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The Law of Nature in Philo and Cicero

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Richard A. Horsley
Richard A. Horsley
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts/Boston, Boston, MA 02125
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Extract

“Christian Natural Law is the acceptance and reinterpretation according to Christian and ecclesiastical principles of Stoic Natural Law. …” Thus runs Troeltsch's classic and influential formulation of the view that Stoicism forms the “preparation of the gospel” with regard to the law of nature in Christian theology and ethics. Historians of political theory similarly assume that it was the Stoic doctrine of natural law that decisively influenced both the rationalization and universalization of Roman law and medieval political theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 71 , Issue 1-2 , April 1978 , pp. 35 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1978

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References

1 Troeltsch, Ernst, “Naturrecht, christliches,” RGG 4 (1st ed.; 1913) 697–704Google Scholar and more elaborately in The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (2 vols.; New York: Harper, 1960) 1.142–62.

2 E.g., George H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (3d ed.; New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961) chs. 8–10; Carl J. Friedrich, The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective (2d ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963) ch. 4; Mulford Q. Sibley, Political Ideas and Ideologies: A History of Political Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1970) chs. 6–7; Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston: Little Brown, 1960) ch. 3.

3 Helmut Koester, “NOMOS PHYSEOS: The Concept of Natural Law in Greek Thought,” in Religions in Antiquity (ed. Jacob Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1968) 521–41. In this article Koester has reopened the issue of the real origins of the theory of natural law. It is to Prof. Koester that I owe my introduction to this issue, especially in Philo. I must also acknowledge my great debt to Prof. Zeph Stewart, also of Harvard, for introduction to the world of Hellenistic philosophy, and “Middle” Platonism in particular.

4 See, e.g., Adams, James Luther, “The Law of Nature in Greco-Roman Thought,” JR 25 (1945) 97–118Google Scholar; Sabine, History, ch. 8; applied to Philo, E. R. Goodenough (By Light, Light [New Haven: Yale University, 1935] 54–57) who was taking a muc h broader, synthetic, conceptual approach to the subject than Koester's more philologically based study.

5 Koester, “NOMOS,” 540; cf. Goodenough, By Light. Light ch. 2, “The Higher Law”; Harry Austryn Wolfson (Philo [Cambridge: Harvard University, 1947Google ScholarPubMed] 1, esp. ch. 6) sees the law of nature as less central and important in Philo's thought.

6 Watson, Gerard, “Natural Law and Stoicism,” in Problems in Stoicism (ed. Long, A. A.; London: Athlone, 1971) 216–38Google Scholar.

7 Most recently, see Long, A. A., Hellenistic Philosophy [London: Duckworth, 1974] ch. 5Google Scholar.

8 Philo and Cicero texts and translations are from LCL. I have varied the translation occasionally to obtain a more precise meaning or a more consistent use of English words corresponding to the Greek or Latin. Similarly, unless otherwise indicated, the texts and translations for Plato, Aristotle, Dio Chrysostom, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca are from LCL.

9 As we shall see below, it is certain that Cicero here is dependent on a tradition originally in Greek. For the Greek terms behind Cicero's Latin we can hypothesize with certainty for all but one, i.e., ius. In most occurrences, including the chain of terms in Leg. 1.23, ratio represents λóγoς, recta ratio translates ὀρθòς λóγoς, and lex stands for νóμoς. Behind the word ius will frequently stand νóμoς but in Leg. 1.23 and many other instances probably the Greek δίκη or δίκαιoν is being translated by ius. For examples of the use of δίκη with νóμoς cf. Philo Op. 46; Dio Chrysostom Or. 80.5; Plutarch Princ. inerud. 3 (780EF); for relevant use of δίκαιoν, cf. Diog. Laert. 7.128.

10 Stobaeus preserves the fragments from Arius; see Diels Dox. Graec. 447–72. Witt, Reginald E. (Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1937Google Scholar]) argues that Arius drew on Antiochus of Ascalon in composing his epitomes.

11 Maximi Tyrii Philosophumena (ed. Hobein; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1910Google Scholar); Origen, , Contra Celsum (trans. Henry Chadwick; 2d ed.; Cambridge; Cambridge University, 1965Google Scholar).

12 On Aristotle and these two kinds of law, see still E. M. Cope, An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric (London and Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1867) 239–45; Charles H. Mcllwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York: Macmillan, 1932) 69; Carl J. Friedrich, The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective 2d ed.; Chicago: Chicago University, 1963) 22–23.

