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Barbarian Jews: ethnic identity in the
language of Philo
By Stephen D. Louy *
Marys Well Occasional Papers
are published by Nazareth
Evangelical Theological
Seminary
Director of Publications and Editor: Duane Alexander Miller
Citation:
Louy, Stephen D. Barbarian Jews: ethnic identity in the language of Philo in MarysWell Occasional Papers , 1:2, March (Nazareth, Israel: Nazareth Evangelical Theologi-cal Seminary 2012).
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Barbarian Jews: ethnic identity in the language of Philo
Stephen D. Louy
Marys Well Occasional Papers 1:2 March 2012
Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary Nazareth, Israel
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Abstract : This paper is intended to contribute to the continued effort to
understand Philo of Alexandrias ethnic self-identification. Scholarshiphas long sought to determine whether Philo would be better understood
in terms of Jewish or Greek identity, noting that he displays characteris-
tic features of both groups. This paper examines Philos use of the Greek
word barbaros , barbarian, in order to highlight the dual nature of Philos
self-identification, and suggests that his writings would best be under-
stood as deriving from a person who possessed what Philip Esler calls
multiple identities.
Key Words : Philo, barbarian, ethnicity, identity, Esler, Judaism
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Barbarian Jews: ethnic identity in the language of Philo
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Despite the fact that modern scholarship has struggled to understand him, very little is
known about Philo of Alexandria. We have no autobiography of his life, though we are able
to draw some conclusions about the person from his works. Philo wrote of himself in Legatio
ad Gaium that he is by birth a Jew, and my native city is Jerusalem.... It fell to me to have
for my grandparents and ancestors kings... (2.278). 1 Additionally, there are two references to
Philo in the writings Josephus, the only such references known from contemporaries of Philo
in the first-century CE. 2 We learn from both Philos own works and from the references of
Josephus that Philo led the embassy of Alexandrian Jews to meet the Emperor GaiusCaligula. 3 These facts tell us that Philo either was born in or felt a deep connection to the city
of Jerusalem, but lived in Alexandria and was a prominent member of the Jewish community
there. In fact, he is known as Philo the Jew 4 in many later Christian works. Much of the rest
of what we know, or think we know about Philo has been gleaned from his writings by
scholars, very far removed from him, and this has given rise to much debate. Ellen Birnbaum
sums up one aspect of this debate quite nicely when she writes, [s]o prominent is the mix of
*Stephen D. Louy holds an MA in Biblical Languages from the Graduate Theological Union inBerkeley, CA, and recently completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Edinburgh. His dissertationis entitled The Origins of Christian Identity in the Letters of Paul. Currently, Louy is researching projectsexploring Pauls use of mixing language with regard to creating purity-based outsiders for his communities. Incoming research, he intends to explore the establishment of a Christian counter-narrative to the Roman Empirein the first three centuries CE.
1. Philos Legatio Ad Gaium details this embassy. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Philo arefrom the Loeb Classical Library Series: Philo, Works , vol. I-X, trans. F. H. Colson, G. H. Whitaker, and J. W.Earp (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 195062).
2. The Josephus references are found in Antiquitates Iudaeorum , 18.8.257-260, 4.186. Written in thefirst century CE, both occurences refer to Philo, leader of the Embassy of Alexandrian Jews to the Emperor Gaius. The next earliest reference to Philo comes from Clement of Alexandria, writing in the late secondcentury CE. David T. Runia, References to Philo from Josephus Until 1000 AD, The Studia Philonica
Annual VI (1994): 132. 3. C. D. Yonge, trans., David M. Scholer, The Works of Philo (United States of America: Hendrickson
Publishers, Inc., 2000), xii. 4. Yonge and Scholer, Philo , xi.
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Greek and Jewish elements in his works that scholars have often debated whether Philo was
more a Greek or a Jew. 5 It is precisely this debate over Philos ethnic identity which I wish
to address in this paper, in an attempt to shed new light on an old topic. Where does Philo fall
on the spectrum of identification? Is he best understood as a Jew, or as a Greek? Philos
primary concern, notes Francesca Calabi, was with the translation and interpretation of
language, 6 and we would be remiss as scholars if we did not afford his works the same
attention he afforded them himself. Given that all we have by which to assess Philo and his
life, it is his use of language that provides the most insights to understanding his self-
identification.
Modern scholarship has struggled to better understand Philo, but has done so by
attempting to categorize him as either a Greek or a Jew based on his writings, and then to
understand his writings in light of that categorization. However, this approach leaves much to
be desired. It is clear, both from examples within Philos work itself and from the scholarship
which exists on both sides of the Greek/Jew debate that Philo is neither one nor the other.
