Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 
3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 
Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library

Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the 
copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research 
and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright 
laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. 

Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International 
License

Citation: Scott, Ian W. "Is Philo's Moses a Divine Man?" The Studia Philonica 
Annual Studies in Hellenistic Judaism 14 (2002): 87-111.

***** Begin Content ******

TYNDALE UNIVERSITY
3377 Bayview Avenue
Toronto, ON
M2M 3S4

TEL: 416.226.6620

www.tyndale.ca

Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely
for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced
except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from
the copyright owner.

Scott, Ian W. "Is Philo's Moses a Divine Man?" The Studia Philonica Annual Studies in
Hellenistic Judaism 14 (2002): 87-111.

[ Citation Page ] 



IS PHILO’S MOSES A DIVINE MAN?

Ian W. Scott

Introduction

The question of the divinity of Moses in Philo has been raised almost entire-
ly, as a peripheral argument in the broader quest for the roots of Christo-
logy. It is, after all, one of the great anomalies of first-century religious
history that within a few short years of his death the Jewish followers of a
Jewish Messiah are calling their founder ‘the image of the invisible God’
(Col 1:15) or even ‘the Word’ who was the agent of creation (John 1:1-3). It
was not immediately apparent that Philo could help to solve this riddle, but
at the beginning of the twentieth century many began to see the solution in
the notion of an Hellenistic ‘divine man’ or 0eio^ dvf|p. Christian converts
in the Hellenistic cities, we were assured, heard about a Jesus who worked
wonders and they assimilated this Jewish prophet to the wonder-working
god-men with whom they were so familiar.1

	Early on, however, many scholars were uncomfortable with the sugges-
tion that the earliest Christians were sympathetic enough to Greek or Roman
religion to draw on the divine man concept directly from pagan sources.
Usually it was felt that some intermediary was needed, a third force which
could have brought ideas about divine men from pagan circles into the
heart of Jewish piety. The intermediary which was proposed, of course, was
‘Hellenistic Judaism’, along with its most celebrated representative, Philo of

________________________

1 This connection was pioneered by G. P. Wetter (Der Sohn Gottes [Gottingen 1916]), O.
Weinreich (‘Antikes Gottmenschentum’, in Ausgewdhlte Schriften II [Amsterdam 1973]
171-97), and H. Windisch, (Paulus und Christus [Leipzig 1934]). It was established most
firmly by the influence of Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament [New York 1951-55]
1,130; History of the Synoptic Tradition [New York 1963] 218ff.) and by the monumental
work of L. Bieler (0EIOS ANHP: Das Bild des 'Gotilichen Menschen' in Spdtantihe und
Frilhchristentum, 2 vols. [Vienna, 1935-6] 1.25ff., 40,138ff.; 2.24; et passim).
	See also D. Georgi, The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia 1986);
H. D. Betz, ‘Jesus as Divine Man’, in Jesus and the Historian (Philadelphia 1968) 114-33;
H. Braun, ‘Der Sinn der neutestamentlichen Christologie’, ZTK 54 (1957), 353-364; F.
Hahn, Titles of Jesus in Christology (London 1969) 288-99; T. J. Weeden, ‘The Heresy That
Necessitated Mark’s Gospel’, ZNW 59 (1968) 145-58; P. Achtemeier, ‘The Origin and
Function of the Pre-Markan Miracle Catenae’, JBL 91 (1972) 202-212; H. Koester, ‘The
Structure of Early Christian Beliefs’ (216-219) and ‘One Jesus and Four Primitive Gospels’
(187-93) in H. Koester and J. M. Robinson (edd.), Trajectories Through Early Christianity
(Philadelphia 1971).

[ Page 87 ]



[ Page ] 88



Alexandria.2 Windisch declared that Philo ‘stands in the middle between
Judaism and early Christianity, just as he is also the middle-man between
Biblical and Greek-syncretistic religion’.3 Philo’s two-part biography of
Moses, so the argument runs, exalts ‘this greatest and most perfect of men’
(Mos. 1.1) to a semi-divine status, providing evidence that indeed diaspora
Judaism was already turning Israel’s heroes into divine men when the
early Christians did the same with Jesus.

	In 1977, however, Carl Holladay observed that although this Jewish divi-
nization of biblical figures was in many ways the lynch-pin of discussions of
a ‘divine man’ Christology, few had devoted much effort to actually show-
ing that it had happened.4 What Holladay set out to demonstrate was that
when we look closely at Josephus, Philo, and Artapanus we find no evi-
dence that figures like Moses were anything like the divine men of the
Greeks and Romans.5 For some, Holladay’s analysis seems to have spelled
the death of the ‘divine man’ as an heuristic category in the development
of Christology.6 Others, however, have all but ignored Holladay’s work,
and seem to have felt little need to answer his analysis of the Jewish
sources.7 Thus, the deification of Israel’s heroes in the diaspora has largely
remained, for its proponents, what Holladay objected to twenty years ago:
a network of mutually reinforcing assertions without any significant
exegetical basis.

	Why has Holladay’s monograph not prompted more response? In part
this may be a consequence of his broad scope. By trying to deal with all the
works of Philo and Josephus, as well as surviving fragments of Artapanus,
in a single monograph, he inevitably had to pass over some material very
quickly. This meant that Philo’s Vita Mosis received only a few pages, even
though it provides by far the most commonly cited example of a Jewish

_______________________

2 See the history of the investigation in C. Holladay, Theios Aner in Hellenistic-
Judaism, SBLDS 40 (Missoula, Mont. 1977) 1-22.

3 Windisch Paulus und Christas 112. Translated in Holladay Theios Aner 29.

4 Holladay Theios Aner 17. Cf. R. H. Fuller, Foundations of New Testament Christology
(London 1965) 69. See, e.g., the treatment of this ‘not unessential intervening link’ in
Hahn Titles 288-290.

5 Holladay Theios Aner 44.

6 E.g., J. D. Kingsbury, ‘The ‘Divine Man’ as the Key to Mark’s Christology-The End of
an Era?’ Int 35:3 (1981) 249.

7 E.g., H. D. Betz, ‘Gottmensch II* RAC 12 (1983) 270, 288-307; G, Corrington, The 'Divine
Man’: His Origin and Function in Hellenistic Popular Religion (New York 1986); Thomas
Schmeller, ‘The Greco-Roman Background of New Testament Christology’, in R. F.
Berkey and S. A. Edwards (edd.), Christology in Dialogue (Cleveland 1993) 54-65; A. B.
Kolenkow, ‘Paul and His Opponents in 2 Cor 10-13: THEIOI ANDRES and Spiritual
Guides’, in L. Bormann et al (edd.), Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in
the New Testament World (Leiden 1994) 351-374; and tentatively, G. Theissen and A.
Merz, The Historical Jesus (Gottingen 1998) 304-5.



[ Page ] 89

‘divine man’. On the other hand, Holladay sometimes seems to slip into
special pleading to avoid similarities between, say, Moses and Apollonius.
This paper, then, is intended to supplement Holladay’s project by taking a
closer look at Philo’s biography of Moses as the most important site at
which Holladay’s overall thesis can be tested. Was Philo’s Moses really a
divine man? Does he represent a bridge between the pagan temple and the
synagogue and thus also between Apollonius and Jesus?

The Features of Hellenistic ‘Divine Men ’

(a) The Growth of a Scholarly Construct

Before we can ask whether Philo’s Moses is a ‘divine man’, we must first
ask what such a figure would look like to first-century eyes, and here again
we meet a knot of scholarly debate. Brief definitions of the Beioc dvfjp
usually include some (vaguely defined) unusual relationship with the di-
vine, unusual birth, itinerancy, miracle-working, prophesying, oracular and
ecstatic utterances, wisdom, and perhaps rhetorical ability.8 This type was
first proposed by the historian of religion R. Reitzenstein and was given its
definitive shape by Ludwig Bieler in his monograph entitled 0EIOX ANHP.9
In this study we have deliberately avoided that Greek label, in part because
Philo only uses Beioc of Moses a handful of times and. even then without
the technical meaning which Reitzenstein envisioned.10 More importantly,
though, W. von Martitz and now Du Toit have demonstrated that the term
never did serve, for ancient writers, as a technical term for the kind of
divine man to which scholars usually apply it.11 In fact, many of the figures
in Bieler’s exhaustive collection of ancient sources were never called 9eio<;
dvfip by an ancient author. This recognition has given rise to questions
about how much Bieler’s influential picture of a single, defined ‘archetype’
for divine men was in fact created by his indiscriminate use of a single
(anachronistic and imposed) title.12 Such uncertainty is compounded by the
way in which the pioneers of the Oslo; dvqp concept often fell into the

________________________________

8 See, e.g., Achtemeier ‘Origin and Function’ 209ff.; Betz ‘Jesus as Divine Man’ 116;
M. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechisehen Religion (Mur. chert 1950) 2.505-6.

9 R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzahlungen (Leipzig, 1906); idem, Die Hellenisti-
schen Mysterienreligionen (Leipzig 1910) 1.2,122,129, 143,151,159.

10 See below n. 90 and 91.

11 W. von Martitz, ‘moq, nioOecia’, TDNT 8:338-340; D. S. Du Toit, Theios Anthropos
(Tiibingen 1997) 401-2.

12 For E. Gallagher’s defence of Bieler’s method, see his Divine Man or Magician? Celsus
and Origen on Jesus [Chico 1982] 10-18. Bieler does say that his project is ahistorical
(0EIOS ANUP 1.4), but it is still difficult to get around the idea that Bieler sees this
ideal type as a force in history (e.g., ibid. 1.5-7).



[ Page ] 90


typical history-of-religions pitfalls of indiscriminately combining sources
and blurring important distinctions on the basis of a superficial similarity.13
Bieler himself compounds so many features of the ‘type’, many of which
are represented by only one or two (often anachronistic) members, that the
very notion of a unified figure begins to seem forced.14 Thus, Tiede has
argued that we should think instead of a ‘diversity of ways in which charis-
matic figures in the concentric Hellenistic and Hellenistic Jewish spheres
were authenticated as having divine status’.'15 .

