Philo's Fragments

[billd89]

Can anyone help? I would like to see these in the original (Greek? Armenian?):
Peter's Site:

{Yonge's edition includes numerous miscellaneous fragments including From the Parallels of John of Damascus (which includes Greek fragments from Quaestiones in Genesis et Exodum, whose translation is generally based on Armenian), from An Anonymous Collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and from An Unpublished Manuscript in the Library of the French King. These have been relocated to an appendix in this volume.}

Ralph Marcus' translation of the 'Armenian' Philo is here;
Edit: I think what I am looking for is here, in J. Rendel Harris' Fragments of Philo Judaeus [1882], pp.47-8. And, most easily copied/formatted already, here:

Ἔνιοι προκόψαντες ἐπ' ἀρετὴν, ὑπενόστησαν πρὶν ἐφικέσθαι τοῦ τέλους, τὴν ἄρτι φυομένην ἀριστοκρατείαν ἐν ψυχῇ καθελούσης τῆς παλαιᾶς ὀλιγοκρατείας, ἡ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἠρεμήσασα, πάλιν ἐξ ὑπαρχῆς μετὰ πλείονος δυνάμεως ἐναπέθετο. Ὅταν ἄνθρωπος κατορθώσῃ βίον ἐνάρετον δι' ἀσκήσεως, καὶ ἀγαθῆς πολιτείας, καὶ ἔστιν ὑπὸ πάντων ἐγνωσμένος, ὅτι ἔστιν εὐσεβὴς καὶ φοβούμενος τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ ἐκπέσῃ εἰς ἁμαρτίαν, τοῦτό ἐστι παράπτωμα. Ἀνῆλθεν γὰρ εἰς τὸ ὕψος τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ πέπτωκεν εἰς τὸν πυθμένα τοῦ ᾅδου.

Yonge, Vol.4 [1855], pp.242-3:

'About monks who break their vows.
The words of Philo, from the Questions arising in Exodus.

P. 784. C. The reasoning of some persons is very rapidly satiated, who, though they have been borne upwards on wings for a little while, yet do presently return back again; not so much flying upwards, says Philo, as being dragged down again to the lowest depths of hell. But happy are they who do not draw back.

From the first book of the Questions in Exodus.
P. 774. B. All those who have stumbled, being unable to proceed with upright feet, go on slowly, being fatigued a long time before they come to their journey's end; so also the soul is hindered from proceeding successfully on the path which leads to piety if it has previously fallen in with any of the byeroads of wickedness, for they are great hindrances to it, and the causes of its stumbling, by means of which the mind becoming lame, proceeds too slowly on the road, according to nature; and this road, according to nature, is that which ends at the Father of the universe.

P. 343. D. Some men, making improvement, have returned back to virtue before coming to the end, the ancient principle of oligarchy having destroyed the principle of aristocracy lately engendered in the soul, which having been quiet for a little while, has subsequently come up over again with greater power than before.

Ibid. When a man rightly establishes himself in a virtuous life, with meditation, and practice, and good government, and when having been known by all men as a pious man and one who fears God, he falls into sin, that is a great fall, for he has ascended up to the height of heaven, and fallen down into the abyss of hell.

On Philo mss. generally, this many interest someone.

[billd89]

Input: Ὅταν ἄνθρωπος κατορθώσῃ βίον ἐνάρετον δι' ἀσκήσεως, καὶ ἀγαθῆς πολιτείας, καὶ ἔστιν ὑπὸ πάντων ἐγνωσμένος, ὅτι ἔστιν εὐσεβὴς καὶ φοβούμενος τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ ἐκπέσῃ εἰς ἁμαρτίαν, τοῦτό ἐστι παράπτωμα. Ἀνῆλθεν γὰρ εἰς τὸ ὕψος τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ πέπτωκεν εἰς τὸν πυθμένα τοῦ ᾅδου.

I had to enter a Special Code to see this; I'll share (ho-hum)

[StephenGoranson]

Perhaps you have checked, but if not Runia's bibliography may be helpful:
Philo of Alexandria : an annotated bibliography, 1937-1986
Philo of Alexandria : an annotated bibliography, 1987-1996 : with addenda for 1937-1986
Philo of Alexandria : an annotated bibliography 1997-2006 with addenda for 1987-1996
by David T. Runia and others (Brill)

[billd89]

On the Question of Annihilation:

Ken M. Penner's "Philo's Eschatology, Personal and Cosmic", p.17:

If punishment is not something Philo expected for the impious after death, what did he expect instead? In the discussion above on the immortality of the soul, the question was raised, what is the meaning of “ends and grows old in evil” (QG 3.11) (i.e., what is the fate of “the evil and sinful man”)? Does this fate apply only to the body, or also to the soul? If “only the soul of the wise man ought to live” in another life, does this imply that the evil man’s soul is mortal? Does this imply that Philo believed in annihilation of evil souls?

Again, Philo did not answer these questions explicitly. He mentioned “annihilation” at least once, indirectly, when he observed, “cold and thirst … may be most earnestly desired, if we feel that they will only entail undelayed annihilation (φθορὰ)” (Praem. 136), but he did not there promote this view.

Here 'Annihilation' is overstated. Immediate termination of Life, in the face of grievous bodily suffering, is what's prayed for: in our sense, 'an end to suffering', and prayer for a quick (physical) death. The fact of physical death is prayed for (I suppose this approaches 'suicidal ideation': from context, that is also logical), or delayed in certain obstinate types by the craving itself, ironically: their condition would appear to validate a Living Hell.

The Christians' mortification of the flesh by physical means (i.e. starvation, dehydration, exposure) as a test of Divine Judgement is a strange counterpoint to Philo's expression here.