Instead, he views himself as both a Greek and a Jew, and demonstrates this Greco-Jewish
ethnicity throughout his writings, exhibiting what Philip F. Esler describes as nested or
multiple identities. 7 Scholarship has approached Philo as either a Greek or Jew, and in
order to do so has overlooked or dismissed characteristics representing the other side of his
Greco-Jewish identity. We will begin this discussion with an examination of Philos use of
the word barbarian, which provides a clear example of Philos nested identities, and will
5. Ellen Birnbaum, Philo on the Greeks: A Jewish Perspective on Culture and Society in First-CenturyAlexandria, The Studia Philonica Annual XIII (2001): 28.
6. Francesca Calabi, The Language and the Law of God: Interpretation and Politics in Philo of Alexandria (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 1.
7. Philip F. Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Pauls Letter (Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 2003), 49.
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provide a new understanding of how Philo viewed himself as a Greco-Jew, and how
scholarship should, in turn, view him.
1. Barbarians in Philo
The Greek word is defined primarily as speaking a foreign language, and
also as one who is not Greek, foreign, barbarous. 8 However, despite originally being the
term by which Greeks referred to non-Greeks, came to carry with it very negative
connotations, much as it does today. Philip Esler notes that [t]he cardinal Greek virtues as
defined in fourth-century philosophy normally included wisdom or intelligence, manliness or courage, discipline or restraint, and justice. Conversely, stupidity, cowardice, abandonment
and lawlessness are ascribed to barbarian characters, 9 and Eslers citation of fourth-
century philosophy suggests that barbarian took on its negative connotations following the
attempted Persian invasion of Greece. Additionally, Robert Jewett observes: In the bilingual
context of Rome (i.e., in the first-centuries BCE and CE), Greek means Greco-Roman
while barbarians refers to alien tribes who cannot speak Greek or Latin and are uncultured,
wild, crude, fierce and, in a basic sense, uncivilized. 10 In short, barbarian was a very
Greek way to refer to the rest of the world in a very negative manner.
Three derivations of the Greek word for may be found in the works of
Philo, these being (as seen above, the Greek adjective meaning barbarous or,
used substantively, non-Greek, foreign, barbarian) and two substantive participle forms
derived from the Greek verb (meaning to behave or speak like a barbarian):
8. Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the NewTestament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), 132.
9. Esler, Conflict , 61. 10. Robert Jewett, Eldon Jay Epp, ed., Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2007), 13031.
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and . Forms of these three words occur a total of 53 times, 11 and it
is helpful for this discussion to place each usage into one of three categories: a whole world
reference; a derogatory reference; or, a positive reference.
By far the most common use of the word barbarian, occurring 43 times, is in
tandem with a form of the word for Greek or Greece, a set phrase used by the Greeks to
denote the whole world. In this construction, Greek refers to the civilized Greek speaking
part of the world, while barbarian encompasses the uncivilized non-Greek speakers.
Thus, everyone is included. 12
The second most common use of barbarian, appearing seven times, is the
derogatory reference. In these passages, Philo is criticizing some aspect of barbarian life or
culture, using a sweeping generalization to encompass all barbarians, or non-Greek
speakers. 13 This derogatory use is actually not far removed from the whole world reference,
where barbarian is used to mean the uncivilized peoples who were not viewed as
Greeks. However, in the derogatory classification, Philo specifically refers to barbarians or
barbarian culture as cruel or uncivilized, rather than using the term merely as a means of
identifying non-Greeks in conjunction with Greek. For example, a whole world reference
reads, For the majority of wars...have consumed the greatest and choicest part of the Greek
race and the barbarian also.... ( Ios. 56), while a derogatory reference reads, Barbarian
nations...have for long admitted child sacrifice as a holy deed...and this practice is...an
abomination. ( Abr. 181)
11. Peder Borgen, Kre Fuglseth, and Roald Skarsten, The Philo Index: A Complete Greek Word Indexto the Writings of Philo of Alexandria (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 63.
12. The word barbarian with Greek to denote the whole world are found in the following passages:Opif. 128; Ebr. 193; Conf. 6, 6, 190; Mut. 35; Plant. 67; Cher. 91; Abr. 136, 267; Ios. 30, 30, 56, 134; Mos.2:12, 18, 19, 20; Decal. 153; Spec 1:211; Spec. 2:44, 165; Spec. 4:120; Praem. 165; Prob. 73, 94, 98, 138;Contempl. 21, 48; Legat. 8, 8, 83, 102, 141, 145, 147, 162, 292; Prov. 2:15, 66, 68; QE isf 4.
13. The derogatory uses of barbarian are found in the following passages: Legat. 116, 215; Abr. 181,184; Spec. 3:17, 163.
