{
"language": "en",
"title": "Hypothetica",
"versionSource": "https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI",
"versionTitle": "Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1941",
"status": "locked",
"license": "Public Domain",
"versionNotes": "",
"actualLanguage": "en",
"languageFamilyName": "english",
"isSource": false,
"isPrimary": true,
"direction": "ltr",
"heTitle": "היפותטיקה",
"categories": [
"Second Temple",
"Philo"
],
"text": {
"Introduction": [
"INTRODUCTION TO EXTRACTS FROM THE HYPOTHETICA",
"We have no information about the two extracts which are here reproduced beyond what Eusebius tells us, namely that the first is taken from the second book of a work entitled by Philo “Hypothetica,” in which the author is writing a defence of the Jews, and that the second comes from the “apology for the Jews,” while in his history (ii. 18) when giving a list of the works of Philo he mentions one Περὶ Ἰουδαίων. The general assumption is that these three are one and the same.",
"Of the second extract, which describes the Essenes, nothing need be said here, as some remarks on its relation to Philo’s other account of these communities will be found in the Appendix. The first extract is divided into two main parts and both of these again have two sub-divisions joined together by the phrase μετὰ βραχέα φησίν. Very little discussion so far as I can learn has been devoted to it, though in many ways it is very curious and interesting.",
"The opening part gives the impression that he wishes to meet the hostile criticism of the Gentiles by giving a rationalistic version of the history. The Exodus is described as the movement of an increasing population seeking a fresh living-room and inspired by a yearning for their own natal land of which the Pentateuch knows nothing. The divine influence is indeed admitted but has been given through dreams and visions, a strange way of treating the visitations described in Exodus. The divine mission of Moses is kept very much in the background and the observer is invited to choose between natural explanations of the fact that he led the people successfully through the wilderness. When we come to the occupation of Palestine any appeal to the miraculous victories of Joshua is definitely set aside, and outsiders are left to choose between two possibilities, one that it was due to superior force, the other that the virtues of the incomers won the respect and submission of the native population. I find it difficult to understand the motive of Philo in this treatment of the story, or of Eusebius in recording it, for Eusebius’s purpose is to give an account of the Mosaic constitution as it is depicted by the two most distinguished Jewish writers, and on this it has no bearing.",
"The second part of the extract, which does describe this constitution, is at least in the first subdivision curious in another way. We naturally compare it with the vastly longer and fuller account in the four books on the Special Laws and the De Virtutibus. The scope of the two is so hugely different that we should not expect more than the smallest fragment of the great Exposition in these few pages. The strange thing is that they contain so much which is ignored in the Exposition. There we hear little about the subjection of women, or of the inviolability of dedicated offerings or of the ways of obtaining release from these on which so much stress is here laid, or of the minor duties of supplying water, fire and burial. Humanity to animals is stressed in both, but the one law bearing on this which is mentioned here is not noticed there. The contrast no doubt is partly accounted for in the words where he states his intention to note the unwritten as well as the written, but only partly to my mind.",
"The second subdivision of this second part on the other hand, which deals with the observation of the sabbath, does not contradict anything that we find elsewhere in Philo. The account of the meetings in the Synagogue is much the same as that given in his description of the Essenes in the Quod Omn. Prob. and of the Therapeutae in the De Vit. Cont. and of the nation as a whole in Spec. Leg. ii. 62, and the stress laid on the sabbatical year both as a tribute to the land itself and an act of charity to the poor is thoroughly in his spirit.",
"The meaning of the title is obscure. The theory of Viger that it means “suppositions,” between which those addressed are invited to choose, only fits the opening sections, and was superseded by that of Bernays, who suggested that it meant exhortations or directions on conduct. Bernays shows that not only is ὑποθῆκαι often used in this sense but the ὑποθετικὸς λόγος is a technical term for a discourse with this object. The examples he quotes show that the hypothetical discourse has a close connexion with the protreptic, the term which Philo so often uses, and that in one case at least it is to be distinguished from the latter as the summary of counsels which closes the discourse. Still this does not seem to agree with the nature of the treatise so far as we can judge it from the specimens which Eusebius records. A hortatory discourse is a very different thing from a defence, at least, a defence of this kind. Bernays indeed quotes a passage in which the closely connected if not identical protreptic is stated on the one hand to show the high worth of virtue and on the other hand to convict those who deny or accuse or otherwise defame philosophy. But this does not apply to the opponents whom Philo is refuting. They do not attack the philosophy of the Law as he represents it, but either deny or are not aware that the Jews have any such philosophy.",
