in e.g. § 12 above and § 88 below. Stephanus notes this as a rare usage but quotes no examples. It may perhaps be worth considering a correction to ἣν ἀδύνατον ἀπορρίψαι or ἢν ἀδύνατον ᾖ ἀπορρίψαι. I think this has more point. The encumbrance could not be got rid of on the battlefield and so is analogous to the body from which the diseased soul cannot rid itself.
§ 34. (The Midianites.) Cohn notes here that Philo ascribes to the Midianites what the Bible (and also Philo in Mos. i. 300 ff.) relates of Balaam and the Moabites, because he is here concerned with the war of revenge which was waged against the Midianites for this act (Num. 31:2 ff.). The note seems to me misleading. Philo steers his way rather well through the hopeless confusion, caused perhaps by the mixture of two different narratives. Num. 25 begins with stating that the daughters of Moab led Israel into fornication and idolatry. But after this the Moabites disappear. It is a Midianitish woman who is killed by Phinehas (v. 7), Midianites who are to be smitten for “beguiling you in the matter of Peor” (v. 18), and Midianitish women who are all put to death because “they caused the children of Israel through the counsels of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor” (31:16). In Mos. i. 300 ff. Philo does not mention the Moabites or the Midianites at all. The war was waged against Balak (ibid. 305), but Balak has been described as one of the neighbouring kings who had brought under his sway a great and populous part of the East. That phrase looks as if he was trying to harmonize the narrative by supposing that Balak was king of Midian and Moab.
Josephus in Ant. iv. 102 ff. represents Balak as king of Moab, but having an ancestral alliance with the Midianites. He sends an embassy to them to enlist their help against Israel, and it is they who invite and press Balaam to come to their aid.
§ 34. πείρας καθιέντες. L. & S. (old and revised) s.v. καθίημι give for this phrase “make attempts,” and cite Aelian, V.H. ii. 13 and N.A. i. 57. In the first of these the phrase is used of the intrigues of the accusers of Socrates to create a prejudice against him, in the second of a curious scheme devised by a parent to test the paternity of his presumed child. Taken together with our passage, the examples suggest that the phrase means more than the colourless “make attempts” and something like the “laid down snares” suggested in the footnote. The special sense belongs perhaps more to καθίημι than to πεῖρα. So L. & S. cite Aristoph. Vesp. 174 οἵαν πρόφασιν καθῆκε, and Dion. Cass. i. 47 λόγους συμβατηρίους καθίει, where the context suggests insincerity.
§ 44. (Cf. footnote b, διαφωνεῖν.) This word occurs twice in the Pentateuch, Ex. 24:11, and Num. 31:49, as well as a few times elsewhere in the LXX. Both examples in the Pentateuch are quoted by Philo more than once, and of the former he says (fr. 59 Harris) that while the literal meaning of the text τῶν ἐπιλέκτων τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ οὐ διεφώνησεν οὐδὲ εἷς is that they were all kept safe, the inner meaning is that they were not out of harmony with the good. So too in De Conf. 56, and also on Num. 31:49, there and elsewhere.
In a note on De Conf. 56 I was misled by the old L. & S., which following Stephanus’s “extremam vocem edidit” disposed of this special use of διαφωνεῖν with “to breathe one’s last,” “die,” “perish,” “be lost.” But the word does not in its literal sense mean to “cease speaking,” and it is more likely that the special use is derived from the regular use for “speak differently,” “be at discord.” Though in later use it seems to have been strengthened to “die” or “perish,” it need not mean in either place in the Pentateuch more than “suffer some harm,” and Philo may be right in supposing that in Num. 31 διαπεφώνηκεν οὐδὲ εἷς means “all have come out unscathed.”
L. & S. revised deals with this usage more fully, but not very accurately. In Ex. 24:11 it cannot mean “fail to answer roll-calls,” “desert,” and in the fragment, where it is opposed to συμφώνους, “fail” is misleading.
§ 78. Cohn is, I think, probably right in regarding this section as an interpolation, though his reasons are not all of equal strength. (1) The section is omitted in S, which he considers, I daresay rightly, the best authority. (2) αἰτήσεις ἀγαθῶν is an awkward expression for αἰτήσεις περὶ ἀγαθῶν. (3) θνητῷ ὅπως is a difficult hiatus. (4) ὑπάρχωσιν with a neuter plural is contrary to Philo’s usage. (5) ἐπάν for ἐπειδάν is un-Philonic. (6) τοῦ τῆς σαρκὸς δεσμοῦ “belongs to a Christian interpolator.” Philo would have said τοῦ σώματος. (7) The whole sentence is frigid (“frostig”) and disturbs the connexion between §§ 77 and 79.
