On Rewards, Punishments, and Curses by Philo of Alexandria

On Rewards, Punishments, and Curses is a treatise in Greek by Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish exegete of the first century CE, and the last of the series in which he expounds the laws of Moses. It interprets the blessings and curses that close the legislation in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and it comes in two parts.

The first, On Rewards and Punishments, begins by dividing the oracles of Moses into three kinds, on creation, on history and on legislation, and then treats the rewards promised to those who keep the law as prizes won in a sacred contest. Philo follows the prizes of the patriarchs and of the household of Jacob, whose twelve sons head the tribes, and reads the promise that the good shall be the head and not the tail as allegory.

The second, On Curses, sets out the penalties for breaking the law: want, crops lost to enemies, locusts and blight, barren earth and sky, wild beasts and ruined cities. The proselyte is raised to heaven while the high-born apostate sinks to Tartarus. The treatise ends with restoration: like a felled tree sprouting from its roots, the least seed of good left in the oppressed renews them and repeoples their cities. The Greek text survives in the medieval manuscripts of Philo's works.