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The Letter of Aristeas has Ptolemy declare that the day the translators arrived will be celebrated every year of his life. In On the Life of Moses, Philo describes a yearly festival on the island of Pharos, held instead for the finished translation.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Letter of Aristeas 1:180
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
did this first. I have enacted that this day, on which you arrived, shall be kept as a great day and it will be celebrated annually throughout my life time. It happens also that it is the anniversary of my naval victory over Antigonus. Therefore I shall be glad to feast with you today.' 'Everything that you may have occasion to use', he said, 'shall be prepared (for you) in a fitting manner and for me also with you.' After they had expressed their delight, he gave orders that the best quarters near the citadel should be assigned to them, and that preparations should be made for the banquet.
Philo, On the Life of Moses 2.41
Classical
On which account, even to this very day, there is every year a solemn assembly held and a festival celebrated in the island of Pharos, to which not only the Jews but a great number of persons of other nations sail across, reverencing the place in which the first light of interpretation shone forth, and thanking God for that ancient piece of beneficence which was always young and fresh. 42 And after the prayers and the giving of thanks some of them pitched their tents on the shore, and some of them lay down without any tents in the open air on the sand of the shore, and feasted with their relations and friends, thinking the shore at that time a more beautiful abode than the furniture of the king's palace.
Date: 40 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... 180. each year . . . it shall be held in high esteem Philo records the existence of an annual festival to commemorate the completion of the translation on the island of Pharos (Moses 2.31). But Philadelphus here proclaims the establishment of an annual ceremony simply upon the arrival of the translators—which seems a bit premature. ...”
Gruen, Erich S.
"The Letter of Aristeas" in Feldman, Louis H.; Kugel, James L.; Schiffman, Lawrence H. (ed.) Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture
(p. 2744) Jewish Publication Society, 2013
* 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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