	The confusion surrounding the concept of the divine man highlights the
need, before we look to Philo, for a broad survey of human figures in
Greco-Roman literature who are portrayed as divine so that we can set out
a basic typology of Hellenistic divine humans. Of course, if we abandon the
idea that the Qeioq dvijp was an ancient title for a distinct type, what crite-
rion will we use for inclusion in our survey? In short, what do we mean by
divine men? In the past the ambiguity of this English word (and the similar
flexibility of the Greek ftetoq) has often disguised the fact that very different
kinds of ‘divinity’ are lumped together. Some ancient men can be called
‘divine’ in the sense that they manifest’some superhuman power or special
inspiration, though they remain mere mortals. Others, however, were
understood as being or becoming a god or demi-god.16 Thus Betz defines
gottlich as ‘von einer Gottheit abstammend’ and at the same time as simply
ilbermenschlich, without recognizing that he is conflating two distinct
concepts in the ancient mind.17 At times this confusion has been justified on
the basis of genetic relationships in the history of religions or supposedly
universal anthropological concepts such as ‘Mana’.18 Yet if our concern is
the awareness of a writer in the first century, what matters is neither dia-
chronic history, nor cross-cultural psychology, but the synchronic examina-
tion of ancient perceptions and portraits of divine humanity around the turn
of the eras. Since the background of our investigation is the use of the
‘divine man’ model to explain the divinization of Jesus, we will take

________________________

13 So Gallagher Divine Man 1-10; Corrington Divine Man 9, 17, 22 and even M. Smith,
‘Prolegomena to a Discussion of Aretalogies, Divine Men, the Gospels and Jesus’, JBL 90
I1971]192.

14 So, e.g., Jesus and Octavian are the only examples of a tendency to be opposed as
infants (ibid. 1.40-41). Other ‘typical features’ are based mainly on medieval, African, or
even Tibetan sources (see ibid. 1.29, 30-34, 37).

15 D. L. Tiede, The Charismatic Figure As Miracle Worker, SBLDS 1 (Missoula, Mont.
1972)241.

16 C. H. Talbert was the first to clearly articulate this distinction (‘The Concept of
Immortals in Mediterranean Antiquity’, JBL 94 [1975] 420; cf. Smith, ‘Prolegomena’ 184).

17 Betz ‘Gottmensch IF 235; cf. idem, ‘Jesus as Divine Man’ 116.

18 See, e.g., Weinreich ‘Antikes Gottmenschentum’ 174; Wetter Der Sohn Gottes 186-88,
et passim; Corrington Divine Man 89.




[ Page ] 91

‘divine’ in the strong sense, including only those figures in our survey
which are explicitly portrayed as being a god or demi-god. Our search will
aim first to find features which are common to many divinized humans and
then to discern whether any of these features (including divinity) are
closely enough associated that the presence of one will suggest the others.

(b) Divine Heroes in Myth and Memory

Most Greeks believed that there was a wide gap between the immortal
Homeric gods and mortal humanity.19 Yet this gap was not empty. It was
peopled by the nymphs and satyrs, and by the many Satgoveg, those
shadowy divine beings who sometimes seemed to serve the gods and
sometimes worked mischief for their own inscrutable purposes. In this
ontological scheme, most of those heroes (lipcoec) who had lived, as human
beings were not raised very far above the level of their mortal brethren.20
While many heroes were honoured with shrines, sacrifices, or even festi-
vals, this seems to have’been understood for the most part as a kind of cult
of the dead, distinct from the worship of the gods. These dead men lay in
their tombs, able to exercise some influence over the lives of people near
their tomb or home city, but never truly escaping death.21 Yet the actual

____________________________

19 So Betz ‘Gottmensch IP 287; W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston
1955) 114. Epicurus took this gulf to an extreme with which few agreed, arguing that the
gods were completely isolated from the world and had no part at all in its affiars (e.g.,
Epicurus Ep. Hdt. 76-7; See A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics,
2nd ed. [Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986] 41-49). This would, of course, have ruled out the
kind of divinization which we discuss below. On the other hand, Stoic theology simply
identified Nature in its totality as divine and reinterpreted the Homeric deities as
natural forces. This pantheism allowed for an intimate relationship between each
individual and Nature, but in its own way also makes the special divinization of an
individual nonsensical (Long Hellenistic Philosophy 108, 148-50). The only sense in which
the Stoic wise man is divine is that his will is completely in accord with the basic reason
or /.670; which drives Nature (ibid, 108).

20 Some ‘heroes’ were, on the other hand, not human at all but simply Tittle deities’
who were either restricted to a particular region or subordinate to higher gods (See A. D.
Nock, ‘The Cult of Heroes’ HTR 37 [1944] 593; David Boehringer, Heroenkulte in Griechen-
land von der geometrischen bis zur klassischen Zeit, KLIO Beitr. zur alten Geschichte
Beihefte n.f. 3 [Berlin 2001] 31).

21 Emily Kearns (‘hero-cult’, OCD 693-4) observes that Greek authors seem to expect
‘heroic honours’ to mean a definite form of veneration which is clearly distinct from the
Olympian cults. Diodorus Siculus, for example, explains how Heracles was only offered
sacrifice ‘as to a hero’ until the Athenians worshipped him Tike as to a god’(4.39.1).
Note how Pin. P 1.53; 4.58 treats the comparison of the heroes to the gods as meta-
phorical, and how in some writers the heroes join the insubstantial mass of the dead or
else are simply given new life in an earthly paradise (e.g., Hes. Op. 161ff.). Cf. Martin P.
Nilsson, Greek Polk Religion (New York 1961) 18-20; Nock ‘Heroes’ 142-3; Ian Morris,
‘Tomb Bult and the ‘Greek Renaissance” Antiquity 62 (1988) esp. 752-4; Boehringer
Heroenkulte 25-34.
	


[ Page ] 92

practice of hero-cults often implies that these men often became something
more, and the likes of Heracles, Aristeas, Orpheus, Dionysus, Aesclepius,
Aeneas and Romulus came to rival the Olympians themselves.22 By the first
century c.e. the same kind of status was even granted to contemporary
figures, men as diverse as the wonder-working sage Pythagoras, Pere-
grinus the Cynic philosopher, and the Emperor Augustus.

	If there was often some ambiguity about the precise nature of these
divine men, it is in part because Greek theology had never worked out a
clear or universal understanding of the various ranks of intermediate
beings. So, when Dionysius of Halicarnassus includes such heroes among
the dctipove;;, the ‘third order of being’(1.77.3), it is not immediately clear
whether they are among lesser gods or have joined the souls of golden age
humanity.23 The term Saigtov could even refer to one of the Olympians.24 It
was thus not uncommon to find disagreement over where on the scale of
divinity some great hero should fall.25 Whatever was decided, however, it is
clear that these individuals were no longer imagined merely as great
mortals reaching out from their tombs. They had joined the ranks of the
immortals and thus crossed the basic threshold between humanity and the
divine.26

___________________________

	Greek and Latin quotations are from the LCL editions.

22 See Nock ‘Heroes’ 144-8, 162-6 and the treatment of Dionysus and Heracles in D.S.
4.1.5; 4.5.4; 4.15.1; 4.29.1; 4.39.4; 5.72.5-5.73.2; 5.76.1-2. In these passages Diodorus does
not appear to draw any clear theoretical division between heroes, demi-gods, and gods
(so Lucian DMori. 10). See also Romulus and Aeneas in Ovid Metam. 14.805-816; 15.86'1-2;
15.863-67. Talbert ('Concept of Immortals’ 420) distinguishes between ‘immortal’ heroes
and ‘eternal’ deities on the problematic basis of having been born, but Guthrie’s simple
division between immortal gods and mortal humanity is surely better (Greeks and Their
Gods 115).

23 See F. E. Brenk, Tn the Light of the Moon: Demonology in the Early Imperial Period’,
ANRW II.16.3 (1986) 2068-2145, esp. 2082-2091. For 8aigove<j as the souls of Golden age
men see Hes. Op. 121; as intermediaries see Pl. Snip. 202e. It is likewise unclear exactly
what Athenaeus intends when he calls Orpheus one of the demigods (liniSeot) in
distinction from the gods (0eo() like Apollo (Deipn. 14.632c). At times, such qutfic.m seem
to include the whole generation of the Trojan war (Hes. Op. 109ff.; Guthrie Greeks and
Their Gods 298).
	Note, too, that at times the. title ‘heroes’ could stand as the middle term in this
scheme, so that other beings who had never been humans at all would then be included
under the umbrella (Pin. O 2,1; cf. Pl. Crat. 397c-398e; Phi. Def. orac. 415b; Boehringer
Heroenkulte 31-2).

24 Brenk ‘Demonology’ 2083.

25 See, e.g., D.S. 4.71 vs. Ovid Metam. 2.648-9 and Paus. 3.26.4 on Aesclepius.

26 By the first century this was often justified on the basis of a fundamental kinship be-
tween humanity and deity (Betz ‘Gottmensch II’ 237; Guthrie Greeks and their Gods 114-
16). So, when Ovid depicts Aeneas’ apotheosis, the river-god washes away ‘whatever
was mortal’ so that ‘his best part remained to hirn’CMeinm. 14.600-609). This remaining
kernel was ‘a god’, deus (ibid. 14.607). See also Romulus in Ovid Metam. 14.823-828.



