Philo of Alexandria and the Origins of the Stoic Πρoπαειαι

TLDR: The concept of pre-emotions is known not only to the Roman Stoics and Christian exegetes but also to Philo of Alexandria as mentioned in this paper, who used it to save the virtuous person's insusceptibility to emotion.

Abstract: The concept of πρoπαeιαι or "pre-emotions" is known not only to the Roman Stoics and Christian exegetes but also to Philo of Alexandria. Philo also supplies the term πρoπαeια at QGen 1.79. As Philo cannot have derived what he knows from Seneca (despite his visit to Rome in 39), nor from Cicero, who also mentions the point, he must have found it in older Stoic writings. The πρoπαeια concept, rich in implications for the voluntariness and phenomenology of the passions proper, is thus confirmed for the Hellenistic period. It is not to be expected that Philo's handling of this or any concept will necessarily conform to the usage of his Stoic sources. His evidence is nonetheless of great value where it coincides with that of other witnesses. In QGen 4.73 the emphasis falls upon involuntariness and the mechanisms of impression and assent as in Epictetus fr. 9. The πρoπαeια saves the virtuous person's insusceptibility to emotion exactly as it does for the Stoic spokesman in Gellius NA 19.1; this point is of some interest in view of the Christological use of this concept in Origen and Didymus. QGen 1.55 and 3.56 indicate that the occurrence of the πρoπαeιαι is dependent upon uncertainty, and further, that for Philo, as for Seneca in Ira 2.3.4, a thought not acted upon can count as a πρoπαeια. In QGen 4.15-17 and 1.79, Philo indicates that hope and perhaps laughter may be related to joy as πρoπαeια to παoς; these assertions are not paralleled in extant Stoic texts. Further, in QGen 2.57, he names "biting and contraction" as the eυπαeια corresponding to grief, supplying a helpful parallel for Cic. Tusc . 3.83 and Plut. Virt. Mor. 449a. The topic may well have been discussed by Posidonius, as suggested by Cooper and others, but Posidonius' attested innovations are rather different in character from the points which have caught the attention of Philo. Taking together the indirect evidence of Philo, Seneca, and Cicero, we may reasonably infer that the πρoπαeια concept belonged already to an earlier period of Stoicism.