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Rethinking the Other in Antiquity: Philo of Alexandria on Intermarriage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2015
Abstract
The fundamental traditions of Judaism preserve strict prohibitions against intermarriage with outsiders. The interpretation of such prohibitions in ancient Jewish literature provides our main evidence for Jewish attitudes towards intermarriage with non-Jews, and underpins discussions about the marital habits of ancient Jews. While the scriptural commentary of the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, represents a substantial body of material on this topic, scholars remain very divided in their interpretation of his attitudes and their significance for Jewish intermarriage in antiquity, a problem compounded by the absence of detailed studies of Philo's evidence. This article explores Philo's reading of the prohibitions against intermarriage in his commentary On the Special Laws, devoted to the rationalising of the laws of Moses, as represented in the Greek Pentateuch. It argues that Philo's interpretation of the prohibitions against intermarriage does not resolve questions about the relative prevalence or absence of Jewish intermarriage in Philo's era. But, through his actualisation and rationalisation of the prohibitions, exploiting the rich resources of the Greek intellectual tradition, Philo underlines the crucial importance of these prohibitions for his contemporaries, as a means of preserving the Jewish community and its foundations in the monotheistic tradition.
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- Research Article
- Information
- Antichthon , Volume 47: Thematic Issue: Culture, Identity and Politics in the Ancient Mediterranean World , 2013 , pp. 140 - 155
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- Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2013
References
* I am indebted to Julie Clague and Trevor Evans for their generous assistance with several aspects of this paper. I should also like to record sincere thanks to the Australasian Society for Classical Studies and their colleagues in Classics and Ancient History at the Australian National University, Macquarie University and the University of Queensland for generous funding and hospitality which allowed my participation, as the Sir Asher Joel Foundation Visiting Fellow, in the events out of which this paper developed.
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3 Gruen, , Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton and Oxford 2011) 355-6, cf. 277-307Google Scholar.
4 Ezra, 9:1-10,14; cf. Neh. 13; Mal. 2:10-12.
5 Jubilees 20:4; 22:16, 20; 25:1-3; 27:10; 30:7-17; and cf. Werman, C., ‘Jubilees 30: Building a Paradigm for the Ban on Intermarriage’, HTR 90.1 (1997) 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Testament of Levi 9:10; 14:6; Pseudo-Philo LAB 18.13Google Scholar; 43.5; Tobit 4:12; some Qumran scrolls, e.g. Aramaic Levi Document 17-18; 4QMMT.
6 Important examples include the book of Ruth, the story of the Moabite ancestor of King David (Ruth 4:17-22), and the genealogy of the tribe of Judah according to 1 Chronicles; cf. Knoppers, G.N., ‘Intermarriage, Social Complexity, and Ethnic Diversity in the Genealogy of Judah’, Journal of Biblical Literature 120.1 (2001) 15–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On later Second Temple sources and intermarriage: Cohen, S.J.D., ‘From the Bible to the Talmud: The Prohibition of Intermarriage’, in Ahroni, R. (ed.), Hebrew Annual Review 7 (1983) 23-9Google Scholar; id., The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley 1999) 241-62; Satlow, M., Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton – and Oxford 2001) 133-61Google Scholar; Hayes, C., Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford 2002) 70–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 The key evidence, largely confined to the Exposition, comprises Philo's treatment of the unions of Hagar and Abraham (De Abrahame); Bilhah and Zilpah with Jacob (De Virtutibus); Tamar with Judah (De Virtutibus); Aseneth with Joseph (De Iosepho); and Zipporah and the ‘Ethiopian woman’ with Moses, (De Vita Mosis; Legum Allegoriae 2.67Google Scholar). I deal with this aspect of Philo's treatment of intermarriage separately in a forthcoming study on Philo's conception of the Jewish household.
8 Cohen, , ‘From the Bible’ (n. 6) 26Google Scholar; Grätz, S., “The Question of “Mixed Marriages” (Intermarriage): The Extra-Biblical Evidence’, in Frevel, C. (ed.), Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period (New York and London 2011) 192–204, at 202Google Scholar; cf. Hayes, , Gentile Impurities (n. 6) 70Google Scholar.
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11 Tcherikover, V., Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia and Jerusalem 1959) 35–34Google Scholar; cf. Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum Volume II (Cambridge MA 1960) 2–3Google Scholar.
12 See e.g. Cohen's conclusion that Philo's exegesis was ‘determined by the antitraditional behavior of some of the Jews’ in his environment, and that ‘Philo knew many Alexandrian Jews who intermarried or committed other forms of rebellion against the Jewish community': The Beginnings of Jewishness (n. 6) 245; cf. Wolfson, H.A., Philo: Foundations of Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Volume 1 (Cambridge MA and London, rev. edn, 1968) 73–85Google Scholar; Wilson, S.G., Leaving the Fold: Apostates and Defectors in Antiquity (Minneapolis 2004) 37Google Scholar.
