"Philo's Bible Revisited: the ‘Aberrant Texts’ and their Quotations of Moses"


by Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania
for Interpreting Translation
ed. F. Garcia Martinez and M. Vervenne (Peeters, 2005[?]), 237-253

 

The Greek manuscripts of Philo’s writings have not been transmitted to us unscathed. This has long been known, and is the subject of the densely detailed monograph by Peter Katz (also known as W.P.M.Walters) entitled Philo's Bible: the Aberrant Text of Bible Quotations in some Philonic Writings and its Place in the Textual History of the Greek Bible (Cambridge: University Press, 1950). In 1967, Dominique Barthélemy reviewed and expanded this inquiry in various directions, also densely detailed, arguing that the secondary text of the biblical quotations was based exclusively on Aquila’s version (Katz had concluded that it was more generally “Hebraizing”), that this combined with other evidence to indicate that the “retoucher” was Jewish (Katz thought Christian), that the evidence of the preserved MSS pointed to two Caesarean editions from the early third century of which the “retouched” one was the earliest (Katz had placed it in the 5th century in Antioch), and finally, that the “retouching” could be ascribed to Rabbi Hoshiya or his associates in the Caesarea of Origen’s time (first half of the third century CE).\1/


\1/"Est-ce Hoshaya Rabba qui censura le 'Commentaire allégorique'? A partir des retouches faites aux citations bibliques, étude sur la tradition textuelle du Commentaire Allégorique de Philon" = pp 45-78 in Philon d'Alexandrie: Lyon 11-15 Septembre 1966, colloques nationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris 1967) reprinted in Barthélemy's  Études d’histoire du Texte de l’ancient testament (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 21; Göttingen and Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and Éditions Universitaires, 1978), pp. 140-173, with additional notes on 390-391.

 

Barthélemy's article is a treasury of suggestive details that deserve close attention, used to support some rather bold conjectures that are unlikely to command easy assent. David Runia treats Barthélemy rather gently in his masterful study of Philo in Early Christian Literature, and lists five main revisional features identified by Barthélemy in support of his thesis/theses: (1) use of Aquila, (2) replacement of logos by nomos in a few passages, (3) a striking rewriting of Agr 51 and its reference to the Logos as “firstborn son,” (4) change of the name “Jesus” to “Joshua” in two instances, and (5) substitution of a more general formula (e.g. “the sacred word says”) for the specific “Moses says” in ten passages in Somn 1.\2/ I am especially fascinated by the last of these, and will focus on it below.


\2/ David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 3: Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature 3; Assen / Minneapolis: Van Gorcum / Fortress, 1993), pp. 24-25. I will employ the abbreviations for Philonic treatises found on p. xv of Runia's monograph, which in most instances will be quite transparent.

 

According to Runia, Philo’s writings are preserved primarily “in some 65 [Greek] mss dating from the 9th to the 17th centuries” (22), which are divided into several sub-groups by their editors (Cohn-Wendland\3/). Barthélemy has attempted to chart the contents and order of Philo’s approximately 35 separate treatises preserved in these sub-groups,\4/  and has drawn from his chart rather firm conclusions about the history of transmission of Philonic texts from Caesarea in Origen’s time to the various extant medieval copies and families.


\3/ L. Cohn and P. Wendland, Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt (6 vols., Berlin: Georgius Reimerus, 1896-1915). Cohn is responsible for vols 1 and 4-5, Wendland for vols 2-3; Cohn and Reiter edited vol. 6.

\4/ On p. 63(=158 of the reprint), with each treatise represented by a number. On p. 78(=173) he lists the treatises by name. Exactly how many separate treatises there were (or are) depends on how one counts those with multiple "volumes" -- each of which presumably once existed as a separate scroll or had its own heading. Barthélemy divides the MSS into eight sub-groups for his purposes, but three of his "groups" are actually single MSS (U, P, and M; see further below) while his "N" is the supposed original from which various excerpts have been drawn in one sub-group of MSS. Otherwise his sub-groups are in general agreement with Cohn-Wendland (designated FGHA; P does not seem to represent a sub-group for Cohn-Wendland, but does have one ally; for all practical purposes, F is a single MS, but with two separable parts).


It is not surprising that the textual relationships between the MSS and sub-groups are complex, as is well illustrated by a close look at those eleven treatises that show evidence of being infected by the “abberent” Greek biblical text (mainly, if not exclusively Aquila's text). Except for Virt (Barthélemy’s #26), all the infected treatises come from Philo’s “Allegorical Commentary” – see the following chart. MSS U and F share abridged or mutilated forms of Leg 1 and Cher, and are considered to be a distinct family with a common archetype for the 9 treatises that appear in both, including also infected texts of Deus, Agr (part),and  Plant (i.e. a total of 5 of the 11 infected treatises). MS F also has three other infected works – Sobr, Congr and Somn 1 which are absent from MS U – but MS U contains a very limited collection of Philonic treatises (5 more [uninfected] beyond the 6 [infected] already mentioned), and is in fact the only MS in which Post has survived (uninfected)\5/ as well as the aberrent/infected version of Gig (a treatise not included in MS F). The older part of MS F, on the other hand, contains a total of 28 (of the 35 or so) Philonic treatises, and sometimes aligns with the other MSS and sub-groups in its textual characteristics. Thus between them, MSS UF attest all but two of the “infected” treatises – Her and Virt. Interestingly, MS F does include the various parts of Virt (in three different locations!), but in their non-infected form.