I think that (2) cannot have much weight when we compare εὐχή ἐστιν αἴτησις ἀγαθῶν, Quod Deus 87 and De Agr. 99. On (3) see note on Spec. Leg. iv. 40, App. p. 428. (4) may be true of Philo, but not always so of his scribes. See De Praem. 142 and 172, where the MSS. have κενωθήσονται and βλαστάνουσι with neuter plural subjects, though Cohn has corrected them. (5) ἐπάν is found in the MSS. of De Agr. 158 and retained in the text of Cohn, but the sentence is quite ungrammatical. There is not much in (6): σάρξ or σάρκες is often used as an alternative for σῶμα in opposition to ψυχή or νοῦς, and such a phrase as (ψυχαὶ) τὸν σαρκὸς φόρτον ἀχθοφοροῦσι is a fair parallel. But I quite agree with the last part of (7), and also have great doubt whether the thought is really Philonic. Philo’s conception of immortality, when he uses the word in any literal sense, seems (as Kennedy says) “surrounded by a rarefied philosophical atmosphere,” and altogether different from the ordinary Christian conception. And such passages as Quis Rerum 276 (of Abraham) and this and De Sac. 8 and Mos. ii. 288 (of Moses) do not lead me to expect that he would represent Moses as praying for “true goods” beyond the grave for his people.
§ 100. πενίᾳ or πενίας? (See footnote 1.) Clement’s paraphrase is τούς τε πενίᾳ μακρᾷ ὑποσχόντας δίκην μὴ διὰ βίου κολαζομένους ἐλεῶν. Here Cohn wished to correct μὴ to καὶ. But the text should stand, “pitying those who have undergone punishment through their long poverty, but (through his pity) do not suffer a lifelong punishment.” The long poverty is clearly that of their years of dispossession.
Perhaps πενίᾳ ‹πενίας› might be worth consideration, as an effective and very easy correction.
§ 111. Shave the hair of her head and pare her nails. Philo does not give, nor perhaps know any reason for this. Modern commentators apparently explain it taken in connexion with her change of dress as “elements in her purification from heathenism.” See Adam Smith. Josephus, Ant. iv. 257 says nothing about the nails, but evidently takes the shaving of the head as a sign of mourning. Clement, Strom. ii. 18, while also ignoring the nails, supposed that the cutting off the hair is to test the self-control of her lover. “For if reason urges him to marry her, he will hold to her, even when she has become ugly.”
§ 115. Nor yet keep her as a slave. So too Jos. Ant. iv. 259. Is this one of the cases where Philo shews some knowledge of or information about the Hebrew and corrects the LXX? But apart from the fact that the Hebrew verb (see Driver) is said to mean rather “play the master over her,” the phrase “thou shalt not set her at naught (or treat her contemptuously), because thou hast humiliated her” naturally suggests that her status would be that of a slave, and the possibility of selling her suggests the same.
§ 122. Philo’s interpretation of the law of slavery is difficult, and Heinemann in Bildung, pp. 329 ff., while discussing at length Philo’s attitude to slavery, throws no light on the details. In what follows I must be understood as asking for enlightenment quite as much as giving it.
(1) The θῆτες (see footnote a) are persons who from sheer penury have sold themselves. So E.V. in Lev. 25:39, and so indeed Philo (ὑποβεβληκότας ἑαυτούς), though the LXX ἐὰν πραθῇ τις would suggest that he had been sold by others. (2) From these are distinguished the debtors of “temporary loans,” if that is the meaning of the word. They have not been sold, for the creditor retains the use of their services (§ 173). And indeed I do not think the Pentateuch recognizes the sale of a person for ordinary debt, though there are glimpses of the practice in the O.T. (2 Kings 4:1 and elsewhere). Does the creditor simply make him work out his debt? (3) What are the other ways in which the free man is reduced to slavery? The thief unable to make restitution (Spec. Leg. iv. 3) would be a case in point, but what else?
It should be noted that Philo in prescribing the seventh year for the release is following Exodus and Deuteronomy rather than Leviticus, which limits the release to the year of Jubile (25:40). But he would hardly know this, for the LXX has there the “year of release” (ἀφέσεως), and in Deut. 15:1 and 9 he would find the seventh year called by the same name.
