On the Life of Moses

Philo of Alexandriafirst half of the 1st century AD

Philo’s life of Moses as king, lawgiver, priest and prophet, written for Greek readers. Its second book gives an Alexandrian Jew’s account of how the law was translated into Greek and says that the day was still kept as a festival on Pharos.

Philo was a Jewish philosopher of Alexandria who lived from about 20 BC to about AD 50. His two books on Moses present the lawgiver to readers who knew Greek philosophy better than the Scriptures.

In the second book he tells how Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to the high priest for translators, how they withdrew to the island of Pharos, and how they all arrived at the same wording, “as if some unseen prompter had suggested all their language to them”. He adds that in his own day Jews and others crossed to the island every year to keep a feast in memory of the translation. For the translation itself Philo writes some three centuries after the event and depends on the tradition also found in the Letter of Aristeas. For the festival he is a contemporary witness.

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