Philo of Alexandria

English

But when light had come to be, and darkness had given way and withdrawn, and borders had been set fast in the intervals between them, evening and morning, then straightway, by the necessary measure of time, there was brought to completion that which the Maker also called day: and day not first, but one, which is so said because of the solitariness of the intelligible world, which has a monadic nature.

Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson · cc-by

Greek

Philo, De opificio mundi 35 (Cohn-Wendland i. 10-11) · first1k-greek

Notes

The sentence this crux is named for, in the oldest witness that has it, and it gives the word the whole finding turns on. Day not first but one, and the reason is the monosis of the intelligible world, its solitariness, which has a monadic nature. Monosis is not unity and not primacy: it is the condition of having nothing beside you. That is precisely what Rashi means by yachid be-olamo, that God was alone in his world that day because the angels were not yet created and so there was no second anything to count with; and it is what Augustine means when he says the day is called one rather than first. Three witnesses on three benches read unus as a claim about solitude rather than about position in a series, and Philo is the head of all of them: he is a Jew writing in Greek four centuries before the midrash, and the Latin bench received the reading through Ambrose, who reproduces it and does not name him. The clause before it belongs to K9 and to Philo's account of evening and morning as borders in the intervals; the day is completed by the necessary measure of time only once those borders are in place.

Threads

• → parallel · Rashi
  The two poles of this crux's finding, and they turn out to be one reading held four hundred years apart in two languages by two Jews, neither of whom could have read the other. Rashi, out of Bereshit Rabbah: it says one and not first because the Holy One was yachid be-olamo, alone in his world, the angels not having been created until the second day. Philo: day not first but one, because of the monosis of the intelligible world, which has a monadic nature. Both take the cardinal as a report about solitude rather than about position in a series; both need it to mean that on that day there was nothing to count with. What is alone differs entirely, God in the one and the intelligible world in the other, and the grammatical argument underneath is the same argument.
• → echoes · Ambrose
  The Latin channel for this whole reading, and it does not name its source. Ambrose: excellently, too, he said one day and not first day. Philo: day not first but one. Ambrose's Hexaemeron follows Philo's De opificio closely enough that agreements of this kind are the rule rather than the exception, and here the agreement is at the level of the sentence. What Ambrose does not take over is the reason, the monosis of the intelligible world, which is unavailable to him; he supplies the eternity of the day instead. Every Latin after him has the observation without the argument that produced it.
• → parallel · Augustine
  Augustine reaches the same formula and gives it a Christian ground: it was called not first but one, and the day is the knowledge of the creature in the Word. Philo has the formula and grounds it in the solitariness of the intelligible world. Both refuse to let the cardinal be a scribal looseness for an ordinal, and both are looking for something that day has and the other days do not.
• → cites · The Seventy
  Philo is quoting the Seventy and the crux exists because they translated as they did. His whole argument stands on hemeran mian, day one, against hemeran proten, and he is reading the Greek word for word: the Maker called it day, and day not first but one. This is the edition's one place where a witness on the greek-jewish bench cites the other witness on the same bench, and it shows what the LXX is for on this daf, a text somebody argued from and not only a version to compare.