¹ 4 Reg. 25.8 f.; cf. Jer. 52.13. While the Vulgate of Jer. ibid. does read ‘omnem domum magnam’ (LXX: πᾶσαν οἰκίαν μεγάλην), in 4 Reg. 25.9 it reads simply ‘omnemque domum’ (see also LXX ad loc. ed. Rahlfs I 750), though in the Hebrew (MT) in both the reading is bet gadol (in Jer. bet ha-gadol).Google Scholar

² This translation is, of course, in accordance with MT; cf. the translation of the Jewish Publication Society.Google Scholar

³ Lamentations Rabba, Petiha 12, ed. Buber 12.Google Scholar

⁴ The commentary is Yefeh ‘Anaf by Samuel ben Isaac Ashkenazi Jaffe of the second half of the sixteenth century (see Lam. Rab., Vilna edition, 3b). Cf. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 8.744f. And on shebah = doxa, cf. also S. Lieberman in G. G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York 1960) 123.Google Scholar

⁵ J. Megillah 3. 1. And note the combination of gedulah and shebah in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, ed. Buber 41b (but ed. Mandelbaum 76 reads only gedulato, and even in the variant readings does not give the Buber reading). Pesikta Rabbati, ed. Friedmann 65b reads simply gedulato, and the same is true of Tanhuma Numbers, ed. Buber 60b,Google Scholar

⁶ Is this perhaps what lies behind ‘magnalia Dei’ of Acts 2.11 also, at least in part? Cf. the commentary by K. Lake and H. J. Cadbury in F. Jackson and K. Lake, Beginnings of Christianity IV (London 1933) 20.Google Scholar

⁷ Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem 1941) 65 (paperback ed. New York 1961, p. 66). Note also The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, ed. Y. Yadin, trans., B. and C. Rabin (Oxford 1962) 274f., ‘… GDL ’EL, TŠBWHT ’EL, KBWD ’EL.’Google Scholar

⁸ T. Hagigah 2.1 (on which see now S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, New York 1962, Part V, Order Mo ‘ed, pp. 1287ff.); B. Hagigah 14b; J. Hagigah 2.1; Mekilta Simeon, ed. Epstein-Melamed 159.Google Scholar

⁹ See further n. 16 infra. Google Scholar

¹⁰ For a similar exclamation and enthusiasm in connection with another of his disciples, see version B of ‘Abot de-Rabbi Natan, ed. S. Schechter (hereafter ARN) p. 32.Google Scholar

¹¹ See especially the work referred to in n. 4 supra, and cf. the review by M. Smith in Journal of Biblical Literature 80 (1961) 190f.Google Scholar

¹² For the present, see ARN 56. I hope to show that the exegesis occurring there is indeed literal exegesis.Google Scholar

¹³ See, for example, E. Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy (New York) 1911) 208: ‘… in the systems of Hellenistic philosophy ethics and social theory occupy the most prominent positions …’Google Scholar

¹⁴ Conversion (London 1933) 114.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Merely by way of example (for very many details are scattered throughout the rich and numerous studies of these men) the following may be listed : by Bickerman, E. J., Der Gott der Makkabäer (Berlin 1937); The Maccabees (New York 1947); ‘La chaine de la tradition pharisienne,’ Revue biblique 59 (1952), 44ff.; ‘The Maxim of Antigonus of Socho,’ Harvard Theological Review 44 (1951) 153ff.; by Lewy, Hans, the collection of essays in ‘Olamot Nifgashim [Heb.] (Jerusalem 1960); by Lieberman, S., Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York 1942) and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York 1962).Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Pirqe ’Abot (hereafter PA) 2.8-9; ARN 58f.; and cf. Goldin, J., Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (New Haven 1955) 74 and n. 13 ad loc. And note in particular Mekilta Simeon 159.Google Scholar

