Sunday, April 25, 2010

Is Philo Referencing the contemporary Jewish Temple of Alexandria? [Part Three]

I remember how many times David Runia used to stress to me that I should avoid using Yonge's translation of Philo. Here is something I wouldn't have noticed had I not been consulting Smallwood's translation of the Embassy to Gaius.

First Smallwood notes that Philo is the only person in the Jewish mission to Rome to enter into Gaius' presence. Then she notices something peculiar about his speech:

The spiteful sycophant Isidorus observed that Gaius enjoyed being given superhuman titles and said, "My lord, you will hate these Jews here and the rest of their compatriots too, when you learn of their ill-will and their disloyalty towards you. When everyone else was offering sacrifices of thanksgiving for your recovery, these people alone could not bring themselves to sacrifice. When I say 'these,' I include the other Jews as well." At that we cried out unanimously, "Lord Gaius, we are being maligned. We did sacrifice and hecatombs at that. And we did not just sprinkle the blood on the altar and take the meat home to use for feasting and merrymaking, as some people normally do, but we allowed the whole offering to be consumed in the sacred flame. And it is not just only once but three times already that we have done this: the first time was at your accession, the second was on your recovery from that serious illness from which the whole world suffered at the same time and the third was in anticipation of your victory in Germany [Embassy Gaius 355 - 356]

Smallwood notes "the subject is presumably the Alexandrian Jewish community, not the Jewish race as a whole. Philo does not say where these hecatombs were offered. Apart from the temple of Jerusalem the only Jewish sanctuary where sacrificial worship is known to have been permitted at this time was the temple of Onias ..." [p. 320]


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