On the Special Laws 1

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1. Cohn-Wendland V, p. 21; Loeb VII, pp. 144-145 (Colson, 1937). The §-section is the conceptual bridge between Philo's discussion of priestly qualifications (§§79-80) and his sustained allegorical exegesis of the high priest's vestments as a microcosm (§§82-97, with the explicit identification of the cosmic high priest as the Logos at §§94-96). The single sentence at §81 packs in three independent predicates Philo has developed across his corpus: the Logos as εἰκὼν θεοῦ (image of God), as πρεσβύτατος (most ancient), and as δι' οὗ ἐδημιουργεῖτο (the instrument through which creation happened).
2. The three-predicate compression at §81 maps directly onto the New Testament Christological cluster. εἰκὼν θεοῦ → Colossians 1:15 ('he is the image of the invisible God'), 2 Corinthians 4:4 ('Christ, who is the image of God'). πρεσβύτατος (most ancient, used here in the produced-realities-sense from Migr. §6) → Colossians 1:17 ('he is before all things'), Revelation 22:13 ('I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last'). δι' οὗ ἐδημιουργεῖτο → John 1:3 (πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, 'all things came to be through him'), 1 Corinthians 8:6 ('one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things'), Hebrews 1:2 ('through whom he made the worlds'), Colossians 1:16 ('in him all things were created').
3. Note ἐδημιουργεῖτο in the imperfect tense (Cohn-Wendland's reading): the Logos's cosmogonic work is presented as continuous rather than punctiliar. Same aspectual choice as Opif. §25 (κοσμοποιοῦντος, present participle) and Migr. §6 (ἐκοσμοποίει, imperfect). Philo's Logos is always engaged in creation, never finished with it. Origen reads this aspectual consistency directly into the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son (De Princ. I.2.2-3): the Father is eternally begetting, the Son is eternally being begotten, and through the Son creation is eternally being made.
4. On εἰκών as a register-term in Greek philosophical-theological Greek: εἰκών carries a stronger sense than the English 'image.' It is the made-likeness, the impression that exhibits its source by being like it, the way a coin exhibits the emperor whose face it carries. Philo's Logos as εἰκὼν θεοῦ is not a faint copy of God but the operative likeness through which the unseen God becomes recognizable. The Christian doctrine of the Son as the Father's perfect image (Hebrews 1:3, χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ) inhabits exactly this Philonic conceptual space.

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Translator Notes

1. Cohn-Wendland V, p. 21-22; Loeb VII, pp. 146-147 (Colson, 1937). §83 begins the great allegorical exegesis of the high priest's vestments that runs through §§82-97. The §83 description matches Exodus 28:6-12 LXX: the ephod (ἐπωμίς) is the over-garment fastened at the shoulders by golden brooches, and the two shoulder-stones are sardonyxes engraved with the names of the twelve tribes.
2. The linen (βύσσος) note is significant. Linen, made of vegetable fiber rather than animal pelt, was associated in Hellenistic Jewish thought with the upper-cosmic register: it does not come from a creature that dies. The high priest's linen marks him as one who has entered the priestly office only after ritual death-to-the-creature.
3. The §-section sets up the §§84-97 allegorical reading: each element of the high priest's dress will be identified with a cosmic element, and the priest who wears the whole assembly will be revealed as the Logos under its priestly aspect. The microcosm framing is what Hebrews 8:1-5 inherits when it presents the earthly priesthood as a 'shadow of the heavenly things' (ὑποδείγματι καὶ σκιᾷ τῶν ἐπουρανίων).

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Translator Notes

1. Cohn-Wendland V, p. 22; Loeb VII, pp. 148-149 (Colson, 1937). §84 describes the long blue robe (the מְעִיל / me'il of Exodus 28:31-35 LXX), worn under the ephod and decorated at its hem with alternating golden pomegranates and bells. The hyacinth-blue color matches the sky.
2. The decorative elements — pomegranates, flowers, bells — each carry symbolic weight in Philo's §§85-94 exegesis. The bells signal the priest's activity to those outside the sanctuary; the pomegranates symbolize fruitfulness; the flowers represent the cosmos in springtime. Together with the blue of the sky, they make the robe a wearable representation of the lower heavens.
3. Compare Wisdom of Solomon 18:24, which already gives the same cosmic-microcosm reading of Aaron's robe: ἐπὶ γὰρ ποδήρους ἐνδύματος ἦν ὅλος ὁ κόσμος — 'on the full-length robe was the whole cosmos.' Philo is not innovating; he is articulating in detail a reading that was already familiar in Hellenistic Jewish exegesis.

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Translator Notes

1. Cohn-Wendland V, p. 25; Loeb VII, pp. 154-155 (Colson, 1937). §95 is the summary statement that closes the major part of the high-priest-vestments exegesis (§§82-95). The high priest's dress is μίμημα τοῦ παντός — 'a representation of the whole universe.' The full-length robe represents the air; the pomegranates and flowers represent the elements; the breastplate with twelve stones represents the zodiac; the headplate represents the divine Name. The priest who wears the whole assembly is the cosmic-microcosm and, by Philo's preceding argument, the Logos under its priestly aspect.
2. The summary phrasing — 'marvelous to behold and to contemplate' — captures Philo's intended pedagogical effect. The vestments are not merely impressive ornaments; they are an invitation to contemplative ascent. The eye sees the priest in his robes; the mind sees what the priest stands for. This is the same dual register (visible figure pointing to invisible reality) that Hebrews 8:5 will articulate as 'a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.'
3. Hebrews 9:24 picks up the implicit conclusion of Philo's §§82-95: the earthly high priest is the type, and the heavenly High Priest is the antitype. Where Philo identifies the heavenly figure with the Logos, Hebrews identifies it with the crucified-and-risen Christ. The structural inheritance is precise: Christology lifts the Logos out of its cosmic-priestly figure and binds it to a particular historical death.
4. μίμημα ('representation, imitation') is in the same word-family as μιμέομαι ('to imitate'). The vestments are an imitation of the universe in the precise Platonic sense — they participate in the universal pattern by sharing its structure at a smaller scale. This is what makes them not merely allegorical decoration but cosmically efficacious clothing.