PORTRAITS OF PHILO
THE illustrations in this volume are self-explanatory except for the por
traits of Philo.
Four of them are taken from the magnificent Greek Codex of John
Damascenus (Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. gr. 923, see no. 56 in the
Bibliography), dating from the ninth century. The manuscript con
tains the famous Catena of the Damascene, with hundreds of marginal
portraits of the authors quoted put in alongside the quotations. Philo
appears in this manuscript more than forty times as a bust in a round
medallion, always the same distinctive figure with black hair and beard,
and wearing a stole with crosses. An example of this type is reproduced
on the plate (A) facing page 142. Obviously the legend of his conversion
by St. Mark had been so accepted that he was regarded in the period
as a Christian saint; it is probably to this legend that we owe the preser
vation of his writings. In one case his bust is crowded with a bust of
Josephus into a single medallion (see the plate (B) facing page 142). In
another he stands a full length figure in the Greek white chiton and
himation which were conventional for Christian saints; here again he
wears a stole marked with Christian crosses (see the plate facing page
125). But the origin of this figure is fortunately preserved to us in the
portrait reproduced as our frontispiece, where he stands exactly in the
position and garb of the other full-length portrait, but with no stole or
crosses. Since the plain figure is clearly the prototype of the Christian
ized one, it is natural to assume that the former is a type which goes
back to an original in which Philo was not thought of as a Christian,
back very likely to some manuscript of Philo which came from Hel
lenistic Jewish hands. That it is an actual portrait of Philo, we do not,
of course, suggest: but it is certainly the earliest Philo-type in art, and,
since this copy itself comes from a ninth century manuscript, the origi
nal must have been very old indeed.