¹⁷ PA 2.14.Google Scholar

¹⁸ p. 66.Google Scholar

¹⁹ 2.15-16; cf. ARN (both versions) 84. See also Taylor, C., Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Cambridge 1897–1900) I 12 (Heb. Text), and II 145.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cf. Taylor II ibid. and Marmorstein, A., Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God (Oxford 1927) 78.Google Scholar

²¹ And this applies no less to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrqanos’ saying in 2.10, as Hoffmann, D., Ha-Mishnah ha-Rishonah (Berlin 1913) 33, showed. See also n. 84 in Goldin, J., ‘The End of Ecclesiastes’ in Studies and Texts III, ed. Altmann, A. (now being published).Google Scholar

²² This statement does not occur in Version B of ARN ibid.; on that version's reading, see the idiom in the citation from Rabbi Ephraim bar Samson in Scholem, G., Reshit ha-Qabbalah (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv 1948) 40.Google Scholar

²³ This reading, ‘be diligent to learn how to answer an epicurean,’ sometimes indeed with the 'et accusative sign rather than the prefix lamed, occurs at least in the following MSS and MS fragments: TS, E 3, 40, 55, 63, 74, 82, 93, 103, 111, 124, 128, 141. Note in fragment No. 40 the interesting reading she-toṣi’ (rather than she-tashib).Google Scholar

²⁴ One example may be instructive. In Codex Kaufmann of the Mishnah the reading is: ‘Be diligent to study (learn) how to answer an epicurean’; and on the margin of the MS someone has noted that the word ‘Torah’ should be inserted after ‘learn’!Google Scholar

²⁵ Perhaps it is this editor in fact who is responsible for that word ‘Torah’ getting into the text.Google Scholar

²⁶ Cf. R. Marcus in his note d ad Josephus, Antiquities 10.281 (Loeb Classics; Josephus VI 313).Google Scholar

²⁷ Sanhedrin 10.1, and for the correct reading and the implications thereof cf. J. Goldin in Proceedings, American Academy for Jewish Research 27 (1958) 49, and notes ad loc. Google Scholar

²⁸ And though the copyist of the Version B manuscript for S. Schechter's edition of ARN 66 recorded אפיקורס I personally checked Vatican MS heb. 303, and found the reading to be definitely אפיקורוס.Google Scholar

²⁹ Kasovsky, C. Y., Thesaurus Mishnae [Heb.] (Jerusalem 1956) I 261. And note its single appearance in the Tosefta, Sanhedrin 13.5.Google Scholar

³⁰ Cf. ed. Harmon, M. (in Loeb Classics, IV 175ff.).Google Scholar

³¹ See for example PA 1.9, 11; 2.1, 3, 10, 13; 4.13.Google Scholar

³² Cf. Hicks, R. D., Stoic and Epicurean (New York 1910) 304: ‘The Epicureans were never tired of arguing against the conception of God as either Creator or Providence … On these points their chief antagonists were the Stoics …’Google Scholar

³³ T. Yebamot 8.4 (and see Lieberman, S., Tosefeth Rishonim [Jerusalem 1938] II 22); cf. B. Yebamot 63b and Genesis Rabba 34, ed. Theodor-Albeck 326f.Google Scholar

³⁴ I.e., Rabbi Samuel Edels (1555–1631), the author of impressive talmudic novellae. His comment occurs ad B. Hagigah 14b.Google Scholar

³⁵ Diog. Laert. 7.10-11 (ed. Hicks in Loeb Classics, II 121, whose translation I am using).Google Scholar

³⁶ On the genuineness of the decree see Hicks’ reference loc. cit. 120.Google Scholar

³⁷ Men. 5 (in Loeb Classics, IV 82).Google Scholar

³⁸ ARN 58f.Google Scholar

³⁹ The correct reading of the text is preserved in Israel ibn Al-Nakawa, Menorat Ha-Maor, ed. Enelow, H. G. (New York 1929–32) III 523.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Midrash Mishle, ed. Buber 108-9.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See for example Sapientia 15.8, 16, and especially Josephus, Wars 3.8.5.Google Scholar

