APPENDIX TO QUIS RERUM DIVINARUM HERES
§ 14. A spherical shape. Cf. Diog. Laert. vii. 158 ἀκούειν δὲ τοῦ μεταξὺ τοῦ τε φωνοῦντος καὶ τοῦ ἀκούοντος ἀέρος πληττομένου σφαιροειδῶς, εἶτα κυματουμένου καὶ ταῖς ἀκοαῖς προσπίπτοντος, ὡς κυματοῦται τὸ ἐν τῇ δεξαμένῃ ὕδωρ κατὰ κύκλους ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐμβληθέντος λίθου, “we hear when the air between the sonant body and the organ of hearing suffers concussion, a vibration which spreads spherically and then forms waves and strikes upon the ears, just as the water in a reservoir forms wavy circles when a stone is thrown into it” (Hicks’s translation). So too Plut. Epit. iv. 20 (Diels, Dox. p. 409), where contrasting the effect of the stone in the pool, he adds καὶ αὕτη μὲν (the pool) κυκλικῶς κινεῖται, ὁ δʼ ἀὴρ σφαιρικῶς.
§ 17. Tense of … completed action. The Greek grammarians named the four tenses of past time (χρόνος παρεληλυθώς) as follows: imperfect, παρατατικός; aorist, ἀόριστος; perfect, παρακείμενος; pluperfect, ὑπερσυντελικός. The name συντελικός for the aorist. is sometimes, but rarely, found (see Greek Gramm. Part II. vol. iii. p. 85), but its use, perhaps to cover both aorist and perfect, is reflected in the name for the pluperfect and in the Latin term, perfectum tempus.
§ 25. Thou hast given me a tongue of instruction, etc. The reference for this almost verbatim quotation from Isaiah is given by J. Cohn. It seems to have escaped previous editors.
§ 29. ἀνεστοιχειωμένος. The word, which recurs in §§ 184 and 200, seems to mean “reduced to a single element”; cf. De Vit. Mos. ii. 288 ὃς αὐτὸν δυάδα ὄντα, σῶμα καὶ ψυχήν, εἰς μονάδος ἀνεστοιχείου φύσιν. L. & S. “into its elements.”
§ 36. ἔφεσιν (MSS. φύσιν). I have ventured on this correction because the MS. reading seems to me untranslatable. Mangey has “sinere ut naturae meae bonum intereat”; Yonge, “to be indifferent to the sight of my own nature separated from the good”; J. Cohn, “wenn mein Wesen untergehen und nicht mehr die Schönheit schauen würde.” I do not see how any of these can be got out of the Greek. Though not common, ἔφεσις in the sense of “desire” is sufficiently authenticated and, if right, was of course intended to echo ἐφίεμαι. At the same time, τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ φύσιν makes a good antithesis to γένος, and the corruption may lie in τοῦ καλοῦ (as I have alternatively suggested), or in καταλυθεῖσαν.
§ 46. And when the better life, etc. The metaphor is not very clear. It would be made clearer (though at the expense of some awkwardness) if we take συνεπισπασθέν to agree with βάρος instead of with τοῦθʼ. In that case the meaning would be that when that part of the mixed which belongs to the better life preponderates in its side of the scales, the base life in the other scale is pulled up and kicks the beam.
§ 52. Gave the name, etc. I do not see much sense in this expression, even if ὠνόμασεν can be taken (as by J. Cohn), as merely meaning “he described as.” I am inclined to think that the ἐκείνην of Pap. is right. Though grammatically superfluous after ἣν, so much so as to be almost ungrammatical, it may be partly accounted for by the desire to emphasize the antithesis to ἑαυτοῦ, and it gives a clear sense: “he gave to her who was his own death the name of Life.”
§ 75. πάνθειον. It is curious that the Lexica have not noticed the occurrence of this word in Philo, here and in De Aet. 10. Otherwise, apart from definite notices of the Pantheon at Rome, the only example given is a passage in Aristotle quoted by a scholiast and referring to the Pantheon at Olympia.