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Philo also offers an occasional positive comment regarding barbarians, and this use
comprises two of the appearances of barbarian in Philos work. Rather than criticize
something about barbarian life, Philo instead holds some aspect of barbarism up as an
example of correctness. 14 For example, Philo writes (lit. Among the
barbarian [nation])...we find large associations of men of the highest excellence. ( Prob. 74)
For greater ease, Table 1 illustrates the categorical break down of each of the words defined
above.
Table 1 Whole World Derogatory Positive
37 2 2
6 4 0
0 1 0
Total 43 7 2
It should be noted, however, that Table 1 accounts for only 52 of the 53 total uses of
barbarian. The final appearance of the word barbarian in the Philonic corpus proves
difficult to place into one of these three categories. Found in De Vita Moysis , during Philos
discussion of the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, this last appearance of
barbarian reads as follows: Then it was that some people, thinking it a shame that the laws
should be found in one half only of the human race, ([in] the barbarian [half]),
and denied altogether to the Greeks, took steps to have them translated. ( Mos. 2.27) This use
is neither positive nor negative in its meaning, neither degrading nor uplifting some aspect of
barbarian society, and thus it cannot be placed in either the derogatory or positive
14. The positive uses of barbarian are found in the following texts: Spec. 1:313; Prob. 74.
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Greek, and did not consider Jews to be part of that group. By suggesting that Philo called the
Jews barbarians merely because that is the terminology that would have been used
commonly to refer to Jews, Niehoff is overlooking the fact that Philo demonstrates an ample
vocabulary with which to refer to the Jews as a specific group throughout his body of work,
and uses this vocabulary in every instance except the one in question. In addition to this one
instance of barbarian, Philo uses three different terms to refer to Jews: and related
forms 63 times; 17 and related forms 112 times; 18 and and related forms 38
times, 19 of which 18 uses refer to the Jews. 20
Niehoff also assumes that Philo thought of himself as a Greek, and did not consider
the Jewish people to be Greek. The passage in question, rendered above, in which Philo
distinguishes the Jews as barbarians, implies that Philo did not consider the Jews to be part
of the Greek world, as Niehoff suggests. While it is not unfair to claim that Philo thought of
himself as a Greek, it is unfair to claim that he did not consider the Jews to be part of this
category. There is ample evidence to support the notion that Philo understood himself and
other Jews to have elements of both Greek and Jewish identity. For example, Philo himself
spoke Greek and was living in Alexandria, a highly Hellenized city; in many Hellenized
cities within the Mediterranean region, notably Alexandria, use of the Greek language
became the way many people designated Greekness, and barbarian became the term which
referred to non-Greek speaking people. 21 Moreover, these cities contained substantial
populations [that] considered themselves Greeks, that is, they had this ethnic identity,
marked by the use of the Greek language and involvement in other features of Greek
17. Borgen, Fuglseth, and Skarsten, Index , 101. 18. Borgen, Fuglseth, and Skarsten, Index , 179. 19. Borgen, Fuglseth, and Skarsten, Index , 359. 20. C. K. Wong, Philos Use of Chaldaioi , The Studia Philonica Annual IV (1992): 3. 21. Esler, Conflict , 59.
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culture.... 22 And Philo was almost certainly aware of a large Greek-speaking Jewish
population outside his Alexandrian community. David Winston posits that Philos audience
was, in fact, the Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora. 23 Philo himself was conversant with the LXX
tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, and he probably had very little knowledge of the Hebrew
language. 24 Ellen Birnbaum even observes that, in two of his works, Philo actually includes
Jews among the Greek speaking world by referring to the Greek language as our
language, 25 thus identifying both himself and other Jews living throughout the
Mediterranean as Greeks. Niehoffs implication that Philo did not consider Jews to belong to
the Greek classification carries little weight in light of this evidence.
It would appear that Niehoff falls on the Greek side of the Greek/Jew debate.
However, he concludes his work by stating that Philos discussion of the Greeks (and thus his
Greek ethnic identity) reveals a keen sense of cultural competition between Greeks and
Jews, which was based on a comparison between the achievements of the two nations. 26
This almost seems like a statement in support of a theory of nested identity in Philo, but we
have already seen that Niehoffs discussion dismisses Philos striking use of barbarian in
De Vita Moysis as nothing more than an example of his Greekness and a dismissal of
Jewishness, and glosses over evidence which suggests this usage was unusual in Philos
works and that Philo did consider Jews to be part of the Greek world.
Similarly, Birnbaum seems to be siding with the Greek faction of the debate,
providing ample evidence of Philos Hellenistic ethnicity, as noted above. She eventually
22. Esler, Conflict , 75. 23. David Winston, Judaism and Hellenism: Hidden Tensions in Philos Thought, The Studia
Philonica Annual II (1990): 1. 24. Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 8890. 25. Birnbaum, Perspective, 47. The texts in question are: Conf . 129; and Congr. 44.
