APPENDIX TO QUOD OMNIS PROBUS LIBER SIT
§ 2. “Walk not on the highways.” The form given here is almost the same as that in the latest edition of Diogenes Laertius, viz. τάς λεωφὁρους μὴ βαδίζειν. But another reading is ἐκτὸς λεωφόρου μὴ βαδίζειν. This has been emended to ἐντὸς, but does it not rather point to a variant assigning a quite different and more obvious meaning to the maxim?
§ 3. Super-law. Or “divine ordinance.” Cf. De Op. 143 νόμος ὁ τῆς φύσεως ὀρθὸς λόγος, ὃς κυριωτέρᾳ κλήσει προσονομάζεται θεσμός, νόμος θεῖος ὤν. In the same way the Ten Commandments are in a true sense θεομοί, Quis Rerum 168. Besides being more divine the θεομός has a wider scope and is like a general principle. So the Ten are θεσμοὶ τῶν κατὰ μέρος ἀπείρων νόμων γενικὰ κεφάλαια, De Cong. 120. It is a pity that these examples from Philo have not been used in the lexica. For though L. & S. remarks that θεαμός properly applies to ancient laws supposed to be sanctioned by the gods, it cites no examples which bring out the distinction from νόμος. Stephanus too after quoting the θεομοί of Draco and the νόμοι of Solon, which may be merely traditional titles, only cites Plato, Ep viii. 355 B, where after an exhortation to set the ἀρετή of the soul above that of the body, and that again above money, he says ὁ ταῦτα ἀπεμγαζόμενος θεαμός νόμος ἄν ἀρθῶς ὑμῖν εἴη κείμενος, which points to a sort of distinction as that quoted above from De Cong.
§ 5. The puppet show. Though probably this is suggested by the words quoted in the footnote, those do not mean what is stated here. Plato does not mean that the prisoners in the cave mistake the realities for θαύματα. The phrase comes in incidentally to indicate that the wall behind which move the persons who carry the objects the shadows of which are reflected is like the screen behind which the θαυματοποιοί stand when exhibiting their show. Elsewhere Plato uses the figure (Laws 644 D, 804 B) to describe human conduct, mankind being the puppets whose strings are worked by some higher power, a figure which Philo also uses, De Op. 117, De Fug. 46.
§ 10. Highly connected. Or more exactly “highly connected on both sides.” Philo has ἀμφιθαλής twice elsewhere, De Cong. 132, where Moses is said to be καὶ τὰ πρὸς πατρὸς καὶ τὰ πρὸς μητρὸς ἀμφιθαλής, and Legatio 93, where Hermes, Apollo, and Ares are μείζονες καὶ ἀμφιθαλεῖς as compared with Dionysus and Heracles, presumably because Semele and Alcmene were mere women. This is a natural extension of the meaning in Il. xxii. 496 and Plato, Laws 927 D, viz. a child who has both parents alive. So here cf. πρὸς ἀνδμῶν καὶ πρὸς γυναικῶν below.
§ 15. (The hiatus παιδείᾳ ἀναθεῖναι.) Cohn in Hermes, li. (1916), pp. 172 ff. propounds a theory that the hiatus here is justified on the principle that Philo does not avoid it between the verb and its noun or adjective, which are so grammatically connected as to form a sort of unity. In the same way he accounts for ἴσῃ ἀντιτιμηθέντες εὐνοίᾳ (§ 42) and φόβῳ ἐκκλίνει (§ 159), and notes similar examples in other treatises. On the other hand εὐτονίᾳ κραταιοτάτῃ ἰσχύος (§ 40), θεοῦ ἐλευθέρους (§ 42) and σὺν εὐτολμίᾳ εὐθυβόλον (§ 124) have no such justification. Accordingly the first of these remains “suspect” (though one would have thought κραταιοτάτης was an easy correction), the second is corrected to τῶν θεῶν, and the third has μετʼ εὐτολμίας suggested in a footnote. This new law of justifiable exceptions is a big extension of the principle laid down by Jessen and Cumont (see my note in vol. viii. p. 428), by which familiar conjunctions like ἐτήσιοι ὧραι are declared acceptable. There are no such familiar conjunctions in the instances quoted from §§ 42 and 159.