 

\5/ Post  is also mentioned in the table of contents of a mutilated 11th century parchment codex that has perhaps been given an exaggerated importance in the arguments for Caesarea as the source of the archetype or archetypes behind the existing MSS (so already Cohn[-Wendland] 1, iii, accepted by Barthélemy as well as Runia); this MS, codex Vindobonensis Theologicus Graecus 29 (designated "V" in Cohn[-Wendland] 1, xxxv), apparently once contained a dozen or so Philonic tractates (including six books of Questions in Genesis, of which only four survive, in fragments), but now preserves only the first half of Opif. But of special interest is the note, in the form of a cross, that "Euzoius the Bishop made new copies on skins/parchment" (facsimiles in Runia, after p. 20). A similar statement is found in Jerome, Vir ill 113 and Ep 34.1, with reference to a Euzoios who was bishop of Caesarea around 376-379 and who attempted to restore some of the aging books in the library of Origen and Pamphilus by copying them "in membranis." The jump from this evidence in MS V, which in its present form explicitly covers only a small portion of the Philonic corpus (and includes several subsequently lost treatises as well), to a comprehensive Caesarean edition of all the surviving works of Philo is daring indeed!


While the actual presence of textual differences among the extant MSS led to the identification of the “aberrent” Aquila-type texts – and to debates about which text-form was primary, which secondary\6/ – it was noticed that similar Aquila-like readings appeared in the scriptural quotations in some treatises for which no textual alternative has survived in the preserved MSS. Thus the following are also considered aberrent, although no variant, non-infected texts have been identified: Plant, Sobr, Her.

 

\6/ Claims have been made for the primacy of the "aberrent" text, but it is difficult to resist the arguments of Katz, developed further by Barthélemy, against such a view. See, for example, G. E. Howard, "The 'Aberrant' Text of Philo's Quotations Recon­sidered,"  HUCA 44 (1973) 197-209, and Barthélemy's strong response in his added note to p. 140 in the Études reprint, p.390-391.

 

In hopes of shedding clearer light on the situation, here is a chart that lists only the "aberrent" texts, with their supporting MSS on the left and non-infected witnesses on the right (using Barthélemy's notation for MSS and sub-groups and Runia's shorthand for titles):


Treatise            
B's #  
Aberrent Text MSS           
||
 Non-Aberrent Text MSS
Leg 1a (#2a) U F




[N]
 ||


P
 A
 M
Cher (part one) (#3.1) U F





||
G
 H
 P
 A
 M
Gig (#7) U






||

H
 P
 A
 M
Deus (#8) U F




[N]
 ||
G
 H
 P
 A
 M
Agr (part) (#9.1) U F





||
G
 H
A
 M
Plant (#10) U
 F
 G
 H

M
 [N]
 ||






Sobr (#12)   F
 G
 H


[N]
 ||






Her (#15)  

G
 H
 P
 A
[N]
 ||






Congr (#16)  
F
 G



[N]
 ||

H
A
 M
Somn 1 (#19a)  
F
 G
 H
 P

[N]
 ||



A
 M
Virt (#26)  

G




||
 F
H
 P
 A
 M
 [N]


 

Although Barthélemy tries to work back from these late MSS to make a case for two early Caesarean recensions, one partly infected and one not, his argument is weakened by the obvious mixing of tractates and of their relative positions in the surviving witnesses. He is forced to posit a first edition (based largely on treatises common to U and F) in which only some treatises have been retouched – an edition which he conjectures might have been made for the Jerusalem/Aelia Christian library by a Jewish scholar/corrector in Origen's retinue  – and a (somewhat later) edition of an uninfected sort (based largely on families HAM) that includes many, but not all of the same treatises. It seems more sensible to me to make a clean division between the infected version or versions and the uninfected, regardless of where they may appear in the preserved MSS, especially since the favored Caesarean setting in the first part of the third century would be in the period of transition from the scroll and mini-codex technology of the 2nd century to the 4th/5th century development of mega-codices. Thus the criteria for identification become less a matter of comparing extant manuscripts and more a search for telltale features within the individual texts. To put it another way, it makes sense to me, at the theoretical level at least, to include only the infected treatises in a supposed early collection/edition of Philo’s works – an edition that might have been made piecemeal, by juxtaposing separate scrolls or mini-codices, or more homogeneously (physically speaking) in codex based anthologies of Philonic treatises.\7/ Of course, we have no way to tell whether the work of the retoucher extended to other treatises for which no evidence has survived. This is entirely possible, just as it is probable that non-infected versions of Plant, Sobr, and Her also survived for a time.


\7/ The evidence of the two extensive papyrus codices from perhaps the 3rd century is relevant here. The first, which was known to Cohn-Wendland and is now housed at Paris (Bibliotheque Nationale Suppl Gr 1120), was found at Coptos in upper Egypt and was initially dated to the 6th century by its editor, Scheil, but subsequent expert opinions opt for 3rd (Kenyon, Hunt) or perhaps 4th century (Merell).  It  contains two Philonic tractates,  Her and  Sacr in that order.  It is also unusual for having its covers preserved (and in the binding were fragments of Christian Gospels!), which held together four smaller gatherings of papyri. The other papyrus codex has been pieced together from Oxyrhynchos papyrus fragments also dated to the 3rd century. It was copied in three different hands, and the pages were numbered ("289" is the highest number preserved). Some fragments do not correspond to known Philonic texts, but otherwise the following treatises are represented: Sacr, Leg 1 - 2, De pietate [? a lost part of Virt], De ebrietate 1 [lost, but mentioned by Eusebius], Ebr, Post, , and Det (so Runia p. 23, citing J. R. Royse, "The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus of Philo," Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 17 [1980] 155-165). Hopefully more of this codex will be forthcoming from the Oxford storerooms. If these papyri codices are representative of the forms in which Philo's works circulated in the third century in Egypt, it is clear that we must "think small" in attempting to imagine the textual developments of that period. It is not likely that more than eight or so treatises would have been collected together in a single codex (depending, of course, on sizes of the individual treatises and of the codex), and undoubtedly more limited groupings (or single treatises) were also in circulation, and probably even some scrolls as well as mini-codices. 

