Les Ouvres de Philon Juif (The Works of Philo Judaeus)

PHILO JUDAEUS

Plantin

Paris

1598

Printer’s mark on title. Head- and tailpieces. Replete with illustrations, e.g. the Tabernacle (f. 147v.), candelabrum (f. 152r.), and priestly vestments (f.153v.). Peeking out of the binding, manuscript of musical notation on parchment

cf. Graesse V, p. 270 (Graesse has an earlier ed. of 1588); not in Adams

Philo Judaeus was the spiritual leader of the Hellenistic Jewish community of Alexandria, Egypt. His works of philosophy and Bible interpretation were written in Greek and practically unknown to the Jewish community throughout the ages until Azariah di Rossi “rehabilitated” him, bestowing upon him the Hebrew sobriquet “Yedidyah ha-Aleksandroni.” In the twentieth century, Samuel Belkin, late president of Yeshiva University, devoted his doctoral dissertation at Brown University to analyzing the “halacha” of Philo. One of the still unresolved questions in the field of Philonic scholarship is whether Philo knew the Bible in its Hebrew original or only by way of the Greek translation of the Septuagint. The latter seems more likely