"The text of these extracts is not included in the Editio Maior of Cohn. As here printed it is that of the Editio Minor. It is not stated who is responsible for this, and there is no Apparatus Criticus. I have however carefully compared the text with those of Heinichen 1842, Dindorf 1867, and Gifford 1903, in their editions of the Preparatio. Gifford has such an apparatus, and in his introduction gives a full account of the manuscripts of which he obtained collations. I am not aware of any later edition.",
"The following is an analysis of the two extracts:",
"FIRST EXTRACT, viii. 6. 1–9, 7. 1–20",
"Part I. The first subdivision (6. 1) gives a short account of the causes which led to the Exodus from Egypt. The second subdivision (6. 2–9) suggests for consideration different explanations of the success of Moses in leading the people though the wilderness (2–4) and of the conquest of Palestine (5–8) and ends with an emphatic assertion of the devotion of the people through all the centuries to Moses and the Law (9).",
"Part II. The first subdivision (7. 1–9) gives a general sketch of the Mosaic constitution, contrasting its severity with the laxity of Gentile law and practice (1–3), particularly dwelling on the inviolability attached to vows and dedications (3–5). Other laws and customs are mentioned largely dwelling on duties of charity and mercy (6–9). The second subdivision (7. 10–20) describes the Sabbath as an institution intended mainly to provide opportunities for studying the law, gives a short account of the meetings and commends the universal knowledge of the Law which they effect (10–14). It then passes on to the sabbatical year, described as a proper relaxation for the land itself (15–18) and as a charitable institution, because the fruits which grew from it untilled were at the service of the poor and needy (19–20).",
"SECOND EXTRACT, viii. 11. 1–18",
"This is merely another description of the Essene communities, a general description (1–2), the mature age required for admission (3), their simple and communal life (4–5), their industry and practice of every kind of innocent activity (6–9), how the proceeds are put into a common bank (10–11), even clothes being held in common (12), their care for the sick and aged (13), their repudiation of marriage and exclusion of women, with some of their reasons for so doing (14–18). A final eulogy (18).",
"The references to chapters in the eighth book are those in all editions of the Preparatio. The references to sections with the chapters are those in Cohn’s Editio Minor. Sections are also numbered in Heinichen’s edition, but do not correspond to these. Gifford has no such sections, but gives the pages of Viger’s edition with subdivisions a, b, c, d. I have noted these pages but not the sub-divisions. I have also noted the pages in Mangey, vol. ii. They are to be distinguished from the others by the square brackets."
],
"": [
"HYPOTHETICA",
"(APOLOGY FOR THE JEWS)",
"Euseb. Praep. Evang. viii. 5. 11. Let us proceed to survey the constitution established by the legislation of Moses as described by authors held in high honour among the Jews. I will begin by quoting Philo’s account of their journey from Egypt under the leadership of Moses from the first book of the work which he entitled Hypothetica, where, while speaking in defence of the Jews as against their accusers, he says as follows:",
"6. 1. Their original ancestor belonged to the Chaldeans, but this people who had emigrated from Syria to Egypt in past time removed from Egypt partly because of the vast size of the population for which the land was insufficient. Also it was due to the high spirit of enterprise in which they had been bred and to the revelations of God made by dreams and visions bidding them go forth, and what influenced them as much as anything was that they had providentially been seized by a yearning for their ancient fatherland. It was from there that this ancestor of theirs had passed over into Egypt either because God had so decreed or through some prevision of his own. There he had prospered to an unequalled degree so that from his time to the present day their nation has existed and survives and is so exceedingly populous.",
"6. 2. Shortly afterwards he says:",
"Their departure and journey was made under the command of one who nothing differed from the ordinary run of men. So you may say if you like: indeed there were people also who abused him as an impostor and prating mountebank. Well, that was a fine kind of imposture and knavery which enabled him to bring the whole people in complete safety amid drought and hunger and ignorance of the way and lack of everything as well as if they had abundance of everything and supplies obtainable from the neighbouring nations, and further to keep them free from internal factions and above all obedient to himself.",
"6. 3. And observe that these conditions lasted not for a little while but for a space of time during which even a household living in all comfort could not be expected to remain in unanimity. Yet neither thirst nor hunger nor bodily decay, nor fear of the future, nor ignorance of the course which events would take roused these deluded and perishing masses of men against that impostor.",
