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78 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA.

With an instinct truer than the reasons alleged, Jerome
has included in his catalogue of illustrious men and writers
of the Christian Church Philo the Jew and Seneca the
Stoic. The traditions on which he relies — that Philo met
Peter at Eome on his second embassy to Claudius, and
described Christian communities in a treatise " On the Life
of Contemplation," and that Seneca corresponded with
Paul — are probably the outcome of a natural tendency
which seeks to bring into relation the famous figures of
a past epoch. Their real justification and Jerome's lies
rather in the indisputable fact of the real and important
influence which these disciples of Plato and the Porch
exercised upon the teaching of the successors of Paul and
Peter. But in Judaism there was no dignity titular or real
for Philo. As philosophy, Greek or Eoman, became gradually
more and more thoroughly enlisted on the side of the
followers of Jesus of Nazareth, it would seem that the cry
went out, "To your tents, Israel." The attempt to
justify the Monotheism of the Old Covenant to the great
Greek world was gradually abandoned. The propaganda
pursued by popular means like the Sibylline Oracles was
dropped. The early Greek translation of the Bible was
replaced by the versions of Aquila, Symmachus and
Theodotion — Jews all, well aware at last of the dangers
of loose renderings. Finally the canon of books to which
appeal lay was definitely restricted and the authority
of " Apocrypha " and " Pseudepigrapha " denied — all the
more easily because it had never been formally recognized.
Judaism would have none of an Hellenism identified

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 79

■with Christianity. Greek language and Greek culture
became as hateful as when they were forced upon the Jews
of Palestine by the ruthless, fruitless efforts of Antiochus
Epiphanes.

If this may be regarded as a fair outline of the tendencies
of the first few centuries of the Christian era, it is obvious
that Judaism had at that time no room for Philo — must
indeed of necessity regard him as a deserter by anticipa-
tion, a traitor to the Law, who had sold the keys of the
stronghold of Monotheism.

For in Philo, as in Seneca, philosophy triumphed over
nationality and national religion, and Philo in his exposition
of the Law on principles of Platonism and Stoicism — fit
fellow thus for Seneca — had offered to the Gentiles the key
of knowledge which was the peculiar possession of the
Scribes. And so Philo stands alone, a pathetic figure in
the history of thought, befriended and adopted only by
the foes of that religion which he loved, which he sought
to commend to the nations, whose sacred books he accepted
with loyal obedience and expounded with tireless devotion.
It was not until a much later period that Jews have in part
reclaimed Philo as their own.

Whatever the Hebrew Jews, in the first Christian cen-
turies, might think of the wisdom of the Greeks, they
could afford to ignore it. But it was far otherwise with
the Jews of the Dispersion. They, the Hellenists, for
their own sake no less than for the sake of possible
converts, made terms with Hellenism. They had the
truth in the written revelation of the Law, and if the
claim of the Gentiles, that in their wisdom was the truth
likewise, were to be upheld at all, then that wisdom could
only be derived from the Law. If demonstration were
needed to back assertion they had recourse to the current
method of allegorical interpretation, by which alone —
failing any theory of evolutionary development — a religion
embodied in a written or traditional deposit could be
reconciled with the advance of thought.

80 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

The method has been employed by the Stoics in the
interests of popular mythology, which became part of the
religion of the Roman Empire. To some extent it was
adopted by the Palestinian Rabbis, but with less depreciation
of the historical truth of the narratives. Their fundamental
principle was typology and their method finds Greek
expression in the Pauline Epistles, and was adopted later
by the Christian school of Antioch who rejected and resisted
the extravagances of the Alexandrians. The Epistle to the
Hebrews, on the other hand, and the Fourth Gospel show
distinct traces of Alexandrian if not definitely Philonic
influence. By this same method Aristobulus had proved
that the Peripatetic philosophy depended upon the Law of
Moses and the other books (Clem. Alex., Strom, v. 14. 97).
Whether the extracts extant under his name (Eus., Prep.
Ev. viii. 10, xiii. 12) are earlier or later than Philo, the
method is the same as his and so is the general position.
His work is described as "an interpretation of the holy
laws " or " expositions of the writing (Scripture) of Moses "
by Eusebius, though he does not, so far as one can
judge from the fragments which remain, comment on the
Pentateuch verse by verse, but rather gives a general
paraphrase of its contents expounding it philosophically.
But it is in the works of Philo that we find the chief
monument of this reconciliation of the old and the new.
He surpasses the philosophers who preceded him by his
systematic industry and the superiority of the material
on which he worked ; those who followed him, Christians
or Platonists, are his disciples.

A systematic digest of the teaching of Philo, taken by
itself, gives no satisfactory idea of the man or his writings.
It is possible to separate the various elements of his eclectic
philosophy — Platonist, Stoic, Pythagorean, and Oriental —
and so to assign him his place in the history of Greek
thought. But his main object is to expound the Law of
Moses : the truth revealed therein is his criterion. Accord-
ingly it seems best to begin by taking some of his tracts

PHILO OP ALEXANDKIA 8l

and presenting them in a summary form, so that our readers
may be able to taste his quality if not his quantity.

Setting aside, then, his historical works we distinguish
on internal evidence two series of expositions of the Law —
(i) theDe Opificio Mwndi followed by Lives of the patriarchs,
and (2) the more formal commentary which takes the
Scripture verse by verse, beginning with Genesis ii, in the
book of The Allegories of the Laws. The first group deals
with general subjects and is probably intended for an
audience less versed in philosophy and philosophical
methods: speaking generally, more stress is laid here on
the literal truth of the Scripture narratives than in the
second group. So we come to Philo himself, premising
only that the Bible he uses is the Septuagint and that he
warns his readers to come with purified minds, freeing
themselves from the allurements of this fleeting world and
the outward shows of things, which hide the naked truth.

The tract On the Creation of the World according to
Moses deals with the account of Creation given in Genesis
i and ii and also the description of man's primitive
innocence and fall as described in Genesis iii. Without
any preface explaining the scope or motives of his work
Philo begins what may well be the first of a series of
homilies on the Law given by and through Moses to The
Nation ; for he regards the account of Creation as just the
preface of the Law. Other lawgivers have been content to
present their commands and prohibitions without any
introduction in the form of a bare code. Others again
have prefixed legendary inventions new or old, hiding over
the truth thereby. But Moses, the true philosopher, anxious
to prepare and mould the minds of those who should use
the laws, begins with the Creation, to show that the universe
and the Law are in perfect harmony and that the law-
abiding man is ipso facto a citizen of the universe,
adjusting his actions to the will of Nature according to
which the whole universe also is ordered.

vol. xvii. a

82 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

This idea that the Law of Moses is identical with the
Law of Nature occurs again and again in Philo's extant
works. He does not attempt to prove the truth of the
identification, but assumes it as a self-evident proposition.
The Law was the supreme example of the direct revelation
of God to men, and if there was any validity in the thought
of the best philosophy of his time, then it must have been
derived somehow from the writings of Moses. Accordingly
he is at pains to show that the great Greek thinkers of the
past who had, each in his turn, contributed something to
its gradual development drew their inspiration from the
Hebrew Scriptures; and what he, the eclectic follower of
Plato, Zeno, and Pythagoras, holds true in the teaching
of his masters in philosophy he finds latent but never-
theless unmistakably expressed by the greatest philosopher
of them all, one of his own race, who was king and prophet
too.

So, then, the life according to Nature which the Stoic
philosopher x preached was after all no more than the life of
the law-abiding Jew. And, if we must needs regard Philo's
axiom as a doubtful proposition, the proof lies plain for us
as for him in the spirit which underlies the letter of
Scripture. The beauty of these thoughts (t&v vornjLdrwv) no
one, poet or orator, could worthily set forth. Yet our
author cannot keep silence, but " for the sake of his love
toward God, will venture to speak even above his power,
nothing indeed of his own, but few for many thoughts such
as a mortal mind possessed with yearning love of wisdom
may reach."

1 According to Stobaeus; Eel ii. 132, Zeno, the founder of the school of
Stoics, taught that the " end " or goal was " to live conformably " (t^ Si
ri\os o iilv 7Apr<av ovrtas a-niSaiut to iiioKoyov/Aevois £r,v), that is, according to
one harmonious scheme (tovto Si iarl uaff 'iva KSyov Kal aificpaivov 0jv) ;
and Cleanthes, his first successor, added the words " to nature." Diogenes
Laertius (vii. 87) makes Zeno the author of the complete phrase, and in
his next chapter ascribes to Chrysippus expressions very near those
employed by Philo here, " Man's end is then, to live in accordance with
nature — that is according to his own and that of the universe."

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 83

Here, again, he is resting upon one of his axioms — the
legitimacy and sufficiency of the allegorical method of
interpretation, whereat, as at the touch of Moses' rod, a living
spring of water is to well forth from the rock of Moses'
Law. But before he can expound in miniature such of
the grand revelations as he can attain, he must denounce
the atheism or polytheism of other (the Greek) philoso-
phers who, wondering at the world rather than its Creator,
have declared that it did not come into being but is eternal.
Not so Moses. He knew that there is always an active
cause and a passive cause. This world is tangible and
visible, apprehended by our senses, and therefore it must
have come into being (avaynaCvs av &r\ kclI yevtjros); for
everything that is apprehended by the senses is in a state
of becoming — coming into being — and of change. Only
the things which are not seen are eternal. The deification
of the universe abolishes Providence, that most profitable
aid to godliness. Well does Moses narrate its Genesis,
refuting by his mere title (i. e. the title of the Greek
version) this false theology. "The active cause is the
Mind of the universe, higher than virtue, than knowledge,
than good itself : the passive cause is lifeless and incapable
of movement of itself, but, moved and fashioned and quick-
ened by the Mind, it changed to that most perfect work k
this present world."

