Philo/"Paul" on equality and sexuality, and Philo/"John" on the Word

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“Paul” derives his idea of equality from Philo. 

In “Who is the Heir” 33:164, Philo is clear about two significant issues: progeny, not sexuality, is the central matter in Genesis, and God works from the basis of equality:

Equality, too divided the human being into man and woman, two sections unequal indeed in strength but quite equal as regards what was nature’s urgent purpose, the reproduction of themselves in a third person.  “God made man,” he says, “made him after the image of God.  Male and female he made: not “him” but  “them.”  He concludes with the plural, thus connecting with the genus mankind the species which had been divided, as I said, by equality.

“Paul’s” shortlist of “do not,” in Romans, derives from Philo, 35:173:

The other set of five forbids adultery, murder, theft, false witness, covetousness.  These are rules forbidding practically all sins and to them the specific sins may in each case be referred.

As with “Paul,” Philo does not include homosexuality on the list.

The origins of John’s “Word,” which “was in the beginning” derives from Philo.  In 48:234, we find:

For the Word, or Reason of God, is a lover of the wild and solitary, never mixing with the medley of things that have come into being only to perish but its wonted resort is ever above and its study is to wait on the One and One only.  So then the two natures, the reasoning power within us and the divine Word or Reason above us, are indivisible, yet indivisible as they are they divide other things without number.  The divine Word separated and apportioned all that is in nature.

“Paul’s” aversion to the flesh we find in Philo 53:268-9:

For the passions of the body are truly bastards, outlanders to the understanding, growths of the flesh in which they have their roots…When pleasure rules, the temper is high flown and inflated, uplifted with empty levity.  When desire is master, a yearning for what is not arises and suspends the soul on unfulfilled hope as on a noose.

Philo as the source for virgin birth, "Passion" and Last Supper

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From “Who is the Heir,” 20:9:

The new good gift is inheritance of the wisdom which cannot be received by sense, but is apprehended by a wholly pure and clear mind.  Through this wisdom the best of all migrations becomes an established fact, the migration of the soul which passes from astrology to real nature study, from insecure conjecture to firm apprehension, and to give it its truest expression, from the created to the uncreated, from the world to its Maker and Father.

This would be understood by Greco-Romans who fancied themselves the guardians of “wisdom” and the true proponents of philosophy, to indicate that they were the “true” and proper heirs of the text.

21:100:

But it is not enough for the lover of wisdom to have high hopes and vast expectations through the oracular promises. If he does not know in what way he will attain the succession of the heritage, it irks him greatly;  so thirsty is he for knowledge and insatiate for it.  And therefore he asks “Master, by what will I know that I will inherit it?”  Now perhaps it may be said that this question is inconsistent with the belief ascribed to him.  It is the doubter, we may be told, who feels difficulties;  what the believer does is to cease from further questioning.  We must say, then, that the difficulties and the fact of belief are both there, but to not apply to the same subject.  Far from it.  He has believed that he will be the inheritor of wisdom;  he merely asks how this wlll come to pass.  That it will come to pass is a fact that he had completely and firmly grasped in virtue of the divine promises.  And so his Teacher praising the desire for learning which he shows, begins His instruction with a rudimentary lesson, in which the first and most vital words are “take me (Λαβε μοι).”

This particular passage provides us with the foundations of a few elements of Christianity:  the notion of “faith” as belief without doubt and without questioning;  the expectation that the promise will be delivered to the lover of wisdom (rather than to the heir stipulated in the text);  and, in terms of cultic praxis, we have the foundation for the communion ceremony of the Last Supper:  the Teacher (represented  to the proto-Christian church as Jesus), instructs the community to “take my body/blood.”

22:105 provides the grounds used by the early Church to dispossess Judeans from ownership of the text:

For vast is the number of those who repudiate the sacred trusts, and in their unmeasured greed use up what belongs to Another as though it were their own.  But you, my friend, try with all your might, not merely to keep unharmed and unalloyed what you have taken, but also deem it worthy of all carefulness, that He who entrusted it to you may find nothing to blame in your guardianship of it.

John 3:16 has its origins in 23:112:

When God willed to send down the image of divine excellence from heaven to earth in pity for our race, that it should not lose its share in the better lot, he constructs as a symbol of the truth the holy tabernacle and its contents to be a representation and copy of wisdom. For the oracle tells us that the tabernacle “was set up in the midst of our uncleanness” that we may have wherewithal to scour and wash away all that defiles our life, miserable and laden with ill fame as it is.

In 24:118-9, we have the origins of the notion of the “virgin birth” (which is conflated with the παρθενος of Isaiah):

For since genus in every case is indestructible, to the indestructible God will it be justly assigned.  And that is true too of one who opens the womb of all from man, that is reason and speech, to beast, that is sense and body.  For he that opens the womb of each of these, of mind, to mental apprehensions, of speech, to the activities of the voice, of the senses, to receive the pictures presented to it by objects of the body, to the movements and postures proper to it, is the invisible, seminal artificer, the divine Word, which will be fitly dedicated to its Father.

Further origins of the notion of the “virgin birth” can be found in 44:216:

For the One, alone and absolutely pure, has begotten the Seven, whom no mother bore, begotten by her by himself alone, and employing no other medium whatsoever.

We find documentation of Philo as the source for the Last Supper in 15:79:

The one extends his vision to the ether and the revolutions of the heaven;  he has been trained also to look steadfastly for the manna, which is the word of God, the heavenly incorruptible food of the soul which delights in vision.

In 25:125-6 we find Philo’s description of the sacrifices as it relates to the Last Supper:

Take me, it says, a heifer unyoked, undamaged, tender, young and fresh in spirit, a soul, that is, which can easily receive guidance and instruction and ruling;  take me a ram that is speech active in argument and fully developed, competent to analyse and refute the sophisms of controversialists and to provide its possessor with a safe and well-ordered life;  take me also the sense that dashes and darts on to the sensible world; the she-goat, that is; and take them all three years old, that is, formed according to the perfect number with beginning middle and end.  Take me a turtle-dove and a pigeon that is divine and human reason, both of them winged creatures, skilled by practice to speed upwards, yet differing from each other, as the genus differs from the species or the copy from the archetype.