[ Page ] 93

	How did the ancients recognize such a divine man? Cicero relates Romu-
lus’ divinity directly to his being ‘blood from gods derived’ (Resp. 1.41) and,
as Betz implied in the definition quoted above, most of these divinized
heroes are said to have been either fathered or borne by a deity.27 In
addition, the actual act of conception or the birth of the divine man is often
strange. Aesclepius, for example, was taken at the last minute from his
mother’s body as she burned on a pyre set by Apollo as a punishment for
her unfaithfulness (Pin. P 3.38-46).28 We find consistent comments about
the young hero’s strength, beauty, or general greatness29 and the divine
child is very often raised by supernatural foster-parents such as dryads,
centaurs, or the gods themselves.30

	At the other end of life, Talbert has pointed out that divinized humans
were usually said to have ascended bodily at death.31 This event is either
witnessed directly or (more commonly) is suggested by the absence of any
physical remains32 or by oracles and portentous natural wonders.33 So,’

__________________________

27 So Talbert ‘Concept of Immortals’ 422 3. See such reports for Heracles and Dionysus
(D.S. 4.2.13; 4.9.1-2; Ovid Metam. 259-61), Aesclepius (Paus. 2.26.4-5; 3.26.4), Castor
and Pollux (Ovid Metam. 6.109), Aristeas and Aesclepius (D.S. 4.71.1; 4.81.1; Ovid
Metam. 2.600-55; Cic. ND 3.22; Pin. P 3.38f.), Aeneas (D.H. 1.62.2), Romulus (Flu. Rom. 2;
D.H. 1.77, 2; Cic. Resp. 2.2; L. A. Florus 1.1), Epimenides (D.L. 1.114), Orpheus (Ap. Rhod.
Argon. 1,23f.; Verg. Ed. 4.55-57), Pythagoras (Iamb. VP 3, 5-8), Lycurgus (Plu. Lyc. 1.2-4),
Julius (Suet. Jul. 1.6.1), Alexander of Abonuteichos (Lucian Alex. 11), Apollonius of Tyana
(Philostr. VA 1.4-6), and Parrhasius the poet (Pliny HN 35.71).

28 So Paus. 2.26.5-7. Cf. regarding Heracles (D.S. 4.9.2-3), Dionysus (D.S. 4.2.2-3; Ovid
Metam. 3.286-310-15), Romulus (Plu. Rom, 2.2-6; 3.1-3), and Apollonius (Philostr. VA
1.4-6).

29 So Bieler ©BIOS ANUP 1.34-39, 50-56. See, e.g., regarding Heracles (D.S. 4.9.6; 4.10.1-
2), Dionysus (D.S. 4.4.2), Romulus (Plu. Rom. 3.3), Alexander of Abonuteichos (Lucian
Alex. 11), Julius (Eun. VS 473.44L), Augustus (Suet. Aug. 8.1), Alexander (Ps-Callisth.
Alex. 1.13.5), Pythagoras (Iamb. VP 10), and Apollonius (Philostr. VA 1.7-9.19). The
emphasis on the virtue of more contemporary divine men was meant to fend off the shock
evident when Philip of Macedon told Menacretes to ‘come to your senses!’(Ath. Deipn.
7.289d-f). See the polemics surrounding Alexander of Abonuteichos (Lucian Alex. Lucian
Alex. 8, 23, 41-2, 56-7), Peregrinus (Lucian Peregr. 1, lOf., 16, 18, etc.), and Apollonius
(Philostr. VA 1.1, 8, 13, 24, 30, 35-6; 2.7; 4.18, 37ff; 7.4, 39; 8.7), especially regarding
accepting money for miracles.

30 See regarding Heracles (D.S. 4.9.6), Aristeas and Dionysus (ibid. 4.2.3; 4.81.2; Ovid
Metam. 3.310-315), Aesclepius (Ovid Metam. 2.600-55; Pin. P 3.45-6), and Romulus (Cic.
Resp. 2.2; D.H. 1.79.2-10; Plu. Rom. 3:4-4:2; 5:lf.).

31 Talbert ‘Concept of Immortals’ 421-23. So Bieler 0EIOA ANHP 1.44-49.

32 Heracles' pyre and bones are completely consumed by lightning from heaven (D.S.
4.38), so he is given ‘immortal honours’ (ibid. 4.82.6). Cf. regarding Aeneas (D.H. 1.64.4-
5), Empedocles (D.L. 8.68), Pindar (Paus. 9.23.3f.), Apollonius (Philostr. VA 8.30) and
Augustus (Suet. Aug. 2.100).

33 See e.g., Romulus’ ascension (Cic. Resp. 2:10; 6:21; Livy 1:16; Plu. Rom. 27.6-8; L. A.
Florus 1.1; Ovid Metam.14.816-828), Peregrinus (Lucian Peregr. 27. 39), Empedocles (D.L.
8.68), Julius (Suet. Jul. 1.84.3-4, 1.88), Apollonius (Philostr. VA 8.30).



[ Page ] 94

Romulus’ ascension is corroborated by the famous testimony of Proculus
Julius, the aged citizen who claimed to have been visited by the divine ruler
days after his death and instructed to initiate a cult in his honour.34 Bodily
ascension is, again, not an absolute prerequisite for divinity, since Aesclepius
is generally thought to have been slain by Zeus for having the audacity to
raise the dead.35 The elevation from the earth to Olympus was, however, a
sure sign that one had joined the ranks of the gods.

	If we ask about the adult career of the ‘divine man’, it is rarely noticed
how few of the ancient and mythic heroes can be called miracle workers.
All perform amazing feats which benefit their communities. These can be
military exploits,36 the founding of a city,37 the discovery of some cultural or
technological gift to humanity,38 or any other philanthropic act.39 Yet while
most of these prodigious feats of strength, skill, or intellect are superhuman,
few are strictly ‘supernatural’. Even Aesclepius’ ability to raise the dead is,
in some stories, understood not as a supernatural effort but as the pinnacle
of his medical techniques.40 Some element of the miraculous cannot be
avoided when Heracles, Dionysus, and Orpheus make voyages to Hades
(Diodorus Siculus 4.25.4; 4.26.1). Yet the general lack of miracles in these
ancient tales speaks against any universal tendency for divine men to
absorb reports of miracle working.41 Of course there are reports of divine
seers and healers from the heroic age,42 but for the most part it is not their

___________________________

34 See Cic. Resp. 2:10; Leg. 1:3; Plu. Rom. 28.

35 D.S. 4.71.2-3; Ovid Melon. 642-49; Pin. P 3.55-58.

36 See regarding Heracles (D.S. 4.10.3-5), Dionysus (ibid. 4.2.6; 4.3.1-2), Aeneas (Ovid
Melon. 14.588) and Romulus (Cic. Resp. 2.2; Plu. Ron. 8.6; 16.4-5; 20.5; 25:3; though cf.
18.2f.; 23.2).

37 See regarding Heracles (D.S. 4.29f.); Dionysus (ibid. 4.2.6); Romulus (Cic. Resp. 1.41).
Cf. Plu. Rom. 12.2, where an eclipse heralds Romulus’ final founding of that city.

38 Aristeas taught humanity about cheese, bees, and olives (D.S. 4.81-3; 4.82.5). Diony-
sus is regarded as one of the two most philanthropic gods (along with Demeter; ibid.
4.3.5) because he discovered grapes and wine (ibid. 4.2.5), cultivation (ibid. 4.2.5), and.
numerous forms of entertainment (ibid. 4.5.4). Aesclepius ‘made many discoveries which.
contribute to the health of mankind’(ibid. 4.71.1).

39 These include Aristeas’ cure of the pan-Hellenic plague (D.S. 4.82.2-3), Heracles’
twelve labours (ibid. 4.9.4-5; see 4.11.3^4.28.4), Orpheus’ enchanting music (ibid. 4.25.2),
and his founding of religious institutions (see Betz ‘Gottmensch IT 240).

40 See Pindar Pyth. 3.47-53. The healings are more obviously supernatural in Ovid
Melon. 2.642-49, but Aesclepius’ sons Machaon and Podalirius are simply medical
healers (Hom. II. 4.192-219; D.S. 4.71.4; Ovid Rem. Am. 313f., 546; Ars Am. 2.491, 735;
Trist. 5.6.1 If.; Mart. Epig. 2.16.5; 10.56.7). Cf. the ambiguous way in which Orpheus’ music
entrances people, gods and even the elements (Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.261., 492-518; 4.904-9;
Ovid Metmn. 10.1-73; D.S. 4.25.4; Anthologia Graeco 7.8).

41 Mantic prophecy is more common (see Hdt, Hist. 4.13; Pliny HN 7.56.203; Philostr. VA
3.44).

42 See Amphiarus (Strab. 9.1.22; 9.2.10; Paus. 1.34.1L; Philostr. VA 2,37; 4.24; Cic. Div,
1.40.88), Idmon (Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.139-45), Trophonius and Amphilochus (Lucian



[ Page ] 95


cults which caught on in the popular imagination. Thus when later figures
lilce Menacretes of Syracuse tried to bolster their own claims to deity, they
usually appealed not to the most spectacular figures but to the less clearly
miraculous heroes like Heracles, Aristeas, or Aesclepius.43

	We should remember this context, then, when we observe that later
divine men are more often described as thaumaturges, working super-
natural wonders such as miraculous healings44 and manifesting powers of
mantle or oracular prophecy. Thaumaturges seem to have grown in popu-
larity with the religious revival of the second and third centuries c.e.,45 but
even then claims of wonder-working were not always necessary to support
divine claims. Philosophers such as Peregrinus could be acclaimed as divine
simply because their speculative wisdom and insight passed beyond the
capabilities of mere mortals (see Lucian, Peregr.). Though in places it is not
clear what this ’divinity’ really meant to philosophical writers, it is also
sometimes clearly a matter of deification.46 On the other hand, with the rise
of absolute monarchs in the Hellenistic world, we also see these rulers
being deified,47 often for nothing more than their waging of wars and
building of states.48 Even poets could be credited with deity on the strength

________________________

DMort. 10; Philostr. VA 4.24).

43 It is thus strange that Bieler excluded such mythic heroes from the outset (0EIOE
ANHP1.7). See regarding Menacretes (Ath. Deipn. 7.289b-d; D.S. 16.44), Romulus and
Aristeas (Plu. Rom. 28.6), Perseus, Aesclepius, Heracles and Alexander of Abonuteichos
(Lucian Alex. 10-11, 58, 60), Peregrinus and Heracles (Lucian Peregr. 33); Julius and Castor
(Suet Jul. 1.10.1), Apollonius and Aesclepius (Philostr. VA 1.7, 12), and implicitly
Augustus and the heroes in Ovid Metam. 15.868-70. Less directly, some of Empedocles’
feats mirror those of Heracles, Aesclepius, and Orpheus (Weinreich ‘Antikes
Gottmenschentum’ 181).

