| 1. Dead Sea Scrolls, Festival Prayersc 4Q509, 2 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •philo, on the torah as the natural law Found in books: Hayes, What's Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (2015) 115 |
2. Septuagint, 4 Maccabees, 5.8-5.11, 5.18-5.26, 7.7, 7.16-7.23 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •philo, on the torah as the natural law Found in books: Hayes, What's Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (2015) 111 | 5.8. Why, when nature has granted it to us, should you abhor eating the very excellent meat of this animal? 5.9. It is senseless not to enjoy delicious things that are not shameful, and wrong to spurn the gifts of nature. 5.10. It seems to me that you will do something even more senseless if, by holding a vain opinion concerning the truth, you continue to despise me to your own hurt. 5.11. Will you not awaken from your foolish philosophy, dispel your futile reasonings, adopt a mind appropriate to your years, philosophize according to the truth of what is beneficial, 5.18. Even if, as you suppose, our law were not truly divine and we had wrongly held it to be divine, not even so would it be right for us to invalidate our reputation for piety. 5.19. Therefore do not suppose that it would be a petty sin if we were to eat defiling food; 5.20. to transgress the law in matters either small or great is of equal seriousness, 5.21. for in either case the law is equally despised. 5.22. You scoff at our philosophy as though living by it were irrational, 5.23. but it teaches us self-control, so that we master all pleasures and desires, and it also trains us in courage, so that we endure any suffering willingly; 5.24. it instructs us in justice, so that in all our dealings we act impartially, and it teaches us piety, so that with proper reverence we worship the only real God. 5.25. Therefore we do not eat defiling food; for since we believe that the law was established by God, we know that in the nature of things the Creator of the world in giving us the law has shown sympathy toward us. 5.26. He has permitted us to eat what will be most suitable for our lives, but he has forbidden us to eat meats that would be contrary to this. 7.18. But as many as attend to religion with a whole heart, these alone are able to control the passions of the flesh, 7.19. ince they believe that they, like our patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, do not die to God, but live in God. 7.20. No contradiction therefore arises when some persons appear to be dominated by their emotions because of the weakness of their reason. 7.21. What person who lives as a philosopher by the whole rule of philosophy, and trusts in God, 7.22. and knows that it is blessed to endure any suffering for the sake of virtue, would not be able to overcome the emotions through godliness? 7.23. For only the wise and courageous man is lord of his emotions. |
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3. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 2.13, 3.45-3.49 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •philo, on the torah as the natural law •torah, vs. natural law Found in books: Hayes, What's Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (2015) 113; Neis, When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (2012) 134 | 2.13. for there are some men who swear, if chance so prompts them, to commit theft, or sacrilege, or adultery, or rape, or to inflict wounds or slaughter, or any similar acts of wickedness, and who perform them without any delay, making an excuse that they must keep their oaths, as if it were not better and more acceptable to God to do no iniquity, than to perform such a vow and oath as that. The national laws and ancient ordices of every people are established for the sake of justice and of every virtue, and what else are laws and ordices but the sacred words of nature having an authority and power in themselves, so that they differ in no respect from oaths? 3.45. And it is very likely that there may be other Pasipha's also, with passions equally unbridled, and that not women only, but men likewise may fall madly in love with animals, from whom, perhaps, indescribable monsters may be born, being memorials of the excessive pollution of men; owing to which, perhaps, those unnatural creations of unprecedented and fabulous monsters will exist, such as hippocentaurs and chimaeras, and other similar animals. 3.46. But so great are the precautions which are taken against them in the holy laws of God, that in order to prevent the possibility of men ever desiring any unlawful connection, it is expressly commanded that even animals of different kinds shall not be put together. And no Jewish shepherd will endeavour to cross a sheep with a he-goat, or a ram with a she-goat, or a cow with a horse; and if he does, he must pay the penalty as breaking a solemn law of nature who is desirous to keep the original kinds of animals free from all spurious admixture. 3.47. And some persons prefer mules to every other kind of animal for the yoke, since their bodies are very compact, and are very strong and powerful; and accordingly, in the pastures and stalls where they keep their horses, they also keep asses of an extraordinary size, which they call celones, in order that they may breed with the mares; and then the mares produce a mixed animal, half horse and half ass, which, since Moses knew that its production was wholly contrary to nature, he forbade the existence of with all his might by a general injunction, that that no union or combination between different kinds of animals should on any account be permitted. 