At this point, things become even more complex, since without explicit textual variation, it is difficult to determine whether there has been tampering or not. Some cases are clearer than others, as is true of the presence of Aquila-like scriptural texts even where no alternate Philonic variants have survived (Plant, Sobr, Her). Similarly, the attested variation of logos [=MAPHG]/nomos [=UFL\2] in Deus 57 increases the probability that a similar adjustment was made in Plant 8 and 10, as supported by the secondary evidence from quotations in Clement and Eusebius [Plant 8: logos =Eus / nomos =UFMGH; Plant 10: logos =Eus / nomos =UFMGH]. Similarly, in Agr 51 the reference to logos as "firstborn son" is eliminated (MS U) and/or "clarified" to refer to an archangel (UF, perhaps alluding to Ex 23.20). Almost certainly more of this sort of thing lies hidden in the preserved texts, and Barthélemy’s call for more attention to such features is appropriate.\8/ Whether the fact that “IHSOUS” appears as “IWUSUAS” in Virt 66 and 69 in the second hand of MS G suggests that a similar modification may have occurred in Virt 55 (unattested) is less clear. In any event, the primary point of this exercise is not to create variations where they have not been preserved, but to identify possible contaminations in the surviving texts.


\8/ "Nine times out of ten, [the retoucher] intervened simply:
(1) as a person very familiar with the revision that Aquila had made of the Septuagint,
(2) as a  Jewish scholar quite ignorant of Greek literature [e.g. Deus 167 ( mutilation of technical terminology) and 169 (omits poetical term); Her 116 (omits poetic citation), 181 (Plato's κήρινον to καίριον), 23 (Plato's δεσμός to δεσπότης)] and philosophy [e.g. Somn 1.107 (adds τὴν ἱερὰν before παιδείαν, and ἀληθοῦς before φιλοσοφίας), 226 (adds ἀπόρρητοι before λόγοι); Gig 52  and Deus 33 and Her 170 (eliminates τὸ ὄν)],
(3) as a simple person who had little appreciation for the exaggerated emphasis of the Alexandrian style [e.g. 16 times in Her superlative to comparative (25, 115, 152, 222) or μυρίοι to πολλοί and  πάσης to πλείονος (105) or μόνον to μᾶλλον (302) or omissions of ἀεί (161, 292) and μόνος (167, 234) and πᾶς (117,180) and ἅπας (277) as well as παρὰ πάντων (113) and καθ’ ἑκάστην (116); the two opposite types of changes actually support this point -- πάντα for σχεδόν (247) and βεβαία regarding revealed wisdom (314)],
(4) as a fastidious monotheist who mistrusted ambiguous terminology [e.g. Deus 57 (ἰσοτίμου to ἑτέρου), Her 65 (normalizing Isaac), Somn 1.84 (omit θειοτάτας), Leg 1.35 (θεῖα for θέσει) and 43 (μὲν γὰρ θείαν for μετάρσιον), and Somn 1.65 (omit definite article with λόγος)],
(5) as one who cared more to defend the honor of Israel [e.g. Migr 175 (on Jacob's offspring)] than to affirm sympathy for the goyim [e.g. Congr 85 (ἔθη to ἔθνη) -- even if this is a mistake, it is revealing!]” (70/165 - 71/166, and notes).

 

My main interest in the present contribution, however, is in the passages in which quotation formula such as “Moses said” appear in some witnesses, while others display a more general identification such as “the sacred word says,” or less frequently, "the legislator says." Barthélemy’s claim that rabbinic Judaism shies away from such explicit attributions to Moses seems well supported in rabbinic text and practice\9/ -- while the presence of such “Moses” formulas seems of little concern to Christian authors and commentators.\10/ Thus this appears to be strong evidence in support of Barthélemy’s theory that a rabbinically minded Jewish retoucher has tampered, although somewhat inconsistently, with these materials.


\9/ Barthélemy refers to a baraita of the Babylonian Talmud at Sanhedrin 99a: "If anyone says that the entire Torah came from heaven with the exception of a sole verse which came from Moses himself -- but was not spoken by the Holy One, blessed be he -- to that person the saying 'he has despised the word of the Lord' [Num 15.31] refers" (62/157). His claim that the formula "Moses said" was "banned from all rabbinic writings (bannie de tous les écrits rabbiniques)" seems to be generally accurate and may reflect "common knowledge" as expressed, e.g. in L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews 6 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1928) 47 ("the Rabbis ... condemn as a heresy the view which would admit even that one word of the Torah was written by Moses himself, and not received by him from heaven; see Sanhedrin 99a" -- the larger context in Ginzberg is the alleged role of angels in such revelation, with reference to Galatians 3.17, Josephus Antiquities 15.136 [5.3], and Jubilees 1.17; for details, Ginzberg refers to his more extensive discussion in Eine unbekannte jüdische Sekte [Philadelphia: Maurice Jacobs Press,1922 (English Translation 1976)] 246-249); for a more extensive and more recent discussion of the issues see Steven D. Fraade, "Moses and the Commandments: Can Hermeneutics, History, and Rehtoric be Disentangled?" (pp. 399-422 in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James M. Kugel, eds. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman [Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 83. Leiden: Brill, 2004]), and especially  411-413 ("Moses Takes the Halakhic Lead, [With God's Approval]"),  413-415  ("Korah's Rebellion"), and  416-422 ("Three Explanatory Strategies"). Fraade documents inner Jewish/rabbinic tensions on the roles of Moses in Divine Legislation, which are even more explicit in some Christian Gnostic materials such as the late 2nd century Letter of Ptolemy to Flora 33.4-5 (Fraade 418-419). For the passage in Sanhedrin 99a and related rabbinic texts (Sifre Deut 26 and Sifre Num 112), see Fraade 410 and especially note 29.