⁴² I am using Colson's translation (Loeb Classics, VI 125ff.).Google Scholar

⁴³ See also Colson's note, loc. cit. 598f. Cf. Philo's Quaestiones, ed. Marcus, R. (Loeb Classics) I 350-52.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Encheiridion 11, ed. Oldfather, W. A. (Loeb Classics) II 491.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Hellenistic Civilization (London 1936) 299. In Republic 10, 603, Plato also says that the good man will not mourn excessively over the loss of his son; but though he gives several reasons for this, he does not speak of the soul as a deposit or trust.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ed. Lauterbach, J. Z. II 67. St. Augustine on that verse does not speak of this either. Note that primarily the verse recalls to him its use in Luke 23.46, and hence he underscores ‘Audiamus vocem Domini,’ cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos ad loc. (ed. Dekkers and Fraipont, CCL 38 [1956] 199). Cf. St. Jerome on Ps. 145.4 (MT 146.4) (ed. Morin, CCL 78.324).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ed. Epstein-Melamed 95.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Vita 2, end, cd. Thackeray 7.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Antiquities 10, end, ed. Marcus, R. (Loeb Classics) VI 313.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See also Lieberman, S., ‘How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine,’ in Studies and Texts I, ed. Altmann, A. (Cambridge, Mass. 1963) 130. By the way, rabbinic sources reflect also an awareness of the fact that as regards Providence and belief in God, there are varieties of views; cf. Sifre Deut. 329, ed. Finkelstein 379 and Midrash Tannaim 202.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Op. cit. 290. And regarding semitic influences on Stoic thought, cf. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford 1941) 1426 n. 232.Google Scholar

⁵² Cf. Goldin, Fathers … Nathan 74, and note ad loc. Google Scholar

⁵³ PA 2.8; cf. the idiom in 1.3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ PA 1.1.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See the story in Goldin, Fathers … Nathan 35ff.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ PA 2.8.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ 2.9.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ On the other hand, see how the compiler of Version A of ARN (ch. 18) pp. 66-69 was led by this to draw up additional material (but not of a master describing disciples, but of a sage describing his teachers and predecessors, and a sage describing other sages).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Diogenes Laertius 7.37 (II 149).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ PA 2.9; for the translation cf. Goldin, J., Living Talmud: the Wisdom of the Fathers (Chicago 1958) 99.Google Scholar

⁶¹ With St. Augustine's comment on this verse, ‘Quid si pauper est’ etc. (CCL 38.355f.), cf. ARN 48 and 57, and Maimonides’ Code, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Zera'im, Hilkot Matnot ‘Aniyyim X (and note X,4).Google Scholar

⁶² PA 2.8.Google Scholar

⁶³ p. 58; and see also Version B of ARN, 66.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ p.58.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ And note the reading of Version B, 59.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ PA 2.1, beginning; cf. Version B of ARN, 70.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Ad Deut. 49, ed. Finkelstein 114.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ed. Buber, III 37b.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Canticles Rabba 1.2, 6. For the pun on the verb nashaq ad loc. see the commentators. On the intensity of the expression in Cant. see also Origen's Commentary (Origen, The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies, trans. R. P. Lawson [Ancient Christian Writers 26; London 1957] 60): ‘But, since the age is almost ended and His own presence is not granted me, and I see only His ministers ascending and descending upon me, because of this I pour out my petition to Thee, the Father of my Spouse, beseeching Thee to have compassion at last upon my love, and to send Him, that He may now no longer speak to me only by His servants the angels and the prophets, but may come Himself, directly, and kiss me with the kisses of His mouth — that is to say, may pour the words of His mouth into mine, that I may hear Him speak Himself, and see Him teaching. The kisses are Christ's, which He bestows on His Church when at His coming, being present in the flesh, He in His own person spoke to her the words of faith and love and peace, according to the promise of Isaias who, when sent beforehand to the Bride, had said (cf. Isa. 33.22): Not a messenger, nor an angel, but the Lord Himself shall save us.’ Cf. also S. Lieberman, Yemenite Midrashim (Jerusalem 1940) 14.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Cf. Gen. 2.24.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ps. 136.6 (MT 137.6).Google Scholar

