weak bodily constitution. 6But they had obtained superior and great excellence in body, so it followed that they should also have keener senses and, moreover, philosophical sight and hearing. 7For it is not in vain that some try to become like them, as if they have obtained eyes with which they can see even the natures and creatures and deeds that are in heaven, and perceive with their ears every sort of sound.
\n1.33.1Why does the serpent speak with the woman and not with the man?
\n2Since they are potentially mortal, he operates by artful deception. 3And woman innately is more prone to being deceived than man, because his intellect, like his body, is male and able to comprehend the meaning of deception, whereas woman\u2019s [intellect] is more female, and due to softness she easily concedes and can be trapped by verisimilar lies that look like the truth. 4Now, because in old age the serpent sheds its skin from the top of his head to his tail, by stripping himself he blames man, for he exchanged death for immortality. 5Nature is renewed by the beast and from time to time becomes the same. 6Seeing this she was deceived\u2014she who should have looked, as if at an example, at the one who practiced tricks and deceits, in order to gain ageless and unfading life.
\n1.37.1Why did the woman first accept the tree and eat of the fruit, and then the man, having taken from her?
\n2First, the words potentially mean that it was suitable for man to rule over immortality and all good, and woman, over death and all evil. 3As to the metaphorical meaning, woman is a symbol of sense and man of mind. 4Now, by necessity, sense comes upon sensible things, and, through contact, the impulses of sense also pass into the mind, because sense is stimulated by inferior things, and the mind by sense.
\n1.40.1What is, \u201cThey perceived that they were naked\u201d?
\n2They first received the knowledge of this, their nakedness, having eaten from the forbidden fruit. 3And this is the notion and the origin of evil: not yet having used any covering\u2014because the parts of the whole are immortal and incorruptible\u2014they [now] needed something handmade and corruptible. 4And this knowledge is in being naked, not that the latter caused the change but because the soul comprehended alienation from the entire world.
\n1.41.1Why do they sew fig leaves as loincloths?
\n2First, because the fruit of the fig tree is sweeter and pleasant to the taste. 3Thus, it symbolically implies that they sew and weave together many lascivious desires, one with another. 4Therefore, they gird themselves around the place of the genitalia, which are tools of great affairs. 5Second, because the fruit of the fig tree, as I have said, is sweeter than that of others, and its leaves are harsher. 6Now, [Scripture] wants to indicate by this symbol that lascivious desires seem to be a slick and smooth motion, but actually they are harsh, and it is impossible to be happy, to feel delight without suffering pain before, and again suffering more pain. 7Because suffering pain is always between two painful moods: one is at the beginning and the other follows.
\n1.44.1Why do they hide themselves not elsewhere, but among the trees of paradise?
\n2Not everything is done with prudence and wisdom by sinners, but sometimes stealers sit upon stolen things, not caring about the consequence that first the closest thing and what lies at their feet will be searched for and found. 3This is what happened then, for it was necessary to run away from the tree from which the misdeed originated. 4And he was caught in the middle of the place, so that the transgression, being very clear and evident, would be reproached and no escape would be possible. 5And this also implies symbolically that every evil relies upon evil, and every lustful person turns to and rests in lust.
\n1.45.1Why does he who knows everything ask Adam, \u201cWhere are you?\u201d and why not the woman too?
\n2These words seem not to be a question but menace and reproof: where are you now, from what good have you deprived yourself, O man; having left immortality and fortunate life, you have moved toward death and misery, in which you have been buried! 3And he did not regard the woman as worthy of asking, because she was the beginning of evil and the one who led the man to wretched life. 4But this locus also contains a more appropriate allegory: for the ruler and leader, having male\u2019s reason, when it listens to somebody, introduces the vice of the female part as well, that is, sense.
\n1.68.1Why does he who knows everything ask the brother murderer, \u201cWhere is your brother Abel\u201d?
\n2He wants man to confess himself willingly, so that he cannot pretend that everything seems to take place by necessity. 3Because the one who killed by necessity would confess that he did it unintentionally, for that which we do not control is irreproachable. 4But he who [killed] willingly disavows it, because sinners are answerable to repentance. 5So [Moses] adds to all parts of his legislation that the Deity is not the cause of evil.
\n1.74.1What is, \u201cAnyone who meets me may kill me,\u201d when there was no other man than his parents?
\n2First, it could befall him to suffer attacks from the parts of the world that came into being for usefulness and for communion with good but nonetheless punished the malicious. 3Second, because they were afraid of plots by beasts and reptiles, because nature gave birth to them for the punishment of the unrighteous. 4Third, perhaps one might suppose [vengeance] from his parents, upon whom he had first inflicted new sorrow and the first distress, for they had not known what death is.
\n1.81.1Why in Adam\u2019s genealogy is Cain mentioned no more, but Seth is, about whom [Scripture] says to have been in his (Adam\u2019s) likeness and after his image; from whom the generations born by him start to be arranged in a genealogy?
\n2The filthy brutal murderer is not mixed with the rank of reason or number, because he is to be cast away like garbage, as someone has said, regarding him as such. 3That is why [Scripture] demonstrates him as neither the successor of his earth-born father nor the originator of the future generations, but it gives both [honors] to the blameless Seth, who is called \u201cthe one who drinks water,\u201d because he was irrigated by his father and brought forth hope in his growth and development. 4That is why not in vain and groundlessly [Scripture] says that this one is in the likeness and after the image of his father, in reproach of the elder one, who because of the filth of murder displays in himself nothing of the father, neither in body nor in soul. 5That is why it separated and isolated him from his kin, but to this one, allotting, it granted the honor of seniority.
\n1.85.1Why, following Enoch\u2019s decease, does [Scripture] say about him: \u201cHe was pleasing to God\u201d?
\n2First of all, this shows that souls are immortal, because even having become incorporeal they are still pleasing. 3Second, this exalts the penitent, for he remained in the same frame of mind and did not change until the end of his life. 4Because, for instance, some quickly sated people, having tasted of nobleness and goodness and having given hope for health, again returned to the same illness.
\n1.86.1What is, \u201cThen he was no more, for God took him\u201d?
\n2First of all, the decease of worthy and holy men is not death, but taking and bringing to another place. 3Second, something very miraculous happened, because he seemed to be captured and become invisible, for then he was no more. 4And this shows that the man sought disappeared and not only was captured from their sight, because taking to another place is nothing else but placement, but, as it is stated, from a perceptible and visible locus to an incorporeal and intelligible form. 5The first prophet, too, had obtained this gift, for nobody knew his grave; and once again, another one, Elijah, followed upward the divine countenance, which appeared then or, to say more appropriately and exactly, ascended from among those on the earth to heaven.
\n1.92.1Why were there giants from angels and women?
\n2Poets tell about the earth-born giants, children of the earth. 3But he often also uses this name figuratively, wishing to show the excessiveness and Hayk\u2019s size of [their] great bodies. 4And he tells that their creation was mixed, from two things: angels and mortal women. 5But the angels\u2019 essence is spiritual, though they frequently become similar to the human image and change their appearance for immediate needs, such as for knowing women, in order to give birth to hayks. 6But if children are zealous for maternal indulgence, they will move away from paternal virtue, being deprived of it: with the inclination of the wicked race for pleasure and with ignoring arrogance toward the Supreme, they will be condemned as responsible for voluntary offense. 7But at times he calls the angels \u201csons of God,\u201d since those incorporeal beings were not from someone mortal; they are bodiless spirits. 8Especially because the admonisher [Moses] calls good and virtuous men \u201csons of God,\u201d and the wicked and vicious [he calls] \u201cbodies.\u201d
\n1.93.1What is, \u201cHe was concerned, pondering that he had created man on earth, and he thought it over\u201d?
\n2Some think that contrition on the part of the Divinity is shown by those words. 3But they think incorrectly, because the Divinity does not change, and neither \u201cto be concerned, pondering,\u201d nor \u201cthink it over\u201d are indications of contrition, but of luminous and pure thought: that he is concerned thinking over the reason why he made man on earth. 4And because the earth is a place of misery, [where] the heavenly creature and man are mixed, constituted of soul and body, from the Creation to the end it is nothing else but a corpse bearer. 5Now, nothing seems too wonderful in that the Father is concerned and thinks over, because many people obtain wickedness before virtue, being conducted by the two above-mentioned stimuli: by the nature of the corruptible body and by the horrible, most inferior position of the earth.
\n2.11.1Why does [Scripture] say: \u201cGo into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before me in this generation\u201d?
\n2First of all, faith is indicated, because thanks to one righteous and worthy man many people are saved through kinship; like sailors and an army, when [the former] meet a good helmsman, and the latter, one who is skillful in war and a brave commander. 3Second, it praises the righteous man, who had obtained virtue not only for himself but also for his whole household, for which reason they, too, become worthy of salvation. 4And most remarkably, the following was added: that \u201cyou alone have I found righteous before me.\u201d 5Because people test [somebody\u2019s] conduct of life in one way and the Divinity, in another. 6For they [do that] by means of visible things, and he, by means of the soul\u2019s invisible thoughts. 7And what follows is also wonderful: that which says (if it were put first), \u201cin this generation, you alone have I found righteous,\u201d so that he would not seem to condemn the former [generations], nor to deprive of hope those who are to come later. 8Such is the literal sense; as to the metaphorical meaning, when God saves the ruler mind, the house-master of the soul, then with it he saves the whole household too. 9I mean, namely, all the parts, those that are partial, and that which is drawn out, speech, and the things of the body. 10Because as the mind is in the soul, likewise the soul is in the body. 11By means of thoughts all the parts of the soul are vigorous, and its entire household gains advantage with it. 12And when the whole soul is well again its household, the body, too, gains advantage with it by prudence and moderate habits, by severing beforehand insatiability, which is the cause of diseases.
\n2.14.1Why does the rain of the Flood last 40 days and as many nights?
\n2First of all, day is said in two meanings: one, which is from the dawn to evening, from the sunrise in the east to the sunset; defining in this way, they say that it is day when the sun is above the earth. 3And the second is said \u201cday\u201d: that which is counted with the night too. 4Thus, we call the month \u201c30-day period,\u201d mixing with it and considering the time of night. 5Now, having determined these things beforehand, I say it is not futile and in vain that the passage contains in itself 40 days and 40 nights, but in order to announce the two numbers determined for bringing forth humans, 40 and 80, as it is announced by many others, by doctors as well as men studying nature. 6Especially, it is written so in the divine Law, which was the beginning of their becoming naturalists. 7Now, because corruption was going to come everywhere to everybody, both men and women, because of their extreme discord and savage iniquity, the Judge deemed it right to define two periods for perdition; he had determined them during the creation of nature and the first production of living things. 8For the beginning of genesis is eternity in the particles of seeds. 9Therefore, it was necessary to honor the male with pure and shadowless light, and the female, because she was mingled with night and darkness, and [was] a mixture. (\u2026)
\n2.18.1What is, \u201cAll the fountains of the great deep burst apart, and the floodgates of the sky broke open\u201d?