44 Empedocles is the earliest and most famous example here. See also, e.g., Menacretes of
Syracuse (Ath. Deipn. 7.289a-b), Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-10).

45 Betz (‘Gottmensch II’ 248-9) points to Lucian’s satires, the neo-platonic theurges in
Dio Cass. 71.8.4, 9.2 and the ‘Heracles’ in Philostr. VS 2.1.552.

46 See Tiede (.Charismatic Figure 53-6) on the ambiguity surrounding the divinity of the
Stoic wise man (Seneca Epist. 31.11; 41.1, 4—5; 53.11; 73.14-16) and Corrington (Divine Man
88) on Socrates' semi-divine daimonion (cf. Tiede, Charismatic Figure 41-2). Epicurus’
deity too is more ambiguous than Tiede recognizes (Charismatic Figure 48-52), given that
he challenges traditional notions of godhood, and Betz betrays a typical lack of
sensitivity to the variety of meanings for 0eio<; in his discussion of Plato (see ‘Gottmensch
IP 264-6 and Pl. Sph. 216b). Still, some of the later statements about these figures are
quite strong (see Gal. Protr. 5 regarding Socrates, Hippocrates, and Plato; Porph, VP 56,
58-9 regarding Plato and 127-9, 134 regarding Plotinus), D.L. even hands down a legend
making Plato a child of Apollo (3.2).

47 So Betz ‘Gottmensch IP 286-7. See regarding Julius (Suet. Jul. 1.84-5, 88; Aug. 2.17),
Augustus (Ovid Metam. 15.868-70), Lycurgus (Paus, 3.16.5-6; Plu. Lye. 5.3, 31.3; Philostr.
VA 8.7).

48 So Tiede Charismatic Figure 90-98. See regarding Lycurgus’ legislation (Plu. Lyc. 5.3;
cf. Cic. Resp. 2.5, 9, regarding Romulus), Julius’ political shrewdness and military prowess
(Suet. Jul. 1.27-28, 30, 57-8, 60-70), Augustus’ military or civic accomplishments (Suet.



[ Page ] 96


of their brilliant art.49 Of course, these various kinds of feats were not
mutually exclusive. The Emperors occasionally worked wonders.50 Divine
philosophers could also work miracles or make oracular pronouncements,51
particularly after the late-Hellenistic blurring of the lines between religion
and philosophy. What is crucial to note, however, is that even at the height
of enthusiasm for such wonders, we continue to see some divinized
philosophers who display no knack for the miraculous. Thus, the ongoing
stress on miracles as central to the divine man’s activity likely derives more
from the overwhelming (but anachronistic) desire to compare Jesus of
Nazareth with Apollonius of Tyana52 than from a broad reading of the
extant sources. Just as with mythic heroes, so with later figures the
particular kind of feat performed seems much less crucial than the fact that
divine men have done something great for the human community.

(c) A ‘Divine Man’ Type?

We must agree with H. C. Kee, that ‘except for a widespread fondness for
apotheosis of great men, there is no set type or model of theios aner’.53 Nor
should we simply replace the single type popularized by Bieler with a
plurality of set types. For, although divine men tended to be drawn from a
handful of social types (philosophers, wandering thaumaturges, kings), none
of these were understood to be divine per se until at least the time of Celsus
and Porphyry.54 In other words, there were many philosophers, thauma-
turges, poets and kings who were not thought to be divine, and this is
precisely why those who did claim some deity in the first century c.e. and
after had to bolster those claims with appeals to the mythic heroes.

_________________________

Aug. 2.8,18, 21-22, 26 though cf. 2.20, 23, etc.).

49 See, e.g., Plutarch (Eun. VS 454), Pindar (Paus. 9.23.3ff.), and Parrhasius (Pliny HN
35.71).

50 Re. Vespasian, see Tac. Hist. 4.81; Suet. Caes. 8.7; Dio Cass. 65.8.1; cf. Plu. Pyrrh. 3.4-5.

51 See regarding Democritus (D.L., 39), Epimenides (D.L., 1.109-110, 114-15; Pl. Leg.
1.642D-E, 3.677D; Plu. Sol. 12), Empedocles (D.L., 8.59-62; 67, 69), Pythagoras (Iamb. VP
134; D.L. 8.41), and of course Apollonius (see Philostr. VA 1.2,10, 23; 4.4,10, 18, 20, 24, 45;
5.11,13,30; 6.32, 39,43; 8.10, 26).

52 See, e.g., F. C. Baur, Apollonius-von Tyana und Christas (Hildesheim 1966 [1832]) and
the survey in E. Koskenniemi, Apollonios Von Tyana in Der Neutestamentlichen Exegese
(Tubingen 1994),

53 H. C. Kee, Jesus in History, 2nd ed. (New York 1970) 152. So Gallagher Divine Man
174-9; Blackburn Theios Aner 94-96.

54 Betz (‘Gottmensch II’ 236) points to Origen Cels. 2.49ff.; 3.3, 42f.; 6.8-11; 7.8-9, 53, but
no earlier parallels can be found. Cicero’s popular deified humans are clearly ancient
heroes (ND 3.39-40) and DuToit (Theios Anthropos 171-2) is correct that the ‘so-called
Qeloi’ in Philodemus of Gadara who have led a philosophical student astray (ITepr
Qeffl'v, frag. 10) are probably philosophical teachers. The lists of seers, etc. in Pl. Chrm.
158b; Leg. 1.642d and Clem. Al. Strom. 1.133.2 say nothing about divinity.




[ Page ] 97


	What we may say, however, is that divinized humans in general tend to
be portrayed as having remarkable parentage, birth, and death, as being
remarkably beautiful, virtuous, or intelligent, and as performing some great
feat for humanity (whether miraculous or otherwise). Of these features,
precocious development and remarkable beauty are common modes of
praise in the ancient world and were certainly not reserved for gods. Nor
were the deeds of divine men always unique, and in any case they were
extremely variable. Miracle working (where it appears) does seem at times
to have carried overtones of deity.55 It is, after all, when Apollonius miracu-
lously steps out of his fetters in a Roman prison, that Damis recognizes his
divinity (Philostratus VA 7.38). Yet not all wonder workers were thought to
be gods.56 Indeed, while the opponents of divine men would usually chal-
lenge claims of divine ancestry or ascent at death as hoaxes,57 they needed
only to recategorize the miracle worker as a morally suspect ‘magician’
(yof|<j) in order to undercut divine claims.58 Thus, while someone explicitly
identified as divine might in some cases absorb miracle stories along with
other kinds of philanthropic deeds, miracle working can in no sense be
called a set feature of some divine man archetype. Only divine parentage
and heavenly ascent, the two features singled out by Talbert in his
description of ‘immortals’, can be said to imply deity consistently and of
themselves, and only these two features are so closely associated that one
would commonly suggest the other.

Did Philo Portray Moses as a Divine Man?

It should be self evident that this Hellenistic pattern of divinization is
foreign to the traditional Judaism which produced books like 1 and 2

___________________________

55 Note the reaction in Lystra to the healings of Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14; Weinreich
‘Antikes Gottmenschentum’ 188). Suetonius tells us that Vespasian’s healing miracles
brough him ‘prestige and a certain divinity (maiestasHCaes. 8.7.2).

56 Celsus makes this point precisely (Origen Cels, 3.32; See Blackburn Theios AnSr 35, 93
[n. 574]). We find no divinization of Hermotimus of Klazomenai (Pliny I TN 7.52.174; Pin.
Gen. Soar. 22 I592C-D]; Apollon. Para. 3), Polydios (Cic. Div. 1.88f.), Melampus (Hom.
Od. 11.281 97; 15.222-42; Pliny HN 10.70.137; Apollod., Bibi. 1.9.11-12; Paus. 2.18.4;
4.36.3; Hdt. 9.34; D.S. 4.68.4), or the Hyperborean magician (Lucian Philcrps 13-14).

57 See D.L. 8.71-5; Lucian Peregr. 1, 39, et passim; Alex. 11; Hdt. 4.94f. Some thought it
credible that Empedocles would have killed himself in a heroic way precisely to confirm
his deity (D.L. 8.69-70).

58 Corrington Divine Man 22; Gallagher Divine Man 174-5, et passim; Bieler &EIO2,
ANHP 1.31-47, 140-43. See, e.g., regarding Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-10, 13, 18-19) and
Apollonius of Tyana (Philostr. VA 1.2, 13; 4.18; cf. Gallagher Divine Man 20). Of course,
this does not stop skeptics like Lucian from attacking the authenticity of the miracles
(Alex. 5,10-11; 13-16; 19-22, 24, 26-7, 36-7, 48-9).



[ Page ] 98


Maccabees and Judith.59 This is not to deny any Hellenistic cultural influence
on these cultural ‘conservatives’, but simply to point out that their contact
with Greek culture tended, if anything, to strengthen their commitment to
monotheism and their rejection of Greek religion. The question is, however,
whether deeply Hellenized circles such as those represented by Philo were
as firm in this rejection, or whether they were willing to see their heroes as
divine. So when we turn to Philo’s greatest hero, Moses, we must ask
whether he too seems to draw, perhaps not on some set flmoc ctvfjp type,
but at least on the broad patterns of presentation which we have observed
in Greek and Roman divine men.