This position was first taken by Anaxagoras, the friend
of Pericles, and thereby he showed himself, as Aristotle
says, " a sober man among random talkers." He affirmed
indeed that the elements of the universe were eternal, but
after correcting this error Philo is content to follow him
completely. " Anaxagoras first (Diog. ii. 6) set mind upon
matter, for he thus begins his work (on Nature) : ' All
things were together, and Mind came and arranged them.' "
And Philo adopts this conception of God in his relation to
the world : throughout his account of the Creation he uses
Anaxagoras' word hiaKocr^eiv, and speaks of Moses as " pos-
sessed by a sober drunkenness." The designation Mind

G %

84 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

suggests to him a powerful argument against atheism, to
which he often has recourse. " Know thyself," he cries to
the ignorant or wilful blasphemer. " See how thy body is
animated and governed by the mind. As in the microcosm,
so in the universe. The Mind which fashioned all things
directs all things. There is — there must be a Mind of the
universe, as a mind in thee, lacking which thou art dead.
There is, there must be Providence — God, in fine."

But Philo the Jew, though he may adopt and employ
habitually such philosophical conceptions of God as "Mind,"
"the Absolute," and so forth, does not rest content there-
with. The God which the Greeks had found out by ceaseless
speculation might be identified with, but could not supplant,
the God whom his nation had come to know from his
dealings with them. Philosopher he is through and through,
but his philosophy rests on a firm foundation of piety, of
faith in, and love toward God, the good Father. " For if
any should wish to track out the cause wherefore the
universe was created, methinks he would not miss the mark
if he said with one of the ancients that the Father and
Maker was good (ayaObv elvai rbv naripa koX Tsoir\Ty]v) ; where-
fore he grudged not his own best nature to Matter that had
no good thing of itself, yet could become all things." The
ancient in question appears to be Plato, but a comparison
with the apparent original shows how Philo has made it
his own. In the Timaeus (29 E) the Platonic Socrates
says : " Let us say for what cause the framer framed genesis
and this universe. He was good, and no good man can
ever feel any grudging ; and being free therefrom he willed
that everything should become as far as possible like him-
self." Plato the Greek personified his first Cause: Philo
the Jew knew God as the Father.

This much of his best-known tract may serve for intro-
duction to the account of the Life of Abraham which comes
next.

The first of the five books in which the sacred laws are

PHILO OP ALEXANDRIA 85

written is entitled Genesis because the account of the
creation of the' world is the most important part of it.
This has been expounded as accurately as may be in the
pi'eceding treatise. Next in order come the laws them-
selves, particular and general. The former Philo postpones
in favour of the latter, which are, so to speak, archetypes of
which the others are copies. But these general laws are
not precepts, but men — they who lived honourably and
without reproach, whose virtues are engraved in the Holy
Scriptures in order to impel (irpoTpixj/aa-dai) and lead the
reader to a like zeal. The patriarchs in fact have come to
be living and reasonable laws. Self-taught, they recognized
and welcomed the ordinances of Nature, and therein found
so good a law that all the particular pi'ecepts which were
later written down are but the memorials of their lives.

Well then, since the beginning of the participation in
good things is Hope, the first lover of hope is called Man,
to show that the hopeless are but beasts in human form
(Gen. iv. 26, v. 1). Enos, the Man par excellence, is fourth
from the first earth-born man, since the number four is
honoured by Moses as holy (Lev. xix. 24) — to say nothing
of other philosophers (Platonists) who have " welcomed the
bodiless ideal essences." To inspire men with good hope
is of course the object of all laws and lawgivers: Enos
was trained in this virtue by the unwritten law of
Nature.

Next after Hope comes Repentance for sin and Amend-
ment : so Enoch, " he who is graced " (Kexapio-^ivos), follows
Enos. For "Enoch pleased God, and was not found, for
God translated him." His translation implies turning
or change, and that for the better, because under God's
providence. Once translated or converted, he is not found.
The wise man loves loneliness and retirement from the
society of the many who delight in the evil which he has
renounced. So he shuts himself up at home, or, if disturbed
by frequent callers goes forth without the city, dwells in
a solitude (h povaypiq), preferring the society of the best of

86 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

all the race of men, whose bodies time has dissolved, but
whose virtues the writings left behind keep alive by poems
and chronicles. So he seeks peace.

Noah, whose name means " Kest " or " Righteous," follows
Enoch, and he calls the seventh day (or Sabbath, as the
Hebrews call it) Rest — not, as some suppose, because after
intervals of six days the people left their usual tasks, but
because the number seven is in us and in the world the
most peaceful of all. In us there are six things which
wage unceasing war, the five senses and the spoken word
(6 Trpo<j)opiKbs hoyos) ; but the seventh power is that of Mind,
which overcomes the others, and retires into solitude to
commune with itself in peace. Such is the dignity of Noah
that in his genealogy no man or woman is set down as his
ancestor, but virtues only ; for the wise man has no home,
country, or kindred, save virtues and virtuous actions
(Gen. vi. 9). He is a man in the true sense of the word,
because he has tamed the bestial lusts of the soul, and is
"righteous." And so he is perfect, not absolutely, but
as compared with his generation, whose sins brought about
the Deluge and their destruction.

These three men or dispositions of the soul present an
harmonious order. The Perfect is whole from the beginning :
the Convertito is half-made (rj/xiejoyos), for he dedicated the
former part of his life to vice, and only the latter to virtue :
the Hoper is lacking, as his name denotes (ek-ntfav : Zkkmris),
ever aiming at virtue, but never attaining it.

So much for the first trinity of men who yearned after
virtue. The second is far greater — Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, men of one house and race — whose names God con-
descended to add to his, that having a refuge for supplica-
tions and entreaties they might not lack good hope. And
this supports the view that, though nominally men, they
are really virtues or powers, which, being incorruptible,
can more reasonably be attached to the name of the
Eternal. All aim at virtue ; the first by learning, the
second by nature, the third by practice : not that any one

PHILO OF ALEXANDEIA 87

is devoid of all three, but that each takes his name from
his pre-eminent quality.

After a short preface dealing with this " trinity " collect-
ively, Philo at last reaches his main subject. Abraham,
zealous for piety, the highest and greatest virtue, strove to
follow God and to obey his commands, not only those
conveyed through voice and writing, but those made
plainer still through Nature. Scripture records many
proofs of this obedience, which must be considered in order.

First of all he was charged by an oracle to leave his
country, kindred and home. What other would have
been so steadfast as to resist their allurements ? Banish-
ment is usually reckoned by lawgivers next to death as
a punishment, and might well be thought even worse than
death, as it entails a thousand deaths and consciousness
of them all. Men leave their homes for many reasons —
some for gain, some on embassy to serve the state, some for
love of new knowledge — yet all long to return home and
often leave their tasks unfinished. But Abraham departed
to Haran (Gen. xii. 5) and thence to another place of which
we shall speak later.

Now according to the letter of Scripture these are the
travels of a wise man, but according to the laws in allegory
those of a virtuous soul in quest of the true God. The
Chaldeans are the great astronomers absorbed in the study
of the visible world. With them and like them the soul
dwells long, but at last opens its eye as from a deep sleep
at the call, " Come out to the smaller city and learn to
know the Overseer of the universe. Come to Haran, that
is the 'caves' which are the symbol of the seats of our
senses. Shall they have an unseen ruler — the mind — and
the world of which all things else are parts have none?"
Then God appears (Gen. xii. 7) : he " was seen," for none
can see or apprehend him unless he show himself. Then
Abram, " lofty father," the astronomer, becomes Abraham
" father of an elect sound " — the wise man free from the
unstable guidance of the senses.

88 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

His second departure is to a desert where he leads
a wandering life (Gen. xii. 9). They who yearn to find out
God love the solitude dear to him, striving first herein to
assimilate themselves to his blessed and happy nature.
Whichever interpretation we adopt here, literal or allegorical,
man and soul are equally venerable.

The greatness of the actions which follow can only be
appreciated by those who have tasted virtue and are wont
to deride what the many admire. In time of famine
Abraham finds that there is corn in Egypt, thanks to the
river, and goes thither with his wife. The officials, seeing
his wife and admiring her beauty, — for nothing escapes
those in high office — tell the king. Finding no escape
from the royal lust she appeals to God ; and he, the
champion of the wronged, sends tortures by which king
and consenting household are racked. Thus was that
marriage preserved unsullied, from which was to spring
"a whole nation — dearest of all to God — which seems to
me to hold the priestly and prophetic office on behalf of all
mankind."

Here the literal truth of the story is so much bound up
with Philo's national pride that he introduces not his own
allegorical interpretation but that of others : — " I have
heard, however, certain philosophers (<pv<riK&v &vbp&v) who
allegorized the passage not amiss." The man, they say,
is the symbol of a good mind; the woman of virtue.
Spiritually the man takes the place of the woman and the
woman of the man in their marriage ; for, apart from the
misleading genders of the names, to those who can see
things as they really are, virtue is masculine, reason
feminine. The king of Egypt is — as always in Philo's own
exegesis — the mind that loves the body. So the deeper
meaning of the story is plain, once the actors are thus
transformed.

The next incident chosen is the visit of the three " men "
to Abraham (Gen. xviii). Hospitality to strangers is an
offshoot {ii&pepyov) of the greater virtue of piety. But the

PHILO OP ALEXANDRIA 89

letter of the narrative is but a symbol of what can only be
comprehended by the mind. The apparition is threefold,
but the object is one — God in the midst of his Creative
and Sovereign Powei-s. True, this is not the vision of God
as he is in himself, and thus it falls short of the highest bliss.
But God, receiving no injury by such imperfect com-
prehension, gladly invites all that are purposed to honour
him, in whatever form. In no-wise does he cast out any
man (jj.t]b4va <TKopa.Ki£eiv a^i&v to ntapaitav). Nay, to those
that can hear he speaks this oracle all but aloud in the
soul : " The first prize shall be given to them that worship
me for myself, the second to them who do so for themselves
in hope of good or freedom from punishment. Though
they hope for benefit from my beneficent Power, or fear my
sovereign Power, their object is still to worship me."

Now all this is clear not merely from the allegorical
treatment of the passage, but from the letter also ; for
Abraham says, "Lord, if I have found grace with thee"
(Gen. xviii. 3), speaking to the three as one. Again, only
two go to destroy the inhabitants of Sodom : the third —
the Absolute God — judges it fitting that, while benefits are
conferred by him immediately, punishment should be
inflicted through the instrumentality of others, that so
he may be accounted a cause of good only and not of evil
directly.

