PHILO OF BYBLUS 



PHILOLOGY 



123 



psychology and ethics, itself filling almost the whole 

 of Mangey's first volume, and consisting of a series 

 of sixteen special treatises ; CM a group of coin- 

 positions intended as an Exposition of the Mosaic 

 legislation for non-Jews, and falling naturally into three 

 divisions an Account of the Creation ( Koa/wjrotia, De 

 Opificio Mundi), the Biographies of Virtuous Men, and 

 the Legislation proper. Besides these have been pre- 

 served, either entire or in fragments, the following 

 works: llepi /3i'ou MuiWorc ( Vita Mosix >, llepi ToO ravra. 

 a-rovoiuov eivai i\(v9fpov (Quod omnis prulius litter), 

 Bit ^Xdjc/tw (Advernu Flaccun) and Ilfpi aptrCiv nal 

 rpttrfifiat Fpof Y&ior (De leyatione ad Caium), llipi 

 -rpovoiat (De Providentia), 'AX^avSpos fi irepi ToO \ayov 

 lx (i " T * a\oya fwa (only in Armenian), 'TiroOeTiitd 

 ( known only from Ensebius I, and Ilfpi 'Iorr5aiu>f . 



Other works now generally regarded as spurious are 

 De I ncorruptibUitate mundi, De Munda, and Interpre- 

 tatio Hebraicorum nominum. The Philonic authorship of 

 the De Vita contemplative was attacked by Lucius ( Die 

 Thcrapeuten, 1879), but defended by Edereheim in Smith's 

 Diet, of Christ. Biography, and with great ingenuity 

 by F. C. Conybeare in his admirable edition of the text 

 (1895). 



See a C. Ryle, Philo and Holy Scripture (1895); 

 Herriot, Philon le Juif (Paris, 1898); Gfrorer, Philo und 

 dicAlexandriniKhe Theotophie (Stuttgart, 1831) ; Dahne, 

 Die Jiidisch Atexandrinische Religion* - Philosophic 

 ( Halle, 1834 ) ; Kef erstein, Philo' t Lehre von den yiittlichcn 

 MUtelwefen (Leip. 1846); Siegfried, Philo ran Alex- 

 andria alt Aiulcuer del Allen Testaments an sieli selbst 

 and narh teinem iicfchichtlichen Einfluxs betrnchtet ( Jena, 

 1875); Zeller, in part iii. div. 2 of Die Philosopliie dtr 

 Oricrhen (3d ed. 18X1 ) : Edersheim's Life and Times of 

 Jru the Afemiah (2vols. 1883); and Principal Drum- 

 mond'ii admirable Philo- Judteuf, or the Jncixh-Alt'xttn- 

 liri'in Philosophy in it* Development and Completion (2 

 Tols. 1888). 



Philo of Byblus. See PHCEMCIA. 



Philology. Tlie meaning of this term has 

 varied curiously. As we find it first employed by 

 Plato, it meant the love of discussion, limited 

 practically to the moral and social questions in 

 which Plato delighted; and the method of such 

 discussion was the Socratic one. At Alexandria 

 the ' philologer ' was busied with all the knowledge 

 of his day brought together for the first time in the 

 great library of the Ptolemies. Thus, Eratosthenes, 

 who applied this term to himself, was specially 

 famous as a writer on astronomy. Hut the great 

 scholars of Alexandria applied themselves with 

 especial eagerness to the study of the older Greek 

 literature. Men like Zenodotus and Aristarchus 

 compared the numerous MSS. of Homer, selected 

 tin- l-st text*, made lists of difficult words, called 

 glossm the earliest dictionaries and were the 

 founders of the science of criticism by establishing 

 canons on which they rejected what they deemed 

 spurious in the copies before them. Two centuries 

 later at Rome Cicero, who uses the word not un- 

 frequently in his letters, applies it to study in 

 general. But ever after the Alexandrian time 

 ' philology ' was essentially the intelligent critical 

 study of the traditional learning of the past. It 

 widened again at the revival of learning to include 

 the study of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, archieology 

 in a word, all the 'humane' studies. And this 

 wider .sense clung to the word. Johnson in the 

 last century defines a philologer as 'one whose 

 chii-f -I inly i* language, a grammarian, a critick.' 