And we would note that the Church supposed that Jesus crucifixion occurred when he was 33.

In 34:175 we find the bread used in the Last Supper, with an explanation for the twelve “disciples”:

Observe also the loaves set forth upon the holy table, how the twelve are divided into equal parts and placed in sets of six each, as memorials of the twelve tribes…

In 38:182 and 185, we find the description of the actual sacrifice as reinvisoned for the purpose of the Last Supper:

Marvellous too is the equal distribution of the sacrificial blood which the high priest Moses, following Nature’s guidance, made.  He took, we read, the half of the blood and poured it into mixing-bowls and the half he poured upon the altar to show us that sacred wisdom is of a two-fold kind, divine and human…On these bowls, the Word pours of the blood desiring that our irrational part should be quickened and become one in some sense rational following the divine courses of the mind, and purified from the objects of the sense, which lure it from their deceitful and seductive force.

In 51:255 we find not the foundation for calling the final days “the Passion:”

…it is Moses who bids eat the Passover and celebrate the crossing from passion “with haste.”

In 59:191 and 60:192, we find the foundation for distribution of the meal to the followers:

Further, the heavenly food of the soul, wisdom, which Moses calls “manna” is distributed to all who will use it in equal portions by the divine Word, careful above all things to maintain equality…We may find a similar example of this proportioned equality in what is called the Passover, which is held when the soul studies to unlearn irrational passion and of its own free will experiences the higher form of passion which reason sancetions.

The notion that Jesus intercedes  was resurrected and intercedes for humanity has its origins in 62:201:

I marvel too when I read of that sacred Word, which ran in impetuous breathless haste “to stand between the living and the dead.”…And indeed how could all that shatters and crushes and raptures our soul fail to be abated and lightened when the God-beloved separates and walls off the consecrated thoughts, which veritably live, from the unholy, which are truly dead?

In 62:205, we find:

To His Word, His chief messenger, highest in age and honor, the Father of all has given the special prerogative, to stand on the border and separate the creature from the Creator.  This same Word both pleads with the immortal as suppliant for afflicted mortality and acts as ambassador of the ruler to the subject.

German Protestant scholars opine that there is a single source for the synoptic Gospels.  They call this source “Q” for Quelle (German for “source).  They are both accurate and inaccurate.

The source for much of early Christian doctrine is in Philo, who Christian scholars like to refer to as a Jewish philosopher of the Stoic school.  The basic narrative of the Jesus chronicles derive from the Judean narratives of bar Cochba, the revolt and the limited success of the restoration of the sovereignty of Israel.

Why do Christian scholars not want to identify Philo as the source of Christian doctrine?  Why do they prefer to inflict on him the dual isolation of identification as “philosopher” and “Jew”?  Because while Philo wrote at around the same time that “Jesus” was running around Judea, Philo was not a proto-Christian.  Philo could not be made into a proto-Christian.  Having used his writings as the basis for constructing an otherwise foundationless cult, proto-Christians had to marginalize Philo, while not entirely eliminating him from the historical (not theological or dogmatic) canon.

The proto-Church read Philo as Jewish philosophy.  Since Philo referred to TaNaKh as “oracles,” the Greco-Roman understanding of the text as oracular was, in their eyes, validated.  This made it easy Greco-Romans to seek out a narrative that seemed to support their notion of their prophesied savior.  The Judean narratives that were aimed at incorporating bar Cochba into the Judean canon fit the narrative form sought by Greco-Romans.  Adoption of the narratives was made easier by the fact that Hadrian had expelled Judeans from Jerusalem and from Judea.

After conflating Philo’s philosophy into their reading of TaNaKh, it was a simple matter to redact Philo’s philosophy into “Paul’s” letters, thus providing a foundation for the claim that the prot0-Church had the support of “real” Judeans.

"Paul" is Philo, part 1

Now we get to the fun part:  indications that Philo was the source for some of “Paul’s” more memorable lines, and that Philo was the source for much of what we think of as “Christianity.”

In “Who is the Heir of Divine Things,” 3:10b-12, we find:

For ignorance is exceedingly bold and glib of tongue; and the first remedy for it is to hold its peace, the second is to give ear to those who advance something worth hearing…for many who come to hear a discourse have not come with their minds, but wander abroad rehearsing inwardly numberless thoughts on numberless subjects thoughts on their families, on outsiders, on things private and things public, which properly should be forgotten for the moment…If then the mind determines to have no dealing with any of the matters which visit it from abroad or are stored within it, but maintaining peace and tranquility addresses itself to hear the speaker, it sill be ‘silent’…and thus be able to listen with complete attention.  Otherwise, it will have no such power.

In 3:14:

The meaning is that those whould keep silent who have nothing worth hearing to say, and those should speak who have put their faith in the God-sent love of wisdom, and not only speak with ordinary gentleness, but shout with a louder cry.  The cry is not made with mouth and tongue, through which, as we are told, the air assumes a spherical shape and thus is rendered perceptible by the sense of hearing, but by the organ of the soul, uniting all music in its mighty tones heard by no mortal whatsoever, but only by Him who is uncreated and imperishable.

The depiction of God as “uncreated and imperishable” is one we find “Paul” informing the Corinthians of in  1 Cor 9:25, 1 Cor 15:42, 53, 54, and 50, and Romans 1:23

The rhetorical style of Philo’s discussion of ignorance is consistent with the detailed examination of the nature of love, 1 Cor 13.

The notion that it is permissible to speak to God with familiarity (as Jesus is noted doing) is one that Philo addresses in “Who is the Heir” III 21b:

For to whom should a man speak with frankness but to his friend?  And so most excellent is it, that in the oracles (χρησμοις), Moses is proclaimed the friend of God to show that all the audacities of his bold discourse were uttered in friendship, rather than in presumption.

