Philonis Judaei Paralipomena Armena

and if he rendered the very Greek words themselves, then we also brought into this version, endowed with Latinity, words corresponding to the terms of both texts. The result is that our interpretation in the Biblical text preferred the edition of the 70 Elders used by Philo. Indeed, so that we may satisfy the Republic of Letters even more, all these things will be clearer in the notes which we shall add here and there in the progress of our own work, whatever that may be.

VI. In the third place, furthermore, I will speak ingenuously and candidly confess that I would never have brought myself to the task, unless the curiosity as well as the utility of the learned had impelled me, to think of publishing Philo’s works—which were still desired in Greek or Latin after the Eusebian Chronicles—as they were more laborious and easily exceeded my own powers. For I omit the fact that it was necessary to write in foreign languages, and that Philo’s style is obscure, and—to put it better—becomes even darker through the Armenian translator. I could not but be deterred by the dense fog which the material itself pours out everywhere. If indeed the author had proposed to explain the literal sense of Scripture along with the common moral one, our labors would have turned out brilliantly. But the entire Philonic commentary is symbolic. Since this has brought no small trouble to the first translator, what wonder if I was vexed with double labor, both in grasping and in explaining the certain sense of the Author?

VII. Indeed, it remains for me to speak at last somewhat about Philo’s mind—laudable yet also to be blamed—in these books of which we are speaking. His intention was to draw the philosophy of morals from Sacred History, and to teach it both to the Hellenists of his own age and to the Hellenes themselves, or the ethnic Greeks. Since this is so, who would not extol both his aim and his labors with great praise? Yet, in my opinion, it limps for a threefold reason. For he suppresses with shameful silence the proper and chief mind of the Holy Spirit, which in the Sacred Letters points out the coming Savior of the World for the salvation of the Hebrews as well as the Gentiles. But if he did not openly wish to proclaim the advent of the true Messiah, which had happened in his own age, using a rotten acceptance of persons lest he be hateful to his own people and to foreigners, he should at least have noted the divine mysteries which were hidden under the bark of words, namely about the son of Abraham whom God had destined for the salvation of the human race, so that the blessing which the Lord imparted to Isaac and Jacob might not be fulfilled in them in every respect.

VIII. Furthermore, Philo is at fault because even in the moral tenets which he derives from history, he does not raise the building of good works upon the beginnings and foundations of true Religion, as the holy men of God, inspired by the divine Spirit, show in the Sacred Letters. Rather, as if he were a profane author, or