§ 122. (Footnote c.) Out of respect for Mangey I give his ingenious, but I fear impossible, emendation and explanation of this which he calls “mendosus et mutilus locus.” Reading παραβολῆς with F and apparently transposing ἐφημερινῶν, he suggests χρεώστας, τὸ τῆς παραβολῆς ἐφημέρων ὄνομα, κτλ., i.e. debtors, who, to use a figurative phrase, get the name and condition of one-day-creatures. He gives examples from Aristotle and Athenaeus to show that ἐφήμερα ζῷα is a name applied to animals who live only for a day, and the παραβολή consists in transferring the name to people who subsist on what they can borrow day by day. For this last he might have quoted ἐφημερόβιος in § 88.
§ 124. (Footnote a. In accordance with Attic law.) See Lipsius, Attisches Recht, p. 643 to the effect that a slave taking refuge in a sanctuary from the cruelty of his master had a right to demand to be sold to another. He quotes a fragment of Aristophanes,
ἐμοὶ
κράτιστόν ἐστιν εἰς τὸ Θησεῖον δραμεῖν,
ἐκεῖ δʼ ἕως ἂν πρᾶσιν εὕρωμεν μένειν.
The idea of the hearth as a sanctuary is, as both Goodenough and Heinemann point out, entirely Greek, not Jewish. The most familiar example is that of Themistocles at the hearth of Admetus (Thuc. i. 136). Cf. also on κοινὴ ἑστία in De Praem. 154.
§ 139. For the practice here noted Cohn gives the following references, (a) Diodorus i. 77. Diodorus mentions it as an Egyptian law and adds that the same rule was observed by many Greeks, also as demanded by justice to the unborn child. (b) Aelian, V.H. v. 18, who ascribes it to the Areopagus at Athens. (c) Plutarch, De sera num. vind. 7 as an Egyptian law which has been copied ἀπογράψασθαι by some of the Greeks. (d) Roman law, as stated by Ulpian, Dig. xlviii. 19. 3. Clement in his paraphrase of this passage substitutes the Romans for Philo’s “some legislators.”
§ 152. (The maxim of Bias.) This in its original form as given by Diog. Laert. i. 5. 87 was φιλεῖν ὡς μισήσοντας· τοὺς γὰρ πλείστους εἶναι κακούς, and says nothing of “hating as about to love.” And it is the first half which has attracted most attention, being regarded sometimes as merely enjoining caution in forming intimacies, sometimes as purely cynical. Thus Cic. De Am. xvi. 59 makes Scipio describe it as abominable and unworthy of a sage. It is quoted with the other half added, and attributed to Bias by Aristot. Rhet. ii. 13. 4, and later (ib. 21. 13), when, talking about the rhetorical value of maxims, he says that it would create an impression of amiability, if you say οὐ δεῖ, ὥσπερ φασί, φιλεῖν ὡς μισήσοντας, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον μισεῖν ὡς φιλήσοντας, showing that the kernel of the maxim is in general opinion the first part. Sophocles puts both parts into the mouth of Ajax (Aj. 679 ff.), but the stress is laid on the unreliability of friends, and Dem. Contra. Arist. 122, though he deals fairly with both sides, and concludes ἄχρι τούτου καὶ φιλεῖν, οἶμαι, χρὴ καὶ μισεῖν, μηδετέρου τὸν καιρὸν ὑπερβάλλοντας, is really concerned with warning against ill-considered acts of friendship.
Sandys on Aristot. Rhet. l.c. and Jebb on Soph. Aj. l.c. have collected other comments from later writers, such as Bacon, Montaigne and La Bruyère. I think it is worth while noting (1) that Philo, while quoting and commenting on both sides of the saying, is really concerned, unlike the others, with the lesson of forbearance in enmity, (2) that he applies the maxim in a way that no other does to international relations, (3) that the fact that neither of the two great scholars mentioned cites this passage reflects the neglect generally shown in England by classicists to Philo during the last hundred years.
§ 185. καθάπερ (or καθʼ ὅπερ) αὐτὸς αἱρεῖται. A possible emendation might be καθʼ ὅπερ ‹αὐτὸν› αὐτὸς αἱρεῖται ‹εἶναι›. This would obviously be easily corrupted into what we have. Or again there may be an allusion to the double choice mentioned in the text, καθὰ ὅνπερ αὐτὸς αἱρεῖται αὐτὸν αἱρεῖται, with or without εἶναι added = “as He whom he himself chooses, chooses him (to be).” In this case αὐτός = the man, in the former it = God.
