Texts in Conversation
Philo of Alexandria writes that God doesn't value the number of sacrifices but the purity of the worshipper’s rational spirit. Paul in Romans uses similar reasoning, calling believers to present themselves as a living sacrifice.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo The Special Laws 1:277
Classical
277 And this command is a symbol of nothing else but of the fact that in the eyes of God it is not the number of things sacrificed that is accounted valuable, but the purity of the rational spirit of the sacrificer. Unless, indeed, one can suppose that a judge who is anxious to pronounce a holy judgment will never receive gifts from any of those whose conduct comes before his tribunal, or that, if he does receive such presents, he will be liable to an accusation of corruption; and that a good man will not receive gifts from a wicked person, not even though he may be poor and the other rich, and he himself perhaps in actual want of what he would so receive; and yet that God can be corrupted by bribes, who is most all-sufficient for himself and who has no need of any thing created; who, being himself the first and most perfect good thing, the everlasting fountain of wisdom, and justice, and of every virtue, rejects the gifts of the wicked.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Romans 12:1
New Testament
1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service. 2 Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith.
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Notes and References
“... Philo writes in his explanation of the incense offering which precedes the bloody animal sacrifice, ‘This symbolical meaning is just this and nothing else: that what is precious in the sight of God is not the number of victims immolated but the true purity of a rational spirit (πνεῦμα λογικόν) in him who makes the sacrifice’ (Special Laws 1.277; translation F. H. Colson, Loeb Classical Library). Since God is more interested in the ‘rational spirit’ than in the animal sacrifice, he is less interested in the perfection of the sacrificial animal than in the question whether the person’s ‘own mind (διάνοια) stands free from defect and imperfection’ (Special Laws 1.283). Philo concludes, ‘And thus we have the clearest proof that he holds the sacrifice to consist not in the victims but in the offerer’s intention and his zeal which derives its constancy and permanence from virtue’ (Special Laws 1.290). Philo’s interpretation shows that Stoic notions of ‘rational’ sacrifice had been taken up by Jewish authors who agreed with the contrast between true sacrifices and true worship on the one hand and material animal sacrifice on the other ...”
Schnabel, Eckhard J.
"Lives that Speak" in White, Aaron W.; Evans, Craig A.; Wenham, David (ed.) The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context: Essays in Honour of John Nolland
(p. 286) T&T Clark, 2018
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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