The Politics of Philo Judaeus: Practice and Theory, with a General Bibliography of Philo

(Joyce) #1

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.

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