\n2The literal sense is clear, for it is announced that the sources of everything are the extremities, the earth and the heavens, united for the condemnation of the mortals to perdition, when the waters meet one another. 3Some burst up from the earth, and some flew down from the heavens. 4And it is said very clearly, \u201cthe fountains burst apart\u201d for when a burst happens, the rush is unimpeded. (\u2026)
\n2.29.1What is, \u201cThe fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were stopped up\u201d?
\n2First of all, it is evident that in the first 40 days the currents of the disaster were unceasing, because fountains burst apart from the earth below, and the waterfalls opened from the heavens above, until all the plains and mountainous places were flooded. 3And for 150 more days they did not cease, neither the waterfalls pouring nor the fountains springing. 4But they were quite moderate, no longer for increasing but for keeping on the spread of the water, and there was supply from above. 5And as an indication of this, [Scripture] now says that the sources and floodgates were closed in 150 days; thus, it is evident that as long as they had not been stopped, they were in action. 6Second, it was necessary to close the double reservoir of water, which provided the currents of the Flood, one on the earth, from the sources, and one in the heavens, from the floodgates. 7For as much as supplies of a material run short, it is consumed by being spent by itself, especially when the divine power commands. (\u2026)
\n2.35.1Why does he send out the raven first?
\n2The words say that the raven is an animal-messenger and accomplisher, for until now many people attentively wait for its flight and voice, when it croaks, signifying something unknown. 3And as for the metaphorical sense, the raven is a black and impetuous and speedy animal, which is a symbol of wickedness, for it brings night and darkness upon the soul. 4And it is very speedy in opposing, at one time, everything that goes on in the world. 5Second, it brings destruction to those who catch it, and it is very impetuous, for it causes haughtiness and shameless impudence. 6And since virtue is against this, it is bright and stable, and its nature is modest and adorned with shyness. 7Now, it was therefore right, for since in the mind there was a remnant of darkness, which is connected with insanity, he removed it, too, thrusting out beyond the borders.
\n2.38.1Why for the second time does he send out the dove \u201cfrom himself\u201d and \u201cto see whether the waters had decreased,\u201d which is not said about the raven?
\n2The dove is first of all a clean animal, then domestic and tame and cohabitant with man. 3For this reason, it obtained the honor of being offered on the altar among sacrifices. 4For this reason, confirming and corroborating, (Scripture) said, \u201csent from himself,\u201d showing it as cohabitant, and by \u201cto see whether the waters had subsided,\u201d as sociable and concordant. 5And these, the raven and the dove, are symbols of wickedness and of virtue. 6For one is homeless, without habitation, without city, unfriendly, irreconcilable, and unsociable. 7And virtue is a matter of humanity, and of sociability; and it is useful. The virtuous man sends this as a messenger of wholesome and saving things, wishing to know and learn of them with its help. 8And in the manner of a messenger, it tells about the true gift: to be cautious of the hurtful things and to admit the useful promptly and with pleasure.
\n2.47.1Why \u201cin the seventh month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry\u201d?
\n(\u2026) 2The Flood together with the recovery lasted for one year. 3Because it began in the 600th year, in the seventh month, on the 27th, so that in this interval of time a year completed, beginning from the vernal equinox and also ending at the same time of the vernal equinox. 4In order that, as I have said, the earthly creatures would perish full of fruits, dooming those that were to make use of them. 5And when [this] was accomplished and the earth freed of evil, it was again found to be full of seed-yielding things and trees that had fruits, which spring brings. 6For he deemed it just to show the earth dried again, as it was when he flooded it, and so to recompense. 7And do not be surprised that the abandoned earth in one day grew everything by the power of God, seeds and trees, becoming suddenly abundant in grass, in corn, in trees, and in fruits, full of everything. 8Because during the creation of the world, too, in one day out of the six, he fulfilled the birth of the plants, and these were already complete by themselves and perfect. 9And they produced fruits, which happened to appear in abundance in the spring season, because God has the ability to make everything not needing time at all.
\n2.48.1Why after the earth had become dry did Noah not go out of the ark before hearing the words; because the LORD God said to Noah: \u201cCome out of the ark, together with your wife, your sons, and your sons\u2019 wives,\u201d and other living things?
\n2Righteousness is awesome, in the same way as, on the other hand, iniquity, contrary to it, is arrogant and self-complacent. 3And a proof of awesomeness is not to admit and agree with any words rather than God\u2019s. 4And especially he who had seen the whole earth suddenly becoming a boundless sea would naturally and expectedly think that it might be natural and possible for the misfortune to return again. 5And in such circumstances, he also regarded as orderly the following step: he, who had entered the ark by order of God, could come out again by his order, because he, whom God does not lead, having given an order beforehand, can do absolutely nothing.
\n2.49.1Why, when they went into the ark, the sequence was: he and his sons, and then his and his sons\u2019 wives, whereas when they went out, it was changed? Because (Scripture) says: \u201cNoah and his wife came out, and then his sons and his sons\u2019 wives\u201d?
\n2By means of \u201cwent into,\u201d the words also hint to the childlessness of sperm, and by means of \u201ccame out,\u201d to birth. 3Because when they went in, the sons are written with the father, and the daughters-in-law with the mother-in-law; and when they came out, the married couples: the father with his wife, and again, each of the sons with his wife. 4Because he wants to instruct rather by means of actions than by words what his followers ought to do. 5Now, indicating nothing by voice, he said to those who were going in to refrain from sexual intercourse with their wives and, after coming out, to sow children according to nature. 6He admonished this by [their] sequence, not only by shouting and exclaiming: \u201cSince so great a disaster has occurred to all those who were on the earth, do not rejoice in pleasure, for it is not becoming and appropriate. 7You have enough honor: receiving life, but going to bed with wives suits those who are lascivious and desiring voluptuousness.\u201d 8It was becoming for them to be merciful, as if sympathizing with [their] relatives from mankind, and with total abstinence, when uncertainty was facing them, so that evil would never fall upon them. 9And furthermore, it would be strange for those who did not [yet] exist to be born, due to untimely burning and overwhelming lustful desires, while the living were being exterminated. 10But after it had stopped and finished and after [they] had got rid of the evil, again, by means of [their] sequence, he instructs beforehand to commit to birth, by writing [that] neither men [must go] with men, nor women with women, but females with males. (\u2026)
\n2.50.1Why did he build an altar without being commanded?
\n2Thankfulness to God must be without a command and reluctant sloth, manifesting the soul free of vice. 3Because it is appropriate for one who has experienced good, as being favored by God, to be grateful in willing spirits. 4But he who waits for an order is thankless, being constrained to honor his benefactor perforce.
\n2.52.1What is, \u201ctook of the clean animals and birds and offered whole burnt offerings\u201d?
\n2Everything is said in the metaphorical sense: both that he \u201ctook\u201d from God every grace and gift, and that [he took] what is of the race of the clean and immaculate in kind. 3In order that [he offers] the most tame and immaculate ones of the domestic [animals], in order that he burns perfect whole offerings. 4Because [they are] a sacrifice of good things, and all are full of wholeness; and they have the significance of fruit, and the fruit is the completion, and the plant is for that. 5This is the literal meaning; as to the metaphorical sense, the clean animals and the birds are the senses and the mind of the sage. 6In the mind, the thoughts are wandering; it is appropriate to bring them all, being whole offerings, to the Father, for gratitude, to offer them for sacrifices as stain-free and immaculate offerings.
\n2.54.1What is, \u201cThe LORD God said, thinking it over, \u2018Never again will I curse the earth because of man\u2019s deeds, since the devisings of man\u2019s mind always decidedly fall toward evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living flesh, as I have done: never again\u2019 \u201d?
\n2The reason shows regret, which is a passion not characteristic of the divine power. 3Because the humans have a feeble and unsteady temperament, just as [their] deeds are full of much uncertainty, but for God there is nothing uncertain and incomprehensible, for he is most strong in opinion and most steady. 4Now, why, whereas the same reason persisted, and [he] knew from the beginning that \u201cman\u2019s mind always decidedly falls toward evil from his youth,\u201d he first destroyed the race with the Deluge and afterward says that he will no more destroy, although the same evil remains in [their] soul? 5But it should be said that all such kinds of words are comprised in the Law for learning and the benefit of instruction rather than for the nature of the truth. 6Because the main points that are in the whole legislation are two: one, as it is said, \u201cnot like a man,\u201d and the second, the Being, is said to chasten \u201cas a man [chastens] his son.\u201d 7The first is of the truth, for indeed God is not like man, also not like the sun, and not like the heavens; nor like the tangible world, but like God, if it were right to say even so. 8Because that blessed and happiest one does not accept any similitude or comparison or parable; moreover, he is beyond blessedness itself and felicity and whatever is better and higher than these are. 9The second [main point] is of instruction and guidance, narration, namely, \u201cas a man,\u201d for chastening us, the earth-born, so that we are not continuously paid back with [his] anger and punishment due to ungracious irreconcilability and lack of peace. 10Because it is enough to fly into rage and acrimony once, and to inflict punishment on sinners, but if [it happens] many times for the same reason, it is a deed of a savage and brutal soul. 11Because when paying back what is appropriate, as far as it is possible, everyone leaves a proper memory about his purpose. 12Now, \u201cthinking it over\u201d speaks exactly of God, because his mind and disposition are very stable. 13For our will is unsettled and unstable and trembling, that is why we do not appropriately reflect by thinking [anything] over. 14Because thinking is the issue of the mind, but it is impossible for the human mind to be extended and spread, for it is too feeble to pass through everything more perfectly and swiftly. 15But, \u201cNever again will I curse the earth\u201d is very well said, because it is not necessary to add new curses to those existing, insomuch as [the earth] has many evils. 16But although they are endless, insomuch as the Father is good and kind and humane, he eases the evils rather than adds disasters. 17But drawing out of the human soul the wickedness, with the sign of which it is sealed, is as if, according to the proverb, \u201cwashing a brick\u201d or \u201cbringing water with a net.\u201d 18For if, [as Scripture] says, [wickedness] is there originally, it is not there in vain and in passing, but is sculpted inside [the soul] and adapted to it. 19Furthermore, because the mind is the ruling and leading part of the soul, [Scripture] adds \u201cdecidedly\u201d; and the thought that is reflected on decidedly and with care is also examined toward the truth. 20But the decidedness is not toward some sole evil but, as it is evident, toward the \u201cevils\u201d altogether. 21And this does not occur in an instant, but \u201cfrom his youth,\u201d and not just so, but from the very swaddling clothes, as if [sin] were an integral part, and he were nurtured and trained and brought up together with sins. 22But he says, \u201cNor will I again destroy every living flesh,\u201d announcing that he will not exterminate the whole of humankind in general, but many of the individuals who commit ineffable iniquities. 23Because he does not leave wickedness unpunished and does not give liberty and safety to it, but taking care of the [human] race for his purpose, he determines death for sinners by necessity.