⁷² Dead Sea Scrolls II 2: Manual of Discipline, ed. M. Burrows (New Haven 1951) Plate I, line 5; Thanksgiving Scroll, ed. J. Licht (Jerusalem 1957) 202; Ps. 118.31 (MT 119.31).Google Scholar

⁷³ Dead Sea Scrolls II, Plate II, lines 15 f.; Zadokite Documents, ed. C. Rabin (Oxford 1958) 5.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ See Lauterbach, J. Z., ‘The Ancient Jewish Allegorists in Talmud and Midrash’ in Jewish Quarterly Review N. S. 1 (1910–11) 291–333, 503-31.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Ad Deut. loc. cit., and note ibid. the variant readings in the critical apparatus.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Literally, ‘Him who spake and the world (ha-'olam) came to be.’ I would like to call special attention to the variants ‘The Holy One, blessed be He’ and ‘thy Creator’ recorded by Finkelstein, ad loc. (I neglected to do this in the Hebrew version of this study), for if these doreshe haggadot are pre-70 A.D., they did not use ha-'olam for ‘world’. See my note 39 in ‘Of Change and Adaptation in Judaism’ in History of Religions, 1 (Chicago 1965) 283.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Conversion 181. And see also Marrou, H. I., History of Education in Antiquity (New York 1956) 206.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ 7.2 (Loeb Classics II, 110). And cf. Marrou, op. cit. 209: ‘The more the Graeco-Roman period advances, the more important the moral aspect becomes, until it is the essential if not the only object of the philosopher's speculation and activity and whole life.’Google Scholar

⁷⁹ 7.92 ff. (II 199 ff., Hicks’ translation)Google Scholar

⁸⁰ In his introduction, p. xx.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Since at this point Diogenes presents also the view of those who believe that in addition to the good and evil, there is also the neutral, he adds that neutral (neither good nor evil) ‘are all those things which neither benefit nor harm a man: such as life, health … and the like. This Hecato affirms in his De fine book vii,’ etc. Cf. Diogenes on Plato in 3.102 (II 365-66).Google Scholar

⁸² Here too Diogenes adds: ‘But again there are things belonging to neither class; such are not preferred, neither are they rejected.’ Cf. preceding note.Google Scholar

⁸³ Cf. Diogenes 7.108: ‘Zeno was the first to use this term καθῆϰον of conduct’; and see Hicks’ note ad loc. Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Cf. notes 81-82 supra. Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Cf. 3.400; 4.442-43; and compare especially 8-9 with the earlier books. See also Diogenes on Plato, 3.103ff. (II 367f.).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ ‘… Book X is made up largely of extracts from the writings of Epicurus, by far the most precious thing preserved in this collection of odds and ends’ (Hicks in his Introduction, p. xx).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Cf. PA 1.1 and 2.10, ARN 59, and see C. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers II 144 (and the duplication is not to be preferred).Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Plato, Republic 1, 331 D-E, ed. Shorey, P. (Loeb Classics I 20f.); cf. Diogenes Laertius 3.83 (I 351).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ p. 22 note a. And cf. the citation from Stobaeus (ἀπονεμητικὴ τῆς ἀξίας ἑκάστῳ) and the note in Pearson, A. C., The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes (London 1891) 175.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ See, e.g., Midrash Shemuel of Samuel ben Isaac of Uçeda (XVI cent.) (New York 5705 [1935]) 71f. Interestingly enough, in B. Tamid 32a ‘foresight’ is the answer given by the elders (sages) of the south to Alexander the Great IGoogle Scholar

⁹¹ See on this the important researches of Lieberman, S., Hellenism in Jewish Palestine 28–114.Google Scholar