3.48. Therefore he provided thus against those evils in a manner suited to and consistent with nature; and from a long distance off, as from a watchtower, he admonished men and kept them in the straight path, in order that both men and women, learning from these percepts of his, might abstain from unlawful connections. 3.49. If, therefore, a man seek to indulge himself with a quadruped, or if a woman surrender herself to a quadruped, they shall all die, both the man or woman and the quadruped. The human beings, because they have gone beyond even the bounds of intemperance itself, becoming discoverers of unprecedented appetites, and because with their new inventions they have introduced most detestable pleasures, the very mention of which is infamous; and the beasts shall die, because they have been subservient to such iniquities, and also to prevent their bringing forth or begetting any thing intolerable, as would naturally be the result of such pollutions. |
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4. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 2.45-2.52 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •philo, on the torah as the natural law Found in books: Hayes, What's Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (2015) 113, 114, 115 | 2.45. Now what has been here said is quite sufficient for the abundant praise of Moses as a lawgiver. But there is another more extensive praise which his own holy writings themselves contain, and it is to them that we must now turn for the purpose of exhibiting the virtue of him who compiled them. 2.46. Now these writings of Moses may be divided into several parts; one of which is the historical part, another is occupied with commands and prohibitions, respecting which part we will speak at some other time when we have first of all accurately examined that part which comes first in the order of our division. 2.47. Again, the historical part may be subdivided into the account of the creation of the world, and the genealogical part. And the genealogical part, or the history of the different families, may be divided into the accounts of the punishment of the wicked, and of the honours bestowed on the just; we must also explain on what account it was that he began his history of the giving of the law with these particulars, and placed the commandments and prohibitions in the second order; 2.48. for he was not like any ordinary compiler of history, studying to leave behind him records of ancient transactions as memorials to future ages for the mere sake of affording pleasure without any advantage; but he traced back the most ancient events from the beginning of the world, commencing with the creation of the universe, in order to make known two most necessary principles. First, that the same being was the father and creator of the world, and likewise the lawgiver of truth; secondly, that the man who adhered to these laws, and clung closely to a connection with and obedience to nature, would live in a manner corresponding to the arrangement of the universe with a perfect harmony and union, between his words and his actions and between his actions and his words. 2.49. Now of all other lawgivers, some the moment that they have promulgated positive commands as to what it is right to do and what it is right not to do, proceed to appoint punishments for those who transgress those laws; but others, who appear to have proceeded on a better plan, have not begun in this manner, but, having first of all built and established their city in accordance with reason, have then adapted to this city which they have built, that constitution which they have considered the best adapted and most akin to it, and have confirmed this constitution by the giving of laws. 2.50. But he, thinking the first of the two courses above mentioned to be tyrannical and despotic, as indeed it is, namely, that of laying positive commands on persons as if they were not free men but slaves, without offering them any alleviation; and that the second course was better indeed, but was not entirely to be commended, must appear to all judges to be superior in each of the above considerations. 2.51. For both in his commandments and also in his prohibitions he suggests and recommends rather than commands, endeavouring with many prefaces and perorations to suggest the greater part of the precepts that he desires to enforce, desiring rather to allure men to virtue than to drive them to it, and looking upon the foundation and beginning of a city made with hands, which he has made the commencement of his work a commencement beneath the dignity of his laws, looking rather with the most accurate eye of his mind at the importance and beauty of his whole legislative system, and thinking it too excellent and too divine to be limited as it were by any circle of things on earth; and therefore he has related the creation of that great metropolis, the world, thinking his laws the most fruitful image and likeness of the constitution of the whole world. 2.52. At all events if any one were inclined to examine with accuracy the powers of each individual and particular law, he will find them all aiming at the harmony of the universe, and corresponding to the law of eternal nature: |
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| 5. Anon., Mekhilta Derabbi Yishmael, bahodesh 3 (2nd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •philo, on the torah as the natural law Found in books: Hayes, What's Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (2015) 339 |