Philo provided the precedent for “friendly” interaction with God, tracing it back to Moses.  With such an authority backing the formula, how simple would it be for the proto-Christian communities to retroject that “friendliness” back further to Abraham (again, courtesy of Philo’s argumentation), to provide a basis for “Jesus’” intimacy with God?

Philo provided the proto-Christian communities with their basis for claiming paternity from God in “Who is the Heir” 6:27:

But Thou, Master, are my country, my kinsfolk, my paternal hearth, my franchise, my free speech, my great and glorious and inalienable wealth.

We find “Paul’s” claim to have “begotten” adult children in “Who is the Heir” 7:36, 38:

For I know that Thou, who gives being to what is not and generates all things, has hated the childless and barren soul, since Thou has given as a special grace to the race of them that see that they should never be without children or sterile…Also in the votaries of practice Thou has implanted a jealousy to sow and beget the children of the soul, and when they are thus endowed, they have cried out in their pleasure.

(We also note from this that Philo presumes the sin God hates is lack of progeny, not homosexuality.)

“Paul’s” argument concerning inheritance from the “free” woman (found in Galatians), finds it origins in “Who is the Heir” 10:49, 51-3.  While Galatians uses Sara/Hagar, Philo begins by using Leah/Rachel as the dichotomy and concudes by referencing Sarah/Hagar:

For if a man…has two wives, one beloved and one hated, and both bear him children, when he purposes to divide his possessions, he shall not be able to adjudge the elder’s rights to the son of the beloved (that is, Pleasure) for he is but “young,” even if years have made him grey-headed, but to the son of Prudence, the hated wife, the son who from earliest childhood is an “elder,” he must give these rights and thus assign to him a double portion…Is it not just, then, when the soul is pregnant and begins to bear what befits a soul, that all objects of sense become barren an incapable of child-bearing, those objects which find acceptance with us “from the kiss” and not through genuine friendship.  The life of the senses, then…has for her son each one among us who honors and admires the nurse and foster-mother of our mortal race, that is  Sense, on whose just-fashioned form the earthly mind, called Adam, looked and gave the name of what was his own death to her life.  “For Adam,” it says, “ called his wife’s name Life” because she is the mother of all living things.”  That is doubtless of those who are in truth dead to the life of the soul.  But those who are really living have Wisdom for their mother, but Sense they take for a bond-woman, the handiwork of nature made to minister to knowledge.

Greco-Romans, with their cultural attachment to philosophy and their assumption of ownership of Wisdom, undoubtedly understood that last phrase to mean that they were uniquely meant to be the “true heirs” of Judean text and promise.

Philo outlines the specifics that the lover of learning needs in 13:63-4:

We must now explain more exactly about what it is that the lover of learning seeks to know.  Surely it is something of this kind:  “can he who desires the life of th blood and still claims for his own the things of the senses become the heir of divine and incorporeal things? “  No;  one alone is held worthy of these, the recipient of inspiration from above, of a portion heavenly and divine, the wholly purified mind which disregards not only the body but that other section of the soul which is devoid of reason and steeped in blood, aflame with seething passions and burning lusts.

And in 13:69-70:

Therefore, my soul, if you feel any yearning to inherit the good things of God, leave not only your land, that is your body, your kinsfolk, that is your senses, your father’s house, that is speech, but be a fugitive from yourself also and issue forth from yourself.  Like persons possessed and corybants, be filled with inspired frenzy, even as the prophets are inspired.  For it is the mind which is under the divine afflatus, and no longer in its own keeping, but is stirred to its depths and maddened by heavenward yearning drawn by the truly existent and pulled upward with truth to lead the say and remove all obstacles before its feet, that its path may be smooth to tread—such is the mind, which has this inheritance.

We see in this intimations of the origins of the “apostles” (those who “issued forth”).  We also see Philo’s demand that the “heir” be separate.  We note the analogy between personal relations and the body, an analogy we find “Paul” uses in 1 Cor.

We find more connections between Philo and 1 Cor in 14:73:

Thus, through experience, as a foolish child learns, I learned that the better course was to quit all these three, yet dedicate and attribute the faculties of each to God.

“Paul’s” version of this is “when I was a child, I spoke as a child…”

Philo is the source of "Paul's" notons of disowning Judeans from the promise of TaNaKh, of "slave of christ," and of "ministry" and of

From where did  “Paul” derive his notion “slaver of Christ,” of “ministry” and of “inheritance of the promise” and his notion that the Judeans/Israelites could be separated from a promise made to them in TaNaKh? 

From Philo.

From “Who is the heir of Divine things?”

II. 7-8:

So when else should the slave of God (του θεου δουλον) open his mouth freely to Him Who is the ruler and master both of himself and of the All, save when he is pure from sin and the judgments of his conscience are loyal to his master, when he feels more joy at being the servant of God than if he had been king of all the human race and assumed an uncontested sovereignty over land and sea?  The loyalty of Abraham’s service and ministry (λειτουργιας) is shown by the concluding words of the oracle (χρησθεντος) addressed to Abraham’s son

We see in Philo’s use of του θεου δουλον Paul’s description of himself as “prisoner of Christ/slave of Christ. “

Philo describes Abraham’s activity relating to God as “λειτουργιας. “  “ministry,“  a word adopted by Greco-Romans who wanted to be accepted as members of the Judean Temple.

Philo’s use of χρησθεντος, a cognate of χριστος, would very likely have indicated to those Greco-Roman proto-Christians that this Jewish “philosopher” understood the text the same way that they did, and gave his assent for their assumption of ownership of the text.

III:10-13:

For ignorance is exceedingly bold and glib of tongue;  and the first remedy for it is to hold its peace, the second to give ear to those who advance something worth hearing.  Yet let no one suppose that this exhausts the significance of the words: “be silent and hear.”  No, they enjoin something else of greater weight.  They bid us not only to be silent with the tongue and hear with the ears, but be silent and hear with the soul also.  For many who come to hear a discourse have not come with their minds, but wander abroad rehearsing inwardly numberless thoughts on numberless subjects, thoughts on their families, on outsiders, on things private and things public, which properly should be forgotten for the moment.  All these, we may say, form  a series of successions in the mind, and the inward uproar makes it impossible for them to listen to the speaker, who discourses as in an audience not of human beings but of lifeless statues who have ears but no hearing in those ears.