This, then, is the superficial explanation of the story
of Sodom for the many : the secret for the few, who seek
for moods of the soul rather than forms of bodies, shall now
be set forth. The cities of the plain are the five senses :
Segon, the place of refuge, standing for sight, the queen of
the senses, from which spring wisdom and love of wisdom
or philosophy.

The culminating act of Abraham's life is the sacrifice of
his beloved son. After giving a sketch of the incident,
which includes none of the proper names of persons or
places, — an omissioncharacteristic of this group of writings —
Philo proceeds to deal with certain objections. Many have

90 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

been ready to slay their children, it is alleged, to save their
country from plague or defeat, or to serve their religion
(cf. Deut. xii. 31). In India the gymnosophists bum them-
selves when that incurable disease, old age, comes upon
them, and widows join their dead husbands on the pyre.
But all these practices are due to custom, which has been
observed so long as to become a second nature, and are
therefore involuntary and therefore not praiseworthy like
this deed of Abraham. Nor can any other motive be
admitted, such as fear or hope of fame.

But the narrative does not come to an end with the plain
and literal interpretation, but seems to suggest something
which only the few can grasp. "Isaac" is the name of
the son and it signifies "laughter," that is "joy," which is
rightly offered to God as being his peculiar possession.
So Sarah denies that she laughed (Gen. xviii. 15), fearing
lest she should appropriate what belongs only to God. But
she is reassured: God has mixed joy with the sorrow of
men and he has willed that the soul of the wise should
rejoice during the greater part of life and be glad in the
contemplation of the world.

The complement of this piety or love towards God is
love or righteousness towards man ; and this virtue
also is conspicuously exhibited by Abraham in his rela-
tions with Lot and Lot's servants for example. In
fact, throughout his life, Abraham performed the law
and all the commandments of God, instructed not by
writings but by the unwritten law of nature, and eager
to follow its healthy impulses. Such was the life of the
first and captain of the Nation — law-abiding, some will
say, but really, as my homily has shown, itself a law and
unwritten ordinance.

The second group of Philo's works appears to be a series
of homilies, or Midrashim, on the Law, containing his more
advanced teaching. The tract " concerning the descendants
of Cain the wise-in-his-own-conceit and how he becomes

PHILO OP ALEXANDEIA 91

a wanderer" begins with Gen. iv. 16. The commentator
or homilist points out that this verse alone is enough to
prove the legitimacy of allegorical interpretation : — " For if
the Absolute (rd ov) has a face and he that wishes to leave
it behind can easily remove elsewhere, why do we renounce
Epicurean impiety or the godlessness of the Egyptians or
the mythical suppositions of which life is full % " So, to
avoid attributing to God human form, and as a necessary
consequence human passions, we must not take the words
as literally true but turn to the way of allegory. Cain,
then, the selfish, wilfully blinded the eyes of his mind and left
his soul without vision of the Absolute. Worse than Adam
whom God cast out, he forgoes deliberately the quest of
that goal which ever recedes into the distance and evades
the pursuer though he be a Moses or an Abraham. For no
creature can behold God as God is : even mind, the swift-
est of all things, falls infinitely short of apprehending the
great First Cause, though he be touched in respect of the
Creative and Punitive Powers, which are near each one
of us. Yet we congratulate those God-lovers who seek
after rb ov, though they never find ; for the quest of virtue
is of itself sufficient to gladden, though the good be never
attained.

The land to which Cain betakes himself is Naid, that is,
" tossing " or " restlessness," which properly belongs to the
fool (cf. Deut. xxviii. 65 f.). Standing and steadfastness
belong to God and the wise and good, to whom he imparts
his own calm. So Abraham " stood before the Lord " (Gen.
xviii. 22 f.). To Moses God said "Do thou stand here
with me" (Deut. v. 31), and on the other hand (Gen.
xlvi. 4) to Israel " I will go down with thee to Egypt " —
"Thou with me" when standing is in question: "I with
thee" when change of place is concerned — "and I will
bring thee up to the end." Clearly the descent is figurative,
for God fills the universe with himself. "This I do — is
Philo's paraphrase — for pity of the rational nature, that
from the passions of Hades it may be brought up to the

92 THE JEWISH QUAKTEKLY BEVIEW

Olympian place of virtue under my guidance, who have
cut the highway leading to heaven for suppliant souls, that
they might not grow weary with walking, and have shown
it to all."

In considering the famous difficulty " who was the wife
of Cain" (Gen. iv. 17) Philo dismisses the theory that she
was his sister as not merely sacrilegious but false, for
Adam's daughters were born later according to the Scripture
narrative. "What then must be said? The wife of the
impious Reason, as I suppose, is Opinion which he holds
concerning things, just like thousands of the philo-
sophers who have introduced some the same, others
different, dogmas into our life." And the particular opinion
is the maxim of Protagoras, child of Cain's folly, that man
is the measure of all things ; for the child of the union is
Enoch, i. e. " thy grace," and all things on this supposition
are the grace or gift of the mind. But this is to honour
the immediate before the final cause. The strength of the
dogma is shown by the victory over Abel, but "in my
judgment and in that of my friends death with the pious
would be preferable to life with the impious, for them that
die thus will the everlasting life await, but them that live
after that fashion the eternal death."

So much for Cain's son Enoch : but what of the
descendant of Seth (Gen. v. 18) ? Are they identical or
different ? The meaning of the name Enoch may be inter-
preted in two ways. Only some deify their mind as source
of all good things : others attribute their blessings to God's
graces. These, the true nobility, born not of families long
rich but of lovers of virtue, are classed under Seth as chief
of their clan. So with Methuselah and Lamech. Their
double affinity corresponds to the ambiguity of their names
" sending forth death " and " humiliation."

To return to Gen. iv. 17, it is incredible that one man
should by himself build a town. Perhaps, then, since this
is not in accord with the truth, it is better that we should
allegorize and say that Cain resolved to prepare his own

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 93

dogma as if it were a city. Each of the impious is found
to be the framer of such a city — made up of vices — in his
own wretched soul.

The children of Lamech and Ada (" testimony "), Jobel
and Jubal, represent change or declination, the one in mind
or disposition and the other in the spoken word. So the
first is the father of tenders of flocks — those occupied with
the irrational sense-perceptions — and the second of music.
Such declination is forbidden in the law (Num. xx. 17):
the middle way is the royal road which leads to God, the
first and only King of all things, and this way is philosophy.
" It is not the way followed by the present herd of sophists ;
for they, practising the arts -of words against the truth,
have called cleverness (i-tjd iravovpyiav) wisdom, giving a
godly name to an evil thing. It is the way the ancient
band (diacros) of ascetics went — men who renounced the
cajolings of pleasure and engaged themselves nobly and
austerely to the practice of virtue. At any rate this royal
road, which we say is true and genuine philosophy, the Law
calls the word of God (Deut. xxviii. 14)."

Sella is " Shadow," symbol of bodily and external good ;
and her son Thobel " All," for in fact they who have gotten
that double blessing, hymned among the vulgar, " health and
wealth," think that all things, small and great, are added to
them. He is an iron worker, for all quarrels past, present,
and to come are for the sake of woman's beauty, wealth,
glory, honour, dominion, in a word, of bodily pleasures, or
for possession of external things which are proved every one
to be unsure and unsubstantial by time that tries all things.
Sella's daughter is Noeman, " Fatness," the fatness not of
strength but of weakness, which consists in departure
from the honour of God (Deut. xxii. 15), fatness of body
not of soul.

So much for Cain and his progeny. Philo now turns to
consider " the regeneration (ira\iyyei>e<r(a) as it were of the
murdered Abel " in the birth of Seth whose name signifies
" Watering." The interpretation suggests a digression

94 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

which occupies most of the remaining part of the tract
(§§ I 25ff.) dealing chiefly with the stories of Hagar (Gen.
xxi. 19) and Rebecca (Gen. xxiv). In each case water
stands for wisdom, " For whence should the thirsty mind
of knowledge (<ppovrj<re<i>s) be filled save from God's wisdom^
the unfailing spring?" Hagar's child, whose soul has just
begun to aspire after instruction is given to drink from the
wine-skin. Rebecca offers the water-pot itself, saying,
"drink." And thus she shows forth the divine wealth
which is poured forth for all that are worthy and can
use it. She brings down the pot from her shoulder,
accommodating herself to her disciple, like a good teacher
or a good physician, looking not to the greatness of his art
but to the capacity of the patient. " For bestow not what
thou canst, saith right reason, but what the suppliant is
capable of receiving. Or seest thou not that God pro-
claimeth oracles corresponding not to the greatness of his
own perfection but to the power of them that shall be
benefited thereby" (cf. Ex. xx. 19). For the creature is
never without a share of the gracious gifts of God — else
it had been utterly destroyed — but it cannot bear the
much and unstinted force of them. Wherefore, wishing
that we should have profit of that which he offers, he
apportioneth " the gift to the power of the receivers " — unlike
mercenary sophists. And the camels in the story of
Rebecca stand for memory, without which wisdom bestowed
is useless. The fruit of wisdom is virtue ; and though the
way to it be hard yet God has changed toil from bitter to
sweet. Bodily blessings are contemptible : wild beasts
have them in greater perfection than rational men —
though this point needs no amplification since the most
reputed of the ancient sages are agreed that Nature is the
mother of beasts, step-mother of men. Hard is the way of
wisdom and virtue but its end is the sight of God (Deut.
xxxiii. 39 ; cf. Ex. xxxiii. 23) — not, indeed, as he is but as
he manifests himself in his acts — vouchsafed to the eyes
of the mind. " And so the race of men will have use and

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 95

enjoyment of deep peace, taught by the law of nature,
which is virtue, to honour God and hold fast to his service
for this is the spring of happiness and long life " for states
and for individuals alike.