\n2.56.1Why does God bless Noah and his sons, saying: \u201cIncrease and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it. The fear and the dread of you shall be on the beasts and the birds and the reptiles and the fish, which I have given into your hands\u201d?
\n2He also grants this wish to the one in his image, man, in the beginning, on the sixth day of the Creation. 3Because [Scripture] says: \u201cAnd God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying, \u2018Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it, and hold sway over the fish and the birds and the reptiles of the earth.\u2019 \u201d 4And now, did not [Scripture] clearly indicate by this that Noah, figuring as the beginning of the second creation of man, is regarded as equally honored with the one who was made first in [God\u2019s] image? 5Now, he divided the beginning of the earthly creatures equally between this one and that one. 6And be attentive! For [God] made the one who was righteous in the time of the Flood king of the earthly creatures; [he] showed him as equally honored not with the formed and earthy [man], but with him who was in the likeness and image of the truly Existent. 7And to him [he] gives power, making not the formed one but the one who is in [his] image and likeness, the one who is incorporeal. 8For this reason, [he] has announced the making of the one incorporeal in [his] likeness on the sixth day, according to the perfect number six, and [the making] of the formed one, after the completion of the world and after the days of the creation of all: on the seventh day. 9Because then, after all this, the formed one appears in an earthy statue. 10Now, after the days of the genesis of the world, on the seventh, (Scripture) says, \u201cBecause God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil,\u201d and then, \u201cAnd God formed man from the dust of the earth, and blew into his face the breath of life, and man became a living being.\u201d 11Now, it is announced by the words, as [Scripture] conveys them, how the beginner of the second genesis of humans becomes worthy of the same kingdom as the man in the image and likeness. (\u2026)
\n2.60.1What is, \u201cYour blood of your souls I will require of every beast and of the hand of man\u2019s brother\u201d?
\n2There are two classes of the harmful: one of the beasts and the other of humans. 3But beasts do minor injury, because they have no familiarity with those whom they want to harm, especially because they are not under rule but they harm rulers. 4And [Scripture] called the plotting men \u201cbrothers,\u201d showing three things. 5First, that we all are cognate humans and brothers, having become intimate by the possession of an old kinship, because we received the heritage of the same mother: the rational nature. 6And second, because almost permanent and great are the conflicts and harms between those who are related by blood and especially brothers, either for the sake of portions in inheritance or for the sake of honor in families. 7Because family battles seem to be worse than those between strangers, for they occur with rich and skilled knowledge of [how to] fight. 8Truly, they are natural for brothers, who are aware of what attacks should be applied in strife. 9And third, it seems to me now that [Scripture] includes the noun \u201cbrothers\u201d for severe and merciless punishment of murderers, so that they are paid back without forgiveness for what they have done, because they have killed not strangers but their own brothers. 10And [Scripture], in the best way, says that God is the overseer and observer of the murdered. 11For even if people disregard and ignore taking revenge, these filthy savages should not be careless, thinking as if, escaping, they have survived. 12But let them know that they are caught beforehand in the great court of justice, in the divine court established for the vengeance upon savages, for the sake of those who have suffered iniquitous and undeserved misfortunes. (\u2026)
\n2.64.1Why, as a sign that there will be no Flood on the whole earth, he says to have set his bow in the clouds?
\n2Some conjecture that the \u201cbow\u201d means what is called by some \u201cgirdle of Aramazd,\u201d inferring from the form that it is a firm symbol for the rainbow. 3But I do not think they say this soundly. 4First, this \u201cbow\u201d must have a special nature and essence, for which it is called \u201cof God,\u201d because [he] says, \u201cI have set my bow.\u201d 5But being \u201cof God\u201d and set [by him], it is not something insubstantial and nonexistent. 6And the girdle of Aramazd has no distinct separate nature by itself, but it is the appearance of the sun\u2019s rays in damp clouds. 7And all appearances are nonexistent and immaterial; and [here is] a proof: the girdle of Aramazd never appears at night, though there are clouds. 8But it should also be said, in the second place, that during the daytime, too, when the clouds are darkened, the girdle of Aramazd is not seen before that. 9But it is also necessary to say other things without lie, due to which the legislator\u2019s \u201cI have set my bow in the clouds\u201d [occurs]. 10For, look, as long as there are clouds, there is no appearance of anything like the girdle of Aramazd, whereas [Scripture] says that upon the gathering of the clouds the bow will be in the clouds. 11Because many times, when the clouds gather and the air darkens and thickens, the rainbow appears nowhere. 12But perhaps by means of the bow the theologian announces something else, for the reduction or intensity of earthly affairs, in order that there is neither relaxation weakening up to disintegration and disagreement, nor intensity leading to rupture, but in both cases, fixed power balanced by measure. 13For the great Flood happened by rupture and break, as [Scripture] itself confesses, saying, \u201cthe fountains of the great deep burst apart,\u201d and not with certain intensity or anything [like that]. 14And second, the bow is not a weapon but an instrument of a weapon, the arrow that pierces. 15And an arrow shot by a bow reaches a faraway part, the things nearby and close to it remaining unaffected. 16This is a sign that the whole earth will never be flooded again, because no arrow reaches every place, but only a distant place. 17Now, symbolically it is the invisible might of God: the arrow that is in the air. 18And \u201cshooting\u201d when clear [air] moves forth, and staying and remaining firm when [there are] clouds, it does not let all the clouds turn wholly into water, watching that the earth be dried avoiding a flood. 19It guides and bridles the thickness and density of the air, which especially then is innately used to be rebellious and violent from excessive saturation. 20For when there are clouds, it appears to be filled with itself and to drizzle and to be replete.
\n2.66.1What is, \u201cNoah began to be a husbandman of the earth\u201d?
\n2[Scripture] likens Noah to the first-created earthly man, for, as to the latter, it says the same words, when he went out of the ark. 3For the beginning of agriculture was both then and now, both [times] following a flood. 4For at the first creation of the world the earth was somehow flooded. 5For [God] would not have said, \u201cLet the waters below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear,\u201d if somewhere the deeps of the earth had not been flooded and full of water. 6But it is not said vainly, \u201che began to be a husbandman,\u201d because at the second creation of humanity he was the beginning of seed, tilling, and other lives. 7This is the literal meaning; as to the metaphorical sense, being a husbandman and a worker of the earth are different things. 8So, [Scripture] introduced fratricide, and it is said about him that he should till the earth [but] not be a husbandman. (\u2026)
\n2.67.1Why was the righteous [man] the first to plant a vineyard?
\n2One should be perplexed and puzzled: where did he find a plant after the Flood, when everything on the earth was dried up and destroyed? 3But what was said a bit earlier seems to be true; because the earth was dried up in the springtime, [and] because the spring displayed a yield of plants. 4Consequently, it is probable that the righteous [man] found vines and fruitful vine sprouts and gathered them. 5But it should be announced why he first planted a vineyard and not wheat or barley. 6Because some of the fruits are necessary; it is impossible to live without them, and [there are] some that are a matter of excessive delight. 7Now, those that are necessary for life, the useful ones, he dedicated and left to God, not seeking for cooperation in [their] production, whereas the excessive ones [are] for humans, because the use of wine is excessive, not necessary. 8Now, in the same way as God by himself, without the cooperation of humans, made the sources of potable water spring out and gave [them to man], likewise wheat and barley; so that only he by himself grants both kinds of food, for eating as well as for drinking. 9But [he] did not take away those for delightful life, and did not envy, so men obtained [the right] to proceed to it.
\n2.77.1Why, when Ham transgresses, does [Scripture] present his son Canaan as the slave of Shem and Japheth?
\n2First of all, because the two, the father and the son, were governed by the same depravity; they were mixed and not distinguished, as if both [were] in one body and governed by one soul. 3And second, because for the curse upon Canaan, the father, too, must have greatly saddened, knowing that he was tortured not because of himself, but rather because of his father, due to the punishment of the leader and instructor of wicked thoughts and speeches and deeds. 4This is the literal meaning; as to the metaphorical sense, they are two: not so much humans as characters. 5And the giving of the names demonstrates this clearly, also demonstrating the essence of things. 6Because \u201cHam\u201d is rendered as \u201cwarmth\u201d or \u201cheat,\u201d and \u201cCanaan,\u201d as \u201cmediators\u201d or \u201ccauses.\u201d
\n3.3.1Why does [he] say: \u201cTake for me a three-year-old heifer, and a three-year-old she-goat, and a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon\u201d?
\n2[Scripture] mentions five animals that are offered to the LORD\u2019s altar, because these are chosen for sacrifices. 3Three of the terrestrial [animals]: heifer, goat, ram, and two of the birds: turtledove and pigeon, for [Scripture] solemnly states that the eternal offerings originate from the patriarch, who is the beginning of our race. 4But instead of \u201cbring me,\u201d it is very well said, \u201ctake for me,\u201d since for a creature nothing is certainly his own, but everything is the gift and grant of God, to whom it is pleasant [when one], having received something, is grateful with all his willingness. 5And [he] orders to take a three-year-old, one of each animal, because three is a complete and perfect number, consisting of beginning, middle, and end. 6But one should be puzzled: why of three animals does [he] introduce two females, a heifer and a she-goat, and one male, a ram? 7Now, perhaps because the heifer and the she-goat are offered for sins, but not the ram; sinning is from feebleness, and the female is feeble. 8It was appropriate and suitable to say this much first. 9But I am not unaware that all such things give cause to vainly slanderous people for denying and talking idly about the sacred Scripture. 10Now, they say that in this case [Scripture] depicts and demonstrates nothing else but the sacrificial [victim] by the cutting and division of the animals and by the examination of the intestines. 11For they say that \u201che sat with them\u201d is an indication of harmony and fitting similitude of visible things. 12And these [people], as it is obvious, are among those who judge and estimate the whole not by one part but, quite the reverse, a part by the whole. 13For it is better in the latter way: both the name and the object are tested in all respects. (\u2026)
\n3.6.1Why does [Scripture] say, \u201cbut he did not cut up the birds\u201d?