"6. 4. How will you explain this? Shall we say that he had some kind of skill or eloquence or intelligence great enough to surmount so many strangely different circumstances which were carrying them all to perdition? Otherwise we must suppose that either his subjects were naturally not stupid nor discontented but docile and gifted with some prevision of the future or else that they were thoroughly bad though God softened their discontents and kept their present and their future state as it were in his charge. Whichever of these views you consider to be the truth it appears to redound mightily to his praise and honour and zeal for them all.",
"6. 5. So much for the story of the migration. But when they came to this land the holy records show clearly how they established themselves there and occupied the country. Yet in discussing the probable facts of this occupation I think it better to go not so much by the historical narrative as by what our reason tells us about them.",
"6. 6. Which alternative do you prefer? Were they still superior in the number of their fighting men though they had fared so ill to the end, still strong and with weapons in their hand, and did they then take the land by force, defeating the combined Syrians and Phoenicians when fighting in their own country? Or shall we suppose that they were unwarlike and feeble, quite few in numbers and destitute of warlike equipment, but won the respect of their opponents who voluntarily surrendered their land to them and that as a direct consequence they shortly afterwards built their temple and established everything else needed for religion and worship?",
"6. 7. This would clearly show that they were acknowledged as dearly beloved of God even by their enemies. For those whose land they suddenly invaded with the intention of taking it from them were necessarily their enemies.",
"6. 8. And if they got credit and honour in the sight of their enemies surely it shows that they exceeded all in good fortune. What qualities shall we put in addition to this good fortune in the second and the third place? Shall we give the preference to their respect for law and loyal obedience or to their religion and justice and piety? Whichever you choose the fact remains that so great was their veneration for that man who gave them their laws, whatever view we take of him, that anything which approved itself to him approved itself also to them.",
"6. 9. So whether what he told them came from his own reasoning powers or was learnt from some supernatural source they held it all to come from God and after the lapse of many years, how many I cannot say exactly, but at any rate for more than two thousand, they have not changed a single word of what he wrote but would even endure to die a thousand deaths sooner than accept anything contrary to the laws and customs which he had ordained.",
"6. 10. After these remarks he gives the following summary of the constitution laid down for the nation in the laws of Moses.",
"7. 1. Do we find any of these things or anything similar among the Jews; anything which so savours of mildness and lenity, anything which permits of legal proceedings or extenuations or postponements or assessments of penalties and reductions of assessments? Nothing at all, everything is clear and simple. If you are guilty of pederasty or adultery or rape of a young person, even of a female, for I need not mention the case of a male, similarly if you prostitute yourself or allow or purpose or intend any action which your age makes indecent the penalty is death.",
"7. 2. So too if you commit an outrage on the person of a slave or a free man, if you confine him in bonds or kidnap and sell him. So too with larceny of things profane and sacred, so too with impiety not only of act but even of a casual word and not only against God Himself (may He forgive the very thought of such a thing which should not even be mentioned), but also against a father or mother or benefactor of your own the penalty is the same, death and not the common ordinary death: the offender in words only must be stoned to death. His guilt is as great as if he were the perpetrator of impious actions.",
"7. 3. Other rules again there are of various kinds: wives must be in servitude to their husbands, a servitude not imposed by violent ill-treatment but promoting obedience in all things. Parents must have power over their children to keep them safe and tend them carefully. Each individual is master of his possessions unless he has solemnly named the name of God over them declaring that he has given them to God. And if he has merely made a chance verbal promise of them he must not touch or handle them, but hold himself at once debarred from them all.",
"7. 4. I need not consider the case of his robbing what belongs to the gods or plundering what others have dedicated; even with his own, I repeat, a chance word of dedication spoken unawares deprives him of them all and if he repents or denies his promise his life is forfeit also.",
"7. 5. The same holds of any other persons over whom he has authority. If a man has devoted his wife’s sustenance to a sacred purpose he must refrain from giving her that sustenance; so with a father’s gifts to his son or a ruler’s to his subjects. The chief and most perfect way of releasing dedicated property is by the priest refusing it, for he is empowered by God to accept it or not. Next to this, that given by those who at the time have the higher authority may lawfully declare that God is propitiated so that there is no necessity to accept the dedication.",