13 Cf. Cicero's reference to Zeno's doctrine of natural law, Nat. dear. 1.36.

14 See also Koester, “NOMOS,” 532.

15 There are a few witnesses to the use of nous by the early Stoics in late sources such as Epiphanius, Aetius, and Themistius (SVF 1.146, 157, 158); cf. Diog. Laert. 7.138, and Cicero Nat. dear. 1.37.

16 For example, see Diog. Laert. 7.135,138; Alex. Aphrod. De anima p. 113,12 Bruns, as cited in SVF 2.1038; Marcus Aurelius 5.30; “The mind of the universe” (ὁ τoῡ ὅλoυ νoῡς cf. the phrase 6 ὁ τῶν ὅλoυ νoῡς which Philo uses in recounting the doctrine of the two primal principles, Op. 8).

17 As in such texts as Plato's Leg. 613D, 632C, 714A, or 890D; cf. Aristotle Pol. 1287a, 27ff.

18 The analogy between the mind of God and the mind of the sage, present in Plato Leg. 2.8–10, may originally have been the source of the distinction between “mind” and “god,” in somewhat the same way that the same analogy may have influenced an eclectic Middle Platonism to identify the ideas as the thoughts in the mind of God, as suggested by A. N. M. Rich, “The Platonic Ideas as the Thought s of God,” Mnemosyne series 4, vol. 7 (1954) 130–31.

19 E.g., Dio Chrysostom Or. 1.42,45; 36.23, influenced from Plato Leg. 957C; cf. Leg. 715–16.

20 This Platonic use of thesmos is to be clearly distinguished from the Stoic opposition of ihesei and physei in the doctrine represented, e.g., by Chrysippus in Diog. Laert. 7.128: justice/law/right reason which is by ordinance vs. that which is by nature. This Stoic tradition can be found adapted by Philo in passages such as Ebr. 34.

21 On God as the “lawgiver” in Philo, see further Fug. 66, 69; the participial construction. Post. Cain. 143; and God himself giving the decalogue directly without Moses as mediator, Decal. 18–19, 175; and cf. Koester, “NOMOS,” 533. The later Platonist Maximus of Tyre (6.5) similarly views God as the “lawgiver” of the universal law.

22 On Antiochus, see Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, 222–29; Georg Luck, Der Akademiker Antiochus (Bern: Haupt, 1953Google Scholar), which includes a collection of texts from Antiochus; Hunt, Harold A. K., The Humanism of Cicero (Melbourne: Melbourne University, 1954Google Scholar); and Witt, Albinus; older studies: Strache, Hans, Der Eklektizismus des Antiochus von Askalon (Berlin: Weidmann, 1921Google Scholar): and Hoyer, Rudolfus, De Antiocho Ascalonita (Bonn: Georgi, 1883Google Scholar).

23 Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, 226–27. Besides the many explicit and implicit references to Antiochus by Cicero, cf. those in Sextus Empiricus Pyr. 1.235; Math. 1.162, 201.

24 Reitzenstein, Richard, “Drei Vermutungen zur Geschichte der römischen Literatur,” Mommsen Festschrift (Marburg: Elwert, 1893Google Scholar).

25 August Schmekel, Die Philosophic der mittleren Stoa in ihrem geschichtlichen Zusammenhange (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1974; first published: Berlin, 1892) 61ff.; Max Pohlenz, Antikes Führertum (Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1934) 33–34; idem, Die Stoa 1 (4th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970) 206; Wilhelm Capelle. “Griechische Ethik und römischer Imperialismus,” Klio 25 (1932) 95.

26 Strasburger, Hermann, “Poseidonios on Problems of the Roman Empire,” JRS (1965) 45Google Scholar, n. 50, with references to previous discussion.

27 Hunt, Humanism, 17–18.

28 The third and fourth points of this section of my argument will examine in detail the first of these two arguments, i.e., Leg. 1.18–35. Rather than work through Cicero's next main argument, Leg. 1.35–52, in similar fashion, however, I refer to the comments of Reitzenstein, Pohlenz, Witt, Hunt and others—which demonstrate how the material stems from Antiochus—and call attention in particular to the similarities of Leg. 1.48 to Antiochus' ethics as set forth by Cicero in Fin. 5 and elsewhere. See esp. Hunt, Humanism, 89–102.

29 Reitzenstein, Drei Vermulungen, 9–10.

30 Ibid., 24–25.

31 Like Antiochus, Philo, as a philosopher, is eclectic. If there is one philosophy which dominates his interpretations of “Moses,” it is the Platonic, particularly in his metaphysics (explanation of creation) and epistemology. Otherwise he is unconcerned that he may be linking together different, even conflicting doctrines. Only when a philosophical doctrine seems irreconcilable with his Jewish orientation toward a transcendent creator God does he criticize or reject it. This is probably what is behind his rejection here (in Op. 7–8) of the Aristotelian position which makes God inactive and the world eternal and ungenerated, and makes him only too ready to employ the idea of the active and passive principles.

