Horizonte (Oct 2015)
An anti-hedonist Torah in Philo of Alexandria
Abstract
The Hebrew Bible does not present the pleasure as a problem. Nevertheless, the relationship with Greek philosophical tradition made it possible (or even necessary) to Jewish interpreters to relate their Sacred Book to the question of the pleasure. In Philo of Alexandria the Torah is directly involved in a radical opposition to hedonism. In this article, I observe the way this opposition takes place in Philo’s writing, and I suggest that it is an opposition of discourses motivated not only by the resistance to the pleasure itself or by the commitment to philosophical tradition, but also by the necessity of preservation of the pertinence of the Book itself. Before approaching the Alexandrian’s works, I refer briefly to what is found on the pleasure in the Hebrew/Greek Bible, in the Letter to Aristeas and in 4 Maccabees. These readings will proportionate the observation of a process of change in Jewish writers’ relationship to the theme of pleasure. Moreover, it will make evident the specificity and complexity present in Philo’s treatment of this subject.