\n2It hints to the fifth and cyclic essence, of which the ancients say the heavens were made. 3For those that are called \u201cfour elements\u201d are mixtures rather than elements; by them [Scripture] divides the divided things into those of which they were mixed. 4In the same way as the earth has enclosed in itself the watery, aerial, and fiery [elements], called [so] rather by conception than by vision. 5And water is not so pure and clean as not to contain a portion of wind or soil, and each of the others, too, is a mixture. 6And the fifth substance is the only one formed as unmixed and pure, for which reason it is not used to be cut. 7Therefore, it is said well that, \u201che did not cut up the birds.\u201d 8Because the nature of those that are in the heavens, of the planets and the fixed [stars], are high-flying like the birds; they are like the two clean birds, the turtledove and pigeon, which do not accept cutting and division. 9For they are of the fifth, simpler and unmixed, essence, and for this reason the indivisible nature is especially likened to oneness.
\n3.7.1What is, \u201cAnd birds came down upon the divided bodies\u201d?
\n2For we have said that symbolically the three divided animals, the heifer and the she-goat and the ram, are earth and water and air. 3But [it is necessary] to adjust and fit the response to the question, weighing the truth by the logic of correspondence. 4Now, perhaps by the flight of the birds over the divided [pieces, Scripture] gives a hint, announcing the attack of enemies. 5For the whole of nature that is under the moon is full of wars and evils, internal and external. 6The birds appear to fly over the divided bodies for food and gluttony. 7And those stronger by nature fall upon the weaker, as if upon dead bodies, often coming upon [them] all of a sudden. 8But they do not fly over the turtledove and the pigeon, because the celestial [creatures] are innocent and free of transgression.
\n3.9.1What is, \u201cAs the sun was about to set, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a great dark dread descended upon him\u201d?
\n2Some divine calmness came unexpectedly upon the righteous man. 3Because ecstasy, as the name itself clearly indicates, is nothing else but the giving up and the coming out of reason. 4But the race of prophets likes to undergo this, for when the mind is inspired with God and possessed by God, it is no more in itself, for it accepts the Divine Spirit, settling [him] inside. 5Moreover, as it said, \u201cfalls upon,\u201d because it does not come upon [someone] quietly and mildly, but unexpectedly makes an attack. 6But what [Scripture] added is also appropriate: that \u201ca great dark dread descended upon him.\u201d 7For all these are raptures of the mind; for he who fears is not within himself, and darkness is an obstacle to seeing, and the greater the dread is, the duller are the seeing and the knowing. 8And these things are not said vainly, but for the demonstration of the knowledge of clear prophesy, by which precepts and laws are established by God.
\n3.11.1What is, \u201cAnd you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished at a good old age\u201d?
\n2This undoubtedly hints of the incorruptibility of the soul transferring from habitation in the mortal body, as if going and returning to the metropolis, from where it had migrated before. 3For what else is this, to say to someone dying, \u201cyou shall go to your fathers,\u201d if not that [God] represents the other life, that which is without body and which only the soul of a wise [man] happens to live? 4And [Scripture] calls Abraham\u2019s \u201cfathers\u201d not his parents, including his grandparents and ancestors. 5For not all [of them] were praiseworthy, so that they could be pride and glory to him who reached their same rank. 6But it seemed, as many say, that by the \u201cfathers\u201d [Scripture] hints to all the elements, into which the decomposition [of things] is. 7However, as it seems to me, [Scripture hints to] the incorporeal and the hosts of the divine world, which elsewhere it used to call angels. 8But it does not say vainly, \u201cnourished in peace\u201d and that, \u201cat a good old age.\u201d 9For an evil and wicked person is nourished and lives in war, and he deceases and grows old in evil. 10But a righteous [man] in both his lives, in that which is with the body and that without the body, lives in peace and is only virtuous. 11And no one of the foolish [is so], even if he lives longer than an elephant. 12That is why [Scripture] said cautiously, \u201cyou shall go to your fathers, nourished\u201d not \u201cat a long old age\u201d but \u201cat a good old age.\u201d 13For many of the foolish [people] strive for a long life, but only he who is a lover of wisdom [strives for] a good and righteous [life].
\n3.18.1Why \u201cSarai, Abram\u2019s wife, had borne him no children\u201d?
\n2It is told that the mother of that race was barren. 3In the first place, in order that the unexpected seed of the offspring should appear to be miraculously created. 4Second, in order that the conception and childbirth should be not so much by marriage to a man as by the providence of God. 5Because childbirth by a barren [woman] does not take place by engendering, but it is the work of the divine power. 6This is the literal sense; as to the metaphorical meaning, first, childbirth is exclusively related to woman, in the same way as begetting [is related] to man. 7Now, [Scripture] wishes to liken the righteous spirit of the race to the male rather than the female, considering that being active, and not bearing, is kindred to it. 8And second, both the righteous mind and the evil beget, but they beget differently and opposite. 9The righteous [mind begets] good and useful [things], and the evil and wicked [mind], filthy, disgraceful, and useless [things]. 10And the third is the one that has advanced and is close to the very end, which is called by some \u201cforgotten and unknown light.\u201d 11This one, having advanced, begets neither evil nor righteous [things], because it is not yet perfect. 12And it is similar to one who is not sick and [also] not healthy in his whole body, but still comes to recovery from long sickness.
\n3.20.1Why does Sarai say to Abraham, \u201cLook, the LORD hath kept me from bearing. Consort with my maid, so that you may beget a child from her\u201d?
\n2In the literal meaning, it is the same [as] not to be jealous and envious, to take care of the wise [man] and husband and close kinsman. 3For the same [purpose], compensating for her childlessness with the help of her maid, she exhibited [her] as her husband\u2019s concubine. 4But also the excess of the love for her husband is signified. 5Since she seemed to be barren, she did not consider it right to let her husband\u2019s house perish without offspring, respecting his benefit more than her own safety. (\u2026)
\n3.34.1Why does [Scripture] say: \u201cAnd she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, \u2018You are God who saw me,\u2019 for [she] said, \u2018And because I saw [him] face to face, appearing to me!\u2019 \u201d?
\n2Consider the first [point] cautiously; for there was a servant from God, like the maid of wisdom. 3Why is it said that an angel was summoned? 4In order that [Scripture] matches things to the persons themselves. 5For it was suitable and appropriate that God, the Supreme One and Prince of All, should appear to wisdom, and he who is his word and servant, to the maid and attendant of wisdom. 6But it was not odd [for her] to think that the angel was God. 7For it happens to those who cannot see the first reason to be deceived: they think that the second is the first. 8As those who have weak eyesight: because being unable to see the corporeal sun, which is in the sky, they think that the rays, which are brought upon the earth, are the sun itself. 9And those who have never seen the great king pay the king\u2019s honor to his minister and to those under him. 10But also savages, having never seen towns even from a high place somewhere, consider a village or a yard to be a big city, and the people in it to be inhabitants of a big city, due to ignorance of what a really big city is.
\n3.43.1What is, \u201cAnd you shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham\u201d?
\n2Some of the tasteless and unrefined, moreover, of the profane and of those not belonging to God\u2019s chorus, mock the [man] immaculate by nature. 3And they say, scoffing and reproaching: \u201cOh great gift! The Leader and LORD of all granted one letter, by which the name of the patriarch increased, in order to become trisyllable instead of disyllable.\u201d 4Oh great diabolism and unrighteousness, that some dare cast aspersions on God! 5And they have been deceived by the versatile appearance of names, while it was necessary to send the mind deeply inside, examining the realities for great achievements in the truth. 6But why don\u2019t you think that Providence grants this letter [as something] ready and, so to say, at hand, and that it is honorable? 7For first, the first letter of the written sound is \u201cA,\u201d both by order and by value. 8And second, because it is both a vowel and the first among vowels, as if a suitable head. 9And third, for it does not belong to the long proper and to the short proper, but to those in which these two [qualities] are present. 10For it stretches until [becoming] long, and then again is confined until [becoming] the same short [vowel], thanks to flexibility, as wax being formed in many objects, and forming the word in accordance with diverse and multiple shapes. 11And the reason is that it is the brother of one, from which everything starts and in which [everything] ends. 12And then, [how] does anyone jeer, having perceived or not perceived what a beauty and what necessary letter is being pronounced? 13If he has perceived [it], he is a lover of reproach and a hater of good, and if he has not perceived, it is very easy to deride and make fun of something, trampling on it, which he does not know, as if he knew it. 14But let this be [considered to have been] said in passing, purposelessly, as I have noted, and now the necessary and first issue should be studied. 15The addition of \u201cA\u201d: with the help of one letter [Scripture], changing the whole, reformed the position of the soul, endowing it with the knowledge of wisdom instead of the learning in astronomy. 16Because skill in astronomy is acquired in one part of the world: in the heavens and in the revolutions and constellations of the stars, while wisdom [is concerned] with the nature of all things, both tangible and intelligible. 17Because knowledge is divine and human wisdom, also [pertaining] to their causes. 18And of the divine things, some are visible and some are invisible, and [there is] the paradigmatic idea. 19And of the human things, some are corporeal and some are incorporeal; and to receive wisdom about them is a great and real work of capability and fortitude. 20And not only to perceive the substances and natures of all things but also to pursue and examine the causes of each demonstrates an ability more perfect than that of humans. 21Because it is needed that the soul, which accepts so many good things, should be all eyes, completing its life in the world sleeplessly and watchfully. 22And without shadow and in the shining light, it should accept the flashes around [itself], being conducted by God, the Instructor and Leader, in order to achieve the knowledge of things and to respond to the causes. 23Now, the disyllable name \u201cAbram\u201d is interpreted as \u201csublime father,\u201d according to the denomination of sublime computation and mathematics. 24But the trisyllable \u201cAbraham\u201d is rendered as \u201cchosen father of sound\u201d: a title of a wise man. 25For what else is the echo in us, if not that which is pronounced: the word-sound? 26And for this a tool is formed by nature: [the sound is uttered] by means of that which is called \u201cthick\u201d\u2014the windpipe, the mouth, and the tongue. 27And \u201cthe father of sound\u201d is our mind, and the chosen mind is righteous. (\u2026)
\n3.48.1Why does [God] say: \u201cAnd the eight-day-old child shall be circumcised, every male\u201d?
