ROUGH DRAFT--NOT FOR CITATION

FINAL DRAFT PUBLISHED IN THE

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

83 (2001): 111-21

Revisiting Philo:

Discussions of Wealth and Poverty in Philo’s Ethical Discourse

Thomas E. Phillips

            Nearly two decades ago, two New Testament scholars, David Mealand and Thomas Schmidt, led a scholarly discussion regarding Philo’s views of wealth and poverty.   This discussion was, due to its profound implications for New Testament study, conducted largely within the pages of this journal.[1]  Unfortunately, the debate ended in a stalemate and has never been revisited.  I wish to revisit this discussion and to assert that even though their research provided an important and useful point of entry into Philo’s ethical discourse about issues of wealth and poverty, neither of these scholars adequately understood Philo’s views.

            Mealand initiated dialogue by noting that “[t]he basic puzzle [for Philonic studies] is the discrepancy between his recorded statements and his personal affluence.”[2]  Mealand argued that “Philo was wealthy, yet wrote in praise of poverty” and that Philo, like the Stoic Seneca, “uttered praises of frugality and criticisms of luxury which were not entirely in accord with their social position.”[3]   Although Mealand suggested that Philo’s use of varied traditions helps to explain some of the apparent inconsistencies within his thought,[4] he insisted that this factor alone “does not wholly explain the major discrepancy between his criticisms of wealth and his personal affluence.”[5]  Although he insisted that Philo’s ethical discourse about issues of wealth and poverty is inconsistent with Philo’s personal wealth, Mealand suggested that Philo’s concern for those in poverty was rooted in his concern for the plight of his fellow Jews.[6]

            In response to Mealand’s argument, Thomas Schmidt sought and found an “observable pattern” to overcome the seeming discrepancy between Philo’s criticisms of wealth and his personal affluence.[7]  The pattern, which Schmidt discovered, focused upon the will of those possessing wealth.  He argued that Philo condemned wealth only when it represented “acquisitiveness that cannot exist side-by-side with virtue.”  Wealth which was acquired involuntarily (e.g., via inheritance like Philo’s) was not condemned.[8]  Likewise, poverty was extolled as virtuous only when it represented a conscious decision to renounce possessions for the sake of virtue.  Schmidt argues that “[t]he involuntary poverty of his fellow Jews scarcely attracts Philo’s notice, and hardly relates to this scheme.”[9]

            Thus, Mealand argued that a serious inconsistency existed between Philo’s supposed condemnation of wealth and his personal affluence,[10] but Schmidt argued that Philo’s personal affluence was in no way incongruent with his statements about wealth.[11]  Both agreed that Philo condemned wealth and praised poverty, but Schmidt insisted that Philo praised only voluntary poverty and condemned only the willful acquisition of wealth.[12]  Both Schmidt and Mealand have failed adequately to understand Philo’s ethical discourse regarding wealth and poverty, but Schmidt points us in the right direction.

There is, indeed, an “observable pattern” which explains the seeming inconsistency between Philo’s warnings about the dangers of wealth and his personal affluence, but Schmidt is incorrect in finding the key to this pattern in the will of the possessor.  In fact, Schmidt’s insistence  that Philo “makes voluntary dispossession of wealth a means or way of achieving virtue”[13] is as misleading as Mealand’s claim that Philo “constantly commends renunciation.”[14]  Both Schmidt and Mealand have taken Philo’s remarks about wealth and poverty out of their appropriate context and have, therefore, failed properly to understand the “observable pattern” which unifies Philo’s thought regarding wealth and poverty.[15]

            Two facts are not in debate.  First, no debate exists on the question of Philo’s economic status.  Mealand speaks for the whole of Philonic scholarship in saying, “Philo was wealthy.”[16]  Josephus describes Philo as “foremost among his contemporaries at Alexandria both for his family and his wealth.”[17]  Philo’s brother, Alexander, was wealthy enough both to lend 200,000 drachmas to Herod Agrippa and to cover the temple gates in Jerusalem with gold and silver.[18]  Philo’s possession of great wealth is not a matter of debate.[19]  Philo was extremely wealthy.[20]

            Second, no debate exists on the question of whether or not Philo sometimes does seem to criticize the wealthy and their wealth.  His criticism of pagan kings serves as an adequate example of this seeming hostility to wealth.  He writes:

They are led by strong drink and good look and by baked meats and savoury dishes and danties produced by cooks and confectioners, to say nothing of their craving for silver and gold and grander ambitions.[21]

Philo’s willingness to criticize the wealthy is not a matter of debate.

