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WorkPhilo of Alexandria

On the Virtues

Courage, kindness, repentance and true nobility, drawn from the laws of Moses, with a place in them for strangers, converts and even animals.

by Philo of Alexandria93 passages held

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Original title
De virtutibus
Original language
Ancient Greek

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Overview

A newborn calf or lamb, the law of Moses says, must be left with its mother for seven days before it may be offered, and an animal and its young may not be sacrificed on the same day. Philo calls such laws training in gentleness: a people taught not to part a mother from her offspring will find cruelty to other people harder. He gathers such laws in this treatise under four virtues. Courage comes first, but not the courage of the battlefield; Philo means the endurance of poverty, sickness and disgrace. Humanity, his word for kindness toward others, takes the most space. It begins with Moses choosing his successor: he passed over his own sons and nephews and left the choice to God, who named Joshua, his pupil. It goes on through the laws against charging interest to the poor, the rule that a labourer's wages be paid the same day, the gleanings left for the poor, the love owed to the stranger as to oneself, and the care owed even to an enemy's animals. Repentance turns to those who abandon the worship of many gods for the one God: they are to be welcomed, Philo insists, as friends and kin. The last section, on nobility, is the one the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy singles out, because it frees the idea from race. Noble birth, Philo argues, is worthless without virtue, and his examples include Tamar, a woman raised among idols in Palestine who came to the true God.

Key concepts

What does Philo mean by humanity in On the Virtues?

Kindness toward others, understood as a virtue the Law trains. Philo gathers under it the commandments that protect the weak: no interest charged to the poor, a labourer paid the same day, gleanings left in the field, love for the stranger, care even for an enemy's animals. Philo calls it the twin sister of piety and a level road to holiness: the one governs how people stand toward God, the other how they treat one another.

Why does Philo include laws about animals among the virtues?

Because gentleness learned toward animals carries over to people. The law requires a newborn calf or lamb to stay with its mother seven days and forbids sacrificing an animal and its young on the same day. Philo calls these laws training in gentleness: a people taught not to part a mother from her offspring will find cruelty toward other people harder.

What is courage in this treatise?

Endurance of the hardships that break people, not bravery in battle. Philo means standing up to poverty, want of reputation, mutilation and disease, the troubles under which weak-spirited people collapse. The courageous person meets them by setting against each a truer good: the riches of nature against poverty, the praise that follows virtue against the crowd's contempt.

What is true nobility for Philo?

Virtue, not descent. A person born of blameless ancestors is still ignoble if he is bad, since he is exiled from virtue, the true country of the wise. And a person born among idol-worshippers becomes noble by turning to the one God. Abraham, who left his people's worship of lifeless things, is the standard, and Tamar, raised among idols, is counted noble on the same ground.

Themes of the book

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

Humanity: Kindness the Law Trains, Down to the Animals

Can a law make people gentler, not just better behaved? Philo reads a whole set of Mosaic commandments as training in kindness.

Humanity, Philo's word for kindness toward others, takes most of the treatise. It opens with Moses choosing his successor: he passed over his own sons and nephews and left the choice to God, who named Joshua, his pupil. Then come the laws against charging interest to the poor, the rule that a labourer be paid the same day, the gleanings left for the poor, the love owed to the stranger as to oneself, and the care owed even to an enemy's animals. A newborn calf or lamb must stay with its mother seven days: a people taught not to part mother from young will find cruelty to other people harder.

  • humanity
  • compassion
  • animal ethics
  • generosity
  • usury
  • poverty
  • leadership
  • succession

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Courage That Endures Poverty, Sickness and Disgrace

What kind of bravery does an ordinary life ask for? Philo moves courage off the battlefield and into the hardships that break people quietly.

Courage comes first, but not the courage of war. Philo means the endurance of poverty, disgrace, mutilation and sickness, the things that break weak-spirited people while those of noble spirit rise to meet them. He then turns the hardship itself: no one is truly poor, he argues, who has nature as provider, supplying air to breathe night and day, springs and rivers, food from the earth. Against want of wealth the wise set the riches of nature, and against want of reputation the praise that flows from virtue and not from the crowd, which sells its praise cheaply.

  • courage
  • poverty
  • wealth
  • wisdom
  • virtue

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Nobility Without Birth, and Welcome for Those Who Turn

Does anyone inherit worth? Philo's answer is no, and it opens his people's door to those who come to the one God from outside.

Repentance, in this treatise, is the turn of those who abandon the worship of many gods for the one God, and Philo insists they are to be welcomed as friends and kin. The section on nobility goes further. Noble birth is worthless without virtue: a bad man has no house and no city, since he is exiled from virtue, the true country of the wise, however blameless his grandfathers were. Abraham, who left his people's worship of lifeless things, is the standard of nobility for every newcomer, and Tamar, raised among idols in Palestine, came to the true God and is counted noble for it.

  • nobility
  • monotheism
  • religion
  • arrogance
  • divine providence

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Within this work

passages held
93
distinct concepts
189
by passages held, corpus-wide
#514

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: “nobility” and “virtue”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 83 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
nobilityvirtue9
animal ethicscompassion7
animal ethicshumanity6
compassionhumanity4
divine providencevirtue4
couragevirtue3
animal ethicsjustice2
compassionjustice2
couragejustice2
humanityjustice2
humanityvirtue2
justicevirtue2
animal ethicsvirtue1
compassionvirtue1
couragedivine providence1
divine providencejustice1
justicenobility1

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.

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. On the Virtues (De virtutibus) you are here EN
  29. 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
  30. 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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