\10/ Barthélemy (62/157 nn. 4-5) points to various examples in Philo's uninfected writings (Sacr, Det, Post;  see also further below on the infected treatises!), and to New Testament examples (Mt 8.4 [//Mk 1.44, Lk 5.14], 19.7 [//Mk 10.3-4], 22.24[//Mk 12.19 (Moses wrote for us) = Lk 20.28]; Mk 7.10 [but note the parallel in Mt 15.4 "God said"! Fraade n. 45]; Lk 20.37 [but see the parallels in Mk 12.26 (God said, in the book of Moses) and Mt 22.31 (God said)]; Jn 8.5; Acts 3.22, 6.14; Rom 10.5 and 19). These could easily be multiplied by a simple search of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae data bank -- e.g. Barnabas, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Didymus the Blind, Gregory of Nyssa, Efrem Syrus, Epiphanius, John Chrysostom, Procopius, among others -- even some Dialogue with Jews literature such as the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (4th-5th century?) or John Cantacuzenus, Orationes contra Judaeos (14th century!). Of course, many of these authors have been influenced directly or indrectly by Philo. Nor does such attribution seem to have been a problem for some of the authors and transmitters of the Dead Sea Scrolls -- e.g. Damascus Document 5.8 [Lev 18.13], 6.3 (in 4Q266  frg 3 col 2.10 = 4Q267 frg 2.9 [Num 21.18], but not in the medieval copy at that point!) 8.14 = 19.26 [Deut 9.5] -- the possible connection of the Cairo Geniza to the Karaites raises the question whether medieval Karaites had the same strictures? 1Q22 (Words of Moses) is probably not so relevant since it seems less selfconscious about distinguishing between "scripture" and the story being told. See also Hindy Najman, Authoritative Writing and Interpretation: A Study in the History of Scripture (Harvard Dissertation 1998), especially 179-231 "The Divine Moses and his Natural Law: Philo on Authority and Interpretation"  [Fraade n. 7], and Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77; Brill 2003).


The situation is defined by the following ten passages from Somn 1:


\11/ There is another possible example in Her 296, where the Papyrus has  "For Moses says" -- γάρ φησι Μωσῆς  (Gen 8.21) -- while all other witnesses (they all contain the aberrent Aquila-like text)  lack "Moses." We can add to this list of textually variant Moses passages in treatises with aberrent biblical text the following three counter-examples: (1) Deus 6 where all the main witnesses agree with UF in reading  κατὰ τὸ ἱερώτατον Μω(υ)σέως γράμμα τοῦτο (Num 28.2)  -- "(This is) in accord with this most sacred text of Moses" -- while MS D alone has κατὰ τὸ ὶερώτατον τοῦ νόμου πρόσταγμα τὸ φάσκον  -- "(This is) in accord with the most sacred command of the law [perhaps emend to "lawgiver"?] which states"; (2) Agr 20 "Wherefore the all-wise Moses ... saying" -- διὰ τοῦτο ὁ πάνσοφος Μωυσῆς [=UF; the rest omit "Moses"] ... λέγων (Gen 9.20);  (3) and in Her 13 the phrase "according to the command of Moses" -- κατὰ τὸ Μω(υ)σέως παράγγελμα (see Deut 27.9) -- is present in all extant (= infected) witnesses except the presumably uninfected Coptos Papyrus.

Otherwise in Somn 1 we find three more occurrences of  "Moses" that we might have expected to be modified, if the "retoucher" had been consistent and if those changes had survived in the MSS:\12/

\12/The other passages referring to Moses in Somn 1 are not particularly germane since they are not  identifying Moses as the source of a scriptural statement:

We also find in Somn 1 some other uses of "legislator/lawgiver" (twice) and of "the sacred word" or "the divine word" (four or five times)\13/ that are directly relevant to this discussion. No significant variants occur in the preserved witnesses to these passages:

\13/In Somn1, Philo frequently refers to "the sacred word" or "the divine word" to indicate various types of contact with the divine that are not necessarily identified with the words of scripture or of Moses:



Since the “Moses” passages occur in the generally uninfected MSS represented by the AM witnesses, Barthélemy’s complaint that Wendland has chosen for his main text the wrong variants in those passages seems well founded.\14/ It would have been a tough call for an editor insofar as the Philonic corpus elsewhere abounds with references to “the sacred word” – that is, such terminology is not inconsistent with Philo’s range of formulas.\15/ As Barthélemy noted, even in the sub-set of Somn 1, there are still a few locations in which “the sacred word” occurs without any attested variation (see above, Somn 1.53 and especially 164-229). Does this indicate inconsistent transmission of the uninfected text (perhaps with some contamination from the infected), or simply variety in Philo’s use of such formulas?

 

\14/ 62/157 n. 1: "Wendland erred in considering as original, in these 10 instances, the formula that omits the name of Moses. Independent of the theological motivation that we provide in the following lines [above, n. 9], note the following statistical data: the two extant books of De Somniis are about the same length and the second has not been touched by the Jewish retoucher. If one compares, in these two books, the mentions of the name of Moses by Philo (without including the mention of this name within biblical citations) with the use of the expression "the sacred word" (ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος) to refer to holy scripture, one finds in the second book 17 occurrences of "Moses" compared with 4 of "the sacred word," whereas the "retouched" layer [MSS GFHP] of the first book contains, under the same conditions, "Moses" 7 times and "the sacred word" 12 times, while the textual layer in which the citations have not been harmonized to Aquila [MSS AM] contains 17 "Moses" passages compared with 6 for "the sacred word." We conclude, then, that it is the textual layer in which the citations are intact [i.e. not harmonized to Aquila, witnesses AM] that presents a normal statistical situation."

\15/ On Philo's formulas in general, see the outdated study by H. E. Ryle, Philo and Holy Scripture, or, The Quotations of Philo from the Books of the Old Testament (London and New York: Macmillan, 1885),  which is gradually being updated in electronic form at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/courses/999/RYLE1.htm .