26. Niehoff, Identity & Culture , 143.
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concludes, however, that there is a current in his thinking that may be seen as critical of the
Greeks.... This current, moreover, is but part of a larger stance, whereby Philo presents the
Jews as better than everyone .... 27 According to Birnbaum, Philo does not think of the Jews as
either Greeks or barbarians, but as something altogether different from and superior to both
Greeks and barbarians. Given the earlier citations of Birnbaums argument, notably that Philo
did include the Jews among the Greeks twice in his writings, this seems like an odd
conclusion to draw. Indeed, such a statement blatantly dismisses evidence, noted by
Birnbaum in her own writings, that the Greeks were esteemed by Philo, 28 giving the
impression that Birnbaum is overlooking even her own observations in order to classify Philo
as a Jew. While Birnbaum does not state that Philo regards himself as solely a member of the
Jewish identity group, or that he does not display elements of Greek identity, she does not
address the issue of multiple identities which are evident in Philos works.
Other scholars have tackled the issue of Philos ethnic identity head-on. In his work
Philos Jewish Identity , Alan Mendelson puts forth the view, rather surreptitiously, that Philo
was more a Greek than a Jew. However, what is striking about his argument is that
Mendelson makes this claim in a discussion about Philos Jewish identity. Citing Philos
Quod Deus sit immutabilis (On the Unchangeableness of God ) 61-64, Mendelson theorizes
that there were two groups of Jews in Philos community, those who were capable of
appreciating philosophical wisdom (with whom Philo himself would have associated), and
those who were incapable of grasping the higher truths of theology. 29 Continuing his
thinking, Mendelson concludes that Philo held two complementary beliefs: first, that theBible was written on the level of the philosophically unsophisticated; and second, that the
27. Birnbaum, Perspective, 4041. 28. Birnbaum, Perspective, 39, 41, 47, 57. 29. Alan Mendelson, Philos Jewish Identity (Atlanta: Fortress Press, 1988), 4.
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truth of Scripture could be approached, if not reached, by allegory. 30 Though he seems to be
saying that Philo thought of himself as a Jew, albeit one of the better class of Jews,
Mendelson is actually making a case for a dominant Greek identity in Philo by suggesting
that the more sophisticated Jews were those who, like Philo, approached Jewish tradition
through Greek philosophy. Mendelson does not address nested ethnic identity in Philo, but
instead presents a figure steeped in Hellenism and opposed to Judaism; the only good
Judaism, according to Mendelsons theory, is highly Hellenized Judaism. However, despite
the lack of direct address by Mendelson, this view does highlight the multiple layers of
identity which Philo held.
David Winston provides perhaps the most frustrating example of Philonic scholarship
regarding ethnic identity. Winston observes that Philo produced a remarkable synthesis of
Judaism and Hellenism, 31 in his writings. Surprisingly, Winston seems torn as to how to
classify Philo, and even comes close to suggesting the concept of nested identity within
Philos writings; he does not overlook or dismiss elements of Philos identity on one side in
favor of the other. It is in Winstons work that scholarship begins to understand Philo in
terms of Eslers concept of nested identities which are not in conflict but coexistence with
one another. Yet Winston still aligns himself with the polarities of the Greek/Jew debate,
drawing the conclusion that: although he allows the Jewish side of his thought the dominant
place in his presentation, Philo invariably tones it down by introducing some philosophical
(i.e., Greek) twist and by allowing the perceptive reader a glimpse of his true position. 32
Winston clearly understands that Philo is neither a Greek nor a Jew, but possesses elementsof both identities, and yet still concludes his work by placing Philo into one of the categories
30. Mendelson, Identity , 8. 31. Winston, Tensions, 19. 32. Winston, Tensions, 18.
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that he himself understands are inadequate in describing Philo. Though he comes close to
taking a balanced, nuanced approach to understanding Philos ethnic identity, Winston, too,
fails to appreciate the prevalent Greco-Jewish identity in the works of Philo.
Though scholarship has tried to place Philo into one of these categories, as we have
seen in a small sampling of said scholarship, one cannot identify Philo as Greek to the
exclusion of Jew, and neither can one identify Philo as Jew to the exclusion of Greek. Rather,
Philo is best described as a Greco-Jew. If we return to our barbarian example, Philo is
demonstrating neither competition nor superiority in his ethnic identities. Rather, he is
demonstrating a balance or harmony between his ethnic identities, and thus their equal
prominence in Philos view of himself. In this passage from De Vita Moysis , Philo makes
reference to both his Greek and Jewish roots without trying to show that one was better than
the other; with one stroke of his pen, he called the Jewish people barbarians, and with the
next he upheld their Scriptures as authoritative truth of importance and public utility ( Mos.