32 Albinus, Didaskalikos (ed. Hermann; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1853Google Scholar and reprints); see further Witt, Albinus, 77.

33 For purposes of comparison it may be helpful to print abridged versions of the texts under discussion.

Note that in some respects the “Stoic” tradition in Seneca has the closest parallels to the Philo text, and similarly the “Stoic” tradition according to Diogenes Laertius has very close parallels to the citation from Antiochus in Cicero.

34 The next subsection of Cicero's argument (Leg. 1.28–32) for the grounding of the law in nature, an argument from the societas among men, is not paralleled in De opificio, but it is closely paralleled by Philo elsewhere, esp. in Virt. 119 and Decal. 132—discussed as the next main point below.

35 In Leg. 1.34 toward the very end of this first main section of the argument that nature is the source of justic e (i.e., 1.18–35), we find a reference to Pythagoras famous saying about friendship. Reitzenstein (Drei Vermutungen, 16) points out that the use of the Pythagorean saying would be characteristic of Antiochus and occurs in a context that otherwise bears his stamp.

36 On Fin. 5 in general and this argument in particular see Hunt, Humanism, 89–102.

37 For the κoινωνία and ὁμὀνoια as συγγένης, cf. Praem. 92; and for allusion to the Greek etymological definition of law, cf. Decal 14.

38 We detect again in this Philo passage the spirit and letter of Aristotle Pol. 1253a, 9ff. In fact the whole context of this passage in Aristotle Pol. 1252b, 28–1253a, 40 would appear to be the source for Antiochus development of his argument on the fellowship among men, i.e., the argument behind all three transmitters, Varro, Cicero, and Philo.

39 For the parallel quest in personal religion, see Festugière, André-Jean, Personal Religion Among the Greeks (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1954Google Scholar) ch. 3.

40 The implication here is not that this program was distinctive of Antiochus, but just the opposite, that this was a general tendency or mood in eclectic philosophy of the period, and was thus shared to a considerable degree, for example, by Panaetius and Posidonius.

41 Goodenough, E. R. (The Politics of Philo Judaeus [New Haven: Yale University, 1938Google Scholar] ch. 4 “Statesman and Philosopher”) characterizes this tension.

42 Varro in Augustine De civ. Dei 19.3; cf. Arius Didymus in Stobaeus Eel. 2 (ed. Wachsmuth-Hense, pp. 144,16–145,10). Philo Del. 7–8, however, reads very much like Antiochus in Cicero Fin. 5.

43 Theiler, Willi (Die Vorbereitung des Neuplatonismus [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1930] 52Google Scholar) and, following him, Georg Luck (Antiochus, 33) take this back through Antiochus to the Protrepticus of Aristotle.

44 On the relation and tension between the two kinds of life expressed in this unusual section, cf. Cicero Tusc. 1.27–32, 82, 118, and 5.72.

45 A doctrine current later in the second-century Platonic school represented by Albinus Did. 16 (ed. Hermann p. 172,2ff); cf. Philo Gig. 6–14.

46 See further Goodenough, Politics, 74ff.

47 See Goodenough, By Light, Light, 50–51, an excellent discussion of phvsis in Philo; also Koester, “NOMOS,” 531.

48 This whole section is “Platonic”; e.g., with Op. 21, cf. Plato Timaeus 29E and Diog. Laert. 3.71ff; cf. Koester, “τóπoς,” TDNT 8.201–02.

49 Cf. Pohlenz, Max, Philo von Alexandria (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1942) 444–47Google Scholar.

50 Jones, R. M., “The Ideas as the Thoughts of God,” Class. Philol. 21 (1926) 332–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Witt, Albinus, 70–75; and Philip Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism (2nd revised ed.: The Hague: Nijhoff, 1953).

51 Witt, Albinus, 70–71. It is questionable, however, whether this interpretation can be clearly found so early.

52 Theiler, Vorbereitung, 11–12; cf. Wolfson, Harry Austryn (“Extradeical and Intradeical Interpretations of Platonic Ideas,” in Religious Philosophy [Cambridge: Harvard University, 1961] 27–68Google Scholar, esp. 29–37) who finds Philo to be the pivotal figure in the intradeical interpretation.

53 Witt, Albinus, 74–75.

54 Witt (Albinus, 76 n.2) somewhat mishandles his source, Acad. post. 1.39. In this source it is Zeno being characterized by Antiochus who does not necessarily agree.