§ 188. (Last part.) Mangey, like Cohn, takes ἄργυρος … ὑπηρεσίαν as a parenthesis, so making αὐγοειδέστατον … ἰδόντες an attribute of men who have only sipped wisdom. He translates ἐοίκασι, κτλ. by “assimilantur his qui in principatu ad negotia administranda constituti sunt virtutis tanquam reginae ministerio servientes.” This, apart from other difficulties, gives an impossibly high character to the inferior goods. Mangey, as perhaps also Cohn, failed to see that πρός, instead of expressing a connexion, might bear the quite common sense of “in comparison with”!
I may not have done justice to their view that ἰδόντες goes back to τινες. But the form of the sentence postulated seems to me almost impossibly awkward, and the change of metaphor is as abrupt as on my hypothesis.
§ 189. Give the name of noble only to the … just. This sentiment is no doubt a definite Stoic doctrine on a line with the other paradoxes about the sage being rich, king, etc. Chrysippus asserted the worthlessness of εὐγένεια in the literal sense, declaring it to be “mere scrapings and offscourings” (περίτηγμα καὶ διάξυσμα), and supported his argument by quotations from Homer (Plut. De Nobilitate 17 and 12). Cohn quotes Sen. De Benef. iii. 28. 1 “nemo altero nobilior, nisi cui rectius ingenium et artibus bonis aptius.” Cf. Ep. 44 passim, e.g. “Quis est generosus? Ad virtutem bene a natura compositus.” But outside Stoicism it is a common piece of moralizing, from Eur. fr.
ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἐσθλὸς εὐγενὴς ἔμοι γʼ ἀνήρ,
ὁ δʼ οὐ δίκαιος, κἂν ἀμείνονος πατρὸς
Ζηνὸς πεφύκῃ, δυσγενὴς εἶναι δοκεῖ,
down to Tennyson’s “’tis only noble to be good.” See the collection of quotations in Stobaeus, Fl. lxxxvi. The best known statement of it in ancient literature is Juv. viii. 20 “nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.”
§ 208. Except … policy. Before definitely accepting Cohn’s condemnation of this clause, one would like to know what he thought of Clement’s evidence. Clement, after giving a short summary of Philo’s remarks about Jacob and Esau with a very similar wording, adds ἡ δὲ οἰκονομία αὕτη καὶ προφητικὴ καὶ τυπική. Cohn quotes the summary but not the addition. The use of the word οἰκονομία looks like a reminiscence of the clause, but nothing is said about the hands.
Also in Quaest. in Gen. iv. 206, Jacob’s answers to his father are described as a “virtutis dispensatio,” where we may reasonably assume that the Greek word translated by “dispensatio” is οἰκονομία. The context shews that the οἰκονομία is a euphemistic word for a stratagem or, as I have translated it, “an act of policy.” If the clause is genuine that will be the meaning here.
On the other hand οἰκονομία in the Fathers often means a divine dispensation, an over-ruling of evil by good (cf. the Jewish view of Tamar’s sin in the next note). Stephanus among his examples of this use quotes Chrysostom on this particular case. “Jacob has deceived his father, but it was not an ἀπατή but an οἰκονομία.” This is the sense in which, as the adjectives show, Clement uses the word, and presumably also the interpolator, if the clause is an interpolation. So too Mangey, who translates “quadam certa providentia.”
On the whole I incline to the view that the clause, so peculiarly inept where the point is the permanent difference of the two, is spurious, and that Clement’s phrase is independent of Philo, an early expression of the Christian feeling that Jacob’s mendacity needs justification.
§ 221. Tamar. “The story of Tamar,” says Cohn, “is greatly idealized.” In the allegorizing of her story in De Fug. 149 ff., De Mut. 134 ff. and elsewhere, we do not expect any censure. But this beatification of the actress in what to our minds is a peculiarly shocking story outdoes the other extravagances of the De Nobilitate. A number of Rabbinical comments are collected in Strack and Billerbeck’s Talmudic commentary on Matthew 1:3. I do not think they show much signs of admiration for Tamar, though the sin of her and Judah is regarded as overruled by Providence. One reason for this seems to be as follows: Tamar was believed to be of pure blood descended from Shem (quite in opposition to Philo). Judah had married a Canaanite (Gen. 38:2) and her sons were tainted. The union between him and Tamar produced the offspring which was fit to be the progenitor of David and the Messiah.