Wendland in his essay on De Providentia written several years earlier points out (p. 146) Philo’s general avoidance of the hiatus in that treatise, but notes a few exceptions, ἀδιαλύτῳ ἑνώσει ἀρμοσάμενος (§ 3), εὐμορφίᾳ ἀγάλλοιτο (§ 15), ἀπατηλαὶ αἰσθήαεις, πάθη ἐπίβουλα (§ 36), and there are some others which he has not observed. He then makes a remark which seems to me worth quoting: “We must not forget that avoidance of the hiatus is a matter of feeling only, not of anxious calculation, and there were very few writers in whom this feeling was so finely developed that it was not exposed to fluctuations and caprices.” This is not quite the same as the view suggested in the note above mentioned, namely that he avoided it generally but not when the avoidance would hamper his expression, but it leads to the same practical conclusion. When the tradition, Wendland continues, does not present any difficulty or any other cause for alteration, the editor of a writer like Philo will do well not to introduce any alteration merely on account of the hiatus.
§ 15. New vessels, etc. Cohn quotes Quintilian i. 1. 5 “natura tenacissimi sumus eorum quae rudibus annis percepimus, ut sapor, quo nova imbuas, durat.” The parallel will be still clearer if we adopt the correction “quo nova imbuas <vasa>.” As Quintilian in the sentence before has quoted Chrysippus, Περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς, it seems probable that the illustration in both cases comes from a Stoic source.
§ 28. (Insertion of οὕτως.) Though not grammatically necessary it certainly appears to be Philo’s invariable usage when a comparison begins with a relative conjunction to introduce the main clause with an adverb οὕτως or τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον. So in this treatise §§ 15, 30, 45, 49, 51, 130, 140. And so in De Prov. §§ 3, 6, 20, 23, 39, 40, 52, 55. If the comparison begins with the main clause as in § 155 the rule naturally does not apply, nor always if the relative clause does not contain a separate verb as in De Prov. 32. Otherwise I have found no exceptions either in these two treatises or in De Praem., in which I have tested it.
§ 70. Wholefruits. Or “wholly fruits.” In this digression induced by a favourite text, Deut. 30:14, and the favourite interpretation of mouth, heart, hands by words, thoughts, actions, we have something more akin to the Philo of the Commentary than we find anywhere else in this treatise. The meaning is that while in the natural garden the fruit only comes in the final stage, in the spiritual life all is fruit. As a matter of fact ὁλοκαρπώματα occurs only three times in our text of the Pentateuch and then only as a variant for ὁλοκαυτώματα. But the form ὁλοκάρπωσις is more frequent, occurring three times in Gen. 22 in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, and also in Gen. 8:20, where Noah took of every clean beast and every clean fowl and offered them for a ὁλοκάρπωσις. On this passage, where perhaps he read ὁλοκάρπωμα for ὁλοκάρπωσις, Philo has a special meditation in Quaest. in Gen. ii. 52. The point of this is that the pure beasts are “sapientis sensus” and the pure fowls “intellectus cum cogitationibus in mente agitatis” and that they must be offered as “integer fructus.” The thought is perhaps much the same as in the stanzas of Rabbi Ben Ezra beginning “Not on the vulgar mass.”
§ 73. οἱ ἐτύμως ἑπτὰ σοφοὶ προσονομασθέντες. I find that the view taken in the footnote that the appellation is ἔτυμον because ἑπτά is akin to σέβας and οεμνός is thought to be a hard saying; and I am asked why it should not mean that they were called σοφοί because they were truly wise. I think that that explanation not only slurs the πρός but is entirely contrary to Philo’s use of ἐτύμως and ἔτυμος. That word in classical use is an epic or lyric word, in the ordinary sense of “true,” but with the grammarians came to mean the true or original form of the root from which other words spring, and thence the name “etymology” for the science of these ἔτυμα. Thus (De Op. 127) the Latin “septem” is said to be ἐτυμώτερον than the Greek ἑπτό because it preserves the original α of the etymon.
