On Abraham

Before Moses wrote any law, Philo argues, the patriarchs lived it, and Abraham is the proof that the Law follows nature.

by Philo of Alexandria90 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: De Abrahamo
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

Some of Philo's critics were unimpressed by Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son. Kings and whole nations had given up children to their gods, they pointed out, and the naked sages of India burned themselves alive when old age came on, while their widows went willingly into their husbands' pyres; why praise one man for doing what custom made ordinary? Philo answers them two-thirds of the way through this life of Abraham, and the answer sums up the book. Those others acted from habit, fear, compulsion or love of fame; Abraham had none of those motives, since no custom demanded it and no one was watching, and he acted from love of God alone. The larger claim comes in the opening pages: Genesis tells stories of individual lives before it gives commandments, Philo says, because those people were themselves laws, living and reasoning ones, of which the written laws are copies; to follow Moses is to live as they did, and so to live by nature. He arranges them in two sets of three. Enos stands for hope, Enoch for repentance, Noah for justice; then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stand for virtue gained by teaching, by nature and by practice. Abraham's journey out of Chaldea becomes a mind turning from the stars to their maker, and the three visitors at his tent become one God seen with two of his powers.

Key concepts

What is an unwritten law in On Abraham?

It is law lived before it was written, the order of nature kept by people who were never told to keep it. Philo calls the patriarchs living and rational laws, of which the written commandments are copies. So the Law of Moses does not add something foreign to human nature; it records what the best people did spontaneously, and following it means living as they lived.

Why does Philo group the early figures in two triads?

Because each triad maps a path to the good life. The first, Enos, Enoch and Noah, gives its stages: hope, repentance and justice, with Enos, whose name means man, marking that a person without hope is hardly human. The second, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, gives the three ways virtue is gained: by teaching, by nature and by practice.

What did the Chaldeans get wrong, according to Philo?

They took the visible order for the whole of reality. The Chaldeans studied the stars more than any people and traced every event to their motions, but they took no account of the invisible being that only the intellect can grasp. Abraham, raised among them, is the mind that wakes up and sees a governor above the world guiding it, instead of a world that governs itself.

Why does Philo read the three visitors as one God?

Because a soul fully lit by God sees a threefold image of one subject. The central figure is God himself, and the other two are his powers, the creative and the kingly, appearing like shadows cast by that light. Philo compares it to a body standing in sunlight, which often casts a double shadow. The word shadow, he adds, is used loosely: nothing is truly like God.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The Patriarchs as Living Laws

Why does a book of laws begin with stories of people? Philo's answer is that those people were the law before it was written, and that following Moses means living as they lived.

Genesis tells individual lives before it gives any commandment, Philo says, because those people were themselves laws, living and rational ones, of which the written laws are copies. That shows two things: the commandments are not at odds with nature, and keeping them is not too hard, since the earliest people kept the unwritten law without being told. He arranges them in two sets of three. Enos stands for hope, Enoch for repentance, Noah for justice; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for virtue gained by teaching, by nature and by practice. Abraham, the book concludes, did not merely follow the law; he was the unwritten law of God.

natural law
virtue
scripture
moral development
hope
justice
human nature
virtue ethics

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From the Stars to Their Maker

Is the order of the heavens the last word about the world? Abraham's departure from Chaldea is Philo's picture of a mind that looks past the visible order to the one who directs it.

The Chaldeans, in Philo's account, studied the stars more than any people and traced every event to their motions, magnifying the visible world and taking no account of what only the intellect can see. Abraham was raised in that learning, and his departure is read as a waking: the mind opens its eye and sees a governor standing above the world and guiding it. He leaves kin, country and custom behind at once. The visit of the three strangers at his tent carries the same lesson further: a soul filled with light sees one God together with two of his powers, as a body in sunlight casts a double shadow.

cosmology
sense perception
mind
divine providence
faith
wealth

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Abraham's Sacrifice and the Question of Motive

If others have given up children to their gods, what makes Abraham's readiness to sacrifice Isaac worth praising? Philo stakes his answer on why a deed is done, not on what is done.

Some critics were unimpressed. Kings and whole nations had offered up children, they said, and the naked sages of India burned themselves when old age came on, while their widows went willingly into their husbands' pyres; why praise one man for what custom made ordinary? Philo answers that those others acted from habit, fear, compulsion or love of fame. Abraham had none of those motives: no custom demanded the act, no one was watching, and he acted from love of God alone. The same outward deed, on this view, can be a crime of custom or the highest act of piety.