Since Barthélemy understandably links these “Moses” variations with the revisional work that also inserted Aquila-like readings into Philo’s biblical texts, we might expect to find similar evidence of the “Moses” adjustment in the other infected treatises. A search of those Philonic treatises provides, however, no significant support for that assumption, as is apparent from the following summary (presumed non-infected text numbers in parentheses, where variations occur; see also above n. 11). The detailed lists of passages can be found in the Appendices:


Treatise
 B's #
 Moses Formula Lawgiver Formula\16/
 Sacred Word Formula\17/ Aquila-like readings\18/
Leg 1
 #2a
 2
 0
 0
 10 (0, 3, 7)
Cher
 #3
 3
 2
 0
 03 (0, 1, 2)
Gig
 #7
 2
 5
 0
 06 (2, 2, 2)
Deus
 #8
 4 (3)
 2 (3? cf n.11 above)
 0
 24 (0, 8, 16)
Agr
 #9
 2 (1)
 2
 0
 12 (0, 2, 10)
Plant
 #10
 5
 cf
 1
 15 (3, 2, 10)
Sobr
 #12
 1
 cf
 0
 09 (1, 0, 8)
Her
 #15
 13 (12)
 1
 3
 19 (2, 8, 9)
Congr
 #16
 8
 cf
 5
 11 (2, 4, 5)
Somn 1
 #19a
 2  (11)
 5 (3)
 14 (7)
 09 (0, 4, 5)
Virt
 #26
 ?

04 (2, 1, 1)


\16/ While the "legislator/lawgiver" usually seems to refer to Moses, there are passages that can be construed as referring directly to the Deity (e.g. Gig 19 and 32). This increases the ambiguity of the term in many other places. There is also a reference to "the law" speaking (λέγει οὖν ὁ νόμος Deus 99), which I suspect may be a corruption of "lawgiver" (but see the same formula in Det 159, also a corruption? See also above, n. 11, on Deus 6 var). Much more frequent in the Philonic corpus is the similar formula with a different verb, φησιν ὁ νόμος (Deus 4 and Agr 131 in the above listed treatises).

\17/ Interestingly, in some passages it is clear that this formula refers to Aaron and/or the high priestly role. See Leg 1.76 -- "Aaron, the sacred word, requests of God's friend Moses to heal ... Miriam" (παρὸ καὶ δεῖται [λέγεται A] ὁ ἱερὸς [ἱερεὺς A] λόγος Ἀαρὼν τοῦ θεοφιλοῦς Μω(υ)σέως ἰάσασθαι ....); see especially Fug 108ff, and also Her 185 and 201, Migr 102, Somn 1.215 (above, n. 13) where the priest, Aaron = "the sacred/divine word." Whether the retoucher would have been aware of that identification is impossible to say, although a few of the passages in Somn 1 clearly have priestly connections, as noted above. The related formula "the divine word" is rare in these treatises.


\18/According to Barthélemy (46/141), a total of 122 "Hebraizations" are found in these infected treatises, broken down as here. In his chart (63/158), he distinguishes three types: "attestés" [i.e. we know what Aquila's readings were and the Philonic variants agree; these are discussed on 47/142-49/144], "certains" [i.e. consistent with Aquila's technique as seen from parallel passages/wording; discussed on 49/144-52/147], "possibles" [i.e. less sure but consistent with what we would expect from Aquila; discussed on 53/148-54/149] -- so I have included his figures in the parentheses in that order. He also notes that Katz included Spec 4 and Leg 2-3 in his list of the aberrent texts, "but I have rejected mentioning them since the hebraisms in  these books are rare and uncertain, or even seem to represent the biblical text of Philo himself" (46/141).


Thus it is quite clear that any suppression of direct references to Moses speaking scriptural things is not evidenced in the other infected treatises apart from Somn 1. Even where the aberrent biblical text appears with quoted material, Moses can be depicted as the speaker (Appendix 1).  Nor is there reason to think there is anything unusual regarding the substitution formula, "the lawgiver says" (Appendix 2) or "the sacred word/logos says" (Appendix 3) or the like.


With regard to the Moses references, the evidence seems consistent and clear. The only  surviving Philonic tractate in which suppression of the Moses references is demonstrable or even probable is Somn 1 (the unique variant in MS D at Deus 6 and other possible evidence cited in n. 11 above might be surviving clues that such revision also occurred elsewhere, or might be entirely coincidental). This makes it difficult to agree with Barthélemy that there once was an edition of some of Philo's writings  in which the Aquila-type quotations were found with other presumably Jewish adjustments including the modification of these Moses formulae. It is possible that the revision process took place in (at least) two stages, and that only Somn 1 has survived from the stage that involved the elimination of some Moses passages. But even then, the two main pieces of evidence, the quotations and the formulae, call for separate explanations. (I'm not yet sure what to do with the other evidence claimed by Barthélemy for tractates other than Somn 1 that he thinks suggests Jewish tampering apart from the aberrent text and the Moses modifications; above n. 8.)


My own suspicion is that the Moses changes go back to a time when Somn 1 circulated by itself, in scroll or mini-codex format, before significant anthologies of Philonic treatises became more normal. That situation probably also obtained for the other aberrent treatises, which perhaps never circulated together, under one cover, although that does not necessarily mean that they were not revised together as a collection of individual treatises or smaller groupings (see n. 7 above on the papyrus evidence).  Whether such revisional activities can be traced to a specific location such as Caesarea or Jerusalem or even Alexandria remains entirely speculative, although Barthélemy's case for Origen's Caesarea is attractive, within the vast limits of our present knowledge. It does make sense to imagine such changes being made by Jewish/rabbinic "retouchers" who are familiar with the Aquila-like Greek version and who avoid attributing human origin to scriptural text, although Christian litterati with similar predelections are not unimaginable (note, e.g. the similar variation between Mk 7.10 [Moses said] and its parallel in Mt 15.4 [God said]; above n. 10). In any event, the phenomena themselves are fascinating, as examples of what can happen in the transmission of texts, and at least for the moment seem to have arisen relatively early in the transmission of Philo's writings, and fit well into the context of Jewish inclinations -- perhaps even in an unsuccessful attempt to preserve Philo as an acceptable Jewish author in a changing Jewish climate.