"7. 6. Besides these there is a host of other things which belong to unwritten customs and institutions or are contained in the laws themselves. What a man would hate to suffer he must not do himself to others. What he has not laid down he must not take up either from a garden or a wine press or a threshing floor. He must not filch anything great or small from a stack. He must not grudge to give fire to one who needs it or close off running water. If the poor or the cripple beg food of him he must give it as an offering of religion to God.",
"7. 7. He must not debar dead bodies from burial, but throw upon them as much earth as piety demands, nor disturb in any way the resting places and monuments of the departed. He must not by fettering or any other means worsen the plight of him who is in hard straits; he must not make abortive the generative power of men by gelding nor that of women by sterilizing drugs and other devices. There must be no maltreatment of animals contrary to what is appointed by God or even by a law-giver; no destroying of their seed nor defrauding of their offspring.",
"7. 8. No unjust scales, no false measurements, no fraudulent coinage must be substituted.” The secrets of a friend must not be divulged in enmity. What need in heaven’s name have we of your Buzyges and his precepts? There are other matters to be noted: children must not be parted from their parents even if you hold them as captive, nor a wife from her husband even if you are her owner by lawful purchase.",
"7. 9. These no doubt are more important and serious matters, but there are others, little things of casual occurrence. Do not render desolate the nesting home of birds or make the appeals of animals of none effect when they seem to fly to you for help as they sometimes do. Nor commit any lesser offence of the kind. These things are of nothing worth, you may say, yet great is the law which ordains them and ever watchful is the care which it demands. Great too and appalling are the warnings and imprecations which accompany it. And such deeds are everywhere surveyed and avenged by God Himself.",
"7. 10. Shortly afterwards he says:",
"Is it not a marvel that for a whole day they should have kept from transgressing on any occasion any of the ordinances, or rather for many days, not one only, days too which did not follow straight on each other but only after intervals, and intervals of seven during which habits belonging to the secular days naturally hold the mastery?",
"7. 11. You may ask: Is not this merely a case of practising self-control so that they should be capable of abstaining from toil if necessary no less than of toilsome activity? No, it was a great and marvellous achievement which the lawgiver had in view. He considered that they should not only be capable of both action and inaction in other matters but also should have expert knowledge of their ancestral laws and customs.",
"7. 12. What then did he do? He required them to assemble in the same place on these seventh days, and sitting together in a respectful and orderly manner hear the laws read so that none should be ignorant of them.",
"7. 13. And indeed they do always assemble and sit together, most of them in silence except when it is the practice to add something to signify approval of what is read. But some priest who is present or one of the elders reads the holy laws to them and expounds them point by point till about the late afternoon, when they depart having gained both expert knowledge of the holy laws and considerable advance in piety.",
"7. 14. Do you think that this marks them as idlers or that any work is equally vital to them? And so they do not resort to persons learned in the law with questions as to what they should do or not do, nor yet by keeping independent transgress in ignorance of the law, but any one of them whom you attack with inquiries about their ancestral institutions can answer you readily and easily. The husband seems competent to transmit knowledge of the laws to his wife, the father to his children, the master to his slaves.",
"7. 15. Again with regard to the seventh year one can without difficulty use much the same though perhaps not identical words. For here it is not they themselves who abstain from work as on those seventh days, but it is the land which they leave idle against the days to come hereafter to give it fertility, for they believe that it gains much by getting a respite and is then tilled in the next year without being exhausted by unbroken cultivation.",
"7. 16. You may see that the same treatment of our bodies tends to strengthen them. Physicians prescribe some intermissions and relaxations not merely when health has to be restored. For monotony without a break, particularly in work, is always seen to be injurious.",
"7. 17. Here is a proof that their object is as I describe. If anyone offered to cultivate this same land during the seventh year much more strenuously than before and to surrender to them the whole of the fruits they would absolutely refuse. For they do not think that it is only themselves who should abstain from work, though if they did so it would be nothing to wonder at, but that the land should gain at their hands a respite and easing off to make a fresh start in receiving renewed attention and husbandry.",
"7. 18. For what in heaven’s name was to hinder them from letting out the land during the year and collecting the produce of that year at its end from the others who tilled it? But, as I have said, they entirely refuse anything of the kind, doubtless out of consideration for the land.",
"7. 19. We have a truly great proof of their humanity in the following also. Since they themselves abstain from labour during that year, they think that they should not gather or lay by the fruits produced which do not accrue to them from their own toil, but since God has provided them, sprung from the soil by its own action, they should grant them to be used freely by way farers and others who desire or need them.",
