Mark's use of Philo

[rgprice]

There are three parallels between the ending of the Gospel of Mark and the works of Philo. The works of Philo are Against Flaccus and On the Embassy to Gaius, which evidently circulated together as part of a 5 volume set covering the reign of Caligula.

The first of the parallels relates to the desolating sacrilege.

And he with difficulty, sobbing aloud, and in a broken voice, spoke as follows: "Our temple is destroyed! Gaius has ordered a colossal statue of himself to be erected in the holy of holies, having his own name inscribed upon it with the title of Jupiter!" And while we were all struck dumb with astonishment and terror at what he had told us, and stood still deprived of all motion (for we stood there mute and in despair, ready to fall to the ground with fear and sorrow, the very muscles of our bodies being deprived of all strength by the news which we had heard); others arrived bearing the same sad tale. And then we all retired and shut ourselves up together and bewailed our individual and common miseries, and went through every circumstance that our minds could conceive, for a man in misfortune is a most loquacious animal, wrestling as we might with our misery. And we said to one another, "We have sailed hither in the middle of winter, in order that we might not be all involved in violation of the law and in misfortunes proceeding from it, without being aware what a winter of misery was awaiting us on shore, far more grievous than any storm at sea. … For how can it be holy or lawful for us to struggle in any other manner, pointing out that we are citizens of Alexandria, over whom a danger is now impending, that namely, of the utter destruction of the general constitution of the Jewish nation; for in the destruction of the temple there is reason to fear that this man, so fond of innovation and willing to dare the most audacious actions, will also order the general name of our whole nation to be abolished.

The erection of the statue of Jupiter can be understood as an impending abomination:

Daniel 11:
31 Forces sent by him shall occupy and profane the temple and fortress. They shall abolish the regular burnt offering and set up the abomination that makes desolate. 32 He shall seduce with intrigue those who violate the covenant; but the people who are loyal to their God shall stand firm and take action. 33 The wise among the people shall give understanding to many;
Daniel 12:
10 None of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. 11 From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that desolates is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred ninety days. 12 Happy are those who persevere and attain the thousand three hundred thirty-five days. 13 But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.

This connection is made in Mark:

Mark 13:
12 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 13 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
14 “But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; 15 the one on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; 16 the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat. 17 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! 18 Pray that it may not be in winter. 19 For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be.

Of course the erection of the statue of Jupiter by Caligula never happened. The statue was never erected and nothing came of the incident.

But the next parallel is between the mocking of Jesus and the mocking of a Jewish invalid in Against Flaccus.

There was a certain madman named Carabbas, afflicted not with a wild, savage, and dangerous madness (for that comes on in fits without being expected either by the patient or by bystanders), but with an intermittent and more gentle kind; this man spent all this days and nights naked in the roads, minding neither cold nor heat, the sport of idle children and wanton youths; and they, driving the poor wretch as far as the public gymnasium, and setting him up there on high that he might be seen by everybody, flattened out a leaf of papyrus and put it on his head instead of a diadem, and clothed the rest of his body with a common door mat instead of a cloak and instead of a scepter they put in his hand a small stick of the native papyrus which they found lying by the way side and gave to him; and when, like actors in theatrical spectacles, he had received all the insignia of royal authority, and had been dressed and adorned like a king, the young men bearing sticks on their shoulders stood on each side of him instead of spear-bearers, in imitation of the bodyguards of the king, and then others came up, some as if to salute him, and others making as though they wished to plead their causes before him, and others pretending to wish to consult with him about the affairs of the state. Then from the multitude of those who were standing around there arose a wonderful shout of men calling out Maris; and this is the name by which it is said that they call the kings among the Syrians; for they knew that Agrippa was by birth a Syrian, and also that he was possessed of a great district of Syria of which he was the sovereign;

This account shares a number of striking similarities with the mocking of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 15:
15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

16 Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. 18 And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20 After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

Finally, in On the Embassy to Gaius, Philo portrays Pilate as a cruel ruler hostile to the Jews, who presided over unjust executions.

Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. …
he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity.
...
And he, when he had read it, what did he say of Pilate, and what threats did he utter against him! But it is beside our purpose at present to relate to you how very angry he was, although he was not very liable to sudden anger; since the facts speak for themselves; for immediately, without putting any thing off till the next day, he wrote a letter, reproaching and reviling him in the most bitter manner for his act of unprecedented audacity and wickedness, and commanding him immediately to take down the shields and to convey them away from the metropolis of Judaea to Caesarea, on the sea which had been named Caesarea Augusta, after his grandfather, in order that they might be set up in the temple of Augustus. And accordingly, they were set up in that edifice. And in this way he provided for two matters: both for the honor due to the emperor, and for the preservation of the ancient customs of the city.

"Now the things set up on that occasion were shields, on which there was no representation of any living thing whatever engraved. But now the thing proposed to be erected is a colossal statue.

So, Philo presented Pilate as the governor of Judea who presided over a wicked offense that foreshadowed the erection of a “desolating sacrilege” in the Temple.

So in these works of Philo we have an account of a Jewish invalid who is mocked as a "king of the Jews", the description of a “desolating sacrilege” that is destined to be placed in the Temple, leading to the downfall of the Jewish nation, and Pilate is described as the Roman governor whose actions foreshadowed the future corruption of the Temple and the demise of the Jewish people.

Now, conservative scholars have long recognized much of this, and argued that Philo's work corroborates the "prediction" of Jesus. Their argument is that the real Jesus must have been foretelling the events of the Caligula Crisis. So one argument is that the real Jesus had knowledge of the Caligula Crisis or that there was rumblings of it, etc.

But the problem is that the Caligula Crisis didn't arise until AFTER Pilate was out of office. One can assume a "divine" knowledge, but then the crisis never actually happened, so...

If we just set trying to explain anything aside, it seems to me that the case is quite strong that Mark 13-15 is dependent upon the writings of Philo. Again, set the question of "why" aside for now and just address the literary relationships.

Is the ending of the Gospel of Mark sourced from Philo?

[StephenGoranson]

Though I am not persuaded by your assertion that Mark is best understood as an allegory, in case you haven't seen it, there's a recent, somewhat relevant, article that I found fascinating. It presents the letters of response to Harry A. Wolfson's massive work asserting--some say overestimating--huge influence of Philo.

Here's a notice, copied from the Philonica et Neotestamenta blog (Feb. 12 this year) of the good HTR article that I can recommend:

Bringing Philo Home
A very interesting article by René Bloch has been published recently. It deals with the reception of Harry A. Wolfson’s Philo I-II (1947):

René Bloch, ‘ Bringing Philo Home: Responses to Harry A. Wolfson’s Philo (1947) in the Aftermath of World War II,’ Harvard Theological Review 116.1 (2023) 466-489.

Abstract: “In 1947 Harry Austryn Wolfson published his massive and revisionary Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. With the book, Wolfson aimed at proving that Philo was an innovative and highly influential philosopher—by no means an isolated Jew of no consequence to the history of philosophy. As becomes clear from numerous letters written to Wolfson on the occasion of the publication of the book and stored at the Harvard University Archives, for Jewish readers Wolfson’s proposed rehabilitation of Philo could provide a point of orientation. It served as a source of comfort and of pride in the post-war years. While the main thesis of Wolfson’s book, Philo as the precursor of medieval philosophy, was rejected by most scholars of Philo and ancient philosophy, the letters and notes discussed in this article show that much more was at stake than a purely academic discussion.”

https://biblicalresources.wordpress.com ... hilo-home/

[billd89]

Honestly (and without being rude to anyone) I don't understand the thinking of many posters here. And I see this sort of thing alot on this forum. I guess my bar for persuasion is much higher?

"Mark's Use of Philo" is a Wrong Conclusion. The parallel simply indicates a Concept that was well-known (probably as a Prophetic Sign) and therefore appeared as a Meme in varied works of the period.

It's not 'surprising' nor 'telling' -- and appearance in an older work doesn't establish 'use' BY another subsequent author. Two or three examples of the same prophetic meme is NOT the same as "influence" nor some casual or relational precedence. Caveat lector: it's a fallacious conflation, instead.