13 See e.g. Barclay's comments on assimilation among Egyptian Jews, in which he states that ‘Philo is our chief source of information’ on intermarriage: Barclay, J.M.G., Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE- 117 CE) (Edinburgh 1996) 107-8, 324-5Google Scholar. Examples, all drawn from Philo's biblical commentary, include the prohibition of intermarriage in Spec. 3.29.
14 In the case of Hellenistic and early Roman Egypt, papyri and inscriptions that provide such rich resources for other aspects of Jewish life provide almost no clear evidence for either the practice of or abstinence from intermarriage: cf. Bohak, G., ‘Ethnic Continuity in the Jewish Diaspora in Antiquity’, in Bartlett, J.R. (ed.), Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (London and New York 2002) 175-92, at 185Google Scholar.
15 Valuable surveys of the content of the Exposition include: Morris, J., ‘The Jewish Philosopher Philo’, in Schürer, E. (rev. edn Vermes, G., Millar, F., Goodman, M.), The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C. – A.D. 135) III.2 (Edinburgh 1987) 809-89, at 840-54Google Scholar; Royse, J.R., “The Works of Philo’, in Kamesar, A. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Philo (Cambridge 2009) 32-64, at 45–50Google Scholar.
16 On the origins of the translation under Ptolemy II Philadelphos: Mos. 2.25-44. On the evolution of traditions about the 70 (LXX) translators, and the vital role of the Greek Bible in sustaining Jewish life in antiquity: Rajak, T., Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Philo cites extensively from LXX in his two other major commentary series on the Torah: the Allegorical Commentary, and the Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus, Quotations from Scripture form part of the structure in both these series, in which interpretation is linked strictly to verse-by-verse exposition of the biblical text.
18 Cohen, , The Beginnings of Jewishness (n. 6) 241-62, at 242Google Scholar; id., ‘From the Bible’ (n. 6) 2339.
19 γαμβρεύω, ‘to intermarry’, ‘to become an in-law’, is a LXX neologism rooted in γαμβρός = Hebrew chatan, ‘son-in-law’: cf. Wevers, J.W., Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy (Atlanta 1995) 129Google Scholar; Koehler, L. and Baumgartner, W. (eds), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament Volume 1 (Leiden 1994) 364Google Scholar.
20 Translations from the Greek Torah (LXX) are based on the text in Wevers, J.W., Septuaginta, Vetus Testamentum Graecum. Auctoritate Academiae Scientarium Gottingensis editum (Göttingen 1974-1977)Google Scholar; translations of the traditional Hebrew text (MT), on Elliger, K. and Rudolph, W. (eds), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart 1997)Google Scholar, and McCarthy, C. (ed.), Bibita Hebraica Quinta: Deuteronomy (Stuttgart 2007)Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own.
21 On the wider Jewish and non-Jewish context of Philo's conception of the relation between biblical laws and the Ten Commandments, Termini, C., ‘Taxonomy of Biblical Laws and “philotechnia” in Philo of Alexandria: A Comparison with Josephus and Cicero’, Studia Philonica Annual 16 (2004) 1–29Google Scholar.
22 Following the tradition of the Greek Torah, Philo places the prohibition of adultery immediately after the commandment to honour parents, and counts it as the Sixth Commandment. The ordering of this commandment in Greek Exodus and Deuteronomy also appears in a variant Hebrew tradition, reflected in the Nash Papyrus. Dividing the Ten Commandments into two sets of five corresponding to the two tables of Moses at Mount Sinai (Exod. 32:19; Deut. 4:13, etc.), Philo also locates the prohibition of adultery at the head of the commandments on the second table, which he identifies as concerned with duties towards fellow human beings (Her. 173; Decal. 36, 51, 121, 168; Spec. 3.8).
23 Spec. 3.12-25.
24 Spec. 3.26-28.
25 Mosès, A., Philon d'Alexandrie. De Specialibus Legibus – Lib. III-IV (Paris 1970) 74 n. 4Google Scholar.
26 The absence of an explicit prohibition of intermarriage in this context seems to reflect the lack of an absolute prohibition in Israelite tradition before the post-exilic era: cf. Milgrom, J., Leviticus: A Book of Ritual and Ethics (Minneapolis 2004) 193-5Google Scholar.
27 For the standard critical edition of the Greek text of De Specialibus Legibus Book III, see Cohn, L., Philonis Alexandrini Opera Quae Supersunt V (Berlin 1906)Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Philo's works are my own.