The division between the tracts Concerning Giants and
That the Divine is unchangeable seems hardly warranted,
as the former ends with the words "Having said thus
much- — sufficient for the present at any rate — concerning
the giants, let us turn to the sequel of the narrative. And
it is this." It is not uncommon to find two different
subjects treated in the same tract (cf. e. g. Concerning the
Progeny of Cain, etc.).

The "many men" of Gen. vi. 1 are obviously impious
men, because their children are daughters. The story of
the union of these daughters with the angels of God is not
a myth. Just as the universe is animated (i^/vx&o-Bai)
throughout all its parts, earth, water, fire (especially, it is
reported, in Macedonia) and heaven (with stars), so the air
must be filled with living things, invisible to us like the
element in which they live. What Moses calls angels
other philosophers call demons, souls flying about in the
air. Surely air which gives life to all creatures has a
natural right to a population of its own. Well, then, some
souls have descended into bodies and some of them are
able to resist the current of human life and fly up
again : these are the souls of true philosophers, who from
beginning to end practise dying to bodily life (jSfou) that
they may share the bodiless and incorruptible life (fan/v).
Other souls, again, disdained union with any part of earth,
and these hallowed souls, who are concerned with the
service of the Father, the Creator is wont to use as servants
and ministers for the protection (i-nioTcurlav) of mortals.
These are of course the good angels, angels worthy of the
name. There are bad angels also, of whom the many speak
as bad demons or souls, and it is they who descended to
converse with the daughters of men.

96 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Here Philo is once more in agreement with the Stoics,
who held that the souls of the dead (or of the righteous
dead) existed in the air until the great conflagration in
which the universe was to be consumed, and that there
were also demons sympathetic with men, watchers (ejrojiTav)
of human affairs (Diog. vii. 151, 156, 157). The statement
that the universe is alive (l/on/rux ") and full of demons is
attributed to Thales and Heraclitus. Philo expounds again
his doctrine of demons or angels in de Somn. i. §§ 1 34 ff.
in connexion with Jacob's dream of a ladder reaching from
earth to heaven. The body he regards, with Plato, as a
prison or tomb, and the purest and best souls or spirits are
those which never yearned for earthly life, the proconsuls
of the All-ruler, who correspond to the lesser deities with
whom Plato surrounds the Creator (Tim. 41 A).

But in evil men God's spirit cannot remain permanently
(oi> KdTaiievei, Gen. vi. 3). It remains indeed on occasion
" For who is so devoid of reason or soul as never, willing
or unwilling, of his own will or without, to receive a con-
ception of the Best ? Nay, indeed, even upon the accursed
there alights often of a sudden the appearance of the Good
(tov KaXov), but they cannot appropriate it or keep it with
themselves. For it departs, removing straightway, re-
nouncing the stranger in the land who has forsaken
(exbebiriTrinivovs) law and right, to whom it would never
have come at all save to convict them as having chosen base
things instead of honourable."

Such men are flesh ; and the fleshy nature is the founda-
tion of ignorance. But the Law, in the ordinance against
unlawful unions, commands us to despise the flesh (Lev.
xviii. 6). A man that is truly a man — such an one as one
of the ancients (Diogenes the Cynic) sought with lighted
lantern at noon — will not approach that which belongs to
his flesh. The emphatic repetition of the word man in the
(Greek) text of the passage shows that it is not the ordinary
human being but the virtuous man who is meant (avOpooiros
avOpomos irpos itavra oiniiov <rapnds avrov oi npo<re\ev(reTai).

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 97

They who fail to keep this law degrade themselves, " reveal
their unseemliness " ; and such are the self-styled wise who
sell wisdom and cheapen their wares like cheapjacks in
the market.

The giants who issue from this union are not those of
Greek mythology : " Moses wishes to impress upon you
that some are men of earth, others men of heaven, and
others men of God. The men of earth are the hunters of
bodily pleasures, who practise the use and enjoyment thereof
and provide whatever contributes to each one of them.
The men of heaven are all artists, craftsmen and
scholars ; for the heavenly part of ourselves — the mind —
practises general education, and the other arts, one and
all, sharpening and whetting, exercising and training itself
in the ideal things (rot? votjtoIs). The men of God are
priests and prophets who disdained any state connected
with this world . . . and have emigrated to the ideal world
where they dwell, enrolled in the state of incorruptible and
bodiless ideas." For example, Abram, " lofty father," is a
man of heaven and rises to become Abraham " elect father
of sound," that is a man of God (Gen. xvii. 1). Whereas the
children of earth, like Nebrod (Gen. x. 8), are deserters
degraded from their proper rank to the lifeless and motion-
less nature of flesh, as it is written " they twain shall be
one flesh " (Gen. ii. 24).

So the beginning of the tract headed That the Divine is
unchangeable, is reached with Gen. vi. 4 : " After this, when
the angels of God went in unto the daughters of men, and
they begat (or bare) to themselves." That is to say, after
the departure of God's spirit the comrades of darkness
unite with the passions and bare unto themselves — not to
God like Abraham and Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who
dedicated to God the children which he himself gave
them. Such selfishness is sometimes fatal, as in the case
of Aunan (Gen. xxxviii. 9).

The " wrath of God " (Gen. vi. 5-7) does not, as perhaps

VOL. XVII. H

98 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

some will suppose, imply that the Creator repented that he
had made man when he beheld their impiety. Such a theory
dwarfs the crimes here recorded. For what impiety could
be greater than to suppose that the Unchangeable should
change? And that though some claim that not even all
men waver in their opinions ! For that they who practise
a guileless and pure philosophy win as the greatest good
out of their knowledge that they do not change with
changing circumstances, but with unbending fixity and
steadfast firmness set hand to all their tasks. This quiet,
at which philosophy rightly so called aims, is the property
of God and by him bestowed on the wise (Deut. v. 31,
as before). And rightly, for God is free from all the un-
certainties and changes which are responsible for change of
mind or repentance, as he is lord of time and omniscient.

Happiness was first defined by Democritus as the calm
and stable condition of the soul, which is untroubled by
fear, superstition or any other passion, in his book, -rrepl
evdvixias (Diog. ix. 45 : Seneca de Tranquillitate). Timon,
disciple of Pyrrho the Sceptic, held the same view
(Aristocles apud Eusebium, Prep. Ev. xiv. 18); and it is
generally identified with that school — foapagta being the
fruit of l-noyfi or suspense of judgment — who inherited it
from the physical philosophy of Democritus and handed
it on to Epicurus. But Philo is probably thinking rather
of the Stoic doctrine that what the vulgar reckon as good
things are really abta(popa, things indifferent. For, as he
judged schools of thought chiefly by the conduct of their
scholars, his praise of the philosophers in question as
guileless and pure, points not to Epicureans but to Stoics.

How then are we to understand God's wrath? First
notice that there are four distinct grades in the realm of
Nature — stones and inanimate things, which have habit
(efts); plants and vegetables, which have nature ; animals,
which have soul ; and men, which have rational soul.
Man only has freedom — freewill — and therefore only man
is blameable for his meditated misdeeds, praiseworthy for

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 99

his deliberate right actions. The soul of man alone received
from God freewill, and therein was made most like him;
and therefore, being freed as far as possible from that harsh
and grievous mistress Necessity, must be accused because it
respects not him that freed it. For indeed it will most
rightly pay the penalty incurred by ungrateful freedmen.

But it must not be thought that God (rd 8v) is really
afFected by anger or any passion. For wrath is character-
istic of human weakness, but to God belong neither the
irrational passions of the soul nor the parts and limbs of
the body. None the less, such expressions are used by
the great Lawgiver, in order to lesson those who cannot
otherwise be chastened. For of the laws contained in
the Precepts and Prohibitions which, be it known, are
laws in the proper sense of the word, there are set forth
two most important summary statements concerning the
First Cause — one that God is not like a man (Num. xxiii.
19), and the other that God is like a man (Deut. i. 31).
But the first is guaranteed by certain truth, the second
is introduced with a view to the teaching of the many,
for the sake of instruction or admonition, not because
he is such by nature. In fact the two statements corre-
spond to the two divisions of mankind, men of soul
and men of body. To suppose that God really is like
a man involves the unspeakable mythology of the impious,
who profess to ascribe to God the form of man but in
reality credit him with man's passions. But Moses' one
object is to benefit all his readers, and if the men of body
cannot be schooled by means of truth, let them learn the
falsehoods by means of which they will be benefited. They
need a terrible master to threaten them. And so to these two
doctrines correspond two attitudes of God's worshippers, fear
and love. To them who conceive of the Absolute without
any mortal part or passion, but honour him as he is, be-
longs the love of God, and the fear of God to every other.

But even so the meaning of the words "I was angry
because I made them" is not settled. Perhaps it means

h a

TOO THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

that the wicked are made by the anger of God and the
good by his grace (cf. Gen. vi. 8). And so the passion
anger, rightly predicated of man, is ascribed to God meta-
phorically in order to the explanation of a most necessary
truth, that all that we do for anger, or fear, or grief, or
pleasure, or any other passion, is culpable, and any actions
accompanied by right reason and knowledge praiseworthy.

Noah, then, is preserved when the rest perish. The one
righteous outweighs the many impious. Thus God mingles
"mercy and judgment" (Ps. c. t), showing mercy before
judgment: the cup in his hand is full of a mixture of
unmixed wine (Ps. lxxiv. 9 : oXvov aKpdrov irkrjpes Kepaa-fiaros).
The second quotation leads, as often, to a somewhat lengthy
digression. Philo's point is established by corroborative
evidence from Scripture, but the evidence itself must be
analysed. God's powers represented by the cup of wine
are at once mixed and unmixed ; unmixed so far as he
himself is concerned, mixed so far as they come into
contact with his creatures. Who could bear the unmixed
light of the sun? What mortal could sustain God's know-
ledge and wisdom and righteousness, and each of the other
virtues untempered % Nay, not even the whole heaven and
world could receive them.