Where I see the truly or probably 'relational', on the contrary, there must be multiple traces and a cluster of meanings across media. It has to make good sense -- not as overreach, conflation, wishful thinking, etc. of one or two points -- in both the sociology/ anthropology of archaeological evidence AND the muddled history of text evidence. If not, if all you have -- on the contrary -- is actually vague, a one-off maybe, then it's probably 'random' in fact. I don't mean to tell anyone "Stop looking!" but rather: the thesis needs to be built out w/ more and substantiative evidence.

Of course, a GMark 'written in Alexandria' might well borrow Alexandrian memes. Such traces would likewise suggest an Alexandrian origin. But that doesn't show Mark "using" Philo, either.

Philo wasn't all and everything, even if he's most of what we've got.

[Peter Kirby]

Well said.

[billd89]

René Bloch, "Bringing Philo Home: Responses to Harry A. Wolfson’s Philo (1947) in the Aftermath of World War II" (Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2023)

...It is not clear when exactly Wolfson started working on Philo, maybe as early as in 1937. 44

44. Schwarz, Wolfson of Harvard, 144, refers to a statement about Philo in an interview given in 1937. Philo as an important source for ancient Judaism was, of course, on Wolfson’s horizon earlier in his career. According to Schwarz, Wolfson argued already in the 1920s, in a course on post-biblical Jewish history, against a deep breach between Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism. Later on, Wolfson apparently deleted an early draft of 100 pages on the history of the Jews of Alexandria and condensed it to a few sentences in the first chapter (Philo, 1:4–5; Schwarz, Wolfson of Harvard, 147).

Several years ago, trying to pinpoint the date when Wolfson's Philo research began in earnest, I concluded it was a year or two earlier. I suspected that -- from their Harvard informant(s) -- my Anonymous Authors knew by Early 1938 that Wolfson was pursuing a Philonica project AND that A.D. Nock was collaborating w/ Msgr. Festugiere on an Hermetica project. Their synthesis may therefore be at least partly explained as a competitive sally into 'Hot Topics of Top Scholars' in the USA, their newly adopted country. The Basic Text is therefore in line w/ the zeitgeist of American Classical scholarship: Hopkins vs. Harvard, as it were.

(I'm traveling in Florida now, but I will update this Reply w/ my older research on that date, later.)

[rgprice]

@billd89 Sure, what you've said can be true, but it does nothing to address this specific example.

Philo's historical account of the reign of Caligula includes a prediction of impending doom on the Jewish people if/when a sacrilegious statue is erected in the Temple. An account of a Jewish maniac who is mocked as the "king of the Jews" and adorned with a mock royal costume. An association between Pilate and the impending erection of the sacrilegious statue that will surely bring doom upon the Jews.

But yet, the erection of the statue never happened. So why would this be "a meme"? Who would have drawn a connection between the proposed erection of a statue that never happened, the mocking of a fake Jewish king, and a destruction of the temple that didn't take place?

While this might have been an issue at the time of the actual crisis, around 40 CE, who would have cared about this later after Caligula was dead? Who would know about the incident with the mocking of the "Jewish king" other than from the writings of Philo?

Explain the relevance of this "meme", in what time period, its relation or lack of relation to the works of Philo?

[billd89]

There was a certain madman named Carabbas, afflicted ... with an intermittent and more gentle kind; this man spent all this days and nights naked in the roads, minding neither cold nor heat, the sport of idle children and wanton youths; and they, driving the poor wretch ...

So in these works of Philo we have an account of a Jewish invalid who is mocked as a "king of the Jews"...

An account of a Jewish maniac who is mocked as the "king of the Jews" and adorned with a mock royal costume.

Again, I wonder how others understand the same text I'm reading.

Carrabas is neither an invalid nor maniac; he is merely described as someone mentally handicapped ("retarded" we used to say; in other words: a "simpleton") and profoundly destitute. In fact, Philo specifies that C. does NOT suffer from mania. The Fool is maliciously & cleverly guised as the Jewish King, then paraded about for "sport" by an antisemitic mob. He is an unwitting tool.

It's curious that event would even be recorded. Such minutiae is part of a long and familiar Grievance Narrative, as such doubtful as 'the truth' and more likely to repeat cliched insults in a sarcastic satire, rather than any exceptional/extraordinary or unique details in history.