(a)	Career and Achievements

Certainly Moses does perform wonders. When he is first called in Arabia,
God instructs him to perform three miraculous signs: his rod changed back
from a snake when he picked it up, his hand became leprous and was
healed again, and the water which he poured from the Nile became blood
(Mos, I.77-81).60 Similarly, Moses’ miraculous contest with the Egyptian
magicians demonstrates that ‘some diviner power’ is at work through him
(1.94), and Philo explains in the introduction to the second book of De Vita
Mosis that the first volume included ‘the works which he performed in
Egypt-•■works which no words can adequately describe’(2.1). Indeed, in
1.155-56 we read that:

	... since God judged him worthy to appear as a partner of His own possessions, He gave
	into his hands the whole world as a portion well fitted for His heir. Therefore, each
	element obeyed him as its master, changed its natural properties and submitted to his
	command, and this perhaps is no wonder.61

Holladay has tried to reinterpret the ‘elements’ over which Moses had
control as his own soul,62 so that the passage becomes another reference to
his virtue. Yet the previous verse says plainly that God rewarded Moses
with ‘the wealth of the whole earth and sea and rivers, and of all the other
elements and the combinations which they form’(1.155). Israel’s ruler thus

___________________

So Bieler &EIOE ANHP2.24-5; Nilsson Geschichte 2.505; Hahn Titles 289. Schottroff
(‘Gottmensch I’, in RAC 12 (1983) 210-214) easily points out the essential fallacy of
Windisch equating the Jewish dv(ip<o?ioc fieofi with the Hellenistic divine man (see
Paulus und Christus 90ff.).

60 Unless otherwise noted, all parenthetical references in this section are to Philo’s Vita
Mosis.

61 All Philo quotations are from PLCL.

62 Holladay Theios Aner 121-22, based on Stoic metaphysics in which the soul is a
substance. See the objections of Blackburn Theios Aner 68 [n. 429] who points to Mos.
1.201E; 1.216; 2.154.



[ Page ] 99

appears as one to whom God’s sovereign power has been delegated to
work such miracles as the parting of the Red Sea.63

	Yet the narrative descriptions of those miraculous activities make it clear
how Philo understood this privilege: that Moses became the vehicle
through which God acted. Goodenough had already observed that Philo
seems actually to downplay or rationalize many of the miracles in the
biblical account.64 Even when Philo allows a miracle to stand, however, it is
never produced by a power resident in Moses.65 Unlike the wonders of
Empedocles or Apollonius, those of Moses always point beyond him to
God, the true holder of the power, for whom Moses serves as an agent
(1.75-6). It is God who shows his will through Moses’ miracles (1.95). Thus,
almost all of Moses’ miracles are performed in obedience to a divine
instruction (e.g., 1.90). When Moses strikes the Red Sea with his staff to part
the waters, he acts ‘at God’s command’ and nature has already prepared
for the miracle with portentous winds and clouds (1.176-77).66 Moreover,
Philo actually seems to distance Moses from the Egyptian plagues, for only
one of which is he the sole explicit agent (1.120-21). Already in the biblical
text some of the plagues are mediated by Aaron or are the direct actions of
God.67 Yet in some cases Philo has Aaron displace Moses.68 In others where
Philo retains Moses’ agency, the Alexandrian skips over biblical passages

______________________

63 So P. Bergen, ‘Moses, Jesus, and the Roman Emperor’, NT38:2 (1996) 150. Borgen points
out how this portion (xMjpov) overlaps with (though it outstrips) the sovereignty of
Roman emperors (see Philo Legal. 8, 43, 49) and reminds one of the kind of ickf}pov, or
regional possession, granted by, e.g., Gaius to Agrippa (Legat. 326).

64 E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light (New Haven 1935) 187. Philo may also have down-
played Moses’ miraculous works to counter the latter’s reputation among pagans as a
magician. See H. Remus, ‘Moses and the Thaumaturges’, LTP 52:3 (1996) 666-8; J. Gager,
Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism, SBLMS 16 (Nashville 1972) 134-61; Apul. Ap. 90;
Origen Cels. 3.5; 5.41; Philo Hypoth. 8.6.2. Remus has even argued that the lengthy ex-
cursus on Balaam, with its contrast between Moses and that disreputable magician (e.g.,
Mos. 1.276,283,285), was designed to combat this misunderstanding (‘Thaumaturges’ 677-
8). Notice, too, how the miraculous contest in the Egyptian court differentiates between
Moses’ power and that of ‘magicians’ and ‘wizards’(Mos. 1.92).

65 So Holladay Theios Aner 195; Tiede Charismatic Figure 134ff.

66 Some other miraculous ‘prodigies’ have nothing to do with Moses (Mos. 1.165-66;
1.199ff.), while others come simply as a result of his prayer (1.184).

67 As in the biblical account, Philo’s final three plagues of ‘dog-flies’, the death of
livestock, and the death of the first-born are performed with no human agency at all
(Mos. 1.130). Likewise, Aaron’s mediation of the plagues of frogs (1.103) and gnats (1.107)
is in keeping with the biblical text.

68 Philo has Aaron turn the water into blood (Mos.1.99), displacing Moses from the
biblical story (Exod 7:20). The plague of ulcers, Moses’ work in the Bible (Exod 9:10), is
here mediated along with Aaron (Mos. 1.126-7). The rationale for the agency of Aaron or
of Moses seems for Philo to relate to the elements involved in each miracle rather than
any desire to glorify the characters (Mos. 1.129).



[ Page ] 100


which actually narrate the miraculous performance.69 Each time, it is prayer
which brings the miraculous plague to an end (e.g., 1.122). This downplay-
ing of Moses’ involvement in the miracles adds ambiguity to the leader’s
role in the entire exodus. For, while one might cast his leading of the people
out of Egypt as a hero’s mighty deed, for his people (see, e.g., 1.40-42; 44;
47; 50; 51-57), in Philo’s narrative Moses is often eclipsed by God himself as
the main agent of the people’s deliverance.70 Unlike Aesclepius or Apollo-
nius, Moses does not appear as a wielder of independent divine power able
to perform wonders at his own whim or even against the will of a deity.

	In the final evaluation, however, much of the energy expended in the
debate over Moses’ miracle working may have been misplaced. As we
argued earlier, miraculous wonders are not a prerequisite for divinization.
Much more important is the fact that Moses does perform amazing philan-
thropic acts, not only for Israel, but ultimately for all of humanity. At the
outset Philo makes it clear that he intends to show how Moses combined in
one person the roles of king, philosopher, priest, and prophet, and how ‘in
each he won the highest place’(2.3; cf. 1.1-4). Philo’s portrait of Moses’
kingship is clearly influenced by Plato’s Republic,71 and Philo interprets his
encounter at Sinai as the philosophical ascent to the Platonic realm of the
ideal which was the basis for the philosopher-king’s ability (e.g., 1.158).72
Moses was just with other nations (1.243-5, 249), did not abuse his power
for selfish ends (1.150), and did not amass wealth (1.152) or make an arro-
gant display (1.153). On the contrary, his liberality was expressed in his
showering virtuous acts on his people (1.153-4). As a philosopher, ‘his mind
was incapable of accepting any falsehood’(1.24), and like, e.g., Apollonius of

_________________________

69 Moses’ agency is eclipsed in the plagues of hail and darkness (Mos. 1.118-119, 123; cf.
Exod 9:23; 10:22). In Mos. 1.126 (cf. 1.97) Philo says that these plagues too were per-
formed through Moses’ agency, but Philo’s decision not to narrate his involvement em-
phasizes God’s power rather than Moses’ own.

70 Since, e.g., there is no human agent of the final plague, the Egyptians decide to let the
Hebrews go without any influence from Moses (Mos. 1.139). Once delivered, the people
‘sang a new song to the Deity, Who gave them the land as their portion and had, in
truth, led them in their migration’(1.255).

71 Holladay Theios Aner 109-112. In Mos. 2.2 Philo refers directly to the philosopher-
king of Pl. Resp. 5.473d. Indeed, as Holladay notes (Thews Aner 111) the curricula of
Plato’s philosopher-king and of Philo's Moses are almost identical (Pl. Resp. 7.522c-
534e; Philo Mos. 1,23).

72 So Holladay Thews Aner 126. See Mos. 1.148-62. Holladay suggests that we compare
Philo’s description of the vision with Plato’s analogies of the sun, divided line and cave
in Resp. 6-7 (ibid. 127 [n. 144]). Holladay observes that Moses is not ascribed the
philosopher-king’s military virtues (see Resp. 6.486b, 486d, 487a; 7.536a, 537b) and is
avoided in discussions of Israel’s victory (e.g. Mos. 1.216-17, 254-6, 258-62, 284, 306). He
suggests that this may betray the added influence of Pythagorean and Cynic-Stoic
conceptions of kingship and compares Diotogenes’ emphasis on virtue (Stob. 4.7.26) with
the basis for Philo’s kingship in Mos. 1.148-9 (Holladay Theios Aner H2-116).



[ Page ] 101

Tyana, he perfectly enacts the philosophy which he learns (1.29; cf. 2.66). As
priest, Moses eclipses Aaron as the real priestly leader of Israel. This is not
because of his leadership in the cult itself but rather because, again much
like Apollonius or Epimenides at local pagan temples, he is the one who
establishes the right pattern for the worship of the Lord (2.71ff.).73 As a
prophet, Israel’s law-giver is both given the privilege of asking direct
questions of God, and endowed with oracular prophecy.74 On the shore of
the Red Sea he ‘became possessed, and, filled with the spirit which was
wont to visit him, uttered these oracular words of prophecy...’(1.175),
assuring the nation that the Egyptians will be destroyed. This is cast as a
‘prediction’ll.176) which is then confirmed as Pharaoh’s army drowns
behind them. It is, moreover, through the medium of this supernatural
prophecy that God instructs Moses about ‘all that pertains to rites of wor-
ship and the sacred tasks of his ministry’(2.67).75

	Since both rulers and philosophers could be deified, Moses’ supremacy
at these tasks would be ample basis for the claim that he had become a god.
After all, Philo’s philosophical practice made him a greater law-giver than
any Greek or barbarian ruler (2:12ff.; cf. l:49ff.).76 If Solon could be deified,
why not Moses? Yet there were many such rulers and legislators who
remained mere mortals. So we must ask whether Philo gives any positive
indications that Moses is more than human.	'

(b) Birth and Childhood

We have seen that one of the two main indices of divine humanity in tire
Greco-Roman world was a supernatural parent and/or birth. Moses’ child-
hood, like that of many divine heroes, was anything but ordinary. He was,
like Heracles and Romulus, exposed as an infant.77 He was rescued and
raised by foster-parents who, though not nymphs or centaurs, were
nonetheless Egyptian royalty. Since, however, these were all aspects of the
biblical story, it is difficult to read much into them on their own. What is

______________________

73 Goodenough (By Light, Light 190, 192) suggested that priesthood was a standard
element in the Hellenistic concept of kingship.