As stated shortly in the note in vol. iv. p. 556, the examples of έτύμως in the index bear this out.
Names are said to be given ἐτύμως:
(1) De Op. 36. στερέωμα to “heaven,” because it is σωματικός (as opposed to νοητός), and σῶμα is στερεόν.
(2) Ibid. 126. φωνήεντα to the vowels, because ἐξ ἑαυτῶν φωνοῦνται.
(3) Ibid. 133. παμμήτωρ and like names given by the poets to γῆ, because it is the source (αἰτία) of γένεσις.
(4) De Conf. 137. θεός to God, because ἔθηκε τὸ πᾶν.
(5) Mos. i. 17. Moses so called, because he was drawn from the water and the Egyptian for water is μῶυ.
(6) Ibid. 130. “Dog-fly” from its persistence, because the dog and the fly are the most shameless creatures in earth and air.
(7) Mos. ii. 105. θυμιατήριον given to the altar of incense, because ἀναθυμιάσεις τηρεῖ.
(8) Ibid. 149. τελειώσεως to the rams by which the sacrifices were admitted to the τελεταί.
(9) Spec. Leg. i. 88. λογεῖον to the breastplate symbolizing heaven, because heaven is governed by λόγος.
(10) Ibid. 93. ῥοΐσκοι to pomegranates παρὰ τὴν ῥύσιν.
(11) Ibid. 147. σιαγόνες to the jaws, because they shake (σείω).
(12) Ibid. 183. πρωτογεννημάτων to Pentecost, because τὰ πρῶτα τῶν γεννημάτων are then offered. So also De Dec. 160.
(13) Spec. Leg. ii. 188. “Trumpet-feast” to the ἱερομηνία, because it is the custom to sound the trumpet.
In this volume, besides the words under discussion, we have (14) De Vit. Cont. 2, the Therapeutae, so called because θεραπεύουσι (“worship” or “heal”).
(15) De Aet. 54. κόσμος to the world, because it exhibits κόσμος (“order”).
Many of these are explanations of a term rather than what we should call derivations or etymologies, but they all have this in common, that the ἐτυμότης does not consist in the appropriateness of the term in itself, or of its application in the particular case, but in its relation to some other word or in (15) to some other sense of the same word. None of them suggest that a person could be called ἐτύμως σοφός because the adjective σοφός could be justly applied to him. The ἐτυμότης therefore I believe belongs to ἑπτά, and the words of De Op. 127 explain in what it consists.
I should add that in the note, vol. iv. p. 556, I suggested that σοφός also was traced to σεβασμός, but this, I think, has no foundation.
§ 74. πρεσβευταὶ λόγων καὶ ἔργων. Or πρεσβεύεται λόγων ἔργα? In support of the latter it is worth noting that Strabo xv. 1. 59 cites Megasthenes as saying of the Brachmanes (on whom see next note) ἐν ἔργοις γὰρ αὐτοὺς κρείττους ἢ λόγοις εἶναι. That Philo in his account of the Gymnosophists and Calanus had Megasthenes in mind is at least very probable.
§ 74. Gymnosophists. What did Philo understand by the Gymnosophists? Is it simply another name for the caste of the philosophers, i.e. the Brahmans, or for a specially ascetic type among them and possibly other castes? They are mentioned in the same vague way as here by Strabo xvi. 2. 39 coupled with the Magi and the μάντεις of other nations. So too Plut. ii. 322 B eulogizes the γυμνῆτις σοφία of the Indian sages.
When Strabo xv. 1. 39 ff. describes from Megasthenes the seven castes, of which the philosophers are the first, he does not use the term Gymnosophist or indicate any especial asceticism. Further on, ibid. 59, Megasthenes is stated to classify the philosophers as Brachmanes, i.e. presumably Brahmins, and Garmanes, by whom experts appear to understand Buddhists, and it is these Garmanes or some of them who seem best to exemplify the asceticism implied in the name of Gymnosophists, though nakedness is not actually mentioned. Again, ibid. 70, the Brachmanes are distinguished from the Pramnae and it is as applied to some of these last that we first meet the term.