Apologies I cannot reply at length on my phone -- the medium is not especially useful, unfortunately. I cannot navigate Scaife! Normally, I post almost exclusively from my desktop.

[rgprice]

So I'll call him a "fool" instead of an invalid or maniac, whatever. So your claim then is that the "fool" is a trope that was simply repeated by both Philo and the Evangelist.

Ok fine. But what about the prediction of doom when a statue is erected in the temple and the association of Pilate with the prospect of the erection of the "desolating sacrilege"?

Outside of the Gospels, there is only one known work that makes this connection between the erection of an abomination in the temple, the destruction of the Jewish nation/temple, and the administration of Pilate. That is Philo's account of Caligula's reign.

The works of Josephus recount parts of the Caligula Crisis, but even Josephus doesn't frame it like this and Josephus doesn't include the "fool". In the works of Philo we have three distinct events that occur together that are paralleled in the Gospel of Mark.

Perhaps the question to ask here is, do you think that the Evangelist was referring to the erection of the statue of Caligula in the temple as the "desolating sacrilege"? Do you think the writer is having Jesus predict that a statue of Jupiter is going to be erected and that when it does, it is going to lead to doom and destruction?

[MrMacSon]

fwiw,
After going out of the temple, Mark 13:1 has one of the disciples proclaim to Jesus, "behold what stones and what buildings." Jesus replies, "See these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon [another] stone, which has not been thrown down."

Now, that doesn't preclude the author using Philo: Against Flaccus twice makes reference to destruction of the temple and makes reference to "a danger is now impending...of the utter destruction of the general constitution of the Jewish nation."

And it should be noted that, contrary to the version that rgprice provided above, Mark 13:14 [generally] contains reference to "the abomination of the desolation spoken of by Daniel" (see https://biblehub.com/interlinear/mark/13.htm)

It'd be interesting to compare the Greek in the relevant passages in Philo, Daniel and Mark 13 ...

[rgprice]

Quite honestly, I'd be happy yo be convinced that "Mark" isn't using Philo's Caligula Crisis as inspiration for his ending. It is much easier to explain Mark 13 as a reference to the temple destruction of 70 CE or even the destruction of the 130s. These are much easier potential interpretations to understand.

If Mark has the Caligula Crisis in mind then explaining his purpose and timeframe of writing is much more challenging.

By the same token, it is difficult to avoid this constellation of features.

If Mark was talking about the temple destruction of either 70 or the 130s, then why does he employ Pilate? If he is talking about the temple destruction of 70 or the 130s, then why does he talk about the "abomination of the desolation", which doesn't relate to the destruction of 70 and is only tenuously related to the 130s?

"Our temple is destroyed! Gaius has ordered a colossal statue of himself to be erected in the holy of holies, having his own name inscribed upon it with the title of Jupiter!" ... a danger is now impending, that namely, of the utter destruction of the general constitution of the Jewish nation; for in the destruction of the temple there is reason to fear that this man, so fond of innovation and willing to dare the most audacious actions, will also order the general name of our whole nation to be abolished.
...
Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea[who engaged in] continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity.
...
[Pilate has already dishonored the Jewish people.]
...
"But now the thing proposed to be erected is a colossal statue. Moreover, then the erection was in the dwelling-house of the governor; but they say, that which is now contemplated is to be in the inmost part of the temple, in the very holy of holies itself, into which, once in the year, the high priest enters, on the day called the great fast, to offer incense, and on no other day, being then about in accordance with our national law also to offer up prayers for a fertile and ample supply of blessings, and for peace of all mankind. And if any one else, I will not say of the Jews, but even of the priests, and those not of the lowest order, but even those who are in the rank next to the first, should go in there, either with him or after him, or even if the very high priest himself should enter in thither on two days in the year, or three or four times on the same day, he is subjected to inevitable death for his impiety, so great are the precautions taken by our lawgiver with respect to the holy of holies, as he determined to preserve it alone inaccessible to and untouched by any human being. "How many deaths then do you not suppose that the people, who have been taught to regard this place with such holy reverence, would willingly endure rather than see a statue introduced into it? I verily believe that they would rather slay all their whole families, with their wives and children, and themselves last of all, in the ruins of their houses and families, and Tiberius knew this well.