But what is the meaning of the text, " Noah found grace
before the Lord God " (Gen. vi. 8). The word " found " may
or may not imply previous possession. The ordinances
relating to the great prayer l (Num. vi. 2 ff.) give a clear
example of the finding of something previously possessed
but lost. GeD. xxvii. 20 and the promises of Deut. vi. 10 f.
represent the second kind of finding, treasure-trove. In
Deut. i. 43 f. the Law gives the contrast to these happy
finders in the persons of those who are compelled to labour
against their will, doubly unhappy because they fail of

1 Prayer is the asking for good things from God ; but a great prayer
consists in considering God in himself as the source of good things,
without the co-operation of any secondary or immediate cause which
appears to bestow the benefit.

PHILO OP ALEXANDRIA IOI

their end and incur shame to boot. Each passage cited is
of course fully expounded in accordance with its symbolical
significance, and then Philo returns to his text. The
obvious explanations are either that he obtained (hvxev)
grace, or was reckoned worthy of grace. But both impute
too high a dignity even for one who never debased the
divine coinage within him, the most sacred mind, by evil
practices. And so it might be better perhaps to adopt the
view that the good man (6 aoreios), having by seeking
gained much knowledge, found this great truth that all
things, earth, water, air, fire, sun, stars, heaven, all animals
and plants are the grace of God. For he pleased not the
Absolute, like Moses (Ex. xxxiii. 17), but his ruling and
beneficent Powers, " Lord " and " God."

To complete the exposition, Philo recalls the story of
Joseph. It is said that he " found grace " (Gen. xxxix. 20 f.),
but with the gaoler, not with God ; and at the touch of
the wand of allegory this patriarch is transformed into the
mind that loved the body and its passions, sold to the
chief cook, banned from the holy assembly by the Law
(Deut. xxiii. 1), and finally cast into the prison of the
passions. The story of his life as a whole is given else-
where, but this episode, taken by itself, is now used as an
awful warning to the reader. Reject such pleasing, soul :
aim with all zeal at pleasing the First Cause. Or if thou
canst not that, become suppliant to his Powers that thou
may be ranked with the generations of " Noah, a righteous
man, perfect in his generation, who blessed God" (Gen.
vi. 9).

One might fittingly inquire why it is said immediately
after this that the earth was corrupted before God, and was
filled with iniquity (Gen. vi. 11). But perhaps it is not
hard to attain a solution if one is not too devoid of culture.
Whenever the incorruptible rises up in the soul the mortal
immediately is corrupted, for the generation of the good is
the death of the evil practices, since when light shines the
darkness vanishes. All which is set forth in the law of

102 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

leprosy (Lev. xiii). For there it is said, contrary to the
general opinion of mankind, that that which is healthy and
living is the source of corruption of that which is diseased
and dead : partial leprosy standing for voluntary, complete
leprosy for involuntary sin. The priest convicts us of our
sin, bids us purge ourselves that he may see the house of
the soul clean, and if there be any diseases therein may heal
them. It was so with the widow who encountered the
prophet (3 Kings xvii. 10 ff.), for she is not widow in the
ordinary literal sense, but one whose mind is widowed
of the passions that hurt the mind, like Thamar (Gen.
xxxviii. 11).

In Gen. vi. 1 % " all flesh " is of course feminine in the
Greek, but the pronoun "his way" is masculine. Some
may think that there is a mistake here, and correct the
inflexion (inwis). But perhaps the way is not that of the
flesh alone but also that of the Eternal and Incorruptible,
the perfect way that leads to God, the goal whereof is
knowledge and understanding of God. This path every
companion of flesh hates, rejects and attempts to corrupt ;
and the earthly, for such is the interpretation of Edom, bar
this royal road to the seers, that is Israel. The way, as was
said before, is wisdom, through which alone suppliant souls
may fly for refuge to the Uncreated. They that go thereby
realize his blessedness and their own worthlessness, like
Abraham (Gen. xviii. 27) ; for they take the mean between
all extremes, good disciples of Aristotle, and so draw near
to God. And as we pass through the enemies' country we
will not touch their water, else must we give them honour (for
Ti/iMj here is " honour " not " price "). For when the wicked
see any of the more austere yielding to the allurements of
pleasure, they rejoice and count themselves honoured, and
begin to philosophize about their own evils as necessary
and profitable. Say then to all such that human affairs have
no real subsistence, they are but lying dreams. Consider
the history of any one man and the history of the world.
Hellas flourished once, but Macedonians robbed it of strength ;

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 103

Macedonia flourished and fell — so was it with Persian and
Parthian, with Egypt, Carthage, and Pontus ; so throughout
the world the divine Logos, which men call Chance, orders
the shifting fates of nations, exalting one and abasing
another, that the whole world like one city may keep that
best of all forms of government, Democracy. Let us have
done then with mortal things and strive to have our inward
judge — our conscience — favourable, as we may if we never
seek to reverse any of his decisions.

The tract On Husbandry deals with the section (Gen.
ix. 20 f.) which introduces the righteous Noah as a
husbandman. The very title shows how Moses always
uses the right word, for yewpyia differs from yijs tpyaa-ia as
implying skill and care for the ground worked. And from
the consideration of the culture of the ground we are
naturally led on to consider the culture of the soul. Just
as all cultivated plants and trees bear yearly fruit for the
service of man, so in the soul will the mind, which is the
man in each one of us, reap fruit of the nurture supplied —
general education, corresponding to the child's milk or
advanced instruction corresponding to the bread of the
man. All trees of folly and wickedness must be torn up,
roots and all. Such as bear fruit, neither profitable nor
harmful, must be used as bulwarks (Deut. xx. ao). For
philosophy has been compared to a field by the ancients ;
physical philosophy stands for the plants and trees, ethical
for their fruits for whose sake they exist, and logical for
the fence which guards them. So the plants sown by
the agriculturist of the soul are first the practice of reading
and writing readily, the exact investigation of the teaching
of wise poets, geometry, rhetoric — in fact, all general educa-
tion ; and then the better and more perfect studies, the tree
of understanding, of courage, of soberness, of righteousness,
and of every virtue. Accordingly Moses ascribes to the
righteous Noah the art of agriculture, and to Cain the
working of the ground, unskilled and burdensome.

104 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

These two terms then appear synonymous, but once we
allegorize according to the mind of Scripture we find they
are very different. So also is it with the terms " shepherd "
(iroiixriv) and "tender of flocks" (ktt]votp6<j>os). Both are
applied to the reason, but the first to the good, the second
to the bad. The soul of each one of us puts forth two
shoots, which are the flocks of our nature : the one undi-
vided, whole throughout, is called mind ; the other splits
into seven natures, the five senses and the powers of
speaking and generation. If then a man declare him-
self his own master, he brings a multitude of evils upon
these nurslings of his. Those then who provide them
with all the nourishment they ask must be called tenders
of flocks; and those who give them enough and no
more, circumcising and cutting off excessive and useless
profusion, are shepherds. Hence the honour paid to the
art of shepherds, practised by Moses for example, in the
poets and in Scripture. The Lord's congregation shall not
be like sheep which have no shepherd (Num. xxvii. 17).
For lack of a shepherd leads to mob-rule (Ochlocracy), that
counterfeit of goodly Democracy, just as does the sway of
a tyrannical or of an over-lenient governor. And the shep-
herd is God, who puts forth his right Reason and first-born
Son to take over the care of this holy flock, the universe,
like a satrap of the great king (Exod. xxiii. 20). Let
the whole world then, no less than the individual, say,
" The Lord is my shepherd " (Ps. xxii. 1). Such disciples
of God laugh at the tending of flocks, and have worked out
the skill of shepherds, as may be seen in the story of
Joseph and his brethren. Joseph — he that is ever occupied
with the body and vain opinions — the ever-youthful, bids
the lovers of virtue avow themselves tenders of flocks to
Pharaoh, the king of the land of passions (Gen. xlvi. 33 f.) ;

1 A companion work to that On Vine-dressing (irepl $v\ovpy(as) which
follows, beginning iv iiiv rip vporipco 0t0\iw to irepl •yjiapyucys t«x>"?s
yevtKrjs 8<ra iccupbs qv tiiro/iev iv Si toutji irtpl t§j #<jt' ttdos dfnrtXovpytKrjs e&s
&v olov t« yv airofiua'ofiov.

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA I05

but they, true to themselves and their fathers, say : " We
are shepherds, come to sojourn,not to settle " (Gen.xlvii. 3 f.).
For in truth every wise man's soul holds heaven for father-
land, earth for a strange country.

Here again the allegorical method has led Philo to reverse
the ordinary estimate of Joseph and his brethren. But
the new view only holds good when applied to detached
incidents, and in the tract de Josepho, which deals with the
whole story, Joseph comes by his own again.

Another pair of so-called synonyms is " horseman " and
" rider." The horseman is skilled in guiding and controlling
his steed, while the rider is unable even to hold the reins
and is thrown after a wild and random career. " Horses,"
of course, stand for lust and anger (e. g. in the irpoTpenTLKa.
of Moses, Deut. xx. 1), against which God, by his army of
the virtues, defends the souls that love him. And after
the victory the song of thanksgiving is sung (Exod. xv,
especially verses 1, 30). No horseman, Moses says in the
admonitions (reus itapaivecrwiv), is to rule over Israel (Deut.
xvii. 15 f.). It is not unnatural therefore that he should
pray for the complete destruction of the horsemen (Exod. xv),
and the prayer is given in Gen. xlix. iyf., which needs
explanation. Dan, "judgment," is the faculty of the soul
which examines, investigates, discerns, and, in a way,
judges each action, and is therefore likened to the serpent,
not the friend and counsellor of Life (which is called Eve
in the language of the Fathers), but the Brazen Serpent.
The two stories referred to may appear mythical, but in
the allegorical explanations (h rdis hi virovot&v diroSo'awi)
the mythical element is entirely removed, and the truth
found plain. Eve's serpent is pleasure, unable to rise,
which bites man's heel. Moses' is endurance, the opposite
of pleasure, which bites the horse's heel. The prophecy
that " the horseman shall fall " leads to the reflexion that
he who is mounted on and carried away by any passion
is happiest in falling, that he may rise to virtue. Such
defeat is better than victory. And so Philo comes to

106 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

consider the sacred games of Greece. Surely they are
not really sacred if the prize be awarded for pitiless
brutality, which the laws condemn. So then that Olympic
contest alone may lawfully be styled sacred — not that
which the men of Elis hold — but the contest for pos-
session of the divine and truly Olympian virtues, for
which they who are weakest in body but strongest in soul
are all entered.