Weighing the Probabilities, by way of Conclusion:

1. Which came First? If Aquila-like modifications preceded Moses manipulations, the former took place more or less together but Somn 1 then circulated separately and had most of its Moses references changed. But it is not completely impossible that Somn 1 had received the Moses changes as an isolated member of the Philonic corpus before its quotations were modified as part of a separate and more extensive endeavor (the Aquila-like text substitution). There currently is no way to be sure.


2. When? Assuming that Aquila's text was not available as such until the mid 2nd century, the "aberrent" readings must have arisen after that. Aquila's text was still widely available in the 6th century (Justinian's Novella), and even thereafter (through Origen's Hexapla), so who knows? If the Moses modifications are the result of rabbinic predelections, perhaps the 2nd-3rd century CE is an appropriate starting point, with almost limitless duration thereafter.


3. Where? That many of Philo's works were known in Alexandria at the end of the 2nd century, and after that to Origen and his successors at Caesarea is a given, but it is not so likely that the early papyri codices from Egypt represent a Caesarean-based transmission of Philo. Where else Philo's works, individually or in groups, might have been in circulation in Jewish or Christian circles by the 3rd century is pure conjecture. Nor can we know whether all surviving works of Philo were available at Origen's Caesarea, although Eusebius' list encourages the possibility that even more than has survived was present there. Exactly what Euzoios did and with what treatises is impossible to determine.

4. By whom? The Jewish "retoucher" (or better, "retouchers") case makes good sense, but is not the only possibility. We simply do not know enough about the transmission process and personnel, or about relevant attitudes within Christian circles, to be able to make solid guesses.


5. So what? Did MSS of Philonic treatises circulate in Jewish circles as late as 3rd-4th century? It is certainly not impossible, nor is it impossible that the papyri codices of Philo came from Jewish contexts (the presence of NT fragments in the covers of the Coptos codex can cut two ways -- why would Christians reuse their own scriptures in such a fashion?; the use of abbreviations or of the codex format should be treated as open questions, not criteria for identifying "Christian" products). The idea that all this came through a Christian filter at Caesarea is quite speculative, basically grasping at straws such as the Euzoios information and Origen's affinity for Philo.


--


APPENDIX 1: Moses as Scripture-speaker References




Appendix 2: "Lawgiver" as Scripture-speaker References
Appendix 3: "Sacred Word" References [none with the "Divine Word (θεῖος λόγος)" speaking]
 
Note: θεῖος λόγος occurs only in the Allegorical series (16) and in QuEx (2)!

//end of coherent article (corrected from page proofs, 15se2005)//

Added references of interest:

NHL ApocJn "It is not the way Moses wrote (and) you heard. For he said in his first book [Gen 2.21].... For also he/it said through the prophet [Isa 6.10].
ApocJn 28.32ff: "It is not as Moses said [Gen 7.7] -- note also idea of "a place" as a "luminous cloud."


--

Invitation to Lust FS (Garcia Martinez note 18fe2004, for Feb 2005): on “aberrent text” of Philo:
"Philo's Bible: the 'Aberrant Text' Revisited" – (An alternate possiblity would be "Treatment of the Tetragrammaton in Early Greek LXX/OG Texts" -- if Emanuel Tov hasn't already said everything that can be said on that topic by the end of March!

 

For additional background on this situation, see n. 23 below and the electronic updating of H. E. Ryle’s Philo and Holy Scripture (1895) at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/courses/999/RYLE1.htm  

 
[From my Barthelemy article]

\23/ Justin quotes Micah 4.1-7 in a form almost exactly replicating the remnants of the καίγε scroll (Dialogue 109-110), if we can trust the preserved MSS of Justin, which are very late. Tov comments: "The text of the biblical quotations of Just[in] also reflects a very literal translation (beyond the aforementined citation from Mi[cah]) so that it is quite certain that these quotations reflect R [=καίγε]. (At the same time, the running commentary of Just[in] reflects the LXX [=OG] text rather than a literal rendering of the type of R [=καίγε]. This mixture of text types belongs to the textual transmission of Just[in] and reminds one of that of the writings of Philo.)" (DJD 8, 158). See also P. Katz, "Justin's Old Testament Quotations and the Greek Dodekapropheton Scroll," Studia Patristica 1 (TU 63; 1957) 343-353. The situation with some Philo MSS is that the version of Aquila was substituted as lemma, while the subsequent comments are closer to LXX/OG; see Peter Katz, Philo's Bible: the Aberrant Text of Bible Quotations in some Philonic Writings and its Place in the Textual History of the Greek Bible (Cambridge: University Press, 1950). David Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 3.3;  Fortress 1993), 24-25, provides a succinct survey of the relevant literature and arguments: "The historian of the Cairo Geniza, Kahle, was convinced that these quotations represented not only Philo's original text, but also reflected his Bible, so that we have evidence here of a Greek Bible that was adapted in order to confirm more to the Hebrew original [Kahle, Cairo Geniza (19592) 247-249]. Katz, in contrast, argued that the aberrent quotations were added later on the basis of the post-Philonic translations of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion by a Christian from the Antiochean school in the 5th century"; Barthélemy argues for a "Jewish" reviser in the early 3rd century who used the text of Aquila to hebraize Philo's quotations from the scriptures (above, n.25) -- his argument is also summarized in Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature 24-25.