§ 76. As νοητῶν, added by the Papyrus after ἡμῶν, cannot be translated as it stands, I have not inserted it. It may be a mere slip induced by the νοητός above. Cohn suggested ἔξω γηίνων <καὶ ἐφιέμενος> νοητῶν. The phrase ὑπεξελθὼν ἐξ ἡμῶν for ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ is certainly strange, but may be modelled on the ὃς ἐξελεύσεται ἐκ σοῦ of the text.
§ 81. ἀλλὰ σωμάτων <καὶ> τὰς ἐν τούτοις. Wendland’s text makes the ἐν τούτοις almost unintelligible, unless we may suppose that ταῦτα stands for the phenomenal world: cf. §280 and De Ebr. 132 (and note). The insertion of καί and change of punctuation removes the difficulty satisfactorily, though ἐν is hardly the preposition we should expect. Mangey’s suggestion of ἐν τόποις gets some support from De Sac. 68.
§ 115. σπέρματα καὶ καταβολαί. It is hard to decide between this reading and Wendland’s (“Are the seed-droppings of the plants the works of agriculture or invisible works of invisible nature?”). My preference for the former chiefly rests on a feeling that while σπέρματα may well be thought of as nature’s work (cf. § 121), this cannot be said of the human agency expressed in καταβολαί.
§ 132. Where the object, etc. For the difference between φαντασία καταληπτική and ἀκατάληπτος see Diog. Laert. vii. 46 τῆς δὲ φαντασίας τὴν μὲν καταληπτικήν, τὴν δὲ ἀκατάληπτον· καταληπτικὴν μὲν … τὴν γινομένην ἀπὸ ὑπάρχοντος κατʼ αὐτὸ τὸ ὑπάρχον ἐναπεσφραγισμένην καὶ ἐναπομεμαγμένην· ἀκατάληπτον δὲ τὴν μὴ ἀπὸ ὑπάρχοντος, ἢ ἀπὸ ὑπάρχοντος μέν, μὴ κατʼ αὐτὸ δὲ τὸ ὑπάρχον· τὴν μὴ τρανῆ μηδὲ ἔκτυπον, “there are two species of presentation, the one apprehending a real object, the other not. The former … is defined as that which proceeds from a real object, agrees with that object itself, and has been imprinted seal-fashion and stamped upon the mind; the latter, or non-apprehending, that which does not proceed from any real object, or, if it does, fails to agree with the reality itself, not being clear or distinct” (Hicks’s translation).
§ 136. Fire … heaven. The doctrine of the two kinds of fire is Stoic. See S.V.F. i. 120 where the “useful” fire is called ἄτεχνον (non-creative?), and the other τεχνικόν. The best parallel to Philo’s language is in Cic. De natura deorum, ii. 40 from Cleanthes where of one he says, “ignis, quem usus vitae requirit, confector est et consumptor omnium idemque, quocumque invasit, cuncta disturbat ac dissipat”: of the other, “contra ille corporeus vitalis et salutaris omnia conservat, alit, auget, sustinet sensuque adficit.”
§ 144. Other things are equal in capacity, etc. Wendland’s punctuation (a comma after μεγέθει) suggests that he understood the words as Mangey, Cohn, and Yonge all do, “cubit compared with cubit is equal in magnitude, but different in power” (Mangey “gravitate”). But this is hardly sense. It is quite easy to understand ἴσα from the preceding ἴσα μεγέθει, and we thus get the third form of equality, of which weights and measures of capacity are a natural example, and which is referred to again in § 151.
§ 145. One essential form is the proportional, etc. Wendland refers to Aristot. Pol. viii. 1, p. 1301 b, where proportional equality is called λόγῳ or κατʼ ἀξίαν. But there is no need to suppose any definite reference. The idea of ἀναλογία runs through all Greek arithmetic.
§ 156. No heightening or lowering of intensity. A Stoic phrase. The Stoics laid down that Virtue and the Good admitted neither of ἐπίτασις nor ἄνεσις (S.V.F. iii. 92), and in this differed from the τέχναι which did admit of such variations and gradations (ibid. 525). Thus Philo’s words are a way of saying that God’s art is like the Good and not like human art. For the antithesis of ἐπίτασις and ἄνεσις in a rather different sense cf. Quod Deus 162.