IV:14

For the ignorant then it is well to keep silent, but for those who desire knowledge and also love their master, frank speech is a most essential possession.  Thus we read in Exodus: “the Lord will war for you and you will be silent.” And at once there follows a divine oracle (χρησμος) in these words:  “What is it you shout at me?” (Ex 14:14-5), The meaning is that those should keep silent who have nothing worth hearing to say, and those should speak who have put their faith in the God-sent love of wisdom, and not only speak with ordinary gentleness but shout with a louder cry.  That cry is not made with mouth and tongue, through which, as we are told, the air assumes a spherical shape and thus is rendered perceptible by the sense of hearing, but by the organ of the soul, uniting all music in its mighty tones, heard by no mortal whatsoever, but only by Him Who is uncreated and imperishable.

Compare the logical progression of Philo’s assessment of ignorance and wisdom with “Paul’s” assessment of the nature of love in 1 Corinthians.

Philo calls God’s reply “oracle,” χρησμος, which indicated to a Greco-Roman audience that the Judean text conformed to their understanding of godly speech. 

V:19:

But the man of worth has such courage of speech that he is bold not only to speak and cry aloud, but actually to make an outcry of reproach, wrung from him by real conviction and expressing true emotion...

V:21

For to whom should a man speak with frankness but to his friend?  And so most excellent is it that in the oracles, Moses is proclaimed the friend of God (Ex 33:11) to show that all the audacities of his bold discourse were uttered in friendship, rather than in presumption.

This would suffice to Greco-Romans for permission to speak/write whatever they wanted to claim about God, and to attribute it to a “Pharisee, “ Paul, just to create their own fence around the law:  they could claim that the “radical“ statements about God did not come from them, but from a Jew who presumably was, like Moses, a “friend of God“ and who therefore could say whatever he wanted.

VI:22-3

But observe on the other hand that confidence is blended with caution.  For while the words ‘what will you give me’ show confidence, ‘master’ shows caution.  While Moses usually employs two titles in speaking of the Cause, namely God and Lord, here he uses neither, but substututes ‘master.’  In this he shows great caution and exactness in the use of terms.  It is true that ‘Lord’ and ‘master’ are said to be synonyms.  But though one and the same thing is denoted by both, the connotations of the two titles are different...

This has the sound of Paul, using “God“ and “Father“ where Philo says Moses used “God“ and “Lord. “

VI:26-7:

Am I not a wanderer from my country, an outcast from my kinsfolk, an alien in my father’s house?  Do not all men call me excommunicate, exile, desolate, disfranchised»  But you, Master, are my country, my kinsfolk, my paternal hearth, my franchise, my free speech, my great and glorious and inalienable wealth.

This has the sound of Paul, telling his communities that he was persecuted by his people for the sake of the good news. 

The clearest evidence we have that Philo was the source of “Paul’s“  theory of inheritance by adoption into the “promise“ can be found in56:277-280:

After “thou shalt depart“ come the words “to thy fathers. “  What fathers? …For we read “the Lord said to Abraham ‘Depart from they land and from thy kinsfolk and from the house of they father unto the land which I will show thee, and I will make thee into a great nation.’  Was it reasonable that he should again have affinity with the very persons from whom he had been alienated by the forethought of God?  Or that he who was to be the captain of another race and nation should be associated with that of a former age?  God would not bestow on him a fresh and in a sense a novel race and nation if he were not cutting him right adrift from the old.  Surely he is indeed the founder of the nation and the race, since from him as root sprang the young plant called Israel, which observes and contemplates all the things of nature.  So we are told to bear out the old from the face of the new.  Rightly, for how shall they on whom the rain of new blessings has fallen in all its abundance, sudden and unlooked for, still find profit in old-world lore and the ruts of ancient customs.

No; by “fathers” he does not mean those whom the pilgrim soul has left behind, those who lie buried in the sepulchers of Chaldea, but possibly, as some say, the sun, moon and other start to which it is held that all things on earth owe their birth and framing, or, as others think, the archetypal ideas which, invisible and intelligible there, are the patterns of things visible and sensible here—the ideas in which, as they say, the mind of the sage finds its new home.

This would seem to be the text on which “Paul” predicated his claim that the proto-Christians “inherited” the promise of Abraham.  In this text, Philo separates Abraham from his own fathers, and claims that he now possesses other fathers.  This notion of separation from one’s family ancestry and assumption of a new family with a new ancestry, which is contrary to the intent of Lev 18:22 and 20:13, deriving as it does from the “Jewish philosopher” Philo, was easy for the early Church to put in the mouth of the “Pharisee,” “Paul,” thereby providing a dual “Jewish” basis for the claim that the early Church, not the Judean population, were the heirs of both text and “promise.”

Philo on sexuality and homosexuality: On Moses

In “On Abraham,” Philo constructs a midrash in which God punishes the land for being fruitful and abundant, yet there is no mention of God’s actions towards the humans who were not fruitful nor abundant.

In contrast, in “On Moses,” Philo constructs a backstory which we find referred to in Revelation 2:14.  In Philo’s midrash, we find a detailed and graphic account of  the “stumbling block” and the subsequent punishment.

Rev 2:14 says:

But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.”

Numbers 31:15-8 has only this to say about the matter: 

Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.  Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.  But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.