 Vet Watts, whom lie <| notes as one of his authorities 

 for the' use of the word, says that 'studies called 

 philological are history, language, grammar, 

 rhetoric, poesy, and criticism.' In fact philology 

 was the study which interpreted the best writings ; 

 ami these writings were Greek and Latin ; ana in 

 these languages were to be found the most note- 

 worthy speculation* on all matters of human in- 

 terest. So philology had its special and its wider 

 ease. Sim-i- flu: middle of the 19th century the use 



has been changing in a different direction. Through 

 the discovery of Sanskrit the scientific comparison 

 of Greek and Latin with other languages became 

 possible. That study was called ' comparative 

 philology.' But this term is cumbrous, and in 

 England, and to some extent in France, it is cus- 

 tomary to speak in this sense of ' philology ' alone. 

 So, whereas formerly philology meant pre-eminently 

 the knowledge, grammatical, critical, exegetical, 

 which enabled men to explain the most important 

 literature of the world, it now is becoming limited 

 to the study of language apart from the literature 

 embodied in it to the science which deals with 

 the origin, development, and general character of 

 the different families of speech throughout the 

 world and of human speech as a whole : to which, 

 therefore, the most highly cultivated languages 

 may be not more important than languages which 

 have hardly any literature or none at all : because 

 such languages develop naturally, whereas literary 

 languages are subject to artificial restraint. In 

 Germany, it may ue noted, this special study of 

 language is called not 'Philologie' but 'Linguistik.' 



It must not be supposed that this scientific study 

 of language as an end in itself lias superseded the 

 older philology of a Bentley or a Person, Rather, 

 it has helped it by throwing light on the forms and 

 meaning of words and phrases isolated or obscure 

 in one language, hut frequent and clear in another. 

 But indeed the work of the critical scholar of the 

 present day has l>een widened to a degree which 

 could not have been realised three generations ago. 

 First, the art of interpretation has Leen developed ; 

 the old storehouses of MSS. have l>een more fully 

 searched ; the principles of palaeography are more 

 widely known, so that we have many more scholars 

 capable of dealing at first hand with MSS., of 

 deciding upon their age, origin, and relative value. 

 The sister-art of epigraphy, which deals with in- 

 scriptions, has ever-increasing material to work 

 upon. Secondly, the science of archipology has 

 been almost re-created. Explorations in all parts of 

 the Hellenic world Attica, Delphi, Peloponnese, 

 Cyprus, and Asia Minor especially the recent 

 search in the Acropolis at Athens, have profoundly 

 affected our ideas of Greek art, both plastic and 

 constructive. The long-continued excavations at 

 Pompeii have shown us the domestic life of the 1st 

 century in the most minute detail. There can be 

 no doubt that we have yet much to learn, and that 

 the zeal of modern students will be equal to the 

 task. Again, historical inscriptions and coins have 

 corrected and supplemented the statements of 

 ancient writers, and have often given us unexpected 

 and perfectly trustworthy information as to periods 

 unrepresented in any literature. These and other 

 auxiliary sciences have given new life and meaning 

 to the scholar's work. They make it at once more 

 satisfying and more difficult : there is so much more 

 to lie known. Formerly a really great scholar 

 could master the whole domain of knowledge ; 

 now every man must depend for something on the 

 labours of others. 



The study of philology, especially the study of 

 grammar, after it was transplanted from Alexandria, 

 nourished at Rome in the imperial time. It lingered 

 on at Constantinople till the line of great gram- 

 marians ended in Priscian ; while lexicography 

 culminated later in the work of Photius ancl of 

 Suidas. But it was in Italy that the study of 

 antiquity became again a living thing : Italians in 

 the 14th and loth centuries discovered in Italy, 

 Germany, ami France works of the greatest Roman 

 writers, such as Cicero and Lucretius, which had 

 remained for generations hurled in convents ; it 

 was to Italy that learned Greeks, especially after 

 the sack of Constantinople, came to teach the 

 Greek language at Florence and at Venice, ancl 