sacrifice
piety
obedience
faith
moral psychology
passions

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Within this work

passages held: 90
distinct concepts: 192
by passages held, corpus-wide: #525

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “cosmology” and “sense perception”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 66 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
cosmology	sense perception	4
allegory	cosmology	3
allegory	sense perception	3
allegory	virtue	3
divine providence	piety	3
human nature	virtue	3
justice	virtue	3
allegory	divine providence	2
cosmology	divine providence	2
divine providence	virtue	2
allegory	piety	1
divine providence	justice	1
human nature	justice	1
human nature	sense perception	1
justice	piety	1
piety	virtue	1
sense perception	virtue	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Against Flaccus (In Flaccum)
Written as a demonstration of divine justice, this account of the Alexandrian riots of 38 CE and of the prefect Philo blamed for them stands with his historical and apologetic works.
EN
Allegorical Interpretation (Legum allegoriae I–III)
The first surviving treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, Philo's long verse-by-verse reading of Genesis, covering its second and third chapters in three books.
EN
Every Good Man Is Free (Quod omnis probus liber sit)
Written in the manner of the Greek schools rather than as commentary on Moses, it is, with On the Eternity of the World, one of Philo's philosophical treatises.
EN
On Abraham (De Abrahamo) you are here EN
On Cultivation (De agricultura)
Noah the farmer is a subject Philo splits across two treatises; this first one is built on the difference between near-synonyms, and On Planting continues it.
EN
On Dreams (De somniis I–II)
A treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, in two surviving books on the dreams of Jacob, Joseph and Pharaoh's court.
EN
On Drunkenness (De ebrietate)
Of the two books on drunkenness known in antiquity, this is the one that survives; it sits between On Planting and On Sobriety in the Allegorical Commentary's run on Noah and the vine.
EN
On Flight and Finding (De fuga et inventione)
Hagar's flight and the angel who finds her, Genesis 16:6–14, read within the Allegorical Commentary.
EN
On Joseph (De Josepho)
The life of the statesman in Philo's series of patriarch lives within the Exposition of the Law. It follows On Abraham; lives of Isaac and Jacob, now lost, once stood between them.
EN
On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (De congressu eruditionis gratia)
Philo's reading of Genesis 16 as a theory of education, set within the Allegorical Commentary; On Flight and Finding continues Hagar's story.
EN
On Planting (De plantatione)
The second of Philo's two treatises on Noah as farmer, turning from farming in general to the planting of the vineyard.
EN
On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis et de exsecrationibus)
The closing treatise of the Exposition of the Law, on the rewards, punishments, blessings and curses the Law sets before its hearers.
EN
On Sobriety (De sobrietate)
A short sequel to On Drunkenness in the Allegorical Commentary, on Noah waking and pronouncing his blessings and curse. Its Greek title names exactly that: what Noah prayed for and cursed once sober.
EN
On the Change of Names (De mutatione nominum)
Genesis 17 and its renamings, from Abram and Sarai to Jacob and Joshua, read in the Allegorical Commentary; it also carries Philo's clearest statement that God has no proper name.
EN
On the Cherubim (De Cherubim)
Two short commentaries joined under one title: the cherubim at Eden's gate, then the birth of Cain. Within the Allegorical Commentary it picks up where the three books of Allegorical Interpretation stop.
EN
On the Confusion of Tongues (De confusione linguarum)
The Tower of Babel in the Allegorical Commentary, opening with a defence of Genesis against critics who likened it to Greek myth.
EN
On the Contemplative Life (De vita contemplativa)
A portrait of the Therapeutae, classed with Philo's historical and apologetic writings; it opens by referring back to his account of the Essenes, the active life to this contemplative one.
EN
On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi)
The overture to Philo's Exposition of the Law, the series that goes on to lives of the patriarchs and a code of laws. It stands apart as his reading of the creation story in its literal order.
EN
On the Decalogue (De decalogo)
The hinge of the Exposition of the Law, turning from the lives of the patriarchs to the written law.
EN
On the Embassy to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium)
The companion of Against Flaccus: an eyewitness history of the embassy Philo led to Gaius, and the fullest account he left of his own public life.
EN
On the Eternity of the World (De aeternitate mundi)
Among Philo's philosophical treatises, the one that names the Greek schools and their arguments most openly.
EN
On the Giants and On the Unchangeableness of God (De gigantibus; Quod Deus sit immutabilis)
Two treatises that editions usually separate but that read as one commentary, in the Allegorical Commentary, on the verses of Genesis leading up to the flood.
EN
On the Life of Moses (De vita Mosis I–II)
Philo's biography of Moses in two books, usually counted with the Exposition of the Law though it stands on its own.
EN
On the Migration of Abraham (De migratione Abrahami)
Abraham's call in Genesis 12, read as the soul's migration toward God; in the Allegorical Commentary it follows On the Confusion of Tongues in the order of Genesis.
EN
On the Posterity of Cain (De posteritate Caini)
The last of the Cain treatises in the Allegorical Commentary, following Cain from his exile through his descendants.
EN
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini)
One of the run of treatises on Cain and Abel in the Allegorical Commentary, taking up the brothers' offerings in Genesis 4.
EN
On the Special Laws (De specialibus legibus I–IV)
The largest work in the Exposition of the Law, in four books; it follows On the Decalogue and is followed by On the Virtues.
EN
On the Virtues (De virtutibus)
A pendant to On the Special Laws in the Exposition of the Law, gathering laws under the virtues they train rather than under the Ten Commandments.
EN
The Worse Attacks the Better (Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat)
It follows On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain in the Allegorical Commentary and carries the brothers' story on to the murder itself.
EN
Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit)
Best known for its long passage on the Logos dividing the world into opposites, this reading of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 belongs to the Allegorical Commentary.
EN

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On Abraham

Overview

Key concepts

What is an unwritten law in On Abraham?

Why does Philo group the early figures in two triads?

What did the Chaldeans get wrong, according to Philo?

Why does Philo read the three visitors as one God?

Themes of the book

1The Patriarchs as Living Laws

2From the Stars to Their Maker

3Abraham's Sacrifice and the Question of Motive

Within this work

What this book thinks together

Works held

The Patriarchs as Living Laws

From the Stars to Their Maker

Abraham's Sacrifice and the Question of Motive