 

[In this connection, the complicated situation with respect to the textual transmission of Philo's treatises requires comment. This has been explored in greatest detail by Katz (1950), and subsequently by Barthélemy (1967, 1978). The treatises showing the greatest evidence of revision towards Aquila in their biblical citations [with Barthélemy's coded numbers in brackets; note that MS witness "N" consists of excerpts, and is thus also put into brackets] are


The complex chart in Barthélemy (1967) 178 attempts to analyze the situation with an eye to the question of how the individual tractates came to be gathered together (he posits two early Caesarian editions, associated with the library of Origen); the evidence seems to suggest that individual tractates (in scroll or mini-codex format) circulated for a long time, and came into various combinations as the extant MSS and versions (and lists) demonstrate. Barthélemy conjectures that the revision to Aquila's scriptural text form was produced by a Jewish editor, identified as Hoshaya Rabba, sometime in the early 3rd century.


Summary of Barthélemy article:

 

Katz shows the secondary nature of the hebraizing quotes, but this does not automatically mean that the other text form is primitive.

 

Katz errs in identifying the revisor as a 5th c Antioch Christian.

 

1. Aquila alone is the source of the Hebraizations

 

122 passages in 11 of the Philonic treatises (enumerated) – not including questionable passages in SpecLeg 4 and LegAlleg 2-3.

 

Katz reasoned that by the 5th c, Philo had long been in Christian hands, and thus the revisor used a lost version of the LXX. But Aquila fits all the evidence.

 

Specific instances: Ex 15.17, Gn 16.2, etc.

(Long discussion of Ps 62.12)

 

Firmly attested typical Aquila elements in known locations;

Other passages with readings used by Aquila elsewhere.

Features common to Aquila and his predecessors.

 

Inconsistencies in the reviser’s work – Gen 16.1, Ex 15.17 (tetragram).

 

Conclusion (55=150): no need to look elsewhere than Aquila.

 

2. The Revisor is a Jew

 

Need to study systematically certain categories of revision made by the same hand in the same Philonic treatises.

 

E.g. Quod Deus 57 MAPHG logos but UF nomos (by which the world came about; see the similar saying attributed to Aqiba!);

Similarly in Plant 8 and 10, logos > nomos in all MSS (but see Eusebius!) – with appropriate rabbinic parallels noted.

 

And note how Joshua/Jesus becomes “Josouas” in Hum 66 and 69.

 

Conclusion: “Only a Jew could be the author of this ensemble of characteristic revisions” (57=152).

 

3. The two Caesarean editions on the Allegorical Commentary

 

Need to retrace the history of textual transmission for Philo’s works.

 

Cohn-Wendland argue for one archetype behind all witnesses, and trace it to Caesarean papyri scrolls (suite of volumes); see Opific annotation about Euzoios transcribing to parchment, confirmed by Jerome and located in Caesarea, and supporting evidence from Eusebius.

 

Heinrici challenges this view in his TLZ 22 (1897) 213 and 25 (1900) 658 reviews, based on variations of order as well as textual differences in the MSS.

 

Hunt dates the Poxy of Philo to 3rd c, along with the Coptos papyrus, and both are Christian (based on abbreviations!), so is it likely that they emanate from Caesarea?

 

Further complications emerge when Eusebius’ list is taken into account, with its 15 treatises that have not survived, while some 50 are found in the MSS. This supports (how?) the Cohn-Wendland hypothesis!

 

Clement of Alex is our first clear Christian use of Philo, which provides a starting point for dealing with Philo as a Christian author, and from which we can begin to trace the Egyptian papyri as well as the copies taken by Origen to Caesarea.

 

At what stage of this textual history did the revisor intervene? Neither Clement of Alex or the Egyptian papyri show any trace of the revisions. “Only the medieval MSS (and thus probably derived from the library at Caesarea) have been affected by the Jewish revision.” Three of the eleven treatises that have been retouched – Plant, Sobr, and Quis Rer – have survived ONLY in the retouched version.

 

Note problem with “books 1-2” of LegAlleg in one MS; and apocopated form of Cherub and Agric. And the Moses passages in Somn 1.

 

Explanation of MSS groupings and the chart (63=158). He argues for two “original” sequences, his alpha-beta (first Caesarean edition) and omega (second Caesarean edition).

 

Detailed explanations of anomalies, etc. “only MS U keeps the original order of section aleph but it lacks the four final treatises” [but no other MS has them either!].

 

To conclude, we say that there seem to have been two editions of the Alleg Comm, each lacking certain treatises, having left by two different paths the Caesarean library scriptorium. One of these editions was divided into two codices, alpha and beta, and eleven of its treatises had been subject to the clandestine reetouching of an orthodox rabbi of weak Greek culture, so that two of the treatises had been cut off in the middle of the text. The other edition, omega, provides a text without Jewish retouching, which is also attested by the papyri, the quotations in Clement of Alex, Origen and Eusebius. The second edition includes unretouched 8 treatises found in the first. The 2nd ed probably comes from Euzoios and is later than the first.

 

4. Hoshaya Rabba and the First Edition

 

It remains to identify the Jewish retoucher.

 

Origen didn’t know Hebrew, so needed Hebrew assistants.

 

He needed someone also conversant with Greek, and in that context Philo became known to the Jewish assistant, as well as certain passages in Philo that Christians used in arguments with Jews (cf Eusebius).

 

Bacher had proposed that Hoshaya Rabba of Caesarea and contemporary of Origen, may have known Philo through Origen.