On the other hand Arrian, who also is supposed to be quoting Megasthenes, definitely says of the philosophical caste that as a whole they live (διαιτῶνται) naked, and when Plutarch (Alexander 64) applies the name Gymnosophists to the philosophers who had stirred up national feeling against the invader (§ 59), presumably he means the caste as a whole. I leave the experts to disentangle these conflicting statements. I suspect that the legend as Philo received it included (1) a belief that the philosophers were a caste, (2) that some of them were believed to practise a special ascetisicm, without aiming at anything more exact.
§ 75. Essenes. This note does not attempt to digest the many theories propounded about the Essenes but merely to summarize what Philo says about them and compare it with Josephus. In Quod Omn. Prob. Philo gives the following account of them: (1) They do not sacrifice animals; (2) they live in villages; (3) they work industriously at various occupations, not military nor commercial; (4) they keep no slaves; (5) their study is on morals and religion, particularly the allegorical meaning of the Scriptures; (6) they pursue and exhibit every kind of virtue; (7) this includes refusal to swear oaths and ceremonial purity; (8) they hold goods and clothing in common; (9) they provide for the sick and aged. To this is added an account of their sabbatical meetings, but this does not materially differ from that given of the Therapeutae in the De Vit. Cont. and of the nation as a whole in the Hypothetica.
Of these the Hypothetica mentions in much the same strain (3), (6), (8) and (9) and adds (10) that only adults are admitted to the order and (11) that they eschew marriage and have a poor opinion of women.
Josephus’s account is given in B.J. ii. 8. 2–13, with some additions in Ant. xviii. 1. 5. It confirms practically all the points mentioned by Philo but goes far more into detail. Thus he describes fully the terms and process of admission to the order and also their refusal to take oaths in ordinary life and their ceremonial ablutions, points indicated by Philo only by the single words ἀνώμοτον and ἁγνεία. Interesting additions which he gives are that they regard the use of oil as a defilement, wear white garments, keep the sabbath with extraordinary strictness and show a feeling of reverence for the sun and sunrise which reminds us somewhat of De Vit. Cont. 27 and 89. Elsewhere he credits them with the power of predicting the future, also he gives us, what Philo entirely omits, some information about their doctrines, that they believed in the immortality of the soul though not of the body and in future rewards and punishments.
(Sections 89 to 91.) I have not seen any notice of the historical statements made in these sections and this note must be regarded as a tentative inquiry. I feel little doubt that Philo is referring in the first instance to Herod, who, according to Jos. Ant. xv. 10. 5, treated the Essenes with special friendship and thought of them as something higher than human (μεῖζόν τι φρονῶν ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς ἢ κατὰ τὴν θνητὸν φύσιν). This friendship is traced by Josephus originally to the predictions made by the Essene Manahem to Herod, first in his boyhood when Manahem prophesied that he would be a king who at first would govern righteously but afterwards would commit crimes for which he would be punished. When he became king Herod asked Manahem how long he would reign and was told that for at least thirty years, but no other limit was given, which answer appears to have satisfied Herod.
We have no other evidence, I think, as to how the Essenes were treated by any other ruler in Palestine. But we may ask who are these ferocious or treacherous potentates here alluded to. Apart from the wild statement of Pliny, N.H. v. 17 that the Essenes had flourished in Palestine “per millia saeculorum,” the only allusion to their existence in earlier times is in Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 9, where he mentions them as existing in the times of Jonathan the high priest, i.e. about 150 B.C. But this does not of course show that they did not exist at a considerably earlier date, and Philo might well have had Antiochus Epiphanes in mind. One would hardly think that any of the Hasmoneans would appear in this light to Philo, though both Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus are credited with some barbarity. Archelaus at the other end, who also (B.J. ii. 7. 3) listened to the prediction of an Essene, would fit, but his date is too late, at any rate if the Quod Omn. Prob. is an early work of Philo.
