APPENDIX TO HYPOTHETICA
§ 7. 5. (Absolution from vows.) On this Edersheim (The Temple, its Ministry and Services, p. 69) says that release from a vow which affected the interests of others might be obtained from one sage or from three persons in the presence of him who had been affected by the vow. He does not state the authority for this and it seems strange that in treating the subject he does not refer to this passage in Philo. In the same connexion he remarks that all laws were limited by higher obligations: according to the Mishnah a man could not vow what of his fortune he owed to others nor his widow’s portion. Philo’s statement that a man by vowing his wife’s τροφή could bind himself not to support her agrees with the practice denounced in Mark 7:10 ff., but is contrary to the principle described by Edersheim, and it is strange to find Philo apparently approving it.
§ 7. 8. (Precepts of Buzyges.) The rare passages alluding to these are collected by Bernays (see Introd. p. 407 note b). The Paroemiographer, p. 233, has ὁ γὰρ Βουζύγης Ἀθήνησι ὁ τὸν ἱερὸν ἄροτον ἐπιτελῶν (“instituted the sacred rite of the plough”) ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἀρᾶται καὶ τοῖς μὴ κοινηνοῦσι κατὰ τὸν βίον ὕδατος ἢ πυρός, ἢ μὴ ὑποφαίνουσιν ὁδὸν πλανωμένοις. A scholiast on Soph. Ant. 255 mentions the saying that Buzyges cursed those who left a corpse unburied. Clem. Alex. Strom. ii. 503 says that those who bid others do what they judge to be not profitable to themselves οὐκ ἂν ἐκφύγοιεν τὴν Βουζυγίαν ἀράν. Though the name of Buzyges is not mentioned, there is clearly an allusion to the same in a fragment of Diphilus where refusals of charity are said to be denounced in the “curses.” Cicero, De Off. iii. 54 f., speaks of refusing to show the way as denounced “Athenis exsecrationibus publicis” and interprets it to include those who allow a purchaser to be defrauded by a mistake. Bernays notes that three of the specific things here mentioned, the duty of showing the way, allowing free use of fire and water, and giving burial are all mentioned by Philo. Bernays does not give any quotation for the statement that the curses are repeated by a descendant of Buzyges at a feast of Demeter.
§ 7. 9. (Appeal of animals.) The statement seems to me remarkable and I should like to meet with some illustration of it or comment on it particularly in the form given it by Josephus. When is it that animals enter our houses as suppliants? The only thing in the law which suggests helping animals in trouble is the command in Deut. 22:4 to help to raise up a fallen beast and there really the point is helping the owner.
Philo in De Virt. 125–147 has insisted earnestly on the duty of kindness to animals, but it is remarkable that of the points which he mentions, namely the prohibitions against (1) separating the mother and offspring before seven days, (2) killing the two in the same day, (3) seething the lamb in its mother’s milk, (4) muzzling the treading ox, (5) yoking different kinds of animals together, none is mentioned here, at any rate definitely, though (1) may be alluded to in § 7. On the other hand the one which precedes this here is omitted there.