The twenty-first century reader, opening a Greek treatise by the first-century Jewish statesman, philosopher, and exegete, Philo of Alexandria, bearing the title De mutatione nominum (On the Change of Names), might naturally have questions about the scope of the work. From the shorter Latin title, one might rightly infer that the treatise has something to do with scriptural etymologies and the symbolic significance of Hebrew names being changed. Several examples spring to mind—for example, Abram’s change of name to Abraham, and Sarai’s change of name to Sarah in the Priestly covenantal narrative of Genesis 17. Ancient Jewish and pagan readers in Alexandria’s museum, library, private schools, or prayer houses—many of them untutored in Hebrew—would have been fascinated and perplexed by the transliterated names, which leave so prominent a mark upon the narrative surface of the Jewish Scriptures in Greek.1 De mutatione nominum, on this reading of its title, might include an alphabetical list of etymologies of Hebrew names paired with Greek interpretations, with special attention to doublets. Indeed, the sands of Egypt have given us such lists, called onomastica.2 Jerome, in the preface to his De nominibus hebraicis, even attributes such a list to Philo on the authority of Origen.3
This first impression would not be entirely off the mark. Hebrew etymologies do appear throughout Philo’s œuvre and play an especially important role in De mutatione nominum. So prominent is etymology in certain sections of the present treatise, that it might fairly be called the work’s dominant “technique.”4 But etymology is never an end for Philo; it is always an instrument in service of allegorical exegesis.5 And etymology is not primarily what the present treatise is about.
The treatise’s lengthier and more cumbersome Greek title, On Those Whose Names Are Being Changed, and For What Purposes They Are Being Changed (
I begin my preface to this commentary on Philo’s De mutatione nominum with two possible misperceptions about its scope, with the hope that I may entice potential readers to take a deeper look at it. It is true, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously opined, that “Philo has not been used half enough;”6 and his works have been appreciated as the literary critical and theological masterpieces that they are even less. This is especially the case for Philo’s Allegorical Commentary, the series of exegetical treatises on the Pentateuch, to which De mutatione nominum belongs. This commentary series is Philo’s densest, richest, and most complicated, both philosophically and literarily. Before the Allegorical Commentary can be used in studies of ancient philosophy, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity, it must first be read and understood in its own right as an integral part of the history of Western philosophy, exegesis, and religions.
Although De mutatione nominum has had previous annotators, no one has offered a complete modern commentary on the treatise in any language. The editor of its 1587 editio princeps, the Augsburg humanist David Hoeschel, published a lengthy series of annotations in Latin as an appendix to the text, which are still useful to the reader and merit special consideration for the philosophical and Christian parallels that Hoeschel included.7 They also warrant attention for the light they shed on the theological use of Philo in the context of sixteenth century interconfessional humanism.8 In the twentieth century, Jacques Cazeaux, (La trame et la chaîne [1983]) mapped out the allegorical deep structure of the first chapter of the treatise (§§ 1–38), but did not assess the entire work. A few years later, David Runia (1988), following in the path of Valentin Nikiprowetzsky (1977), contributed to the analysis of the treatise’s structure in an essay on Philo’s use of aporetic questions. Finally, at the 2016 SBL Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, the Philo of Alexandria Seminar devoted a panel to this treatise, including papers by Greg Sterling, Jim Royse, Fred Brenk, and Michel Barnes. I draw gratefully on these and the other works mentioned in the introduction.
My interest in writing a study of a treatise from the Allegorical Commentary dates back to my earliest encounters with Philo’s writings as a student at Yale Divinity School in a graduate seminar with John J. Collins and Steven Fraade. Having just made the leap from Classics to the study of early Judaism, I became intrigued by the fusion of Septuagintal and Platonizing thought in Philo. What began as suspicion at Philo’s allegorizing program became, over time, admiration for the complexity of his architectonic project—in equal parts philosophy, exegesis, and literary criticism. It was especially helpful for me, under the guidance of Greg Sterling at Notre Dame, to encounter the work of the Philo Institute and The Studia Philonica Annual. In contradistinction to Harry Wolfson (1947), whose work remains invaluable, scholars in this line have viewed Philo primarily as a tradent of Jewish tradition and as a philosophical exegete, rather than as a systematic philosopher; as a thinker at default conservative and anthological, rather than innovative and sui generis. Such a view enabled me to see in starker relief the true originality of the Allegorical Commentary. I was also interested, when this project was first being proposed, in writing a commentary on an Abrahamic treatise. This was an instinctual decision, for which I became increasingly grateful the more I wrote and learned about the Platonist allegorical readers of Homer and their interest in the psychological allegoresis of Odysseus’s marriage, wandering, and nostos. There is an argument to be made that, to Philo’s mind, Odysseus’s heroic itinerary maps more closely onto Abraham’s than onto that of any other Jewish patriarch. Hence, in electing to work on Abraham, I found myself at the center of Philo’s allegorical multiverse.