§ 96. (Death of Calanus.) This is described by Strabo (xv. 1. 68), who says that while the historians differ on some minor points they agree that he accompanied Alexander and when in his seventy-third year he fell ill for the first time he burnt himself to death in Alexander’s presence. Strabo adds that Megasthenes denied that suicide was enjoined by the philosophers, who regarded it as showing a reckless disposition.
Ibid. (Text of the letter.) Cohn in the article in Hermes mentioned in the note on § 15 observes that it contains four instances of hiatus, which however need not concern us, as Philo though avoiding it himself does not trouble himself to correct them in quotations. Cohn would not therefore raise this objection to my proposed insertion of ἀρεταὶ ἡμῖν.
§ 99. “Burn me, consume my flesh,” etc. I am rather surprised that Nauck, T.G.F. p. 525, lists this quotation as from the Syleus. Is not its juxtaposition with the Syleus in this one of the four places where it occurs sufficiently accounted for by the fact that Heracles plays a part in both? But the attitude which it represents seems very different from the boisterous behaviour in the Satyric play.
§ 100. (The Syleus.) Who speaks the last four lines of the first quotation and the three of the second? Cohn, following Nauck, T.G.F. p. 526, says Syleus. Subject to correction from those who know the ways of Satyric drama better than I do, I should reconstruct the situation as follows. Hermes brings Heracles to market much as Diogenes is brought in § 123, and one of the possible purchasers asks the question whether he is φαῦλος. The auctioneer emphatically denies this, and then turning to Heracles says “Do try and look more like the sort of servant that people like to have.” Heracles then accommodates himself somewhat and is bought by Syleus, who finds out too late what a bad bargain he has made. Even if we assume that Cohn and Nauck are so far right that the last four lines from οὐδεὶς to ἐμβολήν are to be detached from the other four, I should still prefer to ascribe them to one of the ὠνητικῶς ἔχοντες, who declined to buy anyone so dangerous, rather than to Syleus.
§ 127. Theodorus. An account of this follower of Aristippus about the end of the fourth century is given by Diog. Laert. ii. 98–102, who mentions his important book Περὶ θεῶν and his denial of much of the popularly accepted morality. According to Diogenes Laertius he did not take refuge with Lysimachus on his expulsion from Athens but with Ptolemy, who sent him on an embassy to Lysimachus. Another saying attributed to him by Cicero and others is that when Lysimachus threatened to crucify him he replied that it was a matter of indifference to him whether he went to corruption in the earth or in the air.
§ 134. Ion. A contemporary of the great Tragedians and sufficiently eminent for Longinus to say that though he was faultless, polished and elegant no one in his senses would match all his tragedies taken together with one of Sophocles. Little has been preserved of his, and of the sixty-eight fragments listed by Nauck many are single words, few as long as this and only one longer.
§ 140. The Venerable Goddesses. Cohn’s statement that these are Demeter and Persephone seems rather rash. He adduces Ar. Thesm. 294
δούλοις γὰρ οὐκ ἔξεστʼ ἀκούειν τῶν λόγων,
and though this line has been suspected as a gloss the preceding words,
σὺ δʼ ἄπιθʼ, ὠ Θρᾶττʼ, ἐκποδών,
show that the slave girl was excluded. But it does not follow that this was the only cult from which slaves were excluded. Though no doubt the epithet σεμναὶ θεαί might be applied to Demeter and Persephone, its regular connotation is the Eumenides. The procession in honour of the Eumenides is alluded to by Aeschylus at the end of the play and is mentioned by other writers as including the carrying of sacred cakes (see Pfühl, De Atheniensium pompis sacris, pp. 92 ff., a reference given me by Dr. Cook). Pfiihl accepts without question that it is this to which Philo refers.
Also it would seem prima facie unlikely that the procession at the Thesmophoria would include men as well as women or that the cakes would be prepared by the Ephebi, though I do not know that there is positive evidence about this.