\n2He commands to circumcise the prepuce, first of all, in order that illnesses abate. 3Because the disease of the genitalia, [when] inflammation appears on the part covered by the foreskin, is very difficult and frightful to cure. 4But when it is circumcised, [the illness] does not approach. 5Now, if it were also possible to avoid other diseases and illnesses by cutting off a member or a part of the body, the amputation of which would not impede the activity of the parts, the mortal man, without realizing it, would be transformed to immortality. 6And that it was through the foresight of the soul that [they] wanted to circumcise [themselves] without any ill consequence is clear: because not only the Jews are circumcised but also the Egyptians, Arabs, Ethiopians, and almost all those who live in the southern side, close to the burning zone. 7And what is the particular reason if not that in [those] places, especially in summer, the prepuce of the genitalia\u2014since they have a layer of skin around them and are covered\u2014being warmed, is irritated and wounded. 8And when it is cut off, [the penis] cools down in its nakedness, and the illness, being overcome, is drawn away. 9That is why the nations, which are toward the side of the Plough, and to which from the parts of the world the windy parts are allotted, are not circumcised. 10Because in those parts the warmth of the sun weakens and lessens, and likewise the disease, which appears in the skin from the warmth of the member. 11And one can also find exact evidence supporting my words in the time when the disease mostly occurs: it never happens in winter and, growing, it blossoms and ripens in summer, for it likes to grow in [those] parts [of the body] like fire. 12Second, the ancients devoted the foresight of [their] soul [to this] not only for the sake of health but also for the sake of the multitude of people, seeing that nature is animated and very philanthropic. 13Now, as sages they knew why the semen flowing into the folds of the foreskin often, dissipating, happens to be sterile. 14But if there is no obstacle to impede it, [the semen] manages to reach the place that it is going to occupy. 15This is why those of the nations that are circumcised greatly increased until becoming multitudes. 16And our legislator, also thinking of and knowing that consequence, immediately commanded the circumcision of infants, having the same in mind: that both circumcision and lust meant multitude of people. 17This is why it seems to me that the Egyptians, by circumcising at the second septenary of years, when the voluptuous passion for procreation appears, mean that circumcision is for the multitude of people. 18But our decision to perform the circumcision on children was much better and with more forethought, because a mature person, since he has free will, would perhaps delay doing the lawful thing for fear. 19Third, [the legislator] also says this for the cleanness of oblations in sacred places, because those who enter the courts of sanctuaries are cleaned by ablutions and sprinkling. 20The Egyptians also shave the whole body, [cleaning off] the hair that covers and overshadows the body, for the sake of looking bright and bare. 21But no less useful to cleanness is the circumcision of the foreskin, at which one feels disgust when seeing how it looks. 22Fourth, there are two genitalia in us, in the soul and in the body; and the thoughts are the genitalia of the soul, and those of the body are those in the body. 23Now, the ancients wished to liken the bodily genitalia to the heart, the principal genitor of the thoughts. 24And nothing is so much like anything as the circumcised [part is like] the heart. (\u2026)
\n4.2.1What is, \u201cHe saw, and behold, there were three men above him\u201d?
\n2Quite naturally, [Scripture] presents [them] to those who can see: for it happened to be one in three and three in one, for according to the higher reason they are one. 3But if reckoned and numbered together with the principal powers, the creative and the kingly, [God] makes three appearances to the human mind. 4For [one] cannot be so sharp-eyed as to see, distinguishing from anything else, God who is higher than the powers that are inferior to him. 5For at the very moment when [one] claps eyes on God, there appear, together with his essence, the serving powers as well, so that instead of one he produces the appearance of a triad. 6For when the mind starts to comprehend the Existent, then he, being there, is perceived. 7And [although] he makes [himself] one, appearing as the First and the Ruler, it is impossible, as I said a little before, to see him without the unity with others: the principal powers urgently coming into existence with him, the creative, which is called God, and the kingly, which is called LORD. 8For by \u201clooking up with [his] eyes,\u201d [Scripture] means not [the eyes] of the body, for it is impossible to see God with the senses, but [those] of the soul, for at the [appropriate] time he is seen with the eyes of wisdom. 9Now, the soul\u2019s sight of many stupid idlers is always closed, because they are in a deep sleep and are never able to wake up and rush to the affairs of nature, and for the visions and conceptions therein. 10But the spiritual eyes of a righteous person look, being awake; moreover, he is sleepless due to his wish to see, being stimulated and rushing to vigilence. 11For this reason, it is well said in the plural: opening not one eye but all the eyes, which are in the soul, until, together with all the [eyes], he wholly becomes an eye and, becoming an eye, he begins to perceive the lordly and holy divine vision, so that one appearance is seen by him as a triad, and the triad, as a unity. 12One should [also] speak of, [and] not omit, what follows this, for it is not said vainly that [three men] \u201cwere above him.\u201d 13For above all generated things are God and God\u2019s powers, supplying, taking care, and ruling. 14Now, generally everything that has been said before [occurs] necessarily; since it is not fitting to see a futile vision on the functioning of things, with a single look the mind perceives two appearances. 15One, of God coming together with two higher powers, by which he is attended: the creative, by which he has made and operates the world, and the kingly, by which he governs the beings. 16And the other [appearance is] of strangers: not those whom one happens to meet, but more perfect in body, according to the human nature, and [more perfect] in honor, [according to their] dignity. 17And having encountered the two appearances, he was drawn by both to see [them], now by one, now by the other, and he was unable to say which of them the true one was. 18Due to cautiousness and doubt about the uncertainty, he did not ignore [them] and did not forget, as some of the idle and sluggish [people do]. 19But he perceived and understood both appearances, considering it better to subdue the doubt by truth rather than by falsity, in order to obtain the two great virtues: dignity and humanity. 20Dignity, with one kind of look with which he saw God, and humanity, with the other kind: the look toward the strangers was a contact of equals. 21And that he was attracted by both appearances is evident from Scripture, for whatever is said about one or to one or by one bears witness to an appearance as God, and whatever [is said] about many or to many, as strangers. (\u2026)
\n4.5.1Why does [Scripture] say again in the plural: \u201cLet water be taken; let them wash your feet, and refresh yourselves under the thick tree\u201d?
\n2This is again related to the different appearance, according to which [he] considered them to be strangers, not having achieved clear knowledge but again being captured and forcefully drawn by the excellent and superior and divine face. 3For this reason, indeed he does not give an order and behave in a lordly manner, not daring [to charge] freemen or servants with serving water for washing the feet. 4But him who had made his face visible, him [he considered to be the one] who supposedly [gives] an order, saying, \u201cLet water be taken,\u201d not adding by whom. 5And again, \u201cLet them wash your feet,\u201d not being clear and knowing exactly whom. Because, as it seems to me, he is not encouraged by and does not rely upon the tangible appearance of the visible humans, but upon the intelligible\u2014the revelation of the Divine. 6Something like this is also indicated in Scripture, that men are cleansed being washed by water, and the water itself, by the divine foot. 7Symbolically, because the foot is the last and lowest [part] of the body, and the last of the divine things has fallen by lot [upon] air, animating the gathered creatures. 8For if air does not touch water, agitating it, [the latter] dies. 9And it becomes very lively, thanks to nothing other than mixing air in itself. 10For this reason, not purposelessly and in vain is it said at the beginning of the Creation that \u201cthe spirit of God was borne over the water,\u201d which now, allegorizing, [Scripture] symbolically called \u201cfoot.\u201d
\n4.6.1Why did he speak in this way: \u201cI shall take bread and you eat,\u201d and not, \u201cyou take\u201d?
\n2Once again, by this, too, he manifests [his] doubt and attraction by both appearances. 3For when it is said, \u201cI shall take bread,\u201d he imagines the divine [appearance], to whom he dares not say, \u201cTake food,\u201d but when [it is said], \u201cYou eat,\u201d he imagines the strange men. 4This is the literal sense; and as to the metaphorical meaning, when the mind starts to prepare and organize [itself] and take the holy divine foods (and these are the laws and visions of wisdom), then symbolically it is said to be fed with the divine [food] as well. 5For those foods that are for the perfection of the celestial Olympians are also for the rational soul: the desires and cravings, by which it is conducted toward the reception of wisdom and the acceptance of perfect virtue.
\n4.9.1Why does [Scripture] say, \u201cHe set [these] before them and they ate\u201d?
\n2\u201cThey ate\u201d symbolically indicates not food. 3For the blessed and fortunate natures do not eat food and do not drink red wine. 4But this is willingness to understand and support one who begs and trusts [them]. 5For as human strangers who are welcomed and happy with food rejoice in their host and entertainer, likewise the Divinity [rejoices] in those who know how to please with friendliness and without alienation. 6For the righteous and worthy conduct of an upright man is allegorically called the food of God.
\n4.12.1Why does he say in the singular, \u201cI shall again come to you at the [right] time at this hour, and there will be a son to your wife Sarah\u201d?
\n2Why in the singular has it earlier been said? 3For according to what this signifies, he imagines not men but that the Father of all has come with his powers. 4But he puts off the gift until a future time, giving a more certain trial to the soul. 5For by the longer period he wishes to make [him] thirstier and to produce an immense craving for righteousness. 6But \u201cthe [right] time\u201d is not just the name of the period, [but of the period] with accomplishment, because it is the period of accomplishment, the time of improvement. 7And clear proof of every accomplishment with improvement is what [Scripture] has said. 8For it is typical and characteristic of the divine power to accomplish something with improvement, also of those whom he wishes to favor. 9And [he] refers to \u201chour\u201d not so much [meaning] the length of the periods and intervals as the propriety of order. 10For it so happened that the framework of the year was put in order and arranged according to periods, by which [he] indicates how the soul comes from disorder into order and worthy disposition. 11To this [soul, Scripture] says, [God] will grant, if he sees it remaining in order and evenness, the birth of the self-taught one with a better nature.
\n4.17.1Why is Sarah as if threatened, whereas Abraham laughed and was not threatened? For [Scripture] says: \u201cAnd the LORD said to Abraham, \u2018Why did Sarah laugh, saying, \u201cShall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?\u201d \u2019 \u201d Is not the word of God strong enough?