2.28) for all people. This is perhaps the most striking example of the balanced portrayal of the
Greek and Jewish aspects of Philos identity within his works, and is indicative of a Greco-
Jewish identity.
3. Nested Identities in Homer, Histories , and the First-Century
In his work Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Pauls Letter , Dr.
Esler explores the multiple ethnic identities of the Greco-Roman world. His discussion
proves to be quite helpful in examining Philos ethnic identity. To begin, Esler lists six
criteria by which an individual may identify him-or-herself or another with a particular ethnic
group:
1) a common proper name to identify the group; 2) a myth of common ancestry (notemyth, since the genealogical accuracy of the claimed descent is irrelevant; 3) a sharedhistory or shared memories of a common past, including heroes, events and their commemoration; 4) a common culture, embracing such things as customs, language, andreligion; 5) a link with a homeland, either through actual occupation or by symbolic
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attachment to the ancestral land, as with Diaspora peoples, and 6) a sense of communalsolidarity. 33
Esler suggests that the two most useful of these criteria in identifying ones own
ethnic identity in the ancient world were a myth of common ancestry and a connection, real
or symbolic, with a homeland, 34 while the most widely used criterion in assigning ethnic
identity to another person was the language which that person used in day-to-day life.
However, none of these criteria, at first glance, helps to shed light on the question of Philos
ethnic identity; Philo was a Greek-speaking Jew, and a Greek or Roman might have
considered him a Greek because of this.35
However, even though he lived in an Egyptian city,surrounded by Greek influence and ruled by Rome, he clearly felt some sort of connection to
Jerusalem and the ancestral land of the Jews. In addition to writing that Jerusalem was my
native city, as cited above in Legat. 2.278, Philo also writes that ...the city of God is called
in Hebrew Jerusalem and its name when translated is vision of peace ( Somn. 2.250). 36
There are ethnic identifiers throughout Philos work that point to both Greek and Jewish
identity, but none which point to either Greek or Jewish ethnic identity exclusively. However,
Eslers discussion of ethnic identity suggests the possibility of a different approach to the
subject, expanding beyond the notion that an individual belongs to only one identity group
with what Esler calls nested or multiple identities: Ethnic identities, Esler writes, are
not exclusive. 37 Focusing most of his discussion on primarily Hellenistic people in the
ancient world, he turns to the writings of Homer, a seventh-century poet, and Herodotus, a
fifth-century BCE historian, to provide examples of nested Greek identities.
33. Esler, Conflict , 4344. 34. Esler, Conflict , 44. 35. Esler, Conflict , 59. 36. Philo, Works . 37. Esler, Conflict , 50.
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A list of Grecian ethnic subgroups can be found in Homers epic The Iliad , in the
famous Catalogue of Ships passage. 38 Here, Homer describes all the different Greek
subgroups that sailed to the Trojan War, often providing details about their homelands and
rulers. This is a clear demonstration of several independent groups who shared common ties
of culture, language and ancestry; Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, is the supreme
commander of the Greek forces, but Odysseus, King of Ithaca, is a major character, and
Achilles, the main character of Homers tale, is the son of Peleus, King of the Myrmidons.
Though all are Greeks, each comes from a different ethnic background to unite as the
common group Greeks. Similarly, in passages from Herodotus Histories we find several
examples of nested Greek identity. Histories deals mostly with the attempted Persian
conquest of Greece, and at one point Herodotus describes how the Athenians explain to a
Spartan envoy why they have rejected an offer of peace from Xerxes, king of Persia, before
the battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. In so doing, he provides an example which contains the
ethnic identifiers laid out by Esler: Then there is the Greek people, which has the same
blood and the same language, together with the common cult places, the sacrifices and the
similar customs, which it would be ignoble for Athens to betray (8.144.2). 39 Four of the six
criteria to identify ethnic identity are stated in this passage: 1) a common proper name,
, also rendered ; 2) a claim to common ancestry (which has the same
blood ); 3) a common culture (with the common cult places, sacrifices and the similar
customs); and 4) a sense of communal solidarity (which it would be ignoble for Athens to
betray).40
The last two criteria are both implied in the passage, a common Greek history inthe acknowledgement of a common name, ancestry, culture and sense of solidarity, and the
38. From the Loeb Classical Library, translated by A. T. Murray: Homer, The Iliad (London: WilliamHeinemann, Ltd., 1924), 2.492785.