Phllo’s midrash says:

Knowing that the one way by which the Hebrews could be overthrown was disobedience, he set himself to lead them, through wantonness and licentiousness, to impiety, through a great sin to a still greater, and put before them the bait of pleasure.  ‘You have in your countrywomen, king,’ he said, ‘persons of pre-eminent beauty.  And there is nothing to which a man more easily falls a captive than women’s comeliness.  If, then, you permit the fairest among them to prostitute themselves for hire, they will ensnare the younger of their enemies.  But you must instruct them not to allow their wooers to enjoy their charms at once.  For coyness titillates, and thereby makes the appetites more active, and inflames the passions.  And, when their lust has them in its grip, there is nothing which they will shrink from doing or suffering.  Then, when the lover is in this condition, one of those who are arming to take their prey should say: ‘You must not be permitted to enjoy my favors until you have left the ways of your fathers and become a convert to honoring what I honor.  That your conversion is sincere will be clearly proven to me if you are willing to take part in the libations and sacrifices  which we offer to idols of stone and wood and the other images.’  Then the lover, caught in the meshes of her multiform lures, her beauty and the enticements of her wheedling talk, will not gainsay her, but, with his reason trussed and pinioned, will subserve her orders to his sorrow and be enrolled as a slave of passion.

Such was his advice.  And the king, thinking that the proposal was good, ignoring the law against adultery and annulling those which prohibited seduction and fornication as though they had never been enacted at all, permitted the women, without restriction, to have intercourse with whom they would.  Having thus received immunity, so greatly did they mislead the minds of most of the young men, and pervert them by their arts to impiety, that they soon made a conquest of them.  And this continued until Phinehas, the son of the High Priest, greatly angered at what he saw and horrified at the thought that his people had at the same moment surrendered their bodies to pleasure and their souls to lawlessness and unholiness, showed the young gallant spirit which befitted a man of true excellence.  For, seeing one of his race offering sacrifice and visiting a harlot, not with his head bowed down towards the ground, nor trying in the usual way to make a stealthy entrance unobserved by the public, but flaunting his licentiousness boldly and shamelessly, and pluming himself as though his conduct called for honor instead of scorn, he was filled with bitterness and righteous anger, and attacking the pair while they still lay together, he killed both the lover and his concubine, ripping up her parts of generation because they served to receive the illicit seed.  This example being observed by some of those who were jealous for continence and godliness they copied it at the command of Moses, and massacred all their friends and kinsfolk who had taken part in the rites of these idols made by men’s hands.  Thus they purged the defilement of the nation, by relentlessly punishing the actual sinners, while they spared the rest who gave clear proof of their piety.

We note that the description of the punishment is graphic, and that the punishment was carried out by a human, not by God.  We note that it was copied on Moses’ orders.  From this we can infer two things:  humans are more severe against one another regarding sexual matters than God is, and God does not object to homosexuality.

Philo on homosexuality

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Gen 19 does not condemn homosexuality.  It condemns bullying.  It condemns the possibility of homosexual rape.  It does not homosexuality itself.  So how did the general understanding that the text condemns homosexuality occur?

From Philo, who describes it in a degree of detail that is unexpected coming from the ancient world, and in a way which demonstrates that the phrases used in the Pauline letters is something other than a matter of sensitivity (which didn’t exist in the public sphere in that age in any case).

On Abraham 26:133-6:

Η Σοδομιτων χορα, μοιρα της Χανανιιδος γης, ην υοτερον ωνομασαν Συριαν Παλαιστινην, αδικηματων μυριων οσων γεμισθεισα και μαλιστα των εκ γαστριμαργιας και λαγνειας οσα τε μεγεθη και πληθη των αλλων ηδονων επιτειχισασα ηδη παρα τω  δικαστη των ολων κατεγνωστο.  Αιτιον δε της περι το ακολασταινειν αμεριας εγεντο τοις οικητορσιν η των χορηγιων επαλληλος αφθονια´ βαθυγιεος γαρ και ευυδρος  ουσα η χωρα παντιοων ανα παν ετος ευφορια καρπων εχρητο´ μεγιστη δ αρχη κακων ως ειπε τις ουκ απο σκοπου τα λιαν αγαθα.

* The land of the Sodomites, a part of the land of Canaan afterwards called Palestinian Syria, was brimful of innumerable iniquities, particularly such as arise from gluttony and lewdness, and multiplied and enlarged every other possible pleasuer with so formidable a menace that it had at last been condemned by the Judge of All.  The inhabitants owed this extreme license to the never-failing lavishness of their sources of wealth, for, deep-soiled and well-watered as it was, the land had every year a prolific harvest of all manner of fruits, and the chief beginning of evils, as one has aptly said, is good in excess.

        We note that Philo begins by telling us that the trouble comes from somewhere that is not Judea, not Israel, not Egypt:  it is from the Canaanites.  This is the source of the claim made by contemporary scholars that the prohibition refers not to homosexuality per se, but to specific practices that came from Canaanites.

ων αδυνατουντες φερειν τον κορον ωσπερ τα θρεμματα σκιρτωντες απαυχενιζουσι τον της φυσεως νομον, ακρατον πολυν και οψοφαγιας και οχειας εκθεσμους μεταδιωκοντες´ ου γαρ μονον θηλυμανουντες αλλοτριους γαμους δειφθειρον αλλα και ανδρες  οντες αρρεσιν επιβαινοντες την κοινην προς τους παχοντας οι δρωντες φυσιν ουκ αιδουμενοι απιδοσπορουντες ηλεγχοντο μεν ατελη γονην σπειροντες, ο δ ελεγχος προς ουδεν ην οφελος, υπο βιαιοτερας νικωμενων επιθυμιας.  Ειτ εκ του κατ ολιγον εθιζοντες τα γυναικων υπομενειν τους ανδρας γεννηθεντας θηλειαν κατεσκευασαν αυτοις νοσον, κακον δυσμαχον, ου μονον τα σωματα μαλακοτητε και θρυψει γυναικουντες, αλλα και τας ψυχας αγεννεστερας απεργαζομενοι, και το γε επ αυτους ηκον μερος το συμπαν ανθρωπων γενος διεφθειρον´ει γουν Ελληνες ομου και βαρβαροι συμωνησαντες εζηλωσαν τας τοιαυτας ομιλιας, ηρημωντο αν εξης αι πολεις ωσπερ λοιμωδει νοσω κενωθεισαι,

* Incapable of bearing such satiety, plunging like cattle, they threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied themselves to keep drinking of strong liquor and dainty feeding and forbidden forms of intercourse.  Not only in their mad lust for women did they violate the marriages of their neighbors, but also men mounted males, without respect for the sex nature which the active partner shares with the passive;  and so when they tired to beget children, they were discovered to be incapable of any but a sterile seed.  Yet the discovery availed them not, so much stronger was the force of the lust which mastered them.  Then, as little by little, they accustomed those who by nature men to submit to play the part of women, they saddled them with the formidable curse of a female disease.  For not only did they soften their bodies by luxury and voluptuousness, but they worked a further degeneration in their souls and, as far as in them lay, were corrupting the whole of mankind.  Certainly, had Greeks and barbarians joined together in affecting such unions, city after city would have become a desert, as though depopulated by a pestilential sickness.