The points of debate are the basis of Philo’s seeming criticisms of wealth and whether these criticisms are, when properly understood, inconsistent with Philo’s possession of great personal wealth.  This essay will argue that Philo’s apparent criticisms of wealth should not be interpreted as criticisms of the possession of wealth itself, but rather as criticisms of the unbridled desire for wealth.[22]  Thus, for example, although Gaius was wealthy, the primary cause of his guilt was not his possession of wealth, but rather an “unmeasured passion which craves for more than is natural for mankind.”[23]  Also, according to Philo, wars are not caused by money, but rather “are sprung from one source, desire, the desire for money, or glory or pleasure.”[24]

            In his comments upon the tenth commandment, Philo explains the danger of desire.

The last commandment is against covetousness or desire which he [Moses] knew to be a subversive and insidious enemy.  For all passions of the soul which stir and shake it out of its proper nature and do not let it continue in sound health are hard to deal with, but desire is hardest of all.[25]

            Several discussions in Philo’s writings demonstrate that the possession of wealth (apart from the presence of uncontrolled desire) is not dangerous to virtue.  To begin with, Philo, in his enthusiasm for the temple, boasts of the wealth associated with its construction and brags that the porticoes of the temple are “so adorned as to present a very costly appearance.”[26]  But given the temple’s unique relationship to God, this reference only demonstrates that wealth is not evil.  We need further evidence to demonstrate that Philo does not consider personal wealth to be dangerous to virtue, evidence which can be found in Philo’s discussion of the affluence of the priests.  Philo explains that Jewish priests[27] always fare well economically.  In fact,

[a]s the nation is very populous, the first-fruits are necessarily also on a lavish scale, so that even the poorest of the priests has so super-abundant a maintenance that he seems exceedingly well-to-do.[28]

In this particular case, Philo finds the possession of wealth to be perfectly appropriate and this is not an isolated example.

            In another discussion, Philo explains that some persons possess tremendous wealth but still maintain a proper relationship to it.  He writes:

To this day among those who hold high offices of authority there are not a few who possessing accumulated goods in vast numbers and abundant resources, to whom wealth is ceaselessly flowing in as from a perennial fountain, still sometimes betake themselves to the use of such things as we poor people use.[29]

            In fact, not only does Philo allow for the possibility of possessing wealth and virtue simultaneously, but on at least one occasion he claims that virtue naturally leads to wealth.[30]  While discussing rewards and punishments, Philo explains that “those who follow God” will be blessed with “wealth” and “abundance.”[31]  Here, as in his discussion of the priests’ wealth, Philo emphasizes the extent of the wealth, saying that these people will have “abundance and more than abundance.”[32]  His argument is summed up in terms of two overlapping types of “wealth:”

For those who possess stored up in Heaven the true wealth whose adornment is wisdom and godliness have also wealth of earthly riches in abundance.[33]

Up to this point, this analysis has proceeded from Schmidt’s correct suggestion that Philo’s ethical discourse regarding issues of wealth and poverty was not inconsistent with his possession of considerable personal wealth.  I believe that his analysis has disproved Mealand’s suggestion of a discrepancy between Philo’s teachings and practice.  Philo’s possession of wealth was not inconsistent with his ethical and philosophical convictions.  This analysis may seem largely to agree with that of Schmidt up to this point, because his emphasis upon the will of the possessor can be adapted to fit Philo’s statements about wealth.[34]  At this point, however, I wish to demonstrate how Schmidt’s analysis fails to account for the dynamics at work in Philo’s ethical discourse about wealth and poverty.   Schmidt’s insistence that the human will is the centerpiece of the “observable pattern” which lends coherence to Philo’s ethical discourse obscures Philo’s understanding of the central threat posed to human virtue.  The central issue for Philo is desire, not the will.  Thus, Philo insists that one could muster up the will and voluntarily dispose of all of his or her possessions and still be without virtue due to the lingering presence of the real problem, desire.[35]