⁹² E.g., Genesis Rabba 1.9, ed. Theodor-Albeck 8. Note indeed the subject of their discussion: was Creation ex nihilo or not?Google Scholar

⁹³ Sec the real note of respect in the story told in Derek ’Ereṣ, Pirqe Ben ‘Azzai, Ch. 3, 3, ed. Higger 183 ff. (and note the literature he cites on 184f.).Google Scholar

The statement by Rabbi Abba bar Kahana (Gen. R. 65.19, p. 734, and parallels) that the greatest philosophers among the nations of the world were Balaam and Oenomaus of Gadara cannot seriously illuminate what was or was not known by first-century Tannaim, particularly before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A. D. (see below n. 95): Abba bar Kahana is a third generation Amora (in other words, late III cent. and early IV cent. A. D.)! Certainly Rabbi Me'ir (the second-century Tanna) in his relationships with Oenomaus is downright warm (see briefly on this Jewish Encyclopedia, 9.386). But much, much more to the point (and perhaps therefore I would do well not to sound so condescending towards Abba bar Kahana and his information): In the second century to have regarded Oenomaus as nothing less than outstanding is the very reverse of being philosophically not knowledgable; see for example the discussion on the Cynics — their influence and their intellectual-spiritual role — in S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London 1904) 359 ff., and particularly the references in his notes. As for some early Christians (cf. Dill 361), for Jewish Sages, too, much in what Cynics preached would be a joy indeed. Observe, for example, Dill (and his references!) 363: ‘[The Cynics] were probably the purest monotheists that classical antiquity produced…. The most fearless and trenchant assailant of the popular theology among the Cynics was Oenomaus of Gadara, in the reign of Hadrian. Oenomaus rejected, with the frankest scorn, the anthropomorphic fables of heathenism. In particular, he directed his fiercest attacks against the revival of that faith in oracles and divination which was a marked characteristic of the Antonine age.’ And more to the same effect on p. 364 (let alone p. 361, ‘With rare exceptions, such as Oenomaus of Gadara [my italics] they seldom committed their ideas to writing’). So then, R. Me'ir — of the Antonine age! — is really up to what this effective philosopher is deeply concerned with; the Tanna need not at all be presumed to be ignorant of the ideas of the popular philosopher. Questions like, Is Oenomaus of the stature of a Plato or Aristotle in the history of philosophy, have nothing to do with the case; cf. above, p. 3 and notes ad loc. and pp. 19 Surely Seneca was no philosophical illiterate; and what does he say of Demetrius? ‘Vir meo judicio magnus etiamsi maximis comparetur’ (quoted by Dill 362)! (Quintilian's stricture, 10.1.128, Loeb Classics IV 73, that ‘Seneca had many excellent qualities, a quick and fertile intelligence with great industry and wide knowledge, though as regards the last quality he was often led into error by those whom he had entrusted with the task of investigating certain subjects on his behalf,’ is hardly a disqualification in our present context. One: apparently Seneca was prepared to accept his assistants’ judgments. Two: at least we can discover what his assistants regarded as intellectually respectable. And this is surely relevant to our immediate study.)Google Scholar

Finally, to speak of Balaam as a philosopher clearly reflects not a discrediting of philosophy, but a more than average respect for it — for not only is Balaam the recipient of divine revelations recorded in Scripture, but he is likened to Moses for the Gentiles: cf. Sifre Deut. 357 on Deut. 34.10, ed. Finkelstein 430, Midrash Tannaim 227. There is even a tradition that, like other eminent personages, Balaam was born circumcised, ARN 12.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Lamentations Rabba on Lam. 1:1; cf. ed. Buber 23b ff.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ That the give-and-take recorded in PA 2.9 took place before Johanan withdrew to Jamnia is clear from an analysis of the sources; see also Alon, G., Studies in Jewish History [Heb.] I (Tel Aviv 1957) 261f. (and the text, ibid. should be corrected when it speaks of Eleazar ben Azariah, to Eleazar ben ‘Arak).Google Scholar