     Philo says “men mounted males,” which is the basis for the suggestion that it is not homosexuality that is prohibited, but pederasty/pedophilia.  Unfortunately, that is irrelevant to the issue which Philo identifies as the actual problem:  the fact that the interaction does not produce progeny. 

      The prohibition in Leviticus is based on the understanding that one or the other of the partners would have the relinquish ownership of the progeny, which would result in the end of that partner’s family line.  Philo is in a culture where males adopt other males to perpetuate family lines.  He notes that male interaction with male would not produce progeny. Because he is in a culture where males adopt other males to perpetuate family lines, he cannot inform his audience that this adoption, with its consequent sundering of a family line on the part of the male who had to relinquish ownership, is prohibited.  However, he retains the essential element of the prohibition:  the issue of progeny.

      We note that Philo self-identifies as Greek because Philo says “Greeks and barbarians,” which tells us that Philo sees himself as a Greek, rather than a Judean, who would call the “other” εθνοι: nations.  We also note that in Romans 1:14, “Paul” also refers to “Greeks and barbarians.”  This suggests that “Paul’s” source was Philo.

27:137-9

λαβων δε ο θεος οικτον ατε σωτηρ και φιλανθρωπος τας μεν κατα φυσιν ανδρων και γυναικων συνοδους γινομενος ενεκα παιδων σπορας ηυξησεν ως ενι μαλιστα, τας δ εκφυλους και εκθεσμους διαμισησας εσβεσε και τους οργωντας επι ταυτας προβαλομενος ουχι τας εν εθει καινουργησας δ εκτοπους και παρηλλαγμενας τιμωριας ετιμωρησατο.  Κελευει γαρ εξαιφνης τον αερα νεφωθεντα πολυν ομβρω οθχ υδατος αλλα πυρος υειν´ αθροας δε νιφουσης αδιαστατω και απαυστω ρυμη φλογος εκαιοντο μεν αγροι και λειμωνες και λασια αλση και ελη δασυτατα και δρυμοι βαθεις, εκαιετο δ η πεδιας και ο του σιτου και των αλλων σπαρτων απας καρπος, εκαιετο δε και της ορεινης η δενδοφορος, στελεχων ριζαις ουταις εμπιπραμενων

* God, moved by pity for mankind whose Savior and Lord He was, gave increase in the greatest possible degree to the unions which men and women naturally make for begetting children, the licentious and ruinous he separated and quenched, working on them and throwing them forth, new and outside, he punished them with a different punishment.  He told the air to grow suddenly overclouded, and pour forth a great rain, not of water, but of fire.  When the flames streamed down massed in one constant and perpetual rush, they burned up the fields and meadows, the leafy groves, the overgrowths of the marshland and the dense thickets.  They burned the plainland and all the fruit of the corn and the other crops.  They burned the forest-land on the mountains, where trunks and roots alike were consumed.

[My translation.  The published translation says: “”abominated and extinguished this unnatural and forbidden intercourse, and those who lusted for such he cast forth and chastised with punishments not of the usual kind but startling and extraordinary, newly created for this purpose.”  The problem?  There is no word that actually translates as “abominated.”  That is a little problem…]

We note in this passage that Philo relates how the land was punished, not how the people were.  The people were “cast out” (as Adam and Chava were from the original garden) and the fertile land was made arid.  Thus, according to Philo, the great sin was not homosexuality, per se, but failing to produce progeny. 

It should be noted that Philo's commentary on Genesis 19 reflected general Roman opinion on sexuality.  Some sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Roman society differ markedly from those in later Western society.  Greco-Roman cultic worship supported sexuality as an aspect of prosperity for the state.  Individuals might turn to private religious practice or "magic" for improving their erotic lives or reproductive health. It was considered natural and unremarkable for adult males to be sexually attracted to teen-aged youths of both sexes, and pederasty was condoned as long as the younger partner was not a freeborn Roman. There are no Latin and no Greek words for "homosexual" and "heterosexual"  No moral censure was directed at the adult male who enjoyed sex acts with either women or males of inferior status, as long as his behavior revealed no weaknesses or excesses, and did not infringe on the rights and prerogatives of his male peers. Sex in moderation with male prostitutes or slaves was not regarded as improper or vitiating to masculinity, if the male citizen took the active and not the receptive role. Hypersexuality was condemned morally and medically in both men and women.
 

Christianity as the conflation of LXX + Philo + Aristeas + bar Cochba narratives

One of the many names bandied about during Seminary studies is Philo (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE).  Philo was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher in Alexandria.  Philo used philosophical  allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek and Jewish philosophy.

Josephus makes a brief reference to Philo in Antiquities of the Jews.   He tells of Philo's selection by the Alexandrian Jewish community as their principal representative before the Roman emperor Gaius Galigula.  He says that Philo agreed to represent the Alexandrian Jews in regard to civil disorder that had developed between the Jews and the Greeks in Alexandria (Egypt). He also tells us that Philo was skilled in philosophy, and that he was brother to an official called Alexander the alabarch.  According to Josephus, Philo and the larger Jewish community refused to treat the emperor as a god, to erect statues in honor of the emperor, and to build altars and temples to the emperor.

