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Philo's Exposition of the Law and His De Vita Mosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Erwin B. Goodenough
Erwin B. Goodenough
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The problem of Philo's Exposition of the Law and of its relation to the treatise De vita Mosis has, it seems to me, not yet been solved.

The Exposition is one of Philo's three great series of commentaries on the Pentateuch. It comprised originally De opificio mundi, De Abrahamo, De Isaaco, De Iacobo, De Josepho, De decalogo, De specialibus legibus, De virtutibus, and De praemiis et poenis, of which all are preserved but De Isaaco and De Iacobo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , April 1933 , pp. 109 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1933

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References

1 ‘Einteilung und Chronologie der Schriften Philos,’ in Philologus, VII, Supplementband, 1899, p. 417.

2 ‘Philo und Clemens Alexandrinus,’ in Hermes, XXXI, 1896, pp. 435–443Google Scholar, especially pp. 440 f.

3 ‘Le Classement des Oeuvres de Philon,’ in Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses, Paris, I, 1889, pp. 42 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 On the whole Schürer's argument seems to me more convincing against the inclusion of De pietate than Wendland and Cohn's in its favor. In the absence of the work itself there is little more to be said on either side. See Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 4th ed., 1909, p. 671, notes 99–101, and the references there to Cohn and Wendland.

5 Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 4th ed., 1909, III, p 675.

6 According as we assume De vita Mosis ii. 115 to contain a reference to De opificio mundi or to another treatise now lost.

7 As represented in the English Translation, A History of the Jewish People, 1886, II, iii, pp. 388 and 348 f. Schürer's later change of view is mentioned in his candid and appreciative review of Massebieau in Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1891, cols. 91–96. H. Leisegang, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, IV, 1930, col. 1196, merely states that the Exposition, as compared with the Allegory, is designed for a larger circle of readers, including non-jews.

8 ‘Le Classement des Oeuvres de Philon,’ p. 38, n. 3.

9 ‘Einteilung und Chronologie der Sehriften Philos,’ p. 415, and Die Werke Philos von Alexandria in deutscher Übersetzung, I, 219.

10 Schürer, 3rd ed., Ill, pp. 511, 515, and 523 f.; 4th ed., III, pp. 659, 666, and 675.

11 ‘Chronologie de la Vie et des Oeuvres de Philon,’ in Revue de l'histoire des Religions, LIII, 1906, pp. 25–64, 164–185, 267–289.

12 See my Jewish Jurisprudence in Egypt.

13 The treatises De paenitentia and De nobilitate, in De virtutibus 175–227.

14 Massebieau and Bréhier (note 10 above), pp. 182 ff, develop the contrast on this point between the Exposition and the Allegory. As they explain all other contrasts in Philo as coming from different periods of his life, so they do here, and as usual unconvincingly.

15 See the introduction to volume V, pp. xxviii f.

16 Schürer, 4th ed., 1909, p. 674.

17 In the publication begun under the editorship of L. Cohn and continued by Heinemann, Die Werke Philos von Alexandria in deutscher Übersetzung, II, 381.

18 Eusebius, H. E. ii. 18, 5.

19 These refer to the obligations of hospitality, joined in that connection in De specialibus legibus iii. 96.

20 The altar of mercy and common hearth can only refer to the household hearth of refuge which Alexandrine Jews seem to have brought into Judaism from Greek custom. See Heinemann's note ad loc. in Die Werke Philos von Alexandria in deutscher Übersetzung, and my Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt, pp. 53 ff.; also Heinemann, Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung, pp. 344 f.

21 Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung, pp. 572–574.

22 Philo does not himself make this familiar distinction. His ‘proselytes’ need not be circumcized: see Quaestiones in Exodum ii. 2; B. Harris, Fragments of Philo Judaeus, p. 49.