\n2That the divine words are actions and powers is known from the foregoing, because nothing is impossible for the Divinity. 3And the threat, as it seems, shows approval rather than reproach to the person, according to the notion of natural anticipation. 4For she is surprised that, indeed, [despite that] all conditions and probabilities by which birth is completed are removed, a new activity can be sown by God in the whole soul, for the birth of delight, great exultation, which is called in Armenian \u201claughter\u201d and in Chaldean \u201cIsaac.\u201d 5Whereas Abraham, avoiding, flees and as if saved from the seeming threat of punishment, being firm by the unchanging and unbending persuasion of faith. 6For any doubt is alien to the one who believes in God.
\n4.20.1Why did Abraham walk with them to see them off?
\n2In the literal sense, [Scripture] demonstrates a kind of abundance of humanity in [Abraham\u2019s] hospitality. 3And having willingly given [them] whatever was suitable, with [his] whole household, he was also so loath to separate and so reluctant to depart [from them] that he lingered and stayed and started on a journey with them. 4And the poet, it seems to me, taking from here, appropriately said that, \u201cOne should welcome the present guest and send off him who wishes [to go].\u201d 5But \u201csee off\u201d is better than \u201csend off\u201d: it is more communicative and displays a habit of unity. 6But we should not leave aside the metaphorical meaning as well. 7For when the soul of a righteous man once perceives a very clear vision of God and his powers and is filled with craving, it scarcely, or not at all, can depart [from him]. 8If he is [there] and stays, he worships and receives [him] with humbleness, and if, going, he withdraws, because of the craving he returns, having [in himself] the heavenly longing [as] a glue and close link. 9Because not in vain is it said, \u201cwalked with them,\u201d but for a more reliable testimony to the powers of the Father, which, he certainly knew, were not far away, even for a short while.
\n4.26.1What is, \u201cAnd approaching, Abraham said, \u2018You will not destroy the innocent along with the guilty, and shall the innocent be as the impious\u2019 \u201d?
\n2The literal sense is clear. But as to the metaphorical meaning, man is said to contact God allegorically, not actually. Because [a contact] in body \u2026 never, give it up, and let it ever not even come to our mind! 3For the mortal and corruptible essence is settled separately, far away from the uncreated and imperturbable nature, except for the ruler of the soul, which is called mind, [and] which is worthy and capable of contact. 4And the passage toward him who is implored should be suitable, the suppliant offering great eulogy to the one full of beneficence, agreeableness, and love for man. 5For Abraham implores not to destroy the innocent along with the guilty, and not man along with man, and not thought along with thought. 6But it seems to me that the clean and undefiled and just characters, in whom nothing iniquitous is mixed, should now be removed from the present example. 7For he is certainly sure that such a man deserves salvation and must by all means survive. 8But shivering and fearing concerns him who is defiled and impure, and as one would say, unjust and iniquitous. 9And because, acquiring the flare of the sparkling ray and the flashes of the fire of justice, he hopes to be able to convert [men] to spiritual health. 10For he considers it better and more proper that, thanks to the innocent [man], the sufferings that are upon the impious should be lightened and eased by the benevolent might of God than that an innocent [man] should be involved because of the unrighteous.
\n4.39.1What is, \u201cThey said, \u2018Hey, stand back! You have come to dwell here as an alien, why should you also judge\u2019 \u201d?
\n2Those who assemble and establish war in the souls, makers of dissolution and defilement, put the leader and the teacher to shame, saying that, \u201cOh you, do you not like that you have come to us, not as [fellow] inhabitants and fellow countrymen, whose habits would be enforced on you, and [that you would have had to] adopt the habits of our country? 3For our land is dissolute defilement; lascivious desire is the law and the lawful will. 4Now, being allowed to live freely as an alien, do you dare to revolt and disobey? 5And although you should have been quiet, you judge and discriminate between affairs, saying as if these are wicked and others are good, these are kind, righteous, and respectable, and these are bad and worthless and vile; converting some into virtue and giving others a share of evil in nature. 6There is desire in every being, and all things on earth must be reduced to that. 7This is the ancient law of the Sodomites, which some of the boys call \u2018auxiliary,\u2019 such as the boys [who] due to being burdened with grammar cannot receive instruction.\u201d
\n4.43.1Why does [Scripture] say: it was announced to Lot by the angels, and \u201che seemed to his sons-in-law as one who jests\u201d?
\n2Those who are in [possession of] abundant and uncountable riches, greatness and glory and similar things, and live in health, vigor, and vitality of body, and accumulate lustful desire by all their senses, thinking that they have reached real happiness, do not expect that there can be change and transformation. 3But they jest and mock those who say that everything that is in and out of the body contains much damage and is ephemeral. 4For who, when the Persians dominated dry land and sea, did hope that they would collapse; and also, when the Macedonians [dominated]? 5But even if somebody ventured to say this, he was by all means mocked as a madman and a fool. 6And no less needful was a change for the opponents of those Gentiles who at that time were famous and celebrated. 7So that the ones whom [others] mocked begin to mock [them], and those who mocked become a mock, regarding the active and variable things as inactive and invariable by nature, [as if they] are immutable and unchangeable.<\/p>\n
Questions and Answers on Exodus<\/p>\n
TRANSLATION<\/p>\n
1.1.1\u201cThis month [shall mark] for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year [for you].\u201d
\n2[Scripture] thinks that the circulation of the months should be counted from the vernal equinox, and by synonymy it is said \u201cfirst\u201d and \u201cbeginning,\u201d these being designated by each other. 3For it is said \u201cfirst\u201d either by order or by power, and the \u201cbeginning\u201d appears in the same way; the season that [starts] from the vernal equinox is the first both by order and by power, just like the head of a living being. 4Now, those who are learned in astronomy also place this name in the mentioned period, because they call the Ram \u201cthe head of the zodiac\u201d; the sun appears in it and gives birth to the vernal equinox. 5And, furthermore, it happened to be the \u201cexit\u201d from which the periods of the year, too, are born. 6Now, when the fruits of the seeded things ripen, they then begin the trees\u2019 birth, so that the favors of God last eternally, succeeding one another and uniting the end with the beginnings and the beginnings with the ends. 7And during the first creation of all things, when [God] also made the world, he established everything in it filled with their fruits, [their] thoughts\u2019 peers. 8Because it was necessary for the Father to be so: not to leave any doubts about anything, neither to add nor to take away [excessively]; and especially in order that the man (whom he was going to entrust the beginning of habits) should be perfect, and that everything [else] should at once be perfectly born. 9And that [Scripture] assumes the vernal equinox to be the beginning of the cycle of the months is evident from the concept of time according to the commandments and traditions of various nations. 10And one can also verify this by the first sheaves, that [God] orders to bring for use to those in service on the second day of the feast; and the time of the harvest is spring. 11But one may be puzzled: why is it so that although there are two equinoxes, the vernal and the autumnal, which nature has set up with the straight bar of equinox, [Scripture] started to count the time not from the autumnal one, but from that which is in spring? 12Because in spring the entire fruitful soil, in the mountains and in the plains, sprouts and flowers and yields fruit, whereas in autumn, after whatever the earth has brought is accumulated, the plants shed their leaves and get dry; and one should grant the beginning to the good and more desired [time]. 13But it seems to me that the autumnal one became a servant of the vernal equinox, as if of a queen; because it serves her, comforting the earth and lightening the trees, whose inner nature had a difficult time, fighting successfully as a wrestler: having strength when accumulating it and [then] again restoring it from the start. 14Now, if so, nobody would be mistaken by saying that, just as heaven is superior among all things, likewise among the seasons spring is superior to and more princely than autumn. 15And not all [people] count the months and years in the same way, but differently: some by the sun and others by the moon. 16And that is why those who celebrate divine festivals have contradictory opinions on the beginnings of the year, establishing beginnings of the seasons\u2019 cycle that contradict [one another] in accordance with the time of their start. 17For this reason, [Scripture] has added: \u201cThis month [shall mark] for you the beginning,\u201d indicating a fixed and clear number of seasons, so that they do not follow the Egyptians, being confused [and] deceived by the latters\u2019 customs because of having dwelt in their country. 18For [God] wished this same season to be the start of the world\u2019s creation and the beginning of the months and the year for the nation. 19And the season when the world came into being, if one approaches the truth conscientiously, guided by prudence, is the season of spring, because in this period the earth in general blossoms and sprouts and bears its perfect fruits. 20And, as I have said, nothing was imperfect at the first creation of the whole. 21For care was taken that humans should be citizens, having gotten a special benefit in reward for piety, [that is] this megalopolis, the world, and citizenship, by which dispensation they are conducted. 22Therefore, [God] thought that the season should be the same for the remembrance of the world\u2019s birth and for all that is related to it, so that once again spring is the beginning of every time, because it appeared together with the creation of the world. 23And the [Israelite] nation, following nature and every dispensation of heaven, similarly and accordingly counts the periods of the months and years, making spring, the same [season], the start, as it was at the creation of the world. 24For at man\u2019s command, they were to change their dwelling from Egypt to wherever it was arranged, being convinced by definite words. 25He recorded the first month as the time of migration, but this same [month] is the seventh according to the solar cycle. 26For from the autumnal equinox the seventh [month] is recorded as the time of migration, and it is the first, according to the solar numbering.
\n1.2.1Why does [God] command to keep watch from the 10th day [of Nisan] over the lamb, which was to be slaughtered on the 14th [day]?
\n2First, so that when offering sacrifice one should not at once make the sacrifice without preparation, casually and as something less important, but [should offer it] with care and devotion, as if preparing thanksgiving to God, the Savior and Benefactor of everyone. 3Second, by this remark on the preparation of the sacrifice beforehand, [Scripture] first of all wants to instruct that he who is going to offer sacrifice should prepare his soul and body beforehand: the latter, with holiness and cleanness, to keep away from filth, and the former, to gain the peace that God inspires\u2014release, even though not complete, from the passions that upset [it], because, according to the saying, one should not walk on the pavement of the Temple of God with unwashed feet. 4Third, [he] wants to test the nation for many days: how is so- and-so in the faith? 5For [God] knew that the doubters certainly were not prepared for the sacrifice, being lazy and careless about their proper and fitting duties. 6Fourth, [Scripture] obviously introduces the failure of the Egyptians (for they were not totally broken and deterred by the things that had befallen them), appointing five days for the misfortunes that were to come upon them, which they had to bear one after another, when the enemies were preparing to offer the sacrifices of victory. 7This is the literal sense; as to the metaphorical meaning, it should happen [so that] the numbers and nature are altogether united. 8Now, when the souls are visibly bright and shining, the appearance of this sets off celebration in the hope for a life without grief and fear, by a happy lot; for on the 10th [day] the complete [and] perfect order of the words and reflection is seen. 9Such is the emotion of this; what else can it be if not a festive [mood]?