55 Antiochus is quite aware of the issue of incorporeality; cf. Aristocles in the passage quoted above; and cf. the Academic critique of Stoic theology in Cicero Nat. dear. 1.38.

56 The Stoic doctrine of ϕαντασία which involved a τύπωσις was an epistemological doctrine, and quite different.

57 The term ἀπὀσπασμα was used, although apparently not prominently, by the Stoics; cf. SVF 1.128; Diog. Laert. 7.143 = SVF 2.633.

58 Even if we do not go quite so far as Luck (Antiochus, 41) with respect to the κoιναὶ ἔννoιαι, we find here already a slight development toward Albinus and later Platonism.

59 We should review “Scipio's Dream” and the ensuing context in this connection as well, i.e., Cicero Rep. 6.13ff. Similarities to elements found in later “Middle Platonism” and the use in Rep. 6.27–28 (cf., Tusc. 1.53–54) of Plato Phaedrus 245C-E, for the argument for immortality of the soul from autonomous motion indicates clearly a Platonic influence. Ludwig Edelstein, review of Pierre Boyance, Etudes sur le songe de Scipion (American Journal of Philology 59 [1938] 363) discerns here the philosophy of Antiochus similar to that in Fin. 5.57.

60 This motif occurs more than once elsewhere in both writers; e.g., for Cicero, cf. Rep. 3.4; Tusc, 5.70. Two of the primary Plato texts behind this motif in the philosophical tradition are certainly Theaetetus 173E and Phaedrus 248–49.

61 This has taken on yet another form in Albinus 27 (ed. Hermann, p. 179, 32ff). Also, judging from Plato Ep. 7.341, Plato would not have been very happy with what Cicero says a few lines later. To Tim. 28C, cf. further Philo Mos. 2.48, cited above: “the father and maker of the world is also the lawgiver.”

62 Cf. further, e.g., Mig. 128–30; Spec. leg. 2.42–45; and Leg. 1.56. That Philo says of the Jewish Law that it is a true copy of the law of nature is quite consistent with these ideas. This can be seen in his extensive introduction to De Abrahamo (esp. 3–6), where he explains that the great patriarchs are actually “laws endowed with life and reason” (oι ἔμψυχoι καὶ λoγικoὶ νόμoι) who were “self-taught” and lived according to nature, believing nature herself to be the most venerable law (πρεσβύτατoς θεαμός) Moses thus shows that “the enacted ordinances are not inconsistent with nature.” On the background of the concept of nomos empsychos, see E. R. Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928) 55ff.

63 Hunt, Humanism, 194–97; see also Watson, “Natural Law,” 224.

64 On the attempt by first-century B.C.E. intellectuals, some of whom were friends and associates of the great Roman political leaders, to call their Roman patrons to observe certain principles of universal law and justice as they imposed Roman order throughout the Mediterranean world, see generally Hermann Strasburger, “Poseidonius on Problems of the Roman Empire,” JRS 55 (1965) 40–53; and Wilhelm Capelle, “Griechische Ethik und römischer Imperialismus,” Klio 25 (1932) 86–113.

65 See, e.g., A. H. Armstrong, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy (2d ed., revised; Boston: Beacon, 1963) 149–52, 183–88; E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1965) 84–96.

66 Armstrong, Ancient Philosophy, 161–64; Goodenough, Erwin R., An Introduction to Philo Judaeus (New Haven: Yale University, 1940) 178–81Google Scholar; cf. Wolfson, Philo (3d printing, revised; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1962) 1. 112–13.

67 On Philo, see Goodenough, Introduction chs. 3–4, and idem, Politics ch. 4; on Antiochus and other, see Strasburger, “Poseidonius,” and Capelle, “Griechische Ethik.”

68 “NOMOS,” 540.

69 Troeltsch does not raise this particular problem in his treatment of the Christian appropriation of Stoic natural law theory (Social Teachings 1. 150–57).

70 On the relation of the logos to the ideas of divine creation and commandment in the thinking of the pre-Nicene Fathers, see e.g., Harnack, Adolph, History of Dogma (New York: Dover, 1961) 2Google Scholar. 204–15; Chadwick, Henry, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (New York: Oxford University, 1966) 15–17Google Scholar, 39, 103–05; Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1971) 1Google Scholar. 30–37; on the relation of logos/nomos to a concept of history in Middle Platonism and in Justin Martyr, see Andresen, Carl, Logos und Nomos; Die Polemik des Kelsos wider das Christentum (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1955) esp. 394–99Google Scholar.