"7. 20. You have now had enough on this subject, for you will not require me to show that these rules for the seventh days are established firmly among them by the law. Probably you have often heard ere now from many physicians, scientists and philosophers what influence it has over the life of all things and of mankind in particular. This is what I have to say about the seventh day.",
"11. 1. Multitudes of his disciples has the lawgiver trained for the life of fellowship. These people are called Essenes, a name awarded to them doubtless in recognition of their holiness. They live in many cities of Judaea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members.",
"11. 2. Their persuasion is not based on birth, for birth is not a descriptive mark of voluntary associations, but on their zeal for virtue and desire to promote brotherly love.",
"11. 3. Thus no Essene is a mere child nor even a stripling or newly bearded, since the characters of such are unstable with a waywardness corresponding to the immaturity of their age, but full grown and already verging on old age, no longer carried under by the tide of the body nor led by the passions, but enjoying the veritable, the only real freedom.",
"11. 4. This freedom is attested by their life. None of them allows himself to have any private property, either house or slave or estate or cattle or any of the other things which are amassed and abundantly procured by wealth, but they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common.",
"11. 5. They live together formed into clubs, bands of comradeship with common meals, and never cease to conduct all their affairs to serve the general weal.",
"11. 6. But they have various occupations at which they labour with untiring application and never plead cold or heat or any of the violent changes in the atmosphere as an excuse. Before the sun is risen they betake themselves to their familiar tasks and only when it sets force them selves to return, for they delight in them as much as do those who are entered for gymnastic competitions.",
"11. 7. For they consider that the exercises which they practise whatever they may be are more valuable to life, more pleasant to soul and body and more lasting than those of the athlete in as much as they can still be plied with vigour when that of the body is past its prime.",
"11. 8. Some of them labour on the land skilled in sowing and planting, some as herdsmen taking charge of every kind of cattle and some superintend the swarms of bees.",
"11. 9. Others work at the handicrafts to avoid the sufferings which are forced upon us by our indispensable requirements and shrink from no innocent way of getting a livelihood.",
"11. 10. Each branch when it has received the wages of these so different occupations gives it to one person who has been appointed as treasurer. He takes it and at once buys what is necessary and provides food in abundance and anything else which human life requires.",
"11. 11. Thus having each day a common life and a common table they are content with the same conditions, lovers of frugality who shun expensive luxury as a disease of both body and soul.",
"11. 12. And not only is their table in common but their clothing also. For in winter they have a stock of stout coats ready and in summer cheap vests, so that he who wishes may easily take any garment he likes, since what one has is held to belong to all and conversely what all have one has.",
"11. 13. Again if anyone is sick he is nursed at the common expense and tended with care and thoughtfulness by all. The old men too even if they are childless are treated as parents of a not merely numerous but very filial family and regularly close their life with an exceedingly prosperous and comfortable old age; so many are those who give them precedence and honour as their due and minister to them as a duty voluntarily and deliberately accepted rather than enforced by nature.",
"11. 14. Furthermore they eschew marriage because they clearly discern it to be the sole or the principal danger to the maintenance of the communal life, as well as because they particularly practise continence. For no Essene takes a wife, because a wife is a selfish creature, excessively jealous and an adept at beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing him by her continued impostures.",
"11. 15. For by the fawning talk which she practise and the other ways in which she plays her part like an actress on the stage she first ensnares the sight and hearing, and when these subjects as it were have been duped she cajoles the sovereign mind.",
"11. 16. And if children come, filled with the spirit of arrogance and bold speaking she gives utterance with more audacious hardihood to things which before she hinted covertly and under disguise, and casting off all shame she compels him to commit actions which are all hostile to the life of fellowship.",
"11. 17. For he who is either fast bound in the love lures of his wife or under the stress of nature makes his children his first care ceases to be the same to others and unconsciously has become a different man and has passed from freedom into slavery.",
"11. 18. Such then is the life of the Essenes, a life so highly to be prized that not only commoners but also great kings look upon them with admiration and amazement, and the approbation and honours which they give add further veneration to their venerable name."
