Philo, Volume VIII: On the Special Laws, Book 4. On the Virtues. On Rewards and Punishments

485 Pages·1939·7.25 MB·English

by  Philo Judaeus

THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY
FOUNDED BY JAMES LOEB
EDITED BY
G. P. GOOLD
PREVIOUS EDITORS
Τ. E. PAGE E. CAPPS
W. H. D. ROUSE L. A. POST
Ε. H. WARMINGTON
PHILO
VIII
LCL341

PHILO
VOLUME VIII
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY
F. H. COLSON
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
First published 1939
Reprinted 1954, i960, 1968, 1989, 1999
LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY® is a registered trademark
of the President and Fellows of Harvard College
ISBN 0-674-99376-4
Pnnted in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd,
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on acid-free paper.
Bound by Hunter 6- Foulis Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland.
CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION ix
LIST OF PHILO'S WORKS xxv
ON THE SPECIAL LAWS, IV
INTRODUCTION 3
TEXT AND TRANSLATION 6
ON THE VIRTUES
INTRODUCTION 158
TEXT AND TRANSLATION 162
ON REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS
INTRODUCTION 309
TEXT AND TRANSLATION 312
APPENDICES
I. TO DE SPECIALIBUS LEGIBUS, IV 425
II. TO DE VIRTUTIBUS 440
III. TO DE PRAEMIIS ET POENIS 451

PREFACE TO VOLUME VIII
THIS volume concludes the exposition of the Law
which began in vol. vi., and also vol. v. of Cohn
and Wendlands edition. There is only one other
point which need be mentioned here.
As in vols. vi. and vii., I have made full use of the
German translation published in 1906. The first of
the three treatises here translated, Spec. Leg. iv., was
the work of Heinemann, who also translated the
three first books of the Special Laws, which formed
the main part of my vol. vii. In the preface to that
volume I said that I occasionally found myself differ­
ing from Heinemann as to the meaning of particular
sentences and phrases. I say very much the same of
his translation of this fourth book. But the transla­
tion of the other two treatises, the De VirtuUbus and
De Praemiis, comes from Dr. Cohn himself, whose
labours on the text embodied in his great edition
have earned the unbounded gratitude of every student
of Philo. I have been startled by the number of
times in which I find myself in disagreement with
him, a disagreement extending beyond the transla­
tion to the text particularly in the cases where he
vii
PREFACE
seems to me to have printed unjustified emenda­
tions. Though it may sometimes seem disputatious,
I have felt bound to record in the footnotes or
appendix my reasons for differing from him, as what
is only due to so high an authority.
As in the last volume, I am also indebted to
Goodenough's Jewish Jurisprudence in Egypt and
Heinemann's Phihns Bildung, but not to the same
extent. Goodenough's discussion only extended to
the first part of Spec. Leg. iv., and Heinemann s
references are also less copious.
F. H. C.
CAMBRIDGE, December 1938.
viii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
THE first ninety pages of this volume complete the
survey of the laws referable to the Ten Command­
ments, and cover the eighth, ninth and tenth, though
on a scale by no means commensurate with the 130
pages in which he treated the sixth and seventh in the
preceding volume. Here the eighth is well exempli­
fied from the particular laws. For the ninth Philo has
said (De Decahgo 172) " that it forbids not only false
witness but deceit, false accusation, co-operation
with evildoers and using honesty for a screen for
dishonesty, all of which have been the subjects of
appropriate laws." Here he can hardly be said to
make good the statement in the last clause. The
third of these four points is dealt with fully, and
perhaps the fourth, though incidentally. But after
the discussion of witness in general this part of the
treatise is mainly occupied with the qualities required
of a judge, a matter which belongs rather, as he
himself recognizes later, to the second half of the
treatise on justice.
Though Philo has said (De Decahgo 174) that many
ordinances fall under the tenth commandment he
does not produce any except the dietary laws, and
these are not really germane. Even if we admit his
assumption that the flesh of swine and that of other
animals are forbidden because they are the most
ix