74 Philo distinguishes between these two forms of revelation (2.188-190) but Moses
practised both (2.191). For obvious mantic activity see 1.201; 2.67, 188, 272, 275, 280, 288.
Notice the implicit contrast with Balaam, whose knowledge gained by augury, who is
enticed by money (1.264—68), and is only an unwilling vehicle for prophecy (1,274).

75 Goodenough notes that of Moses’ three prophetic ‘modes’ (2.191) mantic activity is
most emphasized (By Light, Light 193) and is the source for his teaching on, e.g., the
Sabbath (2.265-66).

76 His law is unique (2.14), divinely inspired (2.34), and agrees with ‘eternal nature’
(2.52).

77 See D.S. 4.9.6; Cic. Reap. 2.2; D.H. 1.79.2-10. Yet Fhilo reduces the parallels by
omitting the basket or ark in which the child is placed (Mos. 1.12-15).



[ Page ] 102


more important is Philo’s silence about any divine parentage. Moses’
parents are said to be ‘the best of their contemporaries’, and Moses himself
is ‘seventh in descent from the first settler, who became the founder of the
whole Jewish nation’(1.5), but there are no gods to be seen in his lineage.
Perhaps divine parents might be too much to expect from Philo the
monotheist, but if his monotheism might prevent him from making Moses
the child of a god, we should be warned at the outset that it might also
prevent him from making the child divine at all.

	Still, when we look at the character of the child Moses the parallels with
divine men are undeniable. Moses’ ‘beauty’, ‘fine condition’ and virtue are
all praised in grand terms,78 but more important is Philo’s emphasis on the
law-giver’s super-human intelligence and wisdom. From birth ‘he did not
bear himself like the mere infant that he was, nor delight in fun and laugh-
ter and sport...but with a modest and serious bearing he applied himself to
hearing and seeing what was sure to profit the soul’(1.20). He quickly
learned all the lore of Egyptians, Greeks, and other barbarians (1.23), always
driven by a single-minded pursuit of truth (1.24) and by ‘nature’s right
reason’(1.48). Nor is he content only to learn the teachings of others, for his
is one of those ‘great natures’ which ‘carve out much that is new in the
way of knowledge’(1.22). As with many divine philosophers,79 Moses’
teacher found that ‘in a short time he advanced beyond their capacities; his
gifted nature forestalled their instruction’(1.27), and he remains guided
firmly by ‘the reason within him’ even when exiled from Egypt (1.48). Of
course, as we have observed above, this .kind of praise does not necessarily
imply divinity. It is thus significant that Philo says of the youth:

	...his associates and everyone else, struck with amazement at what they felt was a
	novel spectacle considered earnestly what the mind which dwelt in his body like an
	image in its shrine could be, whether it was human or divine or a mixture of both. So
	utterly unlike was it to the majority, soaring above them and exalted to a grander
	height (1.27).80

This passage could have been drawn directly from a description of any one
of the Hellenistic divine men, particularly those of a philosophic bent. In his
attempt to exalt Moses in the eyes of his audience, Philo seems to say that
Moses was indeed like those whom the Greeks had deified. Yet we must
notice that the Alexandrian is here simply reporting the reaction of Moses’
contemporaries. He has not yet explained what he himself means by the

__________________________

78 See 1.9,15; 18-19, 25-6, 28-29, 31-3, 48, 59, 63.

79 Cf. Bieler QEIOS ANHP 1.35; Ps.-Callisth. Alex. 1.13.5; Philostr. VA 1.19; Eun. VS
473.441.

80 Italics mine. Apollonius too was ‘not the least like other men’ (Philostr. VA 1.28; cf.
Bieler &E/OS ANHP 1.39).




[ Page ] 103

‘grander height’ to which Moses was ‘exalted’. Thus we find ourselves still
in the same position as after our survey of his career; there is much here
that is suggestive, but nothing that would unambiguously mark Moses as a
Hellenistic divine man.

(c) Death

Nor is this ambiguity cleared up when we look for the other main index of
divinity, the ascent to heaven. Moses’ death is plainly beyond the ordinary.
We read that,

	Afterwards the time came when he had to make his pilgrimage from earth to
	heaven, and leave this mortal life for immortality, summoned thither by the Father
	Who resolved his twofold nature of soul and body to a single unity, transforming his
	whole being into mind, pure as the sunlight (2:288).

The question is whether this transformation is of the same order as the
deification of an Aesclepius or a Peregrinus. The ‘resolution’ of his soul and
body into a ‘single unity’ might be construed, as a kind of physical ascent,
were it not for the way in which (as Talbert observes) the following narra-
tive includes Moses’ burial:81

	... for when he was already being exalted and stood at the very barrier, ready at the
	signal to direct his upward flight to heaven, the divine spirit fell upon him and he
	prophesied with discernment while still alive the story of his own death...told how
	he was buried with none present, surely by no mortal hands but by immortal powers;
	how he also was not laid to rest in the tomb of his forefathers but was given a
	monument of special dignity which no man has ever seen (2.291).82

Thus Moses ensures that his narrative cannot be confused with the vast
majority of Hellenistic deification stories in which the absence of the body is a
central sign of the hero’s translation to heaven.83

Admittedly, Hellenistic divine men do occasionally leave their bodies
behind in a purely spiritual ascent.84 Yet we must ask whether Moses’
transformation here does not fit better into the Platonic model of final
mystical union with the Good. Philo stands in the Platonic tradition, in-
debted perhaps to Orphic thought, which believed that souls are immortal

__________________________

81 Talbert ‘Concept of Immortals’ 424.

82 This may be a polemic against traditions which understood Deut 34:6 as describing
Moses’ translation (See Sacr. 3.8-10; W. Meeks, The Prophet-Icing [Leiden 1967] 124; L.
Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vole. [Philadelphia 1909-19381 6.161-2 [n. 951]).
Ginzberg (Legends 6.151-2 [n. 904]) sees a similar polemic in Moses’ public, burial in T.
Mos. 1:15 and L.A.B, 19-20d. It is not clear, however, whether this hypothetical
tradition would imply Hellenistic deification or ascent along the lines of Enoch.

83 Cf. Sacr. 8-10.

84 See Plutarch’s treatment of Romulus (Rom. 28.6-8).



[ Page ] 104


by nature.85 Whereas in traditional Greco-Roman religion it was only the
divine who could look forward to more than a gloomy half-existence in
Hades,86 such Platonists believed that immortality was in fact our natural
state. For Philo, as for Plutarch, the Saigoveg are simply human souls which
do not happen to be encased in bodies, so that we may all become dmunvcc
when our physical shell gives out.87 Moreover, in this tradition the goal for
every soul, the aim of the philosophical life, was to return to or merge back
into the one divine being.88 In De Gigantibus Philo writes that some of the
souls which have become ensnared in the body

_________________________

85 On immortality of the soul, see Pl. Phd. 106-114 and J. Dillon, Middle Platonists: A
Study of Platonism 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (London 1977) 96-101 (Antiochus of Ascalon); 100-
112 (Posidonius); 131-33 (Eudorus of Alexandria). Plutarch makes an unusual distinction
between the soul and mind and seems only to regard the latter as immortal (see Dillon
Middle Platonists 211-214). For the connection with Orphic mythology, see Guthrie
Greeks and Their Gods 307-328, esp. 324-5; Fritz Graf, ‘Orphism’, OCD 1079; Pl. Rosy. 10.
	This is in sharp contrast, not only to traditional psychology, but also to Epicurean
thought in which the soul was extinguished, at death (See Long Hellenistic Philosophy 29,
49-56) and Stoic thought in which the soul (conceived as a subtle kind of matter) had at
most a limited life outside of the body (ibid. 170-175, 213 n. 2).

86 Pindar exhorts his reader and his own soul not to seek the immortality which is
closed to all those born mortal (15.14; P 3.59).
	Reitzenstein compared Philo’s ‘deification’ of the soul with the apotheosis offered by
the mysteries (e.g., Apul. Met am. 11:24; Iamb. Myst. 10:4-6) and equated the initiate
with the ttc.'io- civ’p (so Betz ‘Gottmensch II’ 270). Yet the mysteries still operated
within the traditional Greek theology with its several finite gods. Nor did they elevate
their initiates to independent equality with Isis or Mithras. The initiate hoped, not to
become the divine object of a cult, but rather to find a blissful eternal existence in a bodily
paradise. Guthrie (Greeks and their Gods 290-93) points out that this was understood
only as a particular way for individuals to escape existence as a shade. See further R. L.
Gordon, ‘mysteries’, OCD 1017-18.

87 See Gig. 6-24; Somn. 1.134-5, 141-2; Plant. 14; Sacr. 5, 7; Fug. 59; Mui. 38; QG 1.85;
4.74; 3.10-11; Conf. 77-82; Brenk ‘Demonology’ 2099-2107. Philo explains in Plant. 14 that
those spirits called heroes by the Greeks are those souls which have not been contami-
nated with impurity and live in the aetherial region. Conf. 17111. represents a departure
from this line of thought which is difficult to integrate with the other texts.
	For this strand of thinking regarding oaip.ovec in middle Platonism see Dillon Middle
Platonists 47; 111-12; Plutarch, De Is. et Os, 361c.; De gen. 591c-f, 593d; De fac, 944d. For
attempts to unravel Plutarch’s own views on this subject from his dialogues see Brenk
‘Demonology’ 2121-30. There are some indications that Xenocrates simply equated the
human roue with the Saii.ww.c even while in the body (Brenk ‘Demonology’ 2088), as do
some Pythagoreans (ibid., 2094-98).	.