 

(70 = 165) A copy of Philo’s Alleg Comm is ordered, perhaps by the library at Aelia, which was in close contact with Origen. A Jewish scribe/corrector [n.2] is involved, and modifies certain things based on his own intimate knowledge of Aquila’s translation, and his own piety in relation to Christian arguments he has heard. “It would be inaccurate to think that all his changes had been made intentionally. Nine times out of ten, he intervened quite simply as a man very familiar with the recension that Aquila had made with the Septuagint, as a Jewish scholar quite ignorant of Greek literature [n.3] and philosophy [n.4], as a simple man who had little appreciation for the flowery/bombastic focus of the Alexandrian style [n.1], as a fastidious monotheist who defied ambiguous terminology [n.2], as one who cared more to defend the honor of Israel [n.3] than to affirm sympathy for the goyim [n.4].” 

 

Other evidences of retouching, e.g. Gen 2.2. Who might do such things? Hoshaya Rabba of Caesarea, to whom, according to Bacher, Origen had introduced the work of Philo.

 

Hoshaya’s commitment to Torah/nomos shows in his own commentarial work and explains some “retouching” of Philo. Note especially treatments of Prv 8.22 on wisdom as a creation of God.

 

While certain coincidences may have been characteristic, they do not permit us to identify the retoucher as R. Hoshaya Rabba, but at least they confirm for us that the Jewish milieu of Caesarea provides an ideal “sitz im leben” in the time of Origen for the work of the retoucher of the edition of the Alleg Comm.

 

Conclusion (77-78 = 172-173)

 

It is time to conclude this study by saying that the retoucher of the biblical citations of Philo is certainly a Jew and is best situated in the entourage of Origen and of Hoshaya, in the first half of the 3rd century in Caesarea.   

 

If one examines in the medieval MSS the positions occupied by the treatises retouched by him and the treaties immune to his attentions, one recognizes the remains of two sequences more or less mutilated but sufficiently recoverable to be able to identify them as those on which the two ancient editions of the Alleg Comm rest (alpha-beta and omega). And since the arguments of Cohn-Wendland and Shuerer seem accurately to demonstrate that the entire medieval textual tradition issued from the library at Caesarea and that, on the other hand, it is very probable that the omega edition derives from the copy made by Euzoios, it follows that the edition alpha-beta is even more ancient in origin, as is indicated by the fact that its copyist had access  to a collection of treatises more complete than that which was at the disposal of the copyist of the omega edition. It thus seems that it … reverts to the time of Origen since the retoucher, who seems to have been attached to the Jewish entourage of the latter, has intervened at one time (?) in the copy that was produced.

 

With regard to the papyri, probably dating from  the 3rd century, found at Oxyrhynchos and Coptos, they have been copied by Christians as is clear from the “abbreviations” employed. The text that they present derives from the same archetype as the papyri taken from Alexandria to Caesarea by Origen. It seems then that all these papyri derive from a single collection of the Philonic corpus established at the school of Alexandria under Pantaenus or Clement. In the current state of our knowledge, we are unable to trace things earlier.

 

If these results are well founded, the textual criticism of the AllegComm needs to take in a second step that involves two main studies: a comparison as complete as possible of the two Caesarean editions, making even more clear the profile of the Jewish retoucher in order to detect more accurately his interventions that Cohn-Wendland have not identified. Finally, taking as a base a treatise such as SacAbel/Cain – for which we have evidence from the three main branches of the tradition (Egypt, Caesarea 1, Caesarea 2) without the intervention of the retoucher, it seems – it can be tested whether the un-retouched biblical citations have been subject to assimilations later than the classical Septuagint. Perhaps one will then have a means, starting at that point, to establish on a new basis a critical edition of that portion of the Philonic corpus and to approach the study of the characteristics of the Septuagint of Philo.

 

--

Runia accepts, with hesitation, this general outline. See his chart of the diffusion of philonic materials (p.18).

p.14 discusses Rabbi Hosha`ia on Gen 1.1, with translation [no reference here to Barthélemy, but a cross reference later]

pp.20-21 discuss and provide images of the Euzoios notation

Little attention to the difficulties rolls and mini-codices present for various theories of textual relationships and transmission: e.g. the contents of the Euzoios codex (11th c), if accurate for the time of Euzoios (376-379), suggests that some treatises were lost or unavailable (or distributed differently) at that time; note that Post which is mentioned in the Euzoios codex TOC survives only in MS U, but apparently not retouched.

 

CommAlleg = B’s ## 1-19

“retouched” =
2a (UF N / PAM),
3.1 (UF / GHPAM),
7 (U / HPAM),
8 (UF N / GHPAM),
9.1 (UF / GHAM),
10 (UFGHM N),
12 (FGH N),
15 (GHPA N),
16 (G N / HAM),
19a (FGHP N / M),
+ 26 (Virt G / cf)


not retouched,
## 1 (FGHPAM N),
2b (PAM),
2c (HA),
3 (GHPAM),
4 (GHPAM UFN),
5 (UFH),
6 (U),
9 (GHAM),
11 (UFGH N),
13 (FGHP N),
14 (HPAM), 
17 (GH),
18 (A),
19a (M),
19ab (A)

Aetern (UHPM)

 

logos > nomos: (Deus 57 MAPHG / UF), 10 (Plant 8 + 10 Eus-ClA / all)

logos > archangel: (Agr 51)

Jesus > Joshua: (Virt 66 + 69 pl / G\2; but not in 55)

Moses said > scripture: (Somn 1)


See also (from Admiel Kosman, Potsdam University):
Stemberger, Guenter 2003. "'Moses Received Torah' (M. Avot 1,1): Rabbinic Conceptions of Revelation" In: Florentino Garci/a Marti/nez and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (eds); Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome. Studies in Ancient Cultural Interaction in Honour of A. Hilhorst. Leiden & Boston: Brill (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 82), 285-299.

 

Y. Amir, Authority and Interpretation of Scripture in the Writings of Philo, in: M.J. Mulder and H. Sysling (edd.) Mikra, Text, Translation, Readings, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, CRINT II.1 (Assen 1988), pp. 421-454.


//end of added notes//