            Philo does not, in contrast to what Schmidt claims, speak very often or very favorably of voluntary self-impoverishment.[36]  Consider, for example, the economic themes in Philo’s lament over the injustices suffered by his fellow Jews.  He regrets that

the rich became poor, the well-to-do destitute, suddenly through no fault of their own rendered hearthless and homeless, outcasts and exiles from their own houses, to dwell night and day under the open sky, and sent to their death by the burning heat of the sun or the freezing cold of the night.[37]

            While discussing the same mistreatment of his fellow Jews elsewhere in his writings, Philo even seems to equate impoverishment with evil in his complaint that:

A still more grievous evil than the pillaging was the unemployment produced.  The tradespeople had lost their stocks, and no one, husbandman, shipman, merchant, artisan, was allowed to practise his usual business.  Thus poverty was established in two ways: first, the pillaging, by which in the course of a single day they had become penniless, completely stripped of what they had, and secondly, their inability to make a living from their regular employments.[38] 

            The Essenes and Therapeutae, who receive considerable praise from Philo, are often taken as the primary examples of those who follow the ideal of self-impoverishment,[39] but their function as ideal communities has little to do with self-impoverishment.  Although the Therapeutae did “abandon their property,” Philo only mentioned this fact in order to set up a comparison between the manner in which they “divested themselves of their property” and the manner in which some philosophers have done the same thing.[40]  While the philosophers allowed their lands to fall into disuse, the Therapeutae donated their property to heirs and friends and thus “made good the needs of men, their kinsfolk and friends, and so turned their indigence into affluence.”[41]  Thus, Philo’s description of the Therapeutae’s divestiture of property teaches about the responsible use of wealth and property, not about the virtue of self-impoverishment!

            Even after divesting themselves of property the Therapeutae were not completely impoverished for Philo explains that they had adequate (though modest) food, clothing and shelter, even to the point of needing to protect one another from robbers.[42]  Philo’s greatest commendation of these people is not that they have voluntarily impoverished themselves, but rather that “[t]hey lay self-control to be as it were the foundation of their soul.”[43] 

            Similarly Philo’s treatment of the Essene community praises the freedom from the desire for money which accompanies their communal life style.[44]  These two factors, that the Essenes are “no longer led by passions”[45] and that they lead a communal life, comprise the primary bases for Philo’s praise of the community.  He explains that their freedom is attested by their life.  None of them allows

himself to have any private property, either house or slave or estate or cattle or any of the other things which are amassed and abundantly procured by wealth, but they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common.[46]

            Communal living, however, is not praised because it actualizes the ideal of self-impoverishment, because the Essenes, like the Therapeutae, are not portrayed as impoverished.  Their common fund “provides food in abundance and anything else which human life requires[TP1] .”[47]  The common fund even provides for the best of medical care and a comfortable retirement.[48]  Thus we see that Philo’s praise for the Essenes and Therapeutae turns out primarily to be praise for the manner in which they have overcome desire and have provided for the needs of the entire community.[49]  Although the participants’ initial divestiture is recorded and commended, it is less significant to Philo than is the manner in which their present communal lifestyle enables them to overcome uncontrolled passions and desires.[50]   For Philo, neither the possession of wealth nor the willingness to impoverish oneself is a significant factor within ethical discourse regarding issues of wealth and poverty. 

            For Philo, therefore, there is, in contrast to Mealand’s claims, an observable pattern which unites his ethical discourse regarding wealth and poverty.  But this pattern does not, in contrast to Schmidt’s claims, place a premium upon self-impoverishment.  Rather, this pattern is focused upon one’s control over the desire for possessions and not upon mere ownership of possessions.  Desire for wealth, not ownership of wealth, is the key to the observable pattern in Philo’s ethical discourse regarding wealth and poverty.  Philo does not idealize poverty, rather he extols the virtues of overcoming the passions and of controlling desire.

With this consideration of Philo’s understanding of the danger and benefits associated with wealth and poverty completed, this essay has demonstrated that, for Philo, the actual possession of wealth was less significant for ethical discourse about issues of wealth and poverty than was one’s desire for wealth.  It is hoped that a more adequate understanding of the manner in which Philo’s ethical discourse distinguishes between the relatively insignificant possession of wealth and highly significant desire for wealth will provide a more suitable foundation for comparison of ethical discourse about issues of wealth and poverty in Philo’s writings and in the New Testament.