So much then for these pairs of words. It is time to
turn to the rest of the text. "Noah began to be an
husbandman." The beginning, according to the ancient
proverb, is half of the whole, but, if the rest be wanting,
it is harmful. So it was in the case of Cain (Gen. iv. 7).
His honour of God is right, but not his lack of discernment.
And there are some like him who make piety consist in the
assertion that all things are made by God, whether they be
good or not. It is absurd that priests and offerings should
be examined for blemishes before coming to the altar, and
yet the opinions about God in each man's soul be left in
confusion. Seest thou not that the camel is an unclean
beast, because it chews the cud, but does not divide the
hoof (Lev. xi. 4) ? The reason alleged has nothing to do
with the literal interpretation, everything to do with the
allegorical interpretation. Rumination stands for memory,
and memory must discriminate. Both memory and dis-
crimination are necessary to any real progress.

Daily the herd of sophists tickles the ears of their hearers
with endless discriminations and divisions, and grammarians,
musicians and philosophers follow suit. Yet neither they
nor their hearers are bettered. Rightly are such compared
to swine, unclean because they divide the hoof, but do not
chew the cud (Lev. xi. 7). But from their wordy warfare
all who have made a beginning or progress, or attained
perfection, are exempt, for the Law thinks it right that
a man should be trained not merely in the acquisition
of good things, but also in the enjoyment of what he
has acquired (Deut. xx. 5-7). Descend not then into the

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 107

arena lest another receive the virtues typified by house,
vineyard, wife. Enter then the new house — culture that
never grows old — crown not thyself rather than God ; slay
not thus thy soul, but remember God that giveth thee
strength to do power (Deut. xxii. 8 ; viii. 1 8).

So much of Noah, who gained the first elements of the
art of husbandry and then fell weak. What is said of his
vine-dressing let us speak on another occasion.

The book On Noah's Vine-dressing fulfils the promise
made at the end of "the former book,'" On Noah's Husbandry.
Philo turns from the general to the particular, from the
genus to the species, and takes up the greater part of this
sequel with preliminary discussions. Noah's vine-planting,
a species of husbandry, is not reached till § 1 39, where the
previous sections are described as dealing with (1) the
oldest and most holy husbandry which God (to oLtiov)
employs in relation to the world; (2) that of the good
man ; (3) the ramifications of the number four.

The greatest of planters (QvTovpy&v) and the most perfect
in his art is the Lord of the universe ; and the plant which
contains in itself the individual plants is this world, whose
sure prop is the eternal Word of the everlasting God.
Of these plants some possess motion (and these we call
animals), some do not. Each and all have their own order
and their own sphere. Greatest of all is man, whose eyes
alone are so placed that he can behold the heaven ; so that
he is, as the old saw says, not an earthly but a heavenly
plant. By some our mind is said to be a part of the
aetherial nature, but Moses cannot compare the rational
soul to any other created thing, only to the Creator himself.
As our bodily eyes can run up to the far-off heaven, so
the eyes of the soul pass the boundaries of the whole
universe and press on to the Uncreated. For this reason
they that pass their lives never satiated with wisdom and
understanding, are said in the oracles to be " called up " ;
for it is right that they should be called upwards to the

108 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Divine who have been inspired by him (cf. Gen. ii. 7).
And as with the great so is it with the little world— man.
In him God plants trees, his members and the faculties of
body and mind.

The planting of Paradise is consonant with what has
been said. The story obviously cannot be taken literally.
To take one point only — for whose benefit is the garden
planted? Not for God's benefit, for the Cause cannot be
contained in that which is caused. Nor for man's, since
no man is introduced into it at first. So, then, we must
have recourse to allegory, which is dear to men capable
of seeing. Indeed, the oracles clearly offer suggestions
pointing thereto. The trees of life, knowledge, and so
forth, are of no earthly growth, but must be virtues and
virtuous actions, plants of the rational soul which revels 1
in God alone. No beasts are introduced into Paradise, as
into the Ark : the Ark is the symbol of the body, Paradise
of the virtues which welcome nothing untamed or irrational.
The man who enters is not he who was fashioned after
the image, but he who was created ; for the other, the ideal
man, does not differ from the tree which bears immortal
life. And the man, or mind, proves earthly and is banished.
Wherefore Moses, in pity, prays that the clear-sighted may
be restored (Ex. xv. 1 7 f.) to the hill of God's inheritance,
whether that be the universe in which they may live in
accordance with nature, the sumrnum bonum which they may
use and enjoy, or the company of wise souls (Deut. xxxii.
7-9), who are united by virtue, while the children of earth —
the sons of Adam — are scattered. Indeed, not only are such
souls the portion of God, but God is also — so Moses dares
to say — their portion (Deut. x. 9 ; Num. xviii. 30), the
inheritance of the mind which is perfectly purged and,
renouncing (aTroyivaxTKoov) all created things, knows only
the One Uncreated, to whom it has come, by whom it has
also been received (v(j)' ov nal Trpoo-etArjTrrai). Such, Levites

1 Edom means "revelling," or "luxury" (cf. Ps. xxxvi. 4).

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA I09

indeed, are like the ancient philosopher who looked on a
gorgeous procession and said, "See how many things
there are which I do not need" — so was he enamoured
of the beauty of wisdom. It is true that some who
counterfeit (t&v iiniAop<f>a(6vTa>v) piety say that such a claim
is neither holy nor safe, but this is due to their ignorance.
Levites possess God just as a painter the art of painting ;
the possessor is not the master but the beneficiary of his
possession.

Abraham is the next planter (Gen. xxi. 33), and with his
" field " must be connected the well in which no water
was found (Gen. xxvi. 32 f.). The well symbolizes the
search after wisdom which is never satisfied: so one of
the ancients (Socrates) said that his wisdom consisted in
the fact that he alone knew that he knew nothing. The
" name of the Lord God everlasting " (Gen. xxi. 33) refers
to the two Powers of God, sovereign and beneficent
respectively, as in Jacob's prayer (Gen. xxviii. 21).

But not only the wise, but we also who are not yet
perfected, are commanded by the Law to learn agriculture
(Lev. xix. 2,3-25), and to prune or purge our trees. For
example, sacrificial worship is a goodly plant, but its off-
shoot is superstition. Piety does not, as some suppose,
consist in the sacrifice itself apart from the mind of the
worshipper. God's court of justice is not to be bribed.
The guilty, though they offer a hundred oxen every day,
are rejected ; the innocent, though they make no offering,
are accepted. The reference to the purging of the fruit
is obviously allegorical, and the mention of the fourth
year depends, as in the account of the Creation (Gen. i. 14),
upon the mystical significance of the number four. The
duty of thanksgiving here inculcated is to be discharged, not
by offerings but by hymns, and those not vocal but mental.
To illustrate this, Philo quotes the myth of Mnemosyne
as an " old story discovered by wise men, handed down
by memory from one generation to another, which has
not escaped our ears ever greedy of instruction." The

IIO THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

story is that when the Creator had completed the universe
he asked one of his underlings (virotyriT&v) if any thing
were lacking. He answered, only speech to praise it
all. The All-Father praised the answer, and soon there
sprang up the race of musicians and singers from one of
his Powers, a maiden Mneme (memory) or Mnemosyne.
Accordingly, we say that as the peculiar work of God
is beneficence so that of his creation is thanksgiving.
This let us practise in poems and encomia, that the Creator
and the world may both be honoured — " the one (as some
one said) the best of Causes, the other the most perfect
of created things."

Returning to the text (Gen. ix. 30 f.), it is obviously
necessary to discuss intoxication (ixidrj) and the favourite
problem of the philosophers, " Should the wise man be in-
toxicated." Now there are two intoxications, one the being
drunk with wine (olvov<rdcu) , the other the raving in wine
(Krjpdv iv olvio). Of those who have handled the question
some say that the wise man should not be intoxicated in
either sense; others that the first kind befitted and the
second did not befit the good man l . The arguments which
support the latter position start from a consideration of
homonyms and synonyms, the first being words each
denoting a number of objects, the second groups of words
each denoting the same object. Well, then, \xedv is merely
an ancient poetical synonym of dtvos ; therefore to be
intoxicated is nothing more than to be drunk with wine ;
therefore the wise man will, like Noah, be intoxicated.
Again, the enjoyment and use of wine in ancient times
was far different from what we see to-day. The men of
old first prayed, offered sacrifice, cleansed body and soul,
and then joyfully held their revels in the temples where
they had worshipped. Hence, some suppose the word
fit$Tuei.v to be dei'ived from /xercfc &veiv, "after sacrifice."

1 So the Stoics taught that the wise man should he drunk with wine
(olvaS^crtaBai) but not intoxicated (pe0v0&fi0c<r$ai), according to Diogenes
Laertius (vii. § 118).

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA III

A third argument is likewise based upon (a different)
etymology, which explains the word as the equivalent of
IxiOt-cris, i.e. "relaxation" of soul. And truly, wisdom is
not austere and downcast, but joyful. According to the
divine Moses its end is sport and laughter ; so Laughter
(Isaac) sports with Patience (Kebecca), and is seen by no
vulgar eye but only the king's (Gen. xxvi. 8). So wine, like
wealth and fame, makes the good better, the evil worse,
and the good man will be intoxicated without losing aught
of his virtue.

If, as in a law court, we must employ not merely
technical pleas but points of substance — the evidence of
witnesses, for example — we will put forward many well-
reputed sons of physicians and philosophers who in speech
and in their writings plainly regard intoxication as being
simply drunk with wine — which is no bad thing for a wise
man in season, if he carry it not so far that he cannot keep
a secret.

So far, then, Philo agrees with the Stoics in the matter,
but reserves for the next treatise the teaching of Moses.
The end of the tract is surely unique in a sermon (if such
it be), for he calls upon those who hold the opposite view
to state their case that judgment may not go by default.
"No one," he says, "contending by himself is proclaimed
victor, but if he so contend he will appear to be fighting
shadows."