§ 165. The three which followed the sun’s creation. This may no doubt mean that the fourth day, on which the sun was created, divided the first, second and third from the fifth, sixth and seventh. But the stress so constantly laid on the ἑξάς of creation, and equality (not the fourth day) being given as the divider, make it more probable that the three μεθʼ ἥλιον are the fourth, fifth and sixth. If so, it is strange that the fourth should be called “after the sun.” Should we read μεθʼ ἡλίου in both places?
§ 169. From his commonwealth. Or “from his own commonwealth.” On a similar passage, De Gig. 59, I suggested that Philo was hinting at a comparison between the πολιτεία of Moses and that of Plato, which expelled some forms of poetry for the same reasons as are here given for expelling painting and sculpture, viz. their tendency to produce illusion and deception. No such reason, however, is given here, and further observation of Philo’s usage inclines me to think that his use of the reflexive pronoun in such phrases is not to be pressed.
§ 170. <οὐ τοῦ> ὃ κτλ. That the negative has fallen out is evident. Mangey however proposed <οὐχ> ὅ, which is quite possible, though οὐ τοῦ ὅ is more strictly grammatical. If, as suggested in the footnote, we read, τοῦ κυρίου <τοῦ θεοῦ>, it would certainly be preferable to follow it by οὐχ ὅ. That Philo should have written six ου’s in succession is hardly credible.
Ibid. The number Seven. The definite use by Philo of ἑβδομάς for the seventh day (ἑβδόμη) is certainly rare, but is difficult to avoid here, or in De Vit. Mos. i. 205. For the epithets applied to the ἑβδομάς cf. De Op. 100, and Leg. All. i. 15. In the first of them the idea is ascribed to philosophers other than the Pythagoreans, in the second to the Pythagoreans themselves.
§ 182. The high priest Moses. As Moses in the history is not high priest, Mangey thought this should be corrected to ἀρχιπροφήτης. But Moses’ function here is that of high priest, and he is actually given the title in De Vit. Mos. ii. 75 and elsewhere.
§ 185. νοῦ θείαις or νουθεσίαις. How is the latter to be translated? “Following the admonitions in its revolutions”? Mangey, who suggested and perhaps intended to translate προόδοις for περιόδοις, has “sequendo castigationis ductum”; Yonge, “following the guidance of admonition”; J. Cohn, “zu bestimmter Zeit den Mahnungen Folge leistet.” There is no suggestion that any of these adopted νουθεσίας, which is given by one MS. and would make the phrase more tolerable. I accept Wendland’s conjecture with confidence, and suggest that νοῦ περιόδοις is taken from Timaeus 47 B ἵνα τὰς ἐν οὐρανῷ κατιδόντες τοῦ νοῦ περιόδους χρησαίμεθα ἐπὶ τὰς περιφορὰς τὰς τῆς παρʼ ἡμῖν διανοήσεως, and again (ibid. D) ταῖς ἐν ἡμῖν τῆς ψυχῆς περιόδοις. We have already had the combination θείαις περιόδοις in § 88, where the general sense of the passage is in close agreement with Timaeus 47, and though there is less analogy between that and the context here, Philo’s love of the dialogue will account for his here introducing the phrase.
§ 188. Filling … being. J. Cohn and Leisegang (Index) take this as “filled all existing things.” But is πάντα τῆς οὐσίας for πᾶσαν τὴν οὐσίαν Greek? On the other hand it seems doubtful whether ἐκπληροῦν is, like πληροῦν, followed by the genitive. Perhaps read πάντα <τὰ> τῆς οὐσίας.
