On Rewards and Punishments

Philo closes his account of the Law with its blessings and curses, and with a vision of scattered exiles freed in a single day and guided home.

by Philo of Alexandria66 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: De praemiis et poenis et de exsecrationibus
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

Near the end of this treatise Philo describes a day to come. Jews held as slaves at the far ends of the earth will be set free all at once, as if at a signal, because their masters will be ashamed to rule people better than themselves; the scattered, in Greece and in foreign lands, on islands and continents, will rise together and travel to one place, guided by a vision only they can see. Ruined cities will be rebuilt and the desert filled. The passage is almost the last word of the whole series in which Philo set out the laws of Moses. The treatise begins by restating that series' plan: Moses' books contain an account of creation, a history and a code of laws, and what remains is to show what the Law promises. The rewards come first, attached to the figures of the earlier lives, from Enos's hope to Jacob, renamed Israel, the one who sees God. Punishments follow, with Cain, who was condemned not to die but to live in constant dying. Then come the blessings and curses of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Obedience brings peace, health and plenty; even wild animals will one day grow tame, and a man will come forth, as the Greek of Numbers puts it, to lead a host against enemies. Disobedience brings famine, slavery and horrors down to parents eating their children. Older scholarship listed the section on curses as a separate treatise, On Curses.

Key concepts

What are the prizes in On Rewards and Punishments?

Rewards attached to the figures of the earlier lives, set out as prizes won in a contest of the soul. Enos wins for hope, Enoch for repentance, Noah for justice, and the three patriarchs for the virtues they stand for, up to Jacob, renamed Israel, who becomes the one who sees God. The prizes are not goods added from outside; they are what the virtue itself brings.

What is the difference between death and dying for Philo?

Being dead is the end of life, and is either good or a matter of indifference; dying is a state of suffering, and is wholly evil. Cain's punishment is the second. He is not condemned to die but to live continually dying, groaning and trembling, marked so that no one will kill him, enduring a death that never comes to an end.

Why must the wild passions be tamed before the wild beasts?

Because no one can escape the beasts outside while training up fiercer ones within. Philo's promised peace, in which bears, lions and serpents grow gentle, begins in the soul: once the passions are tamed, the war between humans and animals can end, and the war among humans, which springs from greed, ends too, since people will be ashamed to be more savage than the beasts.

What are the blessings and curses of the Law?

The consequences the Law sets before its hearers, drawn from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Obedience brings peace, health, plenty and victory; disobedience brings famine, disease, slavery and, at the extreme, parents eating their children. Philo treats them as the last part of Moses' plan: after the creation, the history and the laws comes what the Law promises to those who keep or break it.

Themes of the book

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

Prizes for Hope and Repentance, and a Death That Never Ends

What does a good life actually win, and what does a bad one cost? Philo answers with prizes that are states of the soul, and one punishment worse than death.

After restating the plan of the whole series, creation, history and laws, the treatise shows what the Law promises. The rewards are attached to the figures of the earlier lives, as prizes in a contest: Enos wins for hope, Enoch for repentance, Noah for justice, and Jacob, renamed Israel, becomes the one who sees God. Punishments follow, with Cain. There are two kinds of death, Philo argues, being dead and dying, and the first is good or indifferent while the second is wholly evil; Cain is condemned to the second, to live forever dying.

divine reward
hope
repentance
faith
happiness
punishment
divine punishment
suffering
vice

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Blessings, Curses and a Scattered People Freed in One Day

Can a people's history turn on the state of its soul? The blessings and curses of the Law become, in Philo's hands, a vision of peace that begins inside and spreads outward.

Obedience brings peace, health and plenty. Even wild animals will one day grow tame, and Philo says why it must start within: no one escapes the beasts outside while training up far fiercer ones in the soul, so the wild passions will be tamed first, and people will then be ashamed to be more savage than the animals. Near the end comes the vision: exiles held as slaves at the far ends of the earth freed in a single day, because their sudden turn to virtue makes their masters ashamed to rule people better than themselves, and guided home by a sight only they can see.

peace
war
obedience
moral reform
political authority
agriculture
fear
hope

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Within this work

passages held: 66
distinct concepts: 165
by passages held, corpus-wide: #597

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: “divine providence” and “virtue”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 12 pairings. 42 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
divine providence	virtue	3
divine reward	virtue	3
punishment	suffering	3
divine reward	scripture	2
repentance	virtue	2
divine providence	repentance	1
divine punishment	suffering	1
punishment	scripture	1
repentance	suffering	1
scripture	suffering	1
scripture	virtue	1
suffering	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)
The first of Philo's lives of the patriarchs in the Exposition of the Law, following On the Creation of the World; its companions on Isaac and Jacob are lost, and On Joseph continues the set.
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) you are here 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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