In the de Plantatione Philo gives, so far as possible, the
sayings of the other philosophers concerning intoxication,
and now turns to consider the opinion of Moses. In the Law
some are commanded to drink, others forbidden (e.g. the
priests, Lev. x. 9) ; others again sometimes forbidden and
sometimes commanded (Num. vi. 2 ff.). Moses, in fact,
takes a more serious view of wine than the philosophers :
to him it is the symbol of insensibility (avata-drja-ia) and
lack of education (aircubevcria), which produce the same
disastrous results. This symbolism is clear in Deut. xxi.

112 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

1 8-21, where four charges are brought against the sinner : —
disobedience, provocation, contribution to feasts, and in-
toxication. The first is, so to speak, the passive form of
the second : the third, though praiseworthy if directed to
a good object, is vitiated by folly : the fourth is the
inflammation of boorishness or lack of education which
ever burns the soul. The punishment pronounced upon the
offender is that he should be expelled from yourselves
(Deut. xxi. 21), for these guilty thoughts are within us.
" Father " and " mother " may be explained either as the
Creator and his Understanding (Prov. viii. 22), whose only
and beloved son is the universe, or — better here — of right
reason and general education.

Having thus reached an interpretation of the parents in
question, Philo proceeds to discuss the four classes of their
children : those who obey both or neither, and those who
obey father or mother. Of the last class the plainest type
is Jethro, " creation of confusion " (irAaa^a vl>(j>ov), who will
go only to his own land of false doctrine and unbelief (Ex.
xviii. 1 6 ; Num. x. 29 f.), and convicts himself of impiety
even in his pious professions (Ex. xviii. 11), by comparing
God with false gods. Laban is such another, who substi-
tutes human laws for the laws of nature when he refuses
to give his younger daughter first in marriage (Gen. xxix.
26). But the athlete of wisdom (<5 <nx/>£as &<tkyitj]s) knows
that natures are independent of time ; and, to take the
passage in its ethical sense, all such must first consort with
the younger education, that they may hereafter attain to
an undisturbed enjoyment of the more perfect and mature.
Yet how amazing it is that we cannot rise out of the clutch
of phenomenal good things! Once there come any hope,
however faint, of wealth or fame, we yield and cannot
resist. Womanish custom (for Rachel speaks "of the
custom of women," Gen. xxxi. 35) prevails, and we cannot
wash it out and run to the home of men, like Sarah
(Gen. xviii. 14) when she was about to bear Isaac, the
self-taught; for to men belongs the following of nature

PHILO OP ALEXANDRIA 113

instead of custom. But though we are still the prey of
our senses and passions, we shall have an ally, none the
less, in our mother, middle education, who records what is
considered just in every city, and lays down the law thus
for this people and thus for that.

Some there are who can obey the behests of their father,
and their reward is the priesthood. "And if we narrate
the course of action in which they won this privilege wes
shall be mocked, perhaps, by many who are deceived by
superficial appearances and do not descry the unseen and
overshadowed powers." These priests were murderers,
fratricides (Exod. xxxii. 37 ff.). Yes, but Scripture does
not say murderers of men. Their victims are the affections
of the flesh, the band of the senses and speech (<5 Karct
TTpoQopav hoyos), which is nearest of all to the' mind. Such
are they who honour their father and all that is his, but
think little of their mother and all that is hers.

Those who are at war with both parents are like him
who said, " I know not the Lord, and Israel I send not
away" (Exod. v. a). They are not yet extinct but exist
to plague mankind, impious as regards God, untrustworthy
as regards their fellows.

Those who obey both are good keepers of the laws which
their father, right reason, laid down, and faithful stewards
of the customs which education, their mother, introduced.
They were taught by the one to honour the Father of the
universe, and by the other not to despise that which is
universally considered justice (dea-et not <pv<rei). And so
Jacob becomes Israel. The learner attains perfection, com-
plete insight and wisdom. And as the art of Pheidias
is stamped unmistakably on all his works, whatever the
material — brass, ivory, gold, what not — so the true form
(eiSos) of wisdom, the art of arts, remains unchangeable on
whatever material it be impressed.

So much, then, for the children of this pair. Rightly is
the disobedient, provocative, prodigal drunkard expelled
as a worshipper of the golden calf (Exod. xxxii. 17-19).

VOL. XVII. 1

114 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Scripture allegorizes bodily life and calls it the camp
wherein is war. Far off will the wise man pitch his tent,
removing to the divine peaceful life of rational and happy
souls (Exod. xxxiii. 7).

" When I go forth from the city, then will I stretch out
my hands unto the Lord, and the voices shall cease " (Exod.
ix. 29). No man said that, but the mind which, contained
in the city of the body and mortal life, is cribbed, cabined
and confined as in a prison. With Abraham (Gen. xiv. %% f.),
he that has seen the Absolute recognizes no secondary
cause. All good things come from God, not from the im-
mediate sources through which we derive them. The voice
of war is the voice of men who make a beginning of wine
((fxavrjv i£apxovTwv olvov) ; those who wilfully take the way
that leads to lack of education and folly. Pray then that
this may never happen to thee, and so, when thy prayers
are fulfilled, thou shalt be no longer a layman (26«£rijs) but
a priest.

For only to priests and worshippers of God belong sober
sacrifices (Lev. x. 8-10). Aaron, " the mountainous," is
the reason that minds high and lofty things and renounces
wine and every drug of folly, including wine. The literal
sense of the passage is wonderful enough: it is only
reverent that one should come to prayers and sacrifices
sober and self-possessed. If, however, we suppose that
neither the tabernacle nor the altar is the visible thing
fashioned out of lifeless and corruptible matter, but the
unseen, intellectual object of speculation (Oedprma), of which
this is the perceptible image, then he will marvel the more
at the command. The tabernacle is the symbol of bodiless
virtue, the altar that of an image perceptible though it
never be perceived, just as a log sunk in mid- Atlantic is
never burned, though meant for burning. The form of
words and expression shows that the writer is not con-
veying a command merely, but setting forth a meaning
(yvdnriv a-no^awo^vos). For he says, "ye shall not drink,"
and such an one " will not die." It is an eternal ordinance

PHILO OP ALEXANDRIA I15

that education is a healthful and a saving thing, and the
lack of it the cause of disease and death.

Similarly, Samuel will never drink wine or strong drink
(1 Kings i. 11), for he has been ranked — as his name
denotes — in the ranks of the divine camp. Perhaps he
lived as a man, but he has been conceived of not as a
composite living thing of flesh and blood, but as a mind
rejoicing only in the service and worship of God. His
mother Hannah was accused of drunkenness (1 Kings
i. 14), for in those inspired by God (nns 0eo<£op)jrois) not
only is the soul raised but the body is flushed and inflamed
by inward joy. Great is the boldness of the soul that is
filled with the graces of God. This then is the band (x°P°'s)
of the sober, who make education their leader ; the other
that of drunkards, whose leader (efjapxos) is boorishness
(aTOi8ev<r£a).

The other sense which "wine" bears in Scripture is
insensibility or ignorance, the insensibility of the soul,
the opposite of which is skill or knowledge (cViodj/at)),
which is, so to speak, the soul's eyes and ears. There are
two kinds of ignorance, the one simple, i.e. complete
insensibility, the other double when one is not only
possessed by lack of knowledge but imagines he knows
what he does not know, being uplifted by a false opinion
of wisdom. Of these the second is the greater evil, as it
produces wilful wrongdoing. So Lot has two daughters,
Counsel and Consent, by his wife Convention, who was
turned to stone (\iQovnivr)s) ; and they lead him completely
astray. But as a matter of fact the senses are not sure
guides. Many of the objects of sense are continuously
varying. Among animals the chameleon and the polypus
change colour with their environment; the dove's neck
changes its hues in the sun's rays ; and the reindeer is
hard to hunt, not so much on account of its strength as
because it adopts a protective colouring suited to any
surroundings. The same variation is found among men.
Often at a theatre I have seen some of the audience so

1 a

Il6 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

carried away by the performance as to rise involuntarily
and applaud, others as unmoved as the benches on which
they sit, and others so alienated as to get up and go, hands
over ears.

The refraction of water and the deceptiveness of a
distant view all point in the same direction. Indeed we
can never perceive any sensible object as it is, but always
in relation to something else. Nothing at all in the world
is known save by comparison with its opposite. All sense-
perception is a complex process and therefore uncertain,
and even judgments of right and wrong depend upon
early education in the case of most men. The multitude
believes what was once delivered to it, and, having left its
mind untrained, affirms and denies without independent
examination. The philosophers, on the other hand, who
test and examine all questions, logical, ethical and physical,
cannot agree in their answers. So reserve of judgment is
the safest course.

The de Sobrietate naturally follows the de Ebrietate
(though the latter is perhaps imperfect, lacking as it does
any full exposition of the nakedness of Noah), and the
discourse deals with Gen. ix. 34-37. Philo has little to
say about sobriety, but that nothing can be better than
a sober intellect, nothing so valuable as the clear insight
of the soul which it brings. This done, he turns to the
text and fastens on "the younger son," which is proved
from Scripture parallels to refer not to age but to maturity
of mind. Ishmael, the sophist, though a youth, is called
a child in comparison with Isaac the philosopher (Gen. xxi.
14-16). The whole people Scripture calls children (Deut.
xxxii. 4-6) when they behave as such. Kachel, who
stands for bodily beauty, is younger than Leah the beauty
of the soul. Joseph is always young or younger (Gen.
xxxvii. 2 ; xlix. 22). Similarly, elder is first applied to the
wise Abraham, the shortest-lived of all the patriarchs
(Gen. xxiv. 1). The seventy colleagues of Moses are elders

PH1L0 OF ALEXANDRIA H7

whom the wise man knows (Num. xi. 16). The significance
of these terms is clearly set forth, for those who are skilled
to hear, in one commandment of the Law, viz. that relating
to the children of the beloved and hated wives (Deut. xxi.
1 5- 1 7). The beloved wife is the symbol of pleasure, her child
the pleasure-loving temper ; the hated wife is the symbol of
understanding, and her child the love of virtue. The first
is always a child, the second an elder from his cradle.
Accordingly Esau, the elder in point of age, resigns his birth-
right to Jacob; and Ephraim, who is " Fruitfulness," i.e.
Memory, is preferred before Manasseh, who is Forgetfulness.

