On the Decalogue

Why the Ten Commandments were given in a desert, spoken by God himself, and left without any penalty attached.

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: De decalogo
Original language: Ancient Greek

Overview

Cities, Philo argues, were the wrong place to give a law: full of pride, luxury and the worship of false gods, they would have taught the people to despise it before they heard it. So God led them first into the desert, to empty them of the city's habits and to show that the laws were not the invention of any people's lawmakers. That is Philo's answer to a question some readers asked — why was the law given in the wilderness? — and it opens his commentary on the Ten Commandments, a book that keeps asking why Scripture did things as it did. There are ten commandments because ten is the perfect number. The whole people heard them, though no human voice carries so far, because God created a new sound in the air, a voice of flame speaking their own language. They were cut on two tablets of five: the first five govern duties toward God, and they end with honouring parents, since parents stand on the border between the immortal and the mortal, as makers of life; the second five forbid adultery, murder, theft, false witness and covetousness. Along the way Philo mocks the Egyptians, who worship crocodiles and asps. The commandments carry no penalty, Philo explains, because God is the cause of good alone and leaves punishment to his subordinates. Philo presents each commandment as a heading under which a whole class of particular laws belongs, and the four books of On the Special Laws that follow were built on that plan.

Key concepts

Why do the Ten Commandments carry no penalty in On the Decalogue?

Because God is the cause of good alone. Philo holds that punishment is not God's own work: it belongs to his subordinates, as severe measures against deserters belong to generals, while the King is credited with peace and the preservation of the whole. So the commandments are stated purely as principles, and the penalties appear only in the particular laws filed under them.

Why did God give the law in the desert?

Because cities corrupt a law before it is heard. They are full of pride, luxury and the worship of false gods, and a people raised in them would have learned to despise the law in advance. The desert emptied the people of the city's habits, and it showed that these laws were not the invention of any city's lawmakers but came from God.

Why does Philo put honouring parents on the first tablet?

Because parents stand on the border between the immortal and the mortal. As makers of life they share something with God, the maker of all, and they are his servants in bringing children into being. So the fifth commandment belongs to the duties toward God, and to dishonour a parent is to dishonour the master whom the parent serves.

What is a commandment as a heading, for Philo?

A general principle under which a whole class of particular laws belongs. The prohibition of theft, for instance, heads every law about debts, deposits, dishonest partnerships and rapine, and the first commandment heads all the laws on the rule of one God. The Decalogue is thus the outline of the entire Law, and the particular laws of Moses can be read as its applications.

Themes of the book

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

Why the Law Came in a Desert, by a Voice of Flame

Does it matter where, how and in what voice a law is given? Philo reads every circumstance of Sinai as part of what the law means.

Cities were the wrong place for a law, Philo argues: full of pride and luxury, they would have taught the people to despise it before they heard it, so God led them first into the desert to empty them of the city's habits. There are ten commandments because ten is the perfect number. The whole people heard them because God made a new voice of flame, reaching the farthest as clearly as the nearest. Each commandment is addressed to one person, since one who obeys is worth a nation. And none carries a penalty, because God is the cause of good alone.

law
divine revelation
commandments
number
mathematics
perception
pride
humility
punishment

Enter a dialogue

Two Tablets of Five, and Parents on the Border

What do people owe to God, and what to one another, and where does one duty end and the other begin? Philo finds the answer in how the commandments are divided.

The first tablet governs duties toward God, and it ends, surprisingly, with honouring parents: they stand on the border between the immortal and the mortal, as makers of life, so to dishonour them is to dishonour the God they serve. Along the way Philo mocks the Egyptians who worship crocodiles and asps. The second tablet forbids adultery, murder, theft, false witness and covetousness, and the last is the hardest. Every other passion attacks the soul from outside, he says, but desire alone begins within us and is wholly voluntary. Each commandment is a heading for a whole class of particular laws.

piety
parents
idolatry
monotheism
animal worship
family
desire
adultery
truthfulness
theft

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 61
distinct concepts: 159
by passages held, corpus-wide: #619

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: “parents” and “piety”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 5 concepts, joined by 5 pairings. 37 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
parents	piety	4
commandments	idolatry	1
commandments	law	1
commandments	piety	1
idolatry	law	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)
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) you are here 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

— or open another of their works