28 Congr. 120; Decal. 175.
29 While the historian Josephus does not include the prohibition of intermarriage in his account of the Mosaic laws in Antiquities Books 3 and 4, his account of Solomon refers to the king's transgression of ‘the laws of Moses, who prohibited marriage with those who are not όμόφυλοι, i.e. ‘of the same tribe as us’ (Ant. 8.191); in context, όμόφυλοι clearly designates people who follow other customs and worship other gods (Ant. 8.190-196, at 191-192); cf. Schwartz, D.R., ‘Doing like Jews or Becoming a Jew? Josephus on Women Converts to Judaism’, in Frey, J., Schwartz, D.R. and Gripentrog, S. (eds), Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World (Leiden 2007) 93–109, at 101 n. 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the same context, Josephus writes of Moses as having warned the Hebrews against marrying ‘women of other countries (τὰςὰλλοτριοχώους)’ (Ant. 8.192); cf. Ant. 11.139-153 on Ezra's treatment of intermarried Jews who had violated the ‘constitution’ and transgressed ‘the ancestral laws’ (140).
30 The same is true of Philo's treatment of the Levitical laws in Spec. 3.12-28, through his decision to illustrate some of the forbidden sexual ‘acts of impiety’ from Persian, Greek and Egyptian examples (Spec. 3.17-23).
31 Heinemann, I., Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung (Breslau 1932) 281-2Google Scholar.
32 At Legat. 183, of the emperor Gaius.
33 Following Codex B: Dogniez, C. and Harl, M., Le Pentateuque d'Alexandrie: texte grec et traduction (Paris 2001) 439Google Scholar. άλλόφυλος appears only here in the Greek Torah (and is absent from the majority of manuscripts of Greek Exodus); with no equivalent in the traditional Hebrew text, it appears to be a gloss on the Hebrew original; cf. Wevers, J.W., Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus (Atlanta 1990)Google Scholar, who eliminates it from the Göttingen text. Elsewhere in the Greek Torah, the transliteration Φυλιστιιμ functions as the standard equivalent for Hebrew p'leshet, ‘Philistine’, andp'lishtim, ‘Philistines’.
34 Wolfson, , Philo (n. 12) 75Google Scholar; cf. Cohen, , The Beginnings of Jewishness (n. 6) 244Google Scholar.
35 LXX 2 Esdras (= Hebrew Ezra) 9:2-10:44; 23:1-27 (= Hebrew Nehemiah 13:1-27).
36 Cohen, , The Beginnings of Jewishness (n. 6) esp. 244, 261-2Google Scholar
37 Cohen, , The Beginnings of Jewishness (n. 6) 244-5Google Scholar, specifically with regard to the interpretation of Deut. 7.
38 This is a LXX neologism; Philo uses this verb only once: Somn. 1.89, citing LXX Num. 25:1.
39 Feldman reads Philo as referring to the consequences of intermarriage occurring only at ‘some vague time in the future’, and that Philo ‘specifically indicates that he is not worried about the current generation’. In Feldman's view, this shows that Philo did not consider intermarriage a problem among his contemporaries, and that it was not a problem because it was so infrequent: Jew and Gentile (n. 10) 78. The argument does not take account of either the wider context of Philo's exegesis in the Special Laws or of his exegetical constraints, according to which he takes up the issue of the future generation in accordance with the details of the biblical prohibitions.
40 On Philo's evaluation of the children of intermarriage as νόθοι: Belkin, S., Philo and the Oral Law: The Philonic Interpretation of Biblical Law in Relation to the Palestinian Haggadah (Cambridge MA 1940) 232-5Google Scholar.
41 Cf. Mos. 1.298 on the threat of the Moabite women of Num. 25.
42 On ‘customs’ in Philo: Martens, J. W., ‘Unwritten Law in Philo: A Response to Naomi G. Cohen’, Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992) 38–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Interpreting Leviticus 24:10-14 (Mos. 2.193, cf. 1.147), Philo describes the son of a Jewish woman and an Egyptian man as ‘a certain bastard (νόθος), born of unlike parents'; the fact that the man goes on to commit blasphemy, by committing the unprecedented offence of pronouncing the name of God, is due, according to Philo to the fact that this man had rejected the ancestral customs (ἔθει) of his mother and turned away to the impiety and zeal for atheism characteristic of his father's people. See further Pearce, S.J.K., The Land of the Body: Studies in Philo's Representation of Egypt (Tübingen 2007) 228-30Google Scholar.
43 Rabbinic sources likewise follow Scripture in emphasizing the reason for the prohibition as a means of avoiding idolatry: e.g. bAZ 36b.