88 So Blackburn Theios Aner 66; Holladay Theios Aner 139f., 163. See the return of the
voij- to the sun in Plutarch De fac. 944d-e and the later elaboration of these ideas in
Plotinus (e.g., Enn. 4.8 16], 4). The direct origins of this mystical ascent lie in passages
such as Pl. Phd. 82-4. According to Guthrie, this thread in Plato arose from the final
hope in Orphic thought which was ‘to become one with the divine mind which is at the
same time the fiery aither, at once the encompasser and the orderer of the universe. To it
the soul is by nature akin, but sin...has cut it off, a fallen daemon...’(Greeks and Their
Gods 325).



[ Page ] 105


have been able to stem the current, have risen to the surface and then soared upwards
back to the place from whence they came. These last, then, are the souls of those who
have given themselves to genuine philosophy, who from first to last study to die to
the life of the body, that a higher existence immortal and incorporeal, in the presence
of Him who is Himself immortal and uncreate, may be their portion (13-14; cf. Plant.
14).

This return to the one divine source, then, is not a matter of one’s becom-
ing a god oneself, but rather the fulfillment of the human creature’s yearn-
ing for eternal communion with its origin. Although such Platonic systems
were sometimes able to make room for the Homeric gods, they were
inherently monotheistic in the sense that they imagined a kind of single
divine source of reality which was unknown in traditional Greek theolo-
gy.89 The dividing line between humanity and divinity no longer runs along
the divide between the mortals and the immortals, but is a radical contrast
between immortal humanity and the one source from which it receives its
being and in which it finds its fulfillment. So, although the story of Moses’
death shows the extraordinary honour which God himself lavishes upon
Moses, as well as his attainment of the Platonic philosopher’s final goal, it
also suggests that Philo’s characterization of Israel’s hero is moving in a
different direction from that of the Hellenistic demi-gods,

(d) Explicit Ascriptions of Divinity

Admittedly, Philo himself does not lay out the significance of Moses’ death.
One might argue that we should not rule out Moses’ divinization simply on
the basis of a Platonic ontology which we have to infer from Philo’s other
writings. So does Philo say anything explicit which would suggest that
Moses is a divine man? We know that a few Hellenistic divine men also
lacked both divine lineage and a bodily ascent at death, but in those cases
they are recognizable as divine because they are clearly called such or
become the focus of a cult. So does Philo say anything similar about Moses?
Once again, this is not a question which can be answered simply by looking
at Philo’s terminology. Even if the terms 6eio<; dvf]p or Seioc dvOptorco^ were
unambiguous technical terms, Holladay points out that Philo never uses
them of Moses.90 Philo does describe Moses as a Osioc, Ttpo^'ny; in 2.188, but
this need only denote his role as a conveyer of divine words (a prophet

______________________

89 Note how at the beginning of his allegorical interpretation of Egyptian religion
Plutarch argues that all of these polytheistic rites direct one toward ‘the knowledge of
Him who is the First, the Lord of All, the Ideal One’(De Is, ei Os. 352a).

90 Holladay Tkeios Aner 341. Philo only uses the term Oeio? fivhp once (Virt. 177),
probably of the Stoic Wise Man or one who has beheld of to 6v (so Holladay Theios Aner
176f., 194-5). While Moses may be the quintessential example of this ideal, the passage
does not refer to him directly.



[ Page ] 106


who is associated with God).91 We must, instead, look more broadly at
Philo’s statements about Moses for hints about his ontological status.

	Of the two passages which are often said to imply Moses’ divinity, we
have already seen one. This recorded the amazed wonder with which the
young Moses’ contemporaries asked whether his nature was ‘human or
divine or a mixture of both’(1.27). As we have already observed, these
comments reveal that Philo is aware of the popular deification of heroes.
He even seems willing to play off those beliefs in order to praise Israel’s
greatest leader. It is far from clear, however, whether Philo wants the
reader to stay with an understanding of Moses as a god or demi-god.

	We get a much better picture of the ‘grander height’ which Philo actual-
ly thought Moses had attained in our second passage, 1.155-59. Here we
read, first of all, that as a reward for his virtue God counted Moses one of
his friends and shared, with him his possessions,92 just as friends always do
(cf. 1.148-9). This is the context in which we find the passage cited above
which describes Moses’ sharing in God’s control over nature. Philo goes
much further, though, to describe a remarkably close relationship. He
writes:

	Again, was not the joy of his partnership with the Father and Maker of all magnified
	also by the honour of being deemed worthy to bear the same title? For he was named
	god (0eo<;) and king of the whole nation, and entered, we are told, into the darkness
	where God was, that is into the unseen, invisible, incorporeal and archetypal essence
	of existing things. Thus he beheld what is hidden from the sight of mortal nature,
	and, in himself and. his life displayed for all to see, he has set before us, like some
	well-wrought picture, a piece of work beautiful and godlike (fif-'ot-iSf c). a model for
	those who are willing to copy it (1.158-9).

God shared with Moses not only control over nature, but even his divine
title, 0e6;. This is, of course, Philo’s interpretation of Exodus 7:1, where the
biblical text says that God has made Moses ‘god’ to Pharaoh, and that
Aaron is Moses’ prophet (cf. Exod 4:16). This is explained by Philo as Mo-
ses’ unique ability to mediate divine reality to humankind (cf. Mut, 18-19;
128-9). Philo interprets the Sinai encounter as Moses’ mystical contempla-
tion of the Form of the Good and then suggests that this vision of reality

________________________

91 Holladay (Theios Aner 160-61) suggests that in context it could be used as a synonym
for ev0eot; or the genetival tou 9cob. Even if we resist this explanation, Blackburn is right
that it need refer to nothing more than Moses’ ethical conformity to God’s image (Theios
Aner 67-8). The same may be said of QE 2.54.

92 Holladay {Theios Aner 119, 121) points out that Hellenistic conceptions of friendship
with the gods (being a <|>1 ?.oc teoO) often involved the sharing of divine possessions (see,
e.g., D.L. 6.37, 72). Moses ‘came to love God and be loved by Him as have been few others’
(Mos. 2.67). Borgen emphasizes how ‘friendship’ with a ruler entailed gaining power
and wealth (‘Roman Emperor’ 149).



[ Page 107 ]

allowed Moses to embody that divine form, making him a living revelation
to-the rest of humanity.93

	The question here is whether Moses’ unique contemplation of the divine
realities makes him ontologically divine, comparable to Hellenistic divine
men. We cannot follow Holladay in reducing this passage to a hyperbolic
. description of Moses’ kingship or his philosophical virtue.94 Surely the
Alexandrian wants to imply more than this when, after Moses encounter
with God, we hear that the Israelites could not ‘continue to stand the dazz-
ling brightness that flashed from him like rays of the sun’(2.70). Martha
Himmelfarb is likely right that we should see in Moses’ mystical ascent
some influence of the apocalyptic ascent stories in which human heroes like
Enoch are raised up to God’s heavenly presence in order to then act as a
mediator to some part of creation.95 Thus Holladay seems to be wrong in
denying the hints here that Moses has in some sense become a ‘heavenly
figure’.96

	At the same time, it is precisely because Moses acts as a mediator between
God and humanity that we must agree with David Ruma that Moses is not
exalted as a kind of divine vice-regent.97 Indeed, elsewhere when Philo
interprets Exod 7:1 he takes great pains to assure the reader that when
Moses was called ‘god’ he ‘did not become such in reality, but only by a
convention (86^tj) is supposed to be such (Dei. 161; See also Dei. 162; Prob.
43-44). It is not that Moses ascends to heaven and sits beside God to rule
the world. Rather, on the model of the Platonic philosopher-king and the
Stoic good man (6 rnioufiutoc) who is KonjionoXiTTi; (cf. Mos. 1.157), Moses
perceives divine reality and is thus given authority over the world insofar as
he reflects that divine realty P8 This is precisely why Moses introduces the Sinai
event here-because that mystical event, along with the mediatorial role
which it gave Moses, is the sole basis for his being called ‘god’.99 It is only

_______________________

93 So Goodenough By Light, Light 189. Cf. Fl. Resp. 5.480a; 6.484b; 7.540a-b where the
contemplation of the philosopher king fits him to be the paradigm for the other citizens.
Goodenough (By Light, Light 190) also points to the Pythagorean notion that the king acts
as a god to the noltu;, embodying the law and carrying it out (see Stob. 4.7.61).

94 So Bergen (‘Roman Emperor’, 152) who points to Moses' transcendent mediation in
Sacr. 9.

95 M. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York
1993) 70-71. Borgen points to QE 2.28 where Moses’ entry into the darkness was an ascent
to the forecourt of the Father’s heavenly Palace/Temple, and he argues that the motif of
transformation is common in ascent texts (‘Roman Emperor’, 151-2; cf. Himmelfarb Ascent
47-51, 70-71).

96 Holladay Thetas Aner 129.

97 D. T. Runia, ‘God and Man in Philo of Alexandria’, JTS 39 (1988) 63.

98 So Holladay Theios Aner 126. Thus Goodenough (By Light, Light 184) observes that
Moses’ words are -rd 9eta insofar as the words come from God (see Mos. 1.84).

99 Note, too, Runia’s observation (‘God and Man’ 56-7) that Philo did not see the term



[ Page ] 108



in this representational, metaphorical sense that Moses becomes a god for
humanity. Moreover, Holladay and Meeks have both argued that the
unusual connections here between godship in Exod 7:1,kingship over
Pharaoh, and kingship over Israel depend on Targumic, Rabbinic, and
Samaritan interpretive traditions. This would suggest that, as much as
Philo’s picture of Moses was influenced by his Platonism, something very
much like it was equally at home within fairly traditional Jewish piety.100

	We can thus exclude any idea that Moses becomes divine in an indepen-
dent, ontological sense. From one point of view, Goodenough is right that
in Moses’ final hymn ‘the gulf between mortal and immortal, the cosmic
and the human, has been bridged’.'101 Philo conceives of the relationship as
so uniquely close that he can speak of Moses being stationed beside God in
heaven (Sacr. 8). Yet such talk is, in the end, allegorical.102 The bridge is not

_____________________________

Ocd- as the proper title for God. Rather, it has for Philo a range of appropriate applica-
tions (certain men, heavenly bodies, angels, etc.) and is only used of God ‘catachrestic-
ally’, that is, through a deliberate misuse of language (Somn. 1.228-30; Mut. 1113; Mos.
1.75-6). Thus, The crucial difference is that for Moses these are personal and proper
names (I6ia koi Kiipta ovoLicna) which tell us something about his nature, whereas God,
as transcendent Being, has no proper (i.e. legitimate) name (rcupiov ovopa) which can
indicate his essence’(‘God and Man’, 60).