Philo himself claims in his Embassy to Gaius to have been part of an embassy sent by the Alexandrian Jews to the Roman Emperor Caligula. Philo says he was carrying a petition which described the sufferings of the Alexandrian Jews, and which asked the emperor to secure their rights. Philo gives a detailed description of their sufferings, in a way that Josephus overlooks, to assert that the Alexandrian Jews were simply the victims of attacks by Alexandrian Greeks in the civil strife that had left many Jews and Greeks dead. Philo says he was regarded by his people as having unusual prudence, due to his age, education, and knowledge. This indicates that he was already an older man at this time (40 CE). Philo considers Caligula's plan to erect a statue of himself in the Temple of Jerusalem to be a provocation, saying, "Are you making war upon us, because you anticipate that we will not endure such indignity, but that we will fight on behalf of our laws, and die in defence of our national customs? For you cannot possibly have been ignorant of what was likely to result from your attempt to introduce these innovations respecting our temple." In his entire presentation he implicitly supports the Jewish commitment to rebel against the emperor rather than allow such sacrilege to take place. This reveals Philo's identification with the Jewish community.

In Flaccus, Philo tells indirectly of his own life in Alexandria by describing how the situation of Jews in Alexandria changed after Gaius Caligula became the emperor of Rome. Speaking of the large Jewish population in Egypt, Philo says that Alexandria "had two classes of inhabitants, our own nation and the people of the country, and that the whole of Egypt was inhabited in the same manner, and that Jews who inhabited Alexandria and the rest of the country from the Catabathmos on the side of Libya to the boundaries of Ethiopia were not less than a million of men." Regarding the large proportion of Jews in Alexandria, he writes, "There are five districts in the city, named after the first five letters of the written alphabet, of these two are called the quarters of the Jews, because the chief portion of the Jews lives in them." Other sources tell us that Caligula had been asking to receive the honors due to a god. Philo says Flaccus, the Roman governor over Alexandria, permitted a mob to erect statues of the Emperor Caius Caligula in Jewish synagogues of Alexandria, an unprecedented provocation. This invasion of the synagogues was perhaps resisted by force, since Philo then says that Flaccus "was destroying the synagogues, and not leaving even their name." In response, Philo says that Flaccus then "issued a notice in which he called us all foreigners and aliens... allowing any one who was inclined to proceed to exterminate the Jews as prisoners of war." Philo says that in response, the mobs "drove the Jews entirely out of four quarters, and crammed them all into a very small portion of one ... while the populace, overrunning their desolate houses, turned to plunder, and divided the booty among themselves as if they had obtained it in war." In addition, Philo says their enemies, "slew them and thousands of others with all kinds of agony and tortures, and newly invented cruelties, for wherever they met with or caught sight of a Jew, they stoned him, or beat him with sticks". Philo even says, "the most merciless of all their persecutors in some instances burnt whole families, husbands with their wives, and infant children with their parents, in the middle of the city, sparing neither age nor youth, nor the innocent helplessness of infants." Some men, he says, were dragged to death, while "those who did these things, mimicked the sufferers, like people employed in the representation of theatrical farces". Other Jews were crucified. Flaccus was eventually removed from office and exiled, ultimately suffering the punishment of death.

Philo’s attempts to explain Judean praxis in Greek terms contributed to Greco-Roman perception that they alone were worthy of inheriting such a “philosophy.”

This also suggests that “Paul’s” letters, as well as the gospel narratives were written after the bar Cochba revolt:  the failure of the revolt, and the dedication of the Temple to Jupiter indicated to the Greco-Romans who had read Judean text and had wanted acceptance into the Judean Temple cult that G-d was unhappy with how Judeans had behaved, and suggested to them that they were more fitting heirs to the text and to the contract it implied.

So they read the texts which had been written to incorporate bar Cochba into the Judean canon, and they read Philo, and they conflated the two with their reading of the LXX to create their own version of “real Judaism,” using Philo’s philosophical assessment of inheritance of text to support their actions.

Text supporting this to follow.

The "historic" "Paul"

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There is a body of scholarship devoted to Ariteas to Philocrates.  Debatre rage over whether the document was written by a Greek or a Jew, whether it was Jewish proselytizing or a record of a historic event.

I would add an alternate possibility: it was a pseudoepigraphic document, using the names of two figures who were well-known in Greek culture, for the purpose of explaining Judean cultic praxis to Greeks (without proselytizing).

I would suggest that using Aristeas as the author was intended to recall to a Greek audience Aristeas, who was a semi-legendary Greek poet and miracle-worker.  This would explain why he was used as the supposed author of a document which recounts the supposedly “miraculous” translation of the Judean Law from Hebrew into Greek.

The historical Aristeas was a native of Proconnesus in Asia Minor.  He was active ca. 7th century BCE. 

In book IV of  The Histories, Herodotus says:

The birthplace of Aristeas, the poet who sung of these things, I have already mentioned. I will now relate a tale which I heard concerning him both at Proconnesus and at Cyzicus. Aristeas, they said, who belonged to one of the noblest families in the island, had entered one day into a fuller's shop, when he suddenly dropped down dead. Hereupon the fuller shut up his shop, and went to tell Aristeas' kindred what had happened. The report of the death had just spread through the town, when a certain Cyzicenian, lately arrived from Artaca, contradicted the rumour, affirming that he had met Aristeas on his road to Cyzicus, and had spoken with him. This man, therefore, strenuously denied the rumour; the relations, however, proceeded to the fuller's shop with all things necessary for the funeral, intending to carry the body away. But on the shop being opened, no Aristeas was found, either dead or alive. Seven years afterwards he reappeared, they told me, in Proconnesus, and wrote the poem called by the Greeks The Arimaspeia, after which he disappeared a second time. This is the tale current in the two cities above-mentioned.

Two hundred and forty years after his death, Aristeas appeared in Metapontum in southern Italy to command that a statue of himself be set up and a new altar dedicated to Apollo, saying that since his death he had been travelling with Apollo in the form of a sacred raven.

Aristeas was supposed to have authored a poem called the Arimaspea, which gives an account of his travels in the far North. There he encountered a tribe called the Issedones, who told him of still more fantastic and northerly peoples: the one-eyed Arimaspi who battle gold-guarding griffins, and the Hyperboreans among whom Apollo lives during the winter.