39. Esler, Conflict , 56. 40. Esler, Conflict , 56.
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name , by which the Greek lands were known, in the proper name of the Greek
people. Yet this passage also provides evidence to support Eslers notion of nested identities
by identifying the people of Athens as a subgroup of the larger group called Greek. Earlier
in this text Herodotus provides additional evidence of nested Greek identity when he
describes the different Greek ethnicities that band together to fight the invading Persian force
in 480 BCE. In his account, those gathered at Thermopylae to repel Xerxes forces are as
follows: Spartans; Tegeans; Mantineans; Arcadians; Corinthians; Phlians; Mycenaeans,
Peloponnesians; Boetians; Thespians; Thebans; Locrians; Phocians; and Athenians ( Histories
202-203). 41 Though Greece would not be united by Philip II and later his son Alexander the
Great for another century, each of these subgroups of Grecian identity rose to defend the
common nation of Greece, despite being somewhat ethnically separate from one another.
Esler concludes that sometimes the bearers of multiple identities highlight one to conform to
the local context and sometimes to express their distinction from it, 42 therefore, it is not
surprising that the residents of Greece in the ancient world would identify themselves
differently in different situations. The Athenians in Herodotus identify themselves as
Athenians, distinct from Phocians or Spartans, and also as Greeks, distinct from Persians or
Egyptians. In the former example, the Athenians are distinguishing themselves as separate
from other similar groups who share similar customs, and in the latter they are identifying
themselves as the same as those groups against other distinct outsiders with whom they share
no commonality. They were Athenians and Boetians, Macedonians and Phocians, but above
all, they were Greeks.
41. From the Loeb Classical Library, translated by A. D. Godley: Herodotus, Histories (London:William Heinemann, Ltd., 1982).
42. Esler, Conflict , 49.
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It should be noted that both of these examples predate the time of Philo by several
centuries; as observed above, Herodotus was writing in the fifth-century BCE, while Homer
is believed to have been writing in the seventh-century BCE. To make the case that a nested
ethnic identity can be applied to our understanding of Philo, who was writing during the first
half of the first-century CE, 43 we must find examples of nested identities from this same time
period. In the works of the Jewish historian Josephus, a first-century contemporary of Philo, 44
we find several descriptions of ethnic subgroups, not unlike those in Homer and Herodotus.
Most important for our discussion, Josephus in Against Apion describes the following groups
in various amounts of detail: Greeks; Attikoi (people of Attica); Argolikoi (people of
Argolis); Athenians; Arcadians; Macedonians; Cretans; and non-Greeks ( , lit.
barbarians). 45 Though the list reproduced here is incomplete in recording all the peoples
discussed by Josephus in this work, I have chosen to list these eight groups for one reason: all
of these are Greek ethnicities (or, in the case of barbarians, a Greek manner of
identification), many of which can also be found in Homers Catalogue of Ships and/or
Herodotus Histories . Josephus has given us evidence that these groups existed well into the
first-century CE and, by also discussing Greeks, has shown that these groups still existed
within a larger Greek identity. All of these examples, however, demonstrate the idea of
nested identity only within a purely Greek context and from a Greek perspective. This
discussion would benefit from examples of nested identity in a Jewish context, particularly if
these examples can be found during the time of Philo, i.e., the first-century CE. Fortunately,
such examples can be found in the New Testament book Acts of the Apostles, and theBiblical letters of the apostle Paul.
43. Calabi, Language , 1. 44. See note 2. 45. Esler, Conflict , 59.
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The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the early years of the Christian Church, from the
death of Christ in around 30 CE until shortly after Pauls arrest and imprisonment in Rome in
around 60 CE. 46 This 30 year period overlaps the years Philo is believed to have written most
of his works, and in Acts 2, wherein the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples at Pentecost,
we find evidence that Jews of this period often laid claim to more than one ethnic identity.
Esler cites Acts 2:5-11 as evidence of this:
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each
one heard them speaking in his own language.7 Utterly amazed, they asked: Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,Pontus and Asia,10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors fromRome11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs -- we hear them declaringthe wonders of God in our own tongues! 47
This passage is rich with clues regarding the ethnic identities of the people gathered in
Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. It begins by stating that there were Jews from every
nation under heaven in Jerusalem for this event, a fact that is not surprising given that the
Jewish people had been a people in Diaspora for centuries by the time of Philo and the New
Testament, and were living throughout the known world in the first-century CE. This,
however, does indicate that these Jews thought of themselves as being something other than
or in addition to Jews. The first indication of nested ethnic identities within this passage from
Acts is the question asked by the Jews from every nation under heaven in v.7, when these
foreign Jews refer to the disciples, natives of Palestine, as Galileans. This term is taken
46. The NIV Study Bible provides a useful timeline of the early years of the Church. Kenneth Barker,ed., The New International Version Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995).
47. Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotes are taken from the New International Version Study Bible:Barker, NIV .