44 κατεπᾴδω suggests both the fundamental requirement enshrined in the Shema, that parents continually repeat the Mosaic Law to their children (Deut. 6:7), but perhaps also the singing of the laws by parents, as a means of taming their children, training them to sharpen the rational mind through the Mosaic laws. The latter interpretation would follow Philo's otherwise consistent use of this verb for the action of taming away the passions (by Moses' words, Ebr. 40; Mos. 1.42; by reason, Aet. 68; Spec. 4.93; by music, Congr. 16; Spec. 1.343).
45 On the centrality of spiritual or moral migration in Philo's interpretation of Scripture: Pearce, Land of the Body (n. 42) 30-3 with references to the fundamental studies of this issue.
46 Philo's distinctive construction ‘bastard customs’ may be compared with similar expressions in Plato's works, relating to illegitimate forms of education: thus, the citizen body, if depleted by wars, should not be replaced by new citizens ‘trained with a bastard training (νόθη παιδείᾳ)’ (Leg. 741a); ‘bastard reasoning (νόθος λογισμός)’ (7?. 52b); the ‘bastard’ children of those who associate themselves unworthily with philosophy (Rep. 496a).
47 In most other instances Philo associates ἀπομανθάνω, ‘to unlearn’ with positive progress in education, recalling the language of mental development in Pl. Phd. 96c; cf. Philo, Leg. 3.236Google Scholar; Prob. 12; Spec. 1.56; Deca!. 40. On the danger of ‘unlearning’ good things, Pl. Prt. 342d; cf. Philo, Spec. 2.135Google Scholar.
48 Barclay, J.M.G., ‘The Family as the Bearer of Religion in Judaism and Early Christianity’, in Moxnes, H. (ed.), Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (New York 1997) 66–80Google Scholar.
49 Legat. 115; cf. Spec. 1.314; 2.88; 4.149-150; Praem. 162; Hyp. 7.14.
50 Legat. 210.
51 The change was perhaps originally influenced by other verses in Deuteronomy: note, in particular, Deut. 6:14-15; cf. Weinfeld, M., Deuteronomy 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York 1991) 366Google Scholar.
52 Mendelson, , Philo 's Jewish Identity (n. 9) 71-4Google Scholar; Feldman, , Jew and Gentile (n. 10) 78Google Scholar; for a different approach, cf. E.R. Goodenough's suggestion that, since Philo mentions no penalty, ‘the prohibition of [intermarriage] was more an advisory than a legal matter‘: The Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt: Legal Administration by the Jews under the Early Roman Empire as Described by Philo Judaeus (New Haven 1929) 85Google Scholar.
53 Pl. Rep. 379a-380d; Ti. 42 d-e.
54 Fug. 74; among many other examples, cf. Sacr. 133; Post. 12; Fug. 65-66; Deus 60-68; Fug. 66; Decal. 176-178.
55 Pl. Rep. 380a-b; Prt. 324b, etc.
56 On Philo's doctrine of God's powers: Termini, C., Le Potenze di Dio: Studio su dynamis in Filone di Alessandria (Rome 2000).Google Scholar
57 On the retributive power assigned to the powers of God, e.g. Decal. 176-178. On the educational goal of punishment, e.g. Opif. 149, 167-170; Praem. 133, 163, 166, 170. On Philo's interpretation of divine punishment in wider context: Nikiprowetzky, V., De Decalogo (Paris 1965) 164-5Google Scholar; Mendelson, A., ‘Philo's Dialectic of Reward and Punishment’, Studia Philonica Annual 9 (1997) 104-25Google Scholar.
58 Lev. 26:14-45; Deut. 27:13-26; 28:15-68.
59 Praem. 128, 130, 136; cf. Spec. 2.170 on the devastation of the cities of Canaan as ‘divine visitations’.
60 Following Colson, F.H., Philo VIII (LCL; Cambridge MA 1939) 395, n. dGoogle Scholar.
61 On βαρυδαιμονία in Philo: Cher. 2; Her. 109; Congr. 159; Fug. 85; Mut. 169; Somn. 2.130; Praem. 135; as κακοδαιμονία, e.g. Opif. 156; Leg. 3.52; Ahr. 268; Spec. 1.304; Virt. 50; cf. Nikiprowetzky, V., ‘Sur une lecture démonologique de Philon d'Alexandrie: De gigantibus, 6-18’, in Nikiprowetzky, , Études Philoniennes (Paris 1996) 217-42, at 241Google Scholar.
62 On Philo's God-centred Jewish adaptation of Plato's treatment of εὐδαιμονία as the goal of human life (Pl. Ti. 90c-d), see Runia, D.T., Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (2nd edn, Leiden 1986) 344-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Eudaimonism in Hellenistic-Jewish Literature’, in J.L. Kugel (ed.), Shem in the Tents of Japhet: Essays on the Encounter of Judaism and Hellenism (Leiden 2002) 131-57.