§ 190. And therefore those who study such questions, etc. Cf. Diog. Laert. viii. 25 of the Pythagorean tenets: ἀρχὴν μὲν ἁπάντων μονάδα· ἐκ δὲ τῆς μονάδος ἀόριστον δυάδα ὡς ἂν ὕλην τῇ μονάδι αἰτίῳ ὄντι ὑποστῆναι· ἐκ δὲ τῆς μονάδος καὶ τῆς ἀορίστου δυάδος τοὺς ἀριθμούς, “the principle of all things is the monad or unit; arising from this monad the undefined dyad or two serves as material substratum to the monad, which is cause; from the monad and the undefined dyad spring numbers” (Hicks’s translation).
§ 212. ἀπέρατα or ἀπέραντα. If, as would appear from Liddell & Scott (1927), the evidence for the existence of ἀπέρατος in the sense of “unlimited” depends mainly or entirely on Philo, it seems doubtful whether it is worth much. Two examples of ἀπέρατος are given in the index apart from this passage. In one of these ἀπέρατος φλόξ, De Mig. 100, the natural meaning is “impassable.” In the other, De Fug. 57, we have ἀπέρατος αἰών in all MSS. Here, as stated in the footnote, the MSS. are all for ἀπέραντα, though the Papyrus may be said to favour the other. Unless better evidence is forthcoming, there would seem to be good grounds for following the MSS. here, and correcting to ἀπέραντος, as Mangey wished, in De Fug. 57.
§ 218. Lamps … candle-bearers. I do not vouch for the accuracy of the translation of these terms, which concern the study of the LXX rather than that of Philo. Mangey gives “cauliculi” for λαμπάδια (but also for καλαμίσκοι), and “lucernae” for λύχνοι. J. Cohn translates the two by “Kelche” and “Lampen.” When he gives “Kelche” (cups) he is presumably equating λαμπάδια with κρατῆρες in the parallel account of the chandelier in Ex. 25:31. The received text of the LXX has ἐνθέμια (sockets?) for ἀνθέμια.
§ 228. The general conflagration. While the general sense of the section is made perfectly clear by the passages referred to in the footnote, there remain the following questions:
(a) The position of the words ἀλλὰ … Μωυσῆν. Wendland was confident that these words had been written in the margin of the archetype and inserted in different places by different scribes, and omitted by others, and only at last placed in their right position by himself. This is probable enough, but is it quite certain that the Papyrus erred in placing them between σώματος and οὔτε ἰσομεγέθους, since in De Aet. 102 the void, as postulated by the Stoics, is said to be ἄπειρον (and so too S.V.F. ii. 536–540)? Is it impossible that Philo while quoting this should safeguard his statement by adding ἰσομεγέθους?
(b) How did Moses disprove the void? Does Philo mean that since in De Aet. 19 Moses is said to have asserted the eternity of the world in Gen. 8:22, he thereby denied the ἐκπύρωσις, and consequently the void also? If so, the meaning of διά will differ somewhat from that given in the translation, i.e. “nor does the fable of the ἐκπύρωσις, if we follow Moses, justify us in postulating the existence of the void.”
(c) The chief difficulty of the passage is that διά must be unnaturally strained to yield either meaning. I am inclined to think there is a corruption somewhere. I suggest, very tentatively of course, a lacuna after διά, e.g. δια<φερόμενον τοῖς εἰσηγουμένοις> τὴν ἐν τῇ κτλ.; cf. De Mig. 180.
§ 242. σώμασιν οὐ πράγμασιν. I feel little doubt that Wendland was wrong in changing οὐ to καί. The balance of the sentence and the stress laid on σώματα throughout the passage, which is a meditation on τὰ σώματα τὰ διχοτομήματα of his text, in themselves support the MS. reading. Wendland may have taken πράγματα to be an interpretation of διχοτομήματα. But surely Philo’s interpretation of the word (an interpretation of course entirely opposed to that which he has given in the earlier chapters) is that “bodies cut in two” signify the lifelessness and incompleteness of material things. The question, however, must be decided by the other passages where σώματα and πράγματα are set in antithesis. These are as follows:
(a) De Mut. 60 ἔνιοι μὲν οὖν τῶν … μώμους ἀεὶ τοῖς ἀμώμοις προσάπτειν ἐθελόντων οὐ σώμασι μᾶλλον ἢ πράγμασι. (The πράγματα attacked by these cavillers are the allegorical explanations of literal difficulties.)