But why does Noah curse the child of the offender and
not the offender himself (Gen. ix. 35)? Wherein did
Canaan sin % Well, those who are accustomed to elaborate
the literal and superficial meanings contained in the laws
have considered them by themselves perhaps, but let us
obey the suggestions of right reason and interpret the
underlying meaning. Ham means "hot," Canaan "com-
motion." Both are evil, the one quiescent, the other
in motion. Rightly then is Canaan the son of Ham, and
rightly is Canaan cursed. For being moved to sin Ham
himself becomes Canaan. So is the law that the sins
of the fathers are visited on the children (Ex. xx. 5)
justified ; the results, or children, of reasonings are punished,
while they, if no culpable action be laid at their door,
escape accusation.

Shem is, as has been said before, the eponymous good
kind of man, and God is his God. He who, like Shem and
Abraham (Gen. xviii. 7), has God as his portion (K\.fjpop)
has passed beyond the bounds of human happiness.

With regard to the blessing of Japheth, we are not clearly
told who is to dwell in the tents of Shem. It is possible to
understand that it is the Lord of the universe. What more
fitting home could be found for God than a soul perfectly
cleansed, counting virtue (rb kclXov) the only good? Of course
he will dwell there not as in a place — contained therein —
but as bestowing special forethought and attention upon

Il8 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

it, like every master of a house. But perhaps the whole
prayer refers to Japheth, that he may reckon all worldly
goods at their true rate and seek only those of the soul.

The de Confusione Linguarum opens thus: "As far as
these things are concerned what has been said will suffice "
— probably referring to the group of homilies relating to
Noah — "next we must consider, and not casually (ov
irapipycos), the philosophy of the narrative of the confusion
of languages " (Gen. xi. 1-9). And now Philo explains the
position of the antagonists, hinted at in the beginning of
the de Gigantibus. Certain Jews, presumably Hellenists,
disgusted with the ancestral polity, always grumbling and
carping at the laws, use tins and other such passages as
stepping-stones for their atheism, impious that they are.
They say "Do you still make solemn professions about
your code as containing the canons of truth itself? See,
your holy books contain myths such as you deride, when
you hear others reciting them." Well, we have not their
leisure to search out these scattered myths, and will be
content to deal with the passage in hand.

The first parable is the myth of the Aloeidae, who piled
Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa. But notice
Moses speak of a tower. The second is a myth, akin to
that before us, relating to the common speech of living
things recorded by fabricators of myths. It is said that
in ancient times all living things, animals, fishes, and
birds, had a common speech, so that they could sympathize
with each other's sorrows and joys, as now Greek with
Greek and barbarian with barbarian. Then, sated with
their unstinted supply of blessings, as often happens, they
all turned to longing for the unattainable and treated for
immortality, asking for destruction of old age and for
perpetual youth, alleging that one of their number, the
serpent, had already obtained this gift. But they paid
the fitting penalty for their presumption; for their one
common language was immediately cut up into different

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA 119

languages, so that they could not understand one another.
Here again a discrepancy is to be noted, for Moses speaks
only of men as having the same speech. It is said that
the scriptural account is as mythical as the parables cited,
and that the division or confusion of tongues was a cure for
sins, intended to prevent men from conspiring together to
do evil. But the latter theory is untenable. If wicked
men wish to conspire they will not be stopped by the
difference of their languages. They can always communi-
cate, like men whose tongues have been cut out, by means
of signs. Again, if a man learn many languages, he is
always held in good repute among those who understand
them, and regarded at once as a friend. In fact, the literal
interpreters of the Law alone will refute these students
of comparative mythology, without opposing sophistry to
sophistry.

Well then, we understand this scripture to refer to the
universality of evil both in the world and in the individual.
Heaviest of all evils, and wellnigh incurable, is the co-
operation of all parts of the soul in sin, when no one part
is able to heal the rest, but physicians and patients are
sick together, as at the time of the Deluge (Gen. iv. 5-7).
We must flee all associations for purposes of sin, and
confirm our agreement with companions of understanding
and knowledge.

In this connexion the saying, " we are all sons of one
man, we are peaceable" (Gen. xlii. 11), is introduced as an
example of perfect harmony, and leads to a consideration
of its origin and its complement. Inevitably will they
love peace and hate war whose one and the same father
is not mortal but immortal, God's man, who being the
Logos of the Eternal is of necessity himself also incorrupt-
ible. Their life is peaceful, while the polytheist's is full
of strife, and yet not, as some think, lazy and ignoble.
Men of peace are men of war when opposed to the enemies
of the soul's peace. Such is the disposition of each lover
of virtue, and the words of the inspired prophet bear the

120 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

same testimony: "O mother, what manner of child am
I ? a man of war " (Jer. xv. 10).

" The East," or " Dawn " (Gen. xi. a), bears two meanings
in Scripture, according as it refers to the dawning of light
or of shadow in the soul. It is used in the good sense in
the account of Paradise (Gen. ii. 8). So in the oracle
of one of Moses' companions (Zech. vi. 12), "Behold a man
whose name is Dawn or ' Rising ' ." A most novel title this,
if you suppose that a man composed of body and soul
is spoken of; but if it be that bodiless man who is identical
with the divine image you will confess that the title is
most happy (evdvfiok&TaTov). For him hath the Father
of the universe raised up to be his oldest or first-begotten
Son. " East " occurs in a bad sense in the story of Balak
the fool and Balaam (Num. xxiii. 76 f.).

It is notable that these fools " find " the place most fitted
for their folly, and " settle " there. Both points are signi-
ficant. No wicked man is content with the crimes towards
which his evil nature proceeds of itself, but invents fresh
ones and therein abides. Therefore are all they whom
Moses reckons wise introduced as sojourners, who reckon
heaven their fatherland. Thence were they sent as colonists
and thither they yearn to return (Gen. xxvi. 2, xxxiii. 4,
xlvii. 9 ; Exod. ii. 22).

The mention of " bricks " (Gen. xi. 3) naturally suggests
the bondage of Israel, in which the Egyptians compelled
them to make bricks and to build fenced cities. The eye
of the soul which alone can see God, bound in the bodily
nets of Egypt, groans over its task (Exod. i. 11, ii. 23).
But the way to freedom is sure. For all men labouring
for gain, or fame, or pleasure there is ransom and salvation
in the worship of him who alone is wise (Exod. viii. 1).
Right is it for them that keep company with knowledge to
aspire to see the Absolute and, if that they cannot, then at
least his likeness, the most holy Word, and after him the
world, the most perfect of sensible things ; for philosophy
is nothing else than to study to see these distinctly.

PHILO OF ALEXANDEIA 121

The Lawgiver uses "city" not only in the ordinary
sense but also of that which a man carries about, built in
his own soul, whereof those built on earth of material
substances are but copies. How evil their city is, how
shameless the exposure of their guilt, is shown by the
warning of their conscience which foresees their impending
dispersion (Gen. xi. 4). Their tower is like that recorded
in the Book of Judgments, Phanuel, that is, " Aversion of
God " (Judg. viii. 9).

The statement that " the Lord came down to see the city
and the tower" (Gen. xi. 5) must certainly be understood
metaphorically. To suppose that the Divine should really
share the positions and motions of men is monstrous
impiety (virepmKedvios Kal ixeraKOfffxios a>$ eiros elireiv ao-efieia).
The human phrases are applied to God, who is not human
in form, for the benefit of our education. And this
particular expression is by way of being an exhortation,
that no one should refrain from examining things closely,
or judge by hearsay (Exod. xxiii. 1). Let no one think
that the addition " which the sons of men had built " is
otiose and insignificant. We must track out the hidden
treasure of Scripture. The " sons of men " are polytheists ;
the worshippers of the One are styled "sons of God"
(Deut. xiv. 1, &c).

The words put in God's mouth need careful attention,
"Come and let us go down and confound there their
tongue" (Gen. xi. 7). For he appears to be speaking to some
who are as it were his fellow workers, as at the creation
of man (Gen. i. 26, cf. iii. 22). First, it must be said that
there is no existing being equal in dignity with God : there
is one Kuler and Governor and King, to whom alone it
belongs of right to govern and order the universe. The
poet's saying, "the rule of many lords is no good thing; let
there be one lord, one king," applies better to the world
and God than to cities and men. The next point is that
God, being One, has innumerable Powers around him, all
defenders and saviours of the universe, and with them the

122 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Powers of punishment, that is the prevention and correction
of sins. By these the ideal world was framed and man
also. God entrusts to them tasks which befit him not, for
man is prone to err in his free choice between good and
evil, and the way toward evil in the rational soul must not
be created by God through himself. So God is the cause
of all good and of no evil at all ; the evil is allotted to his
angels or Powers, which work under his supervision.

God says, "let us confound their tongue." It is not,
then, as the literalists suppose, simply the division of the
speech of mankind which is the penalty of their sin. Yet
I would not blame those who follow the superficial sense,
for perhaps even they have reached the truth ; but I would
urge them not to be content therewith, but to come over
to the metaphorical interpretations, regarding the letter as
the shadow and the inherent spirit as the fact or substance.
By choice of the word confusion the Lawgiver directly
suggests a deeper meaning. If he referred only to the
origin of different languages, distinction would have been
the better word. Confusion is the abolition of the powers
of each element of a compound or mixture in order to the
production of the compound. Here the end in view is the
dissolution of the fellowship of wickedness. And if we apply
the Scripture again to the individual, it is obvious that God
has separated the parts of the soul. It is fitting for God
to tune the harmony of the virtues and to dissolve and
destroy that of the vices. Now confusion is the most
appropriate name of wickedness, as any fool proves plainly,
as his words, counsels, and actions are all reprobate and
confusion l .

J. H. A. Haet.

1 A further article on Philo will follow in a subsequent number of
the J. Q. R.