Philo's philosophical defense and allegorical explanation of Jewish law, covering circumcision, monotheism, priesthood, sacrifices, and offerings.
The Special Laws I is the first book of Philo of Alexandria's multi-part treatise reorganizing the commandments of the Mosaic law under the headings of the Ten Commandments. Having already treated the Decalogue itself in an earlier work, Philo here turns to what he calls the 'individual statutes,' the detailed particular laws that fall under the first two commandments: the prohibition of foreign gods and of idol images. He begins, deliberately, with the practice most mocked by outsiders, circumcision, defending it on grounds of health, cleanliness, fertility, and symbolic fitness before moving to a sustained polemic against idolatry, polytheism, and the deification of the elements, sun, moon, and stars.
From there Philo moves into an extended discussion of the priesthood and the Temple cult: the physical qualifications required of priests, their consecration, the classes of Levites and their duties, the rules governing tithes and first-fruits, the cities of refuge for those guilty of unintentional killing, and detailed regulations for burnt offerings, sin offerings, peace offerings, and other sacrifices. Throughout, Philo pairs literal exposition of the biblical text with allegorical interpretation, reading, for example, the parts of sacrificial animals as symbols of the soul's faculties and the priest's bodily wholeness as a figure for moral integrity.
The book matters as one of the fullest surviving attempts by a Hellenized Jewish intellectual to present Mosaic law as a rational, philosophically respectable system to a Greco-Roman audience, blending Stoic and Platonic vocabulary with close reading of the Pentateuch. It is a key witness both to first-century Alexandrian Judaism and to the interpretive habits later inherited by Christian allegorical exegesis.
“The classes of the particular laws — the so-called Ten Words — have been treated with precision in the previous treatise; now the individual statutes must be examined in the order the scripture follows.”
— The Special Laws I · read this chapter →
“What draws the laughter is the circumcision of the male generative organ, though it is a practice taken seriously by other nations too, and especially by the Egyptians”
— The Special Laws I · read this chapter →
“It has been said: “All who cling to the God who truly is, live” (Deut. 4:4).”
— The Special Laws I · read this chapter →
“For not all things are to be shared with all people, but only with those fitted”
— The Special Laws I · read this chapter →
“for it says, “You are sons to the Lord your God” (Deut. 14:1) — clearly meaning that they will be deemed worthy of providence and care as from a father”
— The Special Laws I · read this chapter →
It is the first book of Philo of Alexandria's treatise reorganizing the Mosaic commandments under the Ten Commandments, covering circumcision, the rejection of idolatry and polytheism, priestly qualifications, and the rules of Temple sacrifice. Philo combines literal legal exposition with philosophical and allegorical interpretation aimed at a Greco-Roman audience.
Philo opens the book with the practice most ridiculed by non-Jews, circumcision, and defends it using arguments about preventing disease of the foreskin, promoting bodily cleanliness fitting for a consecrated people, and its symbolic resemblance to the heart as an organ of generation.
Philo condemns those who commission gods out of gold and silver from sculptors, calling it absurd to honor inert, man-made material with temples, altars, and sacrifices as though it were divine. He extends this critique to those who deify the sun, moon, and stars instead of the true first cause.
Philo explains that someone who caused a death without lawful cause could not pass within the sprinkling-vessels of the Temple, so Moses set aside certain cities as secondary sanctuaries where such persons could take refuge and be kept safe.
Philo treats the sacrificial ritual both literally, detailing which priest handles the blood and how the victim is divided, and allegorically, reading specific organs like the liver-lobe, fat, and kidneys as figures for the soul repenting and turning from its disease.
Citing Deuteronomy 14:1, Philo says that those who do what is good and pleasing to nature are called sons of God, and that this sonship brings them the same providence and care a father gives a child, though on a scale fitting God's superiority.
Allegorical Interpretation I · Allegorical Interpretation II · Allegorical Interpretation III · Every Good Man is Free · Flaccus · On Abraham · On Dreams · On Drunkenness · On Flight and Finding · On Husbandry · On Joseph · On Mating / Preliminary Studies