As a New Testament scholar, my interests in this particular treatise were simultaneously piqued by certain exegetical and theological points of overlap—not least Philo’s discussion of the faith (and doubt) of Abraham in chapter eight. This sub-treatise on faith and divine grace can fruitfully be read alongside key chapters (3–4) in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, just as Philo’s little “bread from heaven” homily on Exod 16:4 in chapter ten illuminates Jesus’s “bread of life” discourse in John 6. Despite the clear “usefulness” of De mutatione nominum for New Testament and early Christian studies, however, my fascination with Philo’s writings remains non-instrumental; this treatise and my commentary on it are ends unto themselves.
This project could not have been begun or completed without the help and support of many people, institutions, and foundations. My thanks go first to Greg Sterling, editor of the Brill PACS series, who suggested De mutatione nominum as a possibility, accepted my proposal, and then read this commentary cover to cover at least three times. Greg saved me from numerous errors, improved the structure, content, and readability of the work, and has encouraged me on all fronts. David Runia has also been an unofficial mentor, first suggesting to me the theme of “perfection” in the treatise and discussing various Philonic topics over the years. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for a post-doctoral research fellowship to work on this commentary, and to my academic host during that first year as a Humboldtianer, Lutz Doering of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum (IJD) at the University of Münster. Professor Doering not only provided me with a spacious second-floor office and access to Münster’s numerous libraries, in which to research and write, but twice invited me to present my research at the joint IJD-New Testament research seminar; hosted an interdisciplinary workshop on the aims of commentary writing; and co-hosted with me, in May of 2019, an international conference on the theme of “Philo and Philosophical Discourse,” again with academic support from the Humboldt Foundation. Heartfelt thanks are also due to Professor Emeritus Folker Siegert, who came out of Ruhestand to read Philo’s Armenian corpus with me weekly during the year in Münster. Some of the fruits of our labors are present in the Parallel Exegesis sections of this commentary. Thanks are also due to colleagues at my home institution, Marquette University: Heidi Bostic and Rick Holz, deans of the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences; Bob Masson, Susan Wood, Danielle Nussberger, and Conor Kelly, chairs of the Theology Department; and Jeanne Hossenlopp, vice president for research, have all given me time and financial support to work on this commentary. My colleagues at Marquette, including Michel Barnes, Josh Burns, Deirdre Dempsey, Julian Hills, Andrei Orlov, Sharon Pace, Marcus Plested, and Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent have provided valuable feedback. Conversations with David Lincicum and especially Courtney Friesen have provided inspiration and encouragement. Thanks also to doctoral students Luke Beavers, Paul Cox, Vance Halfaker, and Tyler Stewart, who have helped with various aspects of this project. Marlou Meems and the staff at Brill have been a pleasure to work with.
The final and most consequential note of thanks goes to my wife, Susanna, and to our four daughters, Elizabeth, Lucia, Helen, and Phoebe. Each of them has patiently supported and encouraged this project in untold ways. This was especially true in 2018, when the Cover family journeyed from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, to Münster, Germany, for a Humboldt year, with Elizabeth attending the Wartburg Grundschüle, Lucia going to the Kita around the corner, and Helen keeping her mother company at our little house in Gievenbeck. If I may be afforded a bit of poetic license: “with these graceful companions over the past nine years, we have fashioned many cunning and delightful things” (cf. Il. 18.400:
This work is dedicated to Susanna Quaile Cover—whose change of name continues to increase my virtue and joy on a daily basis.
Michael B. Cover
Wauwatosa, WI
A similar interest in foreign names in Greek philosophical literature is evinced by Plutarch’s Platonizing etymologies in De Iside et Osiride. For a recent study of this text, in comparison with De mutatione nominum, see Brenk 2023.
For the onomastica, see Shaw 2015; Rokeah 1968.
Jerome, Heb. nom., Pref. 1 (PCW 1:103).
I borrow the notion of “technique,” the rhetorical device which gives a composition its tone and rhythm, from Stuart Gilbert’s (1952) study of James Joyce’s Ulysses, in which each of the novel’s eighteen chapters is analyzed in terms of a dominant rhetorical “technic.”
Runia 2004; Long 1997.
Sterling 2004.
De mutatione nominum is missing from Adrien Turnèbe’s 1552 editio princeps of Philo’s works, as it did not appear in the manuscripts available to him in Paris. For additional annotators of the treatise, see 7. The Title, Text, and Previous Scholarship on the Treatise below.
See Cover 2024a.