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from the name Galilee, a region in the north of Israel, and though the disciples are clearly
Jews, here they are identified as being a particular subgroup of Jews, much like the Athenians
of the fifth-century BCE are identified as a particular subgroup of Greeks. Continuing on, the
visiting Jews identify themselves based on their countries of origin, which range from Asia in
the east to Libya in the west, from Phrygia in modern day Turkey to Egypt, and they twice
refer to their amazement at hearing the disciples speaking in their own, native languages.
These foreign Jews, like Philo, did not speak Hebrew in day-to-day life, or live in the Holy
Land. Instead, they lived in communities scattered throughout the Mediterranean and Middle
East, and identified themselves based on their homelands and native tongues, but still are
identified within the larger group Jews by the author of the text. As with the Greeks before
them, it clearly was possible for a Jew to belong to another ethnic identity as well.
Acknowledging that both Greeks and Jews demonstrated nested ethnic identities in the
ancient world, it is safe to assume, then, that one could be a Greco-Jew, and we find an
example of this Greco-Jewish identity in the figure and writings of Paul.
According to Christian tradition, Paul was born as Saul, and took a new name
following his conversion to Christianity. We know from Pauls own writings that he was of
the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5), and that he was a Pharisee
(Galatians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:5); he clearly comes from a Jewish background. However,
as Bart Ehrman notes, he does not tell us when he was born, where he was raised, or how he
was educated. 48 Much of this information comes from the book of Acts, which also provides
some details about Pauls life. According to the author of Acts, Paul is from Tarsus (Acts21:39), a Greek city in Asia Minor and home to a famous school of Greek rhetoric
(something like an Ivy League University, Ehrman observes). 49 Additionally, we know
48. Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 247.
49. Ehrman, Writings , 24748.
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not presenting either his Greek or Jewish background as being in conflict with the other at all.
Instead, by his own statements, Paul understood himself as being able to belong to more than
one ethnic group in the first-century CE. Based on the evidence supporting the concept of
nested identities provided by Greek history and Philos first-century contemporaries Josephus
and Paul, it seems quite logical that approaching Philo as a bearer of nested identity is not
only justifiable, but is in fact necessary in order to better understand his identity and his
writings. In light of Eslers ethnic identity criteria, we find that Philo was, in fact, both a
Greek and a Jew.
Philo easily fits the criteria laid out to identify ethnic identity on both sides of the
Greek/Jew debate. We have already seen that Philo identified himself as a Jew ( Legat . 2.278),
and included himself among the Greeks ( Conf. 129 and Congr. 44). We know that he felt
some link to Jerusalem ( Legat. 2.278), and was a prominent member of the Jewish
community living in the Hellenized city of Alexandria (Philos Legatio ad Gaium ; Josephus
Antiquitates Iudaeorum 18.8.257-260, 4.186); we also know simply from reading his works
that Philo spoke Greek, and wrote in Greek about the Jewish religion, customs and heroes
(e.g., De Abrahamo, De Ioseph, De Vita Moysis , et alia). Here we have satisfied three of the
six criteria laid out by Esler to identify Philo as both a Greek and a Jew, a common proper
name to identify the group, a common culture (including customs, language and religion),
and a link to a homeland. This leaves three criteria to be examined: a myth of common
ancestry; a shared history (including heroes, events and their commemoration); and a sense of
communal solidarity. These latter two are easily addressed by examining Philos works,while the former, a myth of common ancestry, proves more difficult.
Philo clearly takes part in the shared history of the Jewish people, evident throughout
his writings. Notably, one need only examine his treatises De Abrahamo, De Iosepho, De
Vita Moysis and De Plantatione to find discussions about the Jewish Patriarchs and their
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places within the Jewish tradition which, according to Eslers theory, suggests that Philo
identified himself as a Jew. However, a close examination of Philos Legatio ad Gaium
reveals that Philo makes reference to a shared Greek history, as well, when he discusses
Greek heroes like Castor, Pollux and Hercules, and the myths associated with them.
Addressing the Emperor Gaius Caligula, Philo compares Caligulas works to the fabled Ten
Labors of Hercules: But I suppose you imitated Hercules in your unwearied labours and
your incessant displays of valour and virtue.... ( Legat . 1.90) Philo was engaged with both a
Jewish and a Greek shared history, at least to the extent that he was able to use said history as
a reference point in his writings. Similarly, he clearly felt a sense of communal solidarity
with both the Greek and Jewish communities of which he was a part. Philos sense of
solidarity with the Jewish community of Alexandria is not surprising, having seen already in
Legatio ad Gaium that he led the Jewish delegation from Alexandria to Rome. He also
discusses in this treatise those persons he describes as opponents to the Jewish community
in Alexandria, and never refers to his Jewish opponents as Greeks; instead, he calls them
Alexandrians and Egyptians. 51 This distinction is important for our discussion, as it
demonstrates that Philo did not wish members of the Greek identity, in which he included
himself, with those who were opposed to the Jewish identity, in which he also included
himself. Instead, by designating these opponents Egyptians, Philo is demonstrating
communal solidarity with his Greek identity, and expressing a bias against the Egyptian
people that began following the failed Persian invasion of Greece in the fifth-century BCE. 52
As with the other criteria, here Philo demonstrates aspects of both a Greek and Jewishidentity.