\n1.8.1Why a lamb without blemish?
\n2Allegorically, as I have said, this hints at ideal improvement and, simultaneously, to the male. 3For improvement is in fact nothing but the abandonment of the female gender by changing into the male. 4For the female gender is material, passive, corporeal, [and] sensual, whereas the male is active, rational, incorporeal, [and] more related to the mind and thoughts. 5But not in vain has [Scripture] also added \u201cyearling,\u201d because the year is called \u201cperfect\u201d from the fact that it embraces everything in itself. 6Now, since in two of the four seasons, in autumn and winter, the plants shed their leaves and dry out, and in the other two, spring and summer, they blossom and yield fruit, the souls of the perfected [men] undergo similar things. 7For when they throw off the causes of life, they make almost everything [in them] dry due to desires and all the other sorts of passion. 8And then, sprouting again, [the soul] gives birth to sagacity and prudence and also conceives and brings forth perfect fruits of wisdom. 9And why does [God] command them to prepare lambs and kids beforehand? 10Perhaps because Egypt deified those animals most of all; in order that the Defender and Supervisor should demonstrate the defeat of the enemies and the power by which were overcome those who were unable to help even their own deities. 11Furthermore, because the male [lambs] were chosen for everyday offerings, and the goats, for the remission of sins. 12And these are signs of a righteous soul craving for perfection; first it was needed to get rid of the sins and then, having washed them off and being cleansed, to perform the everyday [duties] guided by virtue.
\n1.10.1\u201cAnd the entire multitude shall slaughter,\u201d [Scripture] says.
\n2For at other times the daily priests [elected] from the people, being ordained for taking care of the slaughter, perform the sacrifices, but at the aforementioned Passover all the people without exception are honored with priesthood; for everybody acts personally in the performance of the sacrifice. 3Why? First, because this was the beginning of such sacrifices\u2014the Levites were not yet consecrated as priests, since there was not yet any temple or altar anywhere. 4And second, because the one Savior and Liberator, drawing all things toward liberty, regarded the same [people] as worthy of sharing both liberty and priesthood, [thus] testifying to the equal piety of everyone belonging to the [Israelite] nation. 5And because, I suppose, [he] considered all the Egyptians to be equally impious and unworthy and filthy, thinking of their punishment. 6For they would not suffer such things if they were not guilty before the judging Father, also of [un]justice. 7Thus, that time brought equality to the two populous nations, the Egyptians and the Hebrews: equality in impiety to the former, and [equality] in piety to the latter. 8Third, since no temple had been built yet, [God] showed the living together of good individuals as a temple and altar at home, so that during the nation\u2019s first sacrifice nobody would have anything more [than others]. 9Fourth, [God] considered it fair and worthy that before electing single priests he should grant priesthood to the whole nation, so that not the whole should be decorated with the part, but the part with the whole. 10And since, before all the popular [festivals], the sacrifice was the beginning of the aforementioned Passover, he let the nation perform it with their hands and to slaughter, as the beginning of good things. 11And what is more beautiful than the performance of the divine ritual by everyone together, being instructed to do so? 12So that their nation should become a prototypal example for the wardens and priests of the Temple and those serving as high priests, who must sacredly do their duties. 13Fifth, because [God] wishes that every house and householder behave in this appropriate way [and] not be desecrated at all\u2014just as a priest cleansed of all sins in what he says, does, and thinks. 14And now calling the multitude \u201ccongregation,\u201d [Scripture] has given fitting names for a clearer demonstration of vigilance under the circumstances, now and in the present case. 15For when the whole multitude was at one place in agreement [and] unity, in order to give thanks for the migration, [Scripture] did not call them \u201cmultitude,\u201d \u201cnation,\u201d or \u201cpeople,\u201d but \u201ccongregation.\u201d 16Thus, it happened that they congregated and came to one place not only bodily but also mentally, prepared to perform the sacrifice with one mind and one spirit.
\n1.12.1Why does [God] command to put [some] of the blood on the doorposts and the lintel of every house?
\n2This means that, as I have said a little before, every house had at that time become an altar and temple of God for the contemplative. 3Therefore, he justly presents [some] of the blood of the divine sacrifice [to them] for the front parts of every [house]. 4He honors them, at the same time disdaining the enemies, so that [the Israelites] do not sacrifice with fear but as if making a show and manifesting boldness through the grandeur and multitude graces of God. 5This is the literal sense, and the allegorical meaning is as follows: our souls being of three parts\u2014the heart is like the lintel, desire [is like] the house, and reason [is like] the two doorposts. 6And since each of these parts is expected to migrate toward justice, piety, and worthy sanctity, and to move to other virtues, it is necessary for the blood, their relative, to accompany [them] toward virtue.
\n2.27.1What is, \u201cThen he said to Moses, \u2018Come up, you, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu\u2019 \u201d?
\n2And you see the God-appropriate number of those assembled for the ascension: the tetrad, which is the essence of the decade, and 70, which was born by multiplying 10 by 7 or 7 by 10. 3But it should be known that by the literal meaning the passage is allegorized. 4For Moses is the purest and most God-loving mind, and Aaron is his word, that is, the reliable interpreter of the truth, and Nadab is the voluntary kind, because [\u201cNadab\u201d] is translated \u201cvoluntary,\u201d and Abihu is the truth from God, for the name is taken in this [sense]. 5Now, behold a soul adorned in all ways, which for the pleasure of God heads toward virtue with [its] ornaments: the worthy mind, the true word, the voluntary [kind] inclined toward piety, and a fence and wall protecting them\u2014an aid from God. 6But let the power of the number 4 be placed under the commander: the oneness comprising [them], because the one prophetic mind obtained by you has three adornments. 7The power of the 70 elders honored in their old age is not from the long duration of time but from the appearance of the perfect numbers, which are worthy of honor and the first rank.
\n2.29.1Why does [Scripture] say that Moses alone should approach God, and they should not approach, and the people should not go up with them?
\n2O the best and God-appropriate successive order! 3Only the prophetic mind may come near God, and those in the second place may [only] go up, on the way to heaven; but those in the third place and the people with disorderly character may neither go up nor walk with them but be beholders of those worthy of beholding the blessed way upward. 4But \u201c[Moses] alone should approach\u201d is said quite naturally, because the prophetic mind, when it is inspired and possessed by God, is like the monad completely separate from things that are associated with the dyad. 5And he who is absorbed into the nature of oneness is said to touch God through a kind of kinship. 6For having renounced and abandoned all the mortal genera, he is changed into the Divine; such men indeed become akin to God and divine.
\n2.30.1Why does Moses, rising early in the morning, set up an altar at the mountain and 12 stones for the 12 tribes of Israel?
\n2Either the altar is made of only 12 stones, so that all the tribes of the whole nation might somehow become a holy altar for God, or, apart from the altar 12 stones are erected separately, so that some people, if they do not participate in the everyday worship, seem to be there through the filling of their absence by the erection of the 12 stones, which have become a memorial to the tribes (whom [Moses] wants to be always close to the Father and [his] ministers).
\n2.31.1Why does [Moses] send young men and not elders?
\n2Since the elders, 70 in number, had taken the nation to [the foot of] the mountain, serving the prophet during his ascension, it would be inappropriate and strange to call again for yet another task those who had already been called earlier for the vision. 3Or else, if [Moses] ordered their peers to offer the sacrifice, it would be insulting to those who were not offering [it] with them. 4Second, because the [men of] old age were [at the same time] elders and a kind of firstfruits expected to perform bloodless slaughter, which is more fitting to aged elders. 5Whereas those that in the vigor of youth were sent to offer the sacrifice, the youngsters, since there was a lot of blood in them due to their vigorous youthfulness, would benefit from giving thanks to God and the Father by offering every sacrifice with blood. 6They would [thus] be led by their young age to the desires that bring to piety and not to the rage of unbridled desires. 7This is the literal sense; as to the metaphorical meaning, the soul of an all-wise and God-loving [man] has in itself both senile and youthful principles, all [of which are] sacred. 8But the old men and the [principles] that are in them are led toward the observation of nature, while those in the vigor of youth [are led] toward the power of appropriate deeds, until the life (both contemplative and practical) of the goodly ones in it is inscribed on monuments and glorified.
\n2.33.1Why did Moses, taking one part of the blood, pour it into craters and [why did he] pour the other part on the altar?
\n2He divides the blood according to its worth, wishing that some of it should be a holy offering to God, and some, a holy ointment instead of oil, for sacredness and perfect purity; furthermore, if one ought to tell the truth, [he does so] to be inspired for receiving the Holy Spirit. 3And the craters are a symbol of the mixed and compound nature, which is ours, for the unmixed genus is divine. 4But everything coming into being by birth is from opposites, one of which must be the recipient of the good and the other of the evil kind. 5Now, whatever is of the better [kind] is allotted to the part of God, [who] has achieved this by [his] simpler and more luminous essence, whereas whatever is of the worse [kind] belongs to the mortal race. 6But one should start with the incorporeal and intelligible things, which are the measures and patterns of the sensible. 7Now, the beginnings of all things form numbers, some of which are odd, having the significance of active causes, and some are even, [having the significance] of matter. 8Now, it is necessary to ascribe the odd form to God, because he is related to acting, and the even, to the mortal race, because it is familiar with tolerance and passivity. 9The same [difference] also occurs in equality and inequality, in likeness and unlikeness, in identity and diversity, in unity and separation. 10Now, in equality and in likeness and in identity and in unity, the better is arranged in a certain order in conformity with God, while what is unequal, unlike, diverse, and separate is in the worse, the dominant part of which is possessed by the mortals. 11But the equivalent of this [difference] is to be seen not only in the incorporeal and intelligible [things] but also in sensible natures. 12Now, already in the universe, heaven itself and all that is in heaven, being worthy of the Divine, best essence and part, approach God and are given to him as offering. 13But those that are sublunary, as they belong to the material and denser part, they are granted to the mortal race. 14Furthermore, in us ourselves the soul is constituted of the rational and the irrational. 15Now, since the rational is good, it is given as offering to the good nature, whereas the irrational, since it is worse, [is given] to the subordinate [one], which we, the uneducated, uninstructed, and disobedient, have got. 16But someone, thinking with good judgment about the mortal body, would say that the ruling head should be offered to the holy Creator and Father, while [the part] from the breast down to the feet, to the material essence. 17Now, [Moses] symbolically assigns this to the craters, because it is mixed and tainted, while he offers the unmixed and pure [part] to God, making a sacrifice [of it].