(b) Ibid. 173 Πεντεφρῆ τὸν … ἀρχιμάγειρον … ἐν ἀψύχοις καὶ νεκροῖς καλινδούμενον οὐ σώμασι μᾶλλον ἢ πράγμασι. I.e. the chief cook in the spiritual sense lives in an environment of dead ideas.
(c) De Som. ii. 101 εὐξαίμην ἂν οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς δυνηθῆναι τοῖς γνωσθεῖσιν ὑπὸ τούτων ἐμμεῖναι βεβαίως· ὀπτῆρες γὰρ καὶ κατάσκοποι καὶ ἔφοροι πραγμάτων οὐ σωμάτων εἰσὶν ἀκριβοδίκαιοι. This is said of the sons of Jacob representing the wise, and rebuking the empty dreams of Joseph.
In all these apparently πράγματα signifies things belonging to the mental world, ideas in fact, though they need not necessarily be good, as in (b), just as the νοῦς of Egypt is an evil mind. But the antithesis becomes clearer in
(d) Ibid. 134 τὸν μὲν γὰρ φρονήσεως ἀσκητὴν ὑπολαμβάνομεν ἥλιον, ἐπειδήπερ ὁ μὲν τοῖς σώμασιν ὁ δὲ τοῖς κατὰ ψυχὴν πράγμασιν ἐμπαρέχει φῶς. Here πράγματα is definitely connected with νοητά as opposed to αἰσθητά, and the sense is exactly in agreement with our passage, as I understand it.
§ 246. The different opinions mentioned in this section represent problems which Philo would constantly have heard disputed in contemporary discussions. In so far as they refer to the historic schools, we may say (1) that the creation of the universe was maintained by the Stoics and Epicureans and denied by the Peripatetics; (2) the words about the eternity of the universe and the reason given for it are almost a quotation from Timaeus 41 B, though there it is the “lesser gods,” not the universe, which are spoken of; (3) “becoming” and “being” may be assigned respectively to Heracleitus and the Eleatic school, but Philo was familiar with the antithesis in Plato, e.g. Theaetetus 152, where also (4) he found the famous saying of Protagoras that “man is the measure of all things.” He takes it in what may have been its original, though perhaps not the generally accepted, meaning, as opposed to the sceptical view that our mind and senses are untrustworthy, and so also in the other two places where he quotes it (De Post. 35 and De Som. ii. 193), though there it is its profanity as claiming for man what belongs only to God which is stressed. (5) “Those who maintain that everything is beyond our apprehension” are the sceptics, both those of the school of Pyrrho and the later Academy, while “those who assert that a great number of things are cognizable” are the non-sceptical philosophers in general, none of whom would assert more than that knowledge was generally, but not universally, attainable.
§ 249. Divine possession or frenzy. Philo in this description of prophetic “ecstasy” evidently has in mind Phaedrus 244 E and 245 A in which the words κατοκωχή τε καὶ μανία occur (followed at once by the phrase ἁπαλὴν καὶ ἄβατον ψυχήν which he has already used in § 38). Cf. § 264.
§ 253. To treat things indifferent as indeed indifferent. So in Quod Det. 122 it is the characteristic of justice ἐξαδιαφορεῖν τὰ μεθόρια κακίας καὶ ἀρετῆς, such as wealth, reputation and office, while on the other hand in De Post. 81, if Mangey’s emendation is accepted, the misuser of natural gifts ἐξαδιαφορεῖ τὰ διάφορα. The words ἐξαδιαφορεῖν and -ησις are not quoted from any other writer than Philo.
Ibid. ἀπαρχάς is used here in a general sense, as there is no thought of offering to a god; cf. Dion. Hal. De Comp. iii. λόγων ἀπαρχάς, “specimen passages.”
§ 274. Or woman-man. This addition is strange. In the other two places recorded, where Philo uses the word, it is as here coupled with ἀνδρόγυνος, but in contrast with it of a woman who adopts masculine dress or habits—an idea which is quite alien here. I suspect that it is an interpolation.