Longinus excerpts a portion of the poem:

A marvel exceeding great is this withal to my soul—

Men dwell on the water afar from the land, where deep seas roll.

Wretches are they, for they reap but a harvest of travail and pain,

Their eyes on the stars ever dwell, while their hearts abide in the main.

Often, I ween, to the Gods are their hands upraised on high,

And with hearts in misery heavenward-lifted in prayer do they cry.

Similarly, the Chiliades of Ioannis Tzetzae quotes the Arimaspea. These two account form our entire knowledge of the poem, which is otherwise lost.

Linking Aristeas, the poet/traveller/mystic/wonder-worker of Greek culture to Aristeas the writer of a document recounting a trip to Jerusalem to meet the Chief Priest and recruit scholars to translate the Judean Law makes poetic sense.

Similarly, Philocrates is a figure known in Greek culture. The Peace of Philocrates is the name given to the peace treaty concluded in 346 BC between Athens and Macedon under Philip II.  Philocrates was the name of the main Athenian negotiator of the Treaty. 

Aeschines (389 – 314 BC) recounts the history of the Peace of Philocrates (ca 346 BCE).   

From Aeschines’ Speeches:

3.57

And if the gods permit, and the jurors give us an impartial hearing, and I am able to call to mind all that I know about you, I confidently expect to show to the jury that for the safety of the city it is the gods who are responsible, and the men who in the crisis have treated the city with humanity and moderation; but for all our misfortunes, Demosthenes. The order of my treatment shall be that which I understand he will follow; and I will speak first concerning the first period, second concerning the second, third concerning the next, and fourth concerning the present situation. So now I address myself to the peace which you and Philocrates formally proposed.

3.58

You could have made that former peace, fellow citizens, supported by the joint action of a congress of the Greek states, if certain men had allowed you to wait for the return of the embassies which at that crisis you had sent out among the Greeks, with the call to join you against Philip; and in the course of time the Greeks would of their own accord have accepted your hegemony again. Of this you were deprived, thanks to Demosthenes and Philocrates, and the bribes which they took in their conspiracy against the common weal.

3.59

But if such a statement as I have just made, falling suddenly on your ears, is too incredible to some of you, permit me to suggest how you ought to listen to the rest of my argument: When we take our seats to audit the accounts of expenditures which extend back a long time, it doubtless sometimes happens that we come from home with a false impression; nevertheless, when the accounts have been balanced, no man is so stubborn as to refuse, before he leaves the room, to assent to that conclusion, whatever it may be, which the figures themselves establish.

3.60

I ask you to give a similar hearing now. If some of you have come from home with the opinion, formed in the past, that of course Demosthenes has never in conspiracy with Philocrates said a word in Philip's interest—if any man of you is under such impression, let him decide nothing either way, aye or no, until he has heard; for that would not be fair. But if, as I briefly recall the dates, and cite the resolutions which Demosthenes moved in cooperation with Philocrates, the truthful audit of the facts shall convict Demosthenes of having moved more resolutions than Philocrates concerning the original peace and alliance,

3.61

and of having flattered Philip and his ambassadors with a shamelessness which was beyond measure, and of being responsible to the people for the failure to secure the concurrence of a general congress of the Greek states in the making of the peace, and of having betrayed to Philip Cersobleptes, king of Thrace, a friend and ally of our city—if I shall clearly demonstrate all this to you, I shall make of you this modest request: in God's name agree with me, that in the first of his four periods his policies have not been those of a good citizen. I will speak in a way that will enable you to follow me most easily.

3.62 

Philocrates made a motion  that we permit Philip to send to us a herald and ambassadors to treat concerning peace. This motion was attacked in the courts as illegal. The time of the trial came. Lycinus, who had indicted him, spoke for the prosecution; Philocrates made answer for himself, and Demosthenes spoke in his behalf; Philocrates was cleared. After this came the archonship of Themistocles.  Now Demosthenes came in as senator, not drawn by the lot either as a member of the senate or as a substitute, but through intrigue and bribery; the purpose of it was to enable him to support Philocrates in every way, by word and deed, as the event itself made evident.

 

3.63

For now Philocrates carries a second resolution, providing for the election of ten ambassadors, who shall go to Philip and ask him to send hither plenipotentiaries to negotiate peace. Of these ambassadors one was Demosthenes. On his return, Demosthenes was a eulogist of the peace, he agreed with the other ambassadors in their report, and he alone of the senators moved to give safe-conduct to Philip's herald and ambassadors; and in this motion he was in accord with Philocrates, for the one had given permission to send a herald and ambassadors hither, the other gave safe-conduct to the embassy.

3.64

As to what followed, I beg you now to pay especial attention. For negotiations were entered into—not with the other ambassadors, who were slandered again and again by Demosthenes after he had changed face, but with Philocrates and Demosthenes (naturally, for they were at once ambassadors and authors of the motions)—first, that you should not wait for the ambassadors whom you had sent out with your summons against Philip, for they wished you to make the peace, not together with the Greeks, but by yourselves;

3.65

secondly, that you should vote, not only for peace, but also for alliance with Philip, in order that any states which were taking note of what the Athenian democracy was doing might fall into utter discouragement on seeing that, while you were summoning them to war, you had at home voted to make both peace and an alliance; and thirdly, that Cersobleptes, king of Thrace, should not be included in the oaths, nor share the alliance and peace—indeed, an expedition was already being levied against him.

3.66

Now the man who was buying such services was doing no wrong, for before the oaths had been taken and the agreements entered into, he could not be blamed for negotiating to his own advantage; but the men who sold, who admitted Philip into partnership in the control of the strongholds of the state, were deserving of your great indignation. For the man who now shouts, “Down with Alexander!” and in those days, “Down with Philip!” the man who throws in my face the friendship of Alexander, this man Demosthenes,

Thus Aristeas to Philocrates seems to be a pseudoepigraphic document purportedly written by a poet/miracle worker/traveller to a legendary diplomat.

It makes sense that a Greek would use this as the basis for constructing a “letter” from a Pharisee to a community he is trying to make acceptable to Judean praxis.