100 Holladay (Theios Aner 124-5) argues that Philo must know Jewish traditions like
those in Targ. Onk., Targ. Jer., and the Samaritan Memar Marqah 1.2 which understand
‘god’ in Exod 7:1 to denote kingship. Meeks points to a midrashic homily which sees
Moses here as a paradigm of the way in which kings can only have glory insofar as they
share in God’s (‘God and King’ 356-57). This is why he imports this passage into an
extended, attempt to ground Moses’ role as king (see Mos. 1.163). The connection between a
mystical ascent and Moses’ kingship are likewise already established in traditional
interpretation (Meeks ‘God and King’ 367-69; so Runia ‘God and Man’ 53). One might
object that these traditions themselves have been deeply Hellenized, yet Rabbinic and
Samaritan texts are not where we would expect to find radical challenges to traditional
monotheism.
	On the other hand, Runia is able to account for the association between rulership and
godship here on the basis of Philo’s allegory: Moses is the ruling, rational, divine
principle over against the foolish and bodily realm (Runia ‘God and Man’ 54; see Philo,
Mut. 128-9; Sacr. 8-9; Leg. 1.40). The cosmic scope of Moses’ role would then arise from
Moses’ portrayal as the Stoic cjKoudalo" (Runia ibid. 55). Still, the traditions uncovered
by Holladay and Meeks would show that an image of Moses similar to Philo’s could
arise from within a much less hellenized matrix of thought.

101 Goodenough By Light, Light 197.

102 In Sacr. 8-10 Philo has just been offering an allegorical reading of the patriarchs as
different internal conditions of the soul. The deaths of these figures are allegorized as
different intellectual achievements, different kinds of learning. So, in being ‘added’ to
‘the people of God', Abraham represents a pupil under a teacher (5). In going to join a
‘race’, Isaac becomes one who learns directly (6-7). Moses, on the other hand, attains an
intellectual relationship with God which is even more direct. He is able to ‘soar above
species and genus alike’ so that God stations him beside himself (8). This intimate
relationship is left unspecified, but Philo goes on to explain that Moses was so close to
God that he too was incapable of change. This is why ‘when Moses was about to die we



[ Page ] 109

an ontological one. Rather, Moses is transformed by the contemplation of
God, so that his life mirrors the character of divine truth. Of course, there is
an ontological change in Moses which distances him from the rest of
humanity. We may even say that Moses is no longer simply human, but
occupies a middle point between humanity and God.103 Yet we should not
imagine that this elevation above the rest of humanity reduces the onto-
logical distance between Moses (a created thing) and o cov. He still remains
entirely dependent on the one God, claiming nothing in and of himself. It is
worth pointing out the words with which Philo begins this passage: ‘...the
good man, though he possesses nothing in the proper sense, not even
himself, partakes of the precious things of God...’(1.157). This is the sense in
which Moses ‘partakes’ in God’s power and. his name. As Holladay admits,
when Philo has Moses share in God’s title there may be an element of
polemical assertion that Moses was even greater than Heracles, Minos, and.
Alexander who were merely sons of Zeus.104 But the comparison, if it is to
be implied, is merely rhetorical. For the basis of Moses’ greatness is entirely
unlike that of the divinized heroes of the Hellenistic world.

Conclusion

Gail Corrington has written that ‘Moses may be for Philo the embodiment
of divine virtue and wisdom, the throe gooo;. but for Philo he is scarcely the
theios aner as the term has usually been understood’.105 In places Philo does
seem to have been aware of Hellenistic discussions of divine human beings,

________________________

do not hear of him ‘leaving’ or ‘being added’ like those others’®. As with God, there
was ‘no room in him for adding or taking away’(8).
	We must not forget, however, that this is allegory. So, just as the deaths of the
patriarchs represented their ascent to a new intellectual level, Moses’ different fate also
stands for his superlative ethical character. Philo’s point is that a soul like Moses was
so advanced that no-one around him could perceive any progress or development in it:
‘Nay I judge that the soul itself which is passing thus does not know of its change to
better things...’(10). Thus, when Philo brings in Exod 7:1 here he explains it entirely in
ethical terms. God ‘gifted him with no ordinary excellence, such as that which Icings and
rulers have, wherewith to hold sway and sovereignty over the passions of the soul, but
He appointed him as god, placing all the bodily region and the mind which rules it in
subjection and slavery to him’(Sucr. 9). Cf. Runia’s similar exegesis of this passage and
his harmonization of it with Det, 161-2 (‘God and Man’ 60-61).
	See also Det. 39f. and Mig. 84 where Philo completely allegorizes Exodus 7:1 in terms
of Moses being the mind and Aaron speech, the mind being the most divine part of the
human being which expresses itself through speech as through a prophet. In Mig. 169
this becomes an image of the mind ascending to the vision of God, with the help of
speech its prophet.

103 So Runia ‘God and Man’ 62-3 and Somn. 2.230-4.

104 Holladay Theios Aner 122.

103 Corrington Divine Man 132.



[ Page ] 110


and he is not above using parallels between Moses and those divine
paragons of Hellenistic achievement to encourage his readers to adopt (or
return to) his Hebrew philosophy. Yet these parallels are, in and of them-
selves, ambiguous, and the two traits which might imply, on their own, the
deification of a hero (divine parentage and bodily ascension) are absent
from Philo’s life of Moses. Nor do his explicit statements about Moses’
status (remarkable as they are) encourage the view that he had become a
god or demi-god. On the contrary, Philo never appears to have wavered in
his conviction that ‘there is a vast chasm between Creator and creature’, a
chasm which was antithetical to the whole idea of the Hellenistic divine
man.106 Thus Philo’s great doxological statements are directed, not to
Moses or any other human being, but to the one and only God:

	O Lord, and Master, how can one hymn Thee? What mouth, what tongue, what else of
	the instruments of speech, what mind, soul’s dominant part, is equal to the task? If
	the stars become a single choir, will their song be worthy of Thee? (2.239).

Instead of becoming the object of a cult, Moses is venerated as the founder
of the one legitimate cult. Where Heracles and Peregrinus were thought to
have actually become independent deities, Moses remains ever an agent of
one incalculably greater than himself.

	If Philo’s treatment of Moses is not analogous to Philostratus’ portrait of
Apollonius of Tyana, then he cannot serve as a bridge between that Pytha-
gorean sage and the early Christian treatment of Jesus of Nazareth. We
have not dealt with other Jewish authors like Josephus, Artapanus, and
Ezekiel the Tragedian, but there are few indications that we will find any-
thing remarkably different there.107 The burden of proof thus rests solidly
on those who would still argue that Hellenized Judaism was the midwife

________________________

106 Holladay Theios Aner 196. Philo says explicitly in Mos. 1.283 and 2.194 that humans
cannot become gods. So Blackburn (Theios Aner 67) and Holladay (Theios Aner 105f.) who
point to Legal. 118; Deus 53; Ebr. 30; Migr. 42; Decal. 32; QG 1.55; 2.54; QE 1; Mui. 181f.;
and esp. Det. 160-62. Borgen (‘Roman Emperor’ 152-3) notes how Gaius is condemned for
trying to cross this chasm (Legat. 75, 78, 93,114, 218; cf. 353).

107 Contrast Windisch Paulus und Christus 103-14; Bieler 0EIOS AAWP 2.30-36; Georgi
Die Gegner 148-62; Tiede Miracle Worker 146-177 with Holladay Theios Aner 47-102 and
Blackburn Theios Aner 60-64, 69-72. Ezechiel the Tragedian is the most suggestive, since
here God vacates his throne and allows Moses to take his place there (in Eus. PE 9.29).
For the debate over this text see Goodenough By Light, Light 290', H. Jacobson, ‘Mysticism
and Apocalyptic in Ezechiel’s Exagoge’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 6
(1981) 272-93; The Exagoge of Ezechiel (Cambridge 1983) 89ff.; P. W. van der Horst,
‘Moses’ Throne Vision in Ezechiel the Dramatist’, ffS 34 (1983) 21-9; ‘Some Notes on the
Exagoge of Ezechiel’, Mnemosyne 37 (1984) 354-75, esp. 363ff. Runia is likely right that
one must remember that Ezechiel’s passage is a dream and that the interpretation in the
play does not even hint at the kind of ontological implications which scholars often
draw (‘God and Man’ 52, 63).




[ Page ] 111

for the birth of a ‘divine man Christology’. There remains, of course, the
possibility that early Christians drew directly from pagan sources to con-
struct their high christologies. The likelihood of such influence depends on
whether we think that, within a decade of Jesus’ crucifixion, the likes of
Peter, James, John, and Paul would have been willing to cast their Messiah
as another Aesclepius or Heracles.108 Nor should we rule out the possibility
that Jewish speculation about Moses did have an impact on early Christian
thought. We can easily imagine that Christians who knew Moses as an
exalted mediator might have portrayed Jesus in a similar light. What should
now be evident, however, is that we will distort such a ‘Moses Christology’
if we imagine it as a ‘divine man Christology’ and thus as a bridge be-
tween the Church and the pagan temple.

McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario

_______________________

108 We may assume that pagan converts would have thought of divine men when they
heard about Jesus, and perhaps even that they would have used miracle stories to propa-
gandize for their saviour (Blackburn Theios Angr 93 4). Yet the ongoing leadership of the
apostles in the early communities, the complete lack of evidence for Christological
debate in the early years (unlike, e.g., the debate over the Gentile mission), and the
presence of a very high Christology already in Paul’s traditional sources (e.g., Phil 2:5-
11; 1 Cor 15) all combine to suggest that if such pagan perceptions were a part of the
origin of that Christology they must have been accepted very quickly by the apostolic
core.


***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was
brought to you by Tyndale University, 
J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****