Ibid. Stock. See General Introduction, vol. i. p. xvi, though the statement there requires some correction. The ἀποσκευή is not the Encyclia, but the whole fruits of παιδεία of which the Encyclia are the first stage.
§ 282. The phraseology of the section is taken from Timaeus 42 E πυρὸς καὶ γῆς ὕδατός τε καὶ ἀέρος ἀπὸ τοῦ κόσμου δανειζόμενοι μόρια, ὡς ἀποδοθησόμενα πάλιν.
§ 283. Moving in a circle. Cf. Aristot. De Caelo, i. 2 and 3, where it is laid down that while the four elements have a rectilineal, the ether or fifth element has a circular movement. So also Philo of the heaven in De Somn. i. 21. See also Quod Deus 46 and note.
§ 290. In the shadow of death. The LXX actually has (like the Hebrew) ἐπὶ σκηνώμασι ἁμαρτωλῶν. This curious slip of memory was no doubt partly due to the sound σκ in both phrases.
§ 291. πολύν. This reading of Wendland’s, based on the πολύ of Pap., does not seem to me satisfactory. Wendland himself, while noting the πολιόν of G, says “fortasse recte.” Yet “grey-haired vanity” also seems strange. I should prefer to read πολιῶν (fem.) or πολιᾶς, both well-known terms for old age.
§ 310. τοῖς … ἀγγέλοις. While I retain and translate this, I do not think it satisfactory. The use of ἄγγελος is strange and only distantly paralleled by De Mut. 162 αὐγὴ γὰρ αὐγῆς ἄγγελος. But though Wendland accepted Mangey’s ταῖς … αὐγαῖς as certain, it seems to me even less satisfactory, at any rate when coupled with Wendland’s προσχωροῦντες or Mangey’s ἐγχορεύοντες. There is no great likeness of form, and the sense is poor. The clause evidently interprets κάπνος γίνεται πρὸ πυρός. At this stage there are no “rays,” and while “hope” may fairly stand for “smoke,” to say “when we approach the rays we hope,” is a poor equivalent to “smoke comes before fire,” and Mangey’s “as we move amid the rays we hope” is none at all. It would, however, be much improved if we read πρὼ (πρωὶ) ἐγχορεύοντες, i.e. “in our first stage of experiencing the rays, we hope” (and nothing more).
Perhaps we might bring it still nearer to the MSS. by putting ἁγγείοις for ἀγγέλοις. The oven or furnace is actually called an ἀγγεῖον ἀρετῆς a few lines below, and though there, as well as in § 308, we are the furnace, not in it, such a variation of the figure is not impossible. After all it is not really the furnace which smokes, but the fuel in it, and if we read τοῖς τε γὰρ ἀρετῆς ἀγγείοις πρὼ (πρωὶ) ἐγχορεύοντες τελειότητα ἐλπίζομεν, we have a text almost identical with that of the MSS. and Pap., and giving a sense intelligible in itself (though not in complete agreement with its environment), that “when we are in the early stage of playing the part of fuel in the furnaces in which virtue is produced, we emit only the smoke of hoping for the full flame.” (This general use of χορεύω and ἐγχορεύω is common enough in Philo, see e.g. De Fug. 45 ὁ ἔτι χορεύων ἐν τῷ θνητῷ βίῳ.)
§ 314. καθʼ ἣν … ἀφθάρτοις. The text suggested in the footnote, which might be varied by <διακρίνας> διαφυλάττει for δια<κρίνας> φυλάττει, and κατὰ τὰ ἅ for καθά, is fairly near to the MSS. and seems to me to give a satisfactory sense. Mangey strangely accepted Markland’s feeble suggestion of τοῖς τιμῶσιν αὐτόν for τοῖς τομεῦσιν ἑαυτοῦ.
Ibid. Who are born to life imperishable. With the change of ἐπί to πρέπει (or perhaps to ἔδει), these words present no difficulty. I understand them to be an interpretation, which in fact is needed, of τῷ σπέρματί σου. That the “seed of Abraham” should be called “those who in their origin are incorruptible” is natural enough.