51. Philo seems to use Alexandrian and Egyptian interchangeably. Birnbaum, Perspective, 51. 52. Niehoff, Identity & Culture , 5255.
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However, the final criteria to be discussed, a myth of common ancestry, offers a
stumbling block to our discussion of Greco-Jewish ethnic identifies. Though clearly Philo
adheres to the myth of his common Jewish ancestry, as evidenced by his discussion of the
Jewish Patriarchs, there is little, if any evidence that Philo embraced a myth of common
Greek ancestry. Perhaps the best argument in favor of a notion of common Greek ancestry is
Philos use of the words and , Greece and Greek respectively. These
proper names for the Greek homeland and people are derived, according to myth, from the
name of the ancient Greek king Hellen, 53 and it could be argued that Philo, living in a Greek
community and speaking the Greek language, would have been aware of this myth when
using and . This is at best a stretch of the imagination, and no case
suggesting Philo claimed some part in a common Greek ancestry can be made from this
observation. Thus, of Eslers six criteria, Philo demonstrates both Greek and Jewish ethnic
identifiers for five. Despite being unable to demonstrate nested identities according to each of
Eslers criteria, there is still overwhelming evidence within Philos writings which suggests
that he was both a Greek and a Jew, rather than one to the exclusion of the other, as
scholarship has for years sought to categorize him.
4. In Conclusion
Philo of Alexandrias influence in philosophy and religious study cannot be denied,
despite the debate surrounding his identity. Through his writings we have what is perhaps the
most famous account of the translation of the LXX, a treatise which places the Greek text on
the same authoritative level as the original Hebrew text, and though geographically isolated
from the mainstream Rabbinic Judaism centred in Palestine during the first-century CE, 54
53. Esler, Conflict , 58. 54. Mendelson, Identity , 1.
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Philos works deal almost exclusively with the Jewish tradition; he masterfully combines
Jewish faith with Greek philosophy, making Judaism accessible to Greeks and Greek
philosophy accessible to Jews. This careful blending of two seemingly incompatible
traditions even brought Philos influence beyond either Greeks or Jews, a fact revealed by
references to Philo in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers of Christianity. Philo is referenced
by influential Christian thinkers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa,
Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, all of whom were writing between the second and fifth-
centuries CE, 55 and all of whom were very influential in the development of the Christian
Church; Philo of Alexandria was so influential among the Church Fathers that he became
known as Philo Judaeus , Philo the Jew. However, this is something of a misnomer, as we
have seen, for Philo was not just a Jew. Through his nuanced blending of Jewish tradition and
Greek philosophy, Philo demonstrated that he belonged to both groups, and that he did not
hold one to be more valuable than the other; instead, his Greek identity informed and
enhanced his Jewish identity, and vice versa. In this light, our understanding of Judaism in
the Greco-Roman world may evolve beyond thinking these two cultures were somehow in
conflict with one another, allowing us to understand that, often, they were able to coexist, as
Philo demonstrates throughout his writings.
Traditionally, however, scholars have tried to force Philo into a category, either Greek
or Jew, and the debate over which is more fitting has gone on for many years. By
approaching Philo under the assumption that he is either a Greek or a Jew, modern
scholarship has overlooked or dismissed the carefully crafted nuances which reveal in hiswritings both sides of his ethnic identity, as with his varied uses of the word barbarian; in
fact, placing Philo into one of these categories is as difficult as categorizing Philos use of
55. Runia, References, 11316.
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barbarian in De Vita Moysis proved to be at the outset of this paper. This passage,
discussed above, features both elements of Jewish identity (identifying the Hebrew Scriptures
as authoritative truth) and elements of Greek identity (derogatorily referring to non-Greeks,
in this case the Jews, as barbarians), and ignoring one in favor of identifying Philo as the
other is a great error in Philonic scholarship. A new approach to Philonic scholarship must be
adopted, one in which Philo is viewed as he viewed himself, as a mix of both Greek and Jew,
a Greco-Jew who belonged to a Greco-Jewish community. Moving beyond the debate over
Philos identity will allow Philonic scholarship to better understand not only the person of
Philo, but his community and his distinct and well-deserved place in Jewish, Christian and
Greek history, as well.
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