Philo Judaeus, De Praemiis Et Poenis Et De Exsecrationibus, = On Rewards and Punishments, 135-6: μετὰ γὰρ τῶν ἄλλων, ὥσπερ τοῖς ἐν εὐτυχίαις ποθεινὸς ὁ βίος εἰς ἀπόλαυσιν ἀγαθῶν, οὕτως καὶ τοῖς βαρυδαίμοσιν ἐκείνοις ἔρως πολὺς ἐνιδρυθήσεται τοῦ ζῆν πρὸς ἀμέτρων καὶ ἀπαύστων κακῶν μετουσίαν, ἁπάντων ἀνιάτων. ἧττον γὰρ χαλεπὸν ἀπαλγήσαντας ἐπιτεμεῖν θανάτῳ τὰς ἀνίας, ὃ τοῖς μὴ λίαν φρενοβλαβέσιν ἔθος δρᾶν· οἱ δ’ ἐκ παραπληξίας ἐθέλοιεν ἂν καὶ μακροβιώτατοι γενέσθαι, τῆς ἀνωτάτω βαρυδαιμονίας ἀπλήστως καὶ ἀκορέστως ἔχοντες. τοιαῦτα τὸ κουφότατον εἶναι δοκοῦν τῶν κακῶν, ἀπορία, προσεργάζεσθαι πέφυκεν, ὅταν θεήλατος ἐπάγηται δίκη· καὶ γὰρ εἰ χαλεπὰ ῥῖγος, δίψος, ἔνδεια τροφῆς, ἀλλ’ εὐκταιότατα γένοιτ’ ἂν ἐπὶ καιρῶν, εἰ μόνον ἀνυπέρθετον φθορὰν ἐργάσοιτο· χρονίζοντα δὲ καὶ τήκοντα ψυχήν τε καὶ σῶμα τῶν τετραγῳδημένων, ἃ δι’ ὑπερβολὰς μεμυθεῦσθαι δοκεῖ, βαρύτερα πέφυκε καινουργεῖν.

My heavily revised translation from ChatGPT3.5 :

"135. Just as for others, life for those in prosperity is desirable for the enjoyment of good things; so too for those with misfortune, life will be firmly established in them with much longing to participate in immeasurable and unceasing evils, altogether irremediable. For it is less difficult for those who have become insensible to pain to rebuke their miseries with death, which is the custom achieved by those not quite insane, but indeed by willing they become long-lived anyhow, these derangements established topmost and clinging with interminable insatiability. Such is the lightest nature of calamities, deprivation brought by nature wherever Divine Judgment is revealed. For even if severe cold, thirst, and starvation are grievous, at times they may become most welcome, if only they would bring immediate destruction (i.e. sudden death). Yet when they chronically persist and waste both soul and body of the tragically afflicted, hyperbole is told poetically, as weightier topics are more naturally disposed to beget {theatrical} innovations."

Colson, Philo Vol. 8 [1939], pp.395-7:

"{135} For apart from all else, just as the prosperous desire life to enjoy their blessings, so too these wretches will have firmly implanted in them a great longing for survival to experience miseries measureless and ceaseless all beyond hope of cure. For it would be a comparatively small matter in their desperation to cut short their afflictions by death, a course often taken by those who have a little sanity left. But these sufferers in their infatuation will wish to prolong their life to the utmost, and their appetite for supreme misery is never satisfied. {136} Such are the natural consequences of what appears to be the lightest of the calamities promised, destitution, when it comes as a visitation of divine justice. For cold and thirst and want of food are hard to bear but may on occasions be most earnestly desired, if we feel that they will only entail undelayed annihilation, but when they linger and waste both soul and body they are bound to produce marvels of suffering worse even than those which, doubtless because they are so intensely painful, are represented on the tragic stage."

C.D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus, Vol. 3 [1855], p.487:

"{135} for, as in the case of other persons, while they are in prosperity they desire length of life to be able to enjoy all good things, so also even those men overwhelmed with misery will have a vehement desire for life established in them, though it can only lead them to a participation in immoderate and interminable evils, all of which are likewise irremediable. For it would have been better for such men to have escaped misery by cutting off their griefs through death, which persons who are not utterly out of their senses are accustomed to do. But these men are arrived at such a degree of folly that they would be willing to live even to the longest possible time of life, being eager for and insatiably desirous of the greatest extremities of misery. {136} Such evils, that which appears at first to be the lightest of all misfortunes, namely, poverty, is naturally calculated to produce, when it is the result of the vengeance of God; for even though cold, and thirst, and want of food may be terrible, still they might at times be objects worth being prayed for, if they only produced instantaneous death without any delay. But when they last a long time and waste away both body and soul, then they are calculated to reproduce the very greatest of the calamities recorded by the tragic poets, which appear to me to be described in a spirit of fabulous exaggeration."

De Posteritate Caini 39:

ἀλλὰ παρ’ ἔμοιγε καὶ φίλοις τοῖς ἐμοῖς τῆς μετὰ ἀσεβῶν ζωῆς ὁ μετὰ εὐσεβῶν αἱρετώτερος ἂν εἴη θάνατος· τοὺς μὲν γὰρ οὕτως ἀποθανόντας ἡ ἀθάνατος ἐκδέξεται ζωή, τοὺς δὲ ἐκείνως ζῶντας ὁ ἀίδιος θάνατος.

C.D. Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus, Vol.1 [1854], p.295:

But in my opinion and in that of my friends, death in the company of the pious would be preferable to life with the impious; for those who die in the company of the pious everlasting life will receive, but everlasting death will be the portion of those who live in the other way.