],
"Appendix": [
"APPENDIX TO HYPOTHETICA",
"§ 7. 5. (Absolution from vows.) On this Edersheim (The Temple, its Ministry and Services, p. 69) says that release from a vow which affected the interests of others might be obtained from one sage or from three persons in the presence of him who had been affected by the vow. He does not state the authority for this and it seems strange that in treating the subject he does not refer to this passage in Philo. In the same connexion he remarks that all laws were limited by higher obligations: according to the Mishnah a man could not vow what of his fortune he owed to others nor his widow’s portion. Philo’s statement that a man by vowing his wife’s τροφή could bind himself not to support her agrees with the practice denounced in Mark 7:10 ff., but is contrary to the principle described by Edersheim, and it is strange to find Philo apparently approving it.",
"§ 7. 8. (Precepts of Buzyges.) The rare passages alluding to these are collected by Bernays (see Introd. p. 407 note b). The Paroemiographer, p. 233, has ὁ γὰρ Βουζύγης Ἀθήνησι ὁ τὸν ἱερὸν ἄροτον ἐπιτελῶν (“instituted the sacred rite of the plough”) ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἀρᾶται καὶ τοῖς μὴ κοινηνοῦσι κατὰ τὸν βίον ὕδατος ἢ πυρός, ἢ μὴ ὑποφαίνουσιν ὁδὸν πλανωμένοις. A scholiast on Soph. Ant. 255 mentions the saying that Buzyges cursed those who left a corpse unburied. Clem. Alex. Strom. ii. 503 says that those who bid others do what they judge to be not profitable to themselves οὐκ ἂν ἐκφύγοιεν τὴν Βουζυγίαν ἀράν. Though the name of Buzyges is not mentioned, there is clearly an allusion to the same in a fragment of Diphilus where refusals of charity are said to be denounced in the “curses.” Cicero, De Off. iii. 54 f., speaks of refusing to show the way as denounced “Athenis exsecrationibus publicis” and interprets it to include those who allow a purchaser to be defrauded by a mistake. Bernays notes that three of the specific things here mentioned, the duty of showing the way, allowing free use of fire and water, and giving burial are all mentioned by Philo. Bernays does not give any quotation for the statement that the curses are repeated by a descendant of Buzyges at a feast of Demeter.",
"§ 7. 9. (Appeal of animals.) The statement seems to me remarkable and I should like to meet with some illustration of it or comment on it particularly in the form given it by Josephus. When is it that animals enter our houses as suppliants? The only thing in the law which suggests helping animals in trouble is the command in Deut. 22:4 to help to raise up a fallen beast and there really the point is helping the owner.",
"Philo in De Virt. 125–147 has insisted earnestly on the duty of kindness to animals, but it is remarkable that of the points which he mentions, namely the prohibitions against (1) separating the mother and offspring before seven days, (2) killing the two in the same day, (3) seething the lamb in its mother’s milk, (4) muzzling the treading ox, (5) yoking different kinds of animals together, none is mentioned here, at any rate definitely, though (1) may be alluded to in § 7. On the other hand the one which precedes this here is omitted there."
]
},
"schema": {
"heTitle": "היפותטיקה",
"enTitle": "Hypothetica",
"key": "Hypothetica",
"nodes": [
{
"heTitle": "הקדמה",
"enTitle": "Introduction"
},
{
"heTitle": "",
"enTitle": ""
},
{
"heTitle": "הערות",
"enTitle": "Appendix"
}
]
}
}