\n2.34.1What is, \u201cTaking the book of the testament, he read it to the ears of all the people\u201d?
\n2We have already commented accurately on the divine testament, so it is not necessary now to speak [about it] again. 3But about the reading to the ears we must demonstrate some knowledge. 4It takes place without separation and interruption, not [by means of] the air striking from outside and a noise reaching the ears, but the speaker\u2019s [voice] sounds in them without separation and gap, as a voice uttered [in an] unmixed and luminous [way]. 5So that, if a third thing remains between [them], the perception should not be worse because of that interference, but so that [the voice] should sound more reliably, only in a pure way, when the audience and the word come together, without anything separating [them]. 6This is the literal sense; as to the metaphorical meaning, since it was impossible for someone to reach the hearing of such a multitude and to approach [and] speak to the ears, it is necessary to assume the following: that the Teacher and [his] adherent were there. 7One of them speaks separately with the pupil and hides nothing, not even ineffable things, and the other perceives, offering himself as a worthy volunteer for [learning] the laws of the divine covenant, and as a keeper of things that were not assignable to many but [only] to the one concerned.
\n2.41.1Why are the commandments written on stone tablets?
\n2Tablets and books are handmade, and the writings on them are easily corruptible, because there is wax on the tablets, which easily rubs off, and the ink on papyrus sometimes runs and sometimes looks faded. 3But stones are the work of nature, easily transformable into tablets and into the shapes of polished slabs; and the characters on them are eternal and stable thanks to the firmness of the material. 4Second, it was impossible for the divine commandments to remain hidden in a niche, unavailable to those who yearned to see and study [them], but they had to be published and carried around openly. 5And for those things that were to be publicly shown outdoors durable material was necessary, because of the burning sun and rains falling on [them] (that is why later on the stone slabs were placed in the ark). 6Third, they are stone tablets, denoting the stability of stone and the instability of a tablet, because a tablet is easily written on and erased. 7And this is a symbol of the preservation and abolition of laws: what is written [is a symbol of] preservation, and what is erased, of abolition, for one might rightly say that those who disobey the commandments have no laws at all.
\n2.42.1If God writes laws.\u2026
\n2Since God is a legislator according to sublime reasoning, good laws, which are also called laws without falsehood, must be established by him and be recorded in writing, not of the hands, because [God] is not anthropomorphic, but at his command and nod. 3For if by his word the heaven and the earth and the whole world were created, and all the substances received [their] form from the divine words, which shaped them, would not the letters immediately become [his] servants, when God said that the Law must be written? 4Second, the world is a great and lawful city, and it should use good laws of administration; and it is suitable that [the world] has a proper establisher of law and legislator, because in a similar way [God] also brought to light humankind\u2019s contemplative nation in this world. 5And he rightly makes the Law for this nation, [thereby] also proposing the world law, because the chosen nation is the model of the world, and her Law is [the model] of the world [law].
\n2.45.1What is, \u201cAnd the glory of God descended on Mount Sinai\u201d?
\n2This clearly discredits those who either through ungodliness or through stupidity think that there are movements of the Deity pertaining to places and changes. 3For behold, [Scripture] clearly says that not the being of God (that which, according to its essence, is only thought of) but his glory descended. 4And the interpretation of glory is dual: there is [glory] that points to the presence of powers (because a king\u2019s military power, too, is called glory), and there is [glory] that [points] only to opinion and the notion of the divine glory; so that this creates in the minds of those present an image of the arrival of God, who was not there (as if he had come for the firm belief in the things that were to be legislated). 5And the mountain is quite suitable for accepting the revelation of God, as the name \u201cSinai\u201d indicates, for when it is rendered into our tongue, it means \u201cinaccessible.\u201d 6Now, the divine place is really untrodden and unapproachable; nor even a very pure mind can climb it up to such a height as to approach it just for touching.
\n2.46.1Why is the mountain hidden by a cloud for six days, and Moses called above on the seventh day?
\n2[God] assigned the same number, the hexad, both to the creation of the world and to the choice of the contemplative nation, wishing, first, to demonstrate that [it was] he [who] had created both the world and the nation chosen for virtue. 3And second, because he wishes that the nation should be organized and adorned in the same way as, in general, the whole world, so that, accordingly and similarly, [the nation] should have the suitable order that conforms with the correct laws and canon of the constant, placeless, and unmoving nature of God. 4And the calling of the prophet above is a second birth superior to the first, because that mixed one was through body and had corruptible parents, whereas this one is a pure and simple soul of the ruler [mind], changed from a born into an unborn form that has no mother, but only a father, who is also [the Father] of all. 5Therefore, the calling above or, as we have said, the divine birth happened to take place for him according to the nature of the hebdomad, the ever-virgin. 6For he is called on the seventh day, differing in this [respect] from the firstborn [and] earth-born [man], because that one came into existence from the earth, with a body, and this one, from the ether and without a body. 7For this reason, to the earth-born [man] the more familiar number was given, the hexad, while to the differently born [one], the superior nature of the hebdomad.
\n2.51.1What is, \u201cYou shall make a sanctuary for Me, and I shall appear among you\u201d?
\n2The literal sense is clear, because the Temple is mentioned: the Tabernacle is the archetype of a certain temple. 3And as to the metaphorical meaning, God always appears to his work, which is most sacred\u2014I mean the world. 4For his salutary powers are visible and move around in all the parts of the heaven, the earth, the waters, and the air, and in whatever is in them. 5For the Savior and Benefactor is propitious and he wants to separate the rational race from all animals. 6For this reason, honoring with greatest favor, he grants [them] the great beneficence, his appearance, in which there are all sorts of good things, if only there be a proper place, cleansed with sanctity and thorough purity. 7For, O mind, if you do not prepare yourself by yourself, removing the desires, lusts, sorrows, and fears, and removing the stupidities, iniquities, and related evils, and [if you do not] change and fit yourself to the sight of sanctity, you will end your life blind, not being able to see the intelligible sun. 8But if you are consecrated by proper consecration and can dedicate yourself to God and be a kind of animate temple of the Father, you will see what is primary with open eyes, instead of closing [them], and you will come to the end with vigilance instead of the deep sleep in which you were trapped. 9Then will appear to you the apparent [one], who produces for you incorporeal rays, also granting visions of what is certain and ineffable in nature, and [visions] of the abundant sources of other good [things]. 10For the beginning and the end of felicity is the ability to see God, but this is impossible for one who has not made his soul, as I have said, as a sanctuary and a temple of God in every way.
\n2.52.1What is, \u201cYou shall make, according to all that I shall show you on the mountain, the patterns of the Tabernacle and [those] of the vessels\u201d?
\n2That every imitation of a sensible has [as its] source an intelligible exemplar in nature, [Scripture] has demonstrated in many other [passages], as also now. 3Moreover, it has in the best way represented as the instructor of the incorporeal and initial examples not someone created and born but the unborn and uncreated God. 4Since it was appropriate and right to disclose to an intelligent [man] the forms of the intelligible [exemplars] and, in general, the measure of all things (according to which the world is made), for this reason only the prophet, being called, was taken up in order that neither the mortal race should be deprived of the incorruptible countenance nor should the divine and holy essence be proclaimed and publicly shown to many of them. 5And he was taken to the high mountain, climbing that which others were not permitted, and a thick and dense cloud concealed the whole site, preventing view of those places: not because the nature of invisible things is seen to the bodily eyes, but because many signs of intelligible things are indicated by visions noticeable to the eyes (just as one who learns by seeing figuratively is able to form certain images according to some sign and create their correct and clear likeness).
\n2.54.1Why does he overlay [the Ark] with pure gold from inside and with gold from outside?
\n2Others fake with deception the outer surface and leave the inside hidden, and it remains rough and unfinished. 3And they embellish the outside with various ornaments for elegance or for attracting the admiration of the viewers. 4But the divine holy Moses embellishes the inside before the outside with proper ornament\u2014with gold: first, the most costly material of all, and moreover with pure gold, refined and uncontaminated, for the cleanness of the substance. 5This is the literal sense; as to the metaphorical meaning, [it is] as follows. 6There are both invisible and visible species in nature: the invisible and unseen consists of incorporeal things, and it is in the intelligible world, while the visible is made of bodies\u2014this is the sensible world. 7These two species are internal and external; [God] made the internal [species as] incorporeal, and the external, [as] corporeal. 8That which he created [as] undecaying and incorruptible was, in addition, [externally] seemly, sacred, and precious. 9Now, the precious gold is allegorically mentioned with regard to the humans\u2019 structure as well, wherefore, necessarily, [with regard] to the soul too. 10But the latter, together with all its virtues, is invisible, [while] the habits and motions of the body are embellished and visible like the gold. 11For a life is perfect if it is [led] by both: by a pure mind, which is not visible, and impeccable and faultless deeds, which can be seen by many.
\n2.62.1What are the cherubim?
\n2It is translated \u201cmuch recognition,\u201d in other words, \u201caccumulated knowledge [and] wealth.\u201d 3But [the cherubim] are the symbol of two powers: the creative and the kingly. 4But the creative [power] is the elder according to [our] thought. 5For the powers that are around God are of the same age, but the creative [power] is imagined before the kingly. 6For one is king not of the things that do not exist but of those that have come into being. 7And the creative [power] received a name in the Holy and Divine Scripture, to be called \u201cGod,\u201d because the ancients spoke of creating as \u201cputting.\u201d 8And the kingly [power] is called \u201cLORD,\u201d because [the title] \u201cLORD of all\u201d is bestowed on a king.
\n2.66.1Why are the faces of the cherubim turned toward each other, and both, toward the mercy seat?
\n2The image of what is said is very good in a way and fitting; for the creative and kingly powers should be turned toward each other, seeing their own beauty and at the same time the two together uniting for the benefit of the existing things. 3Second, since God is one, Creator and King, [each of them] has rightly received a separate power; for they have been divided appropriately, so that one should create and the other should govern. 4For they are different and have been fitted together in some other way according to the eternal attachment of names to one another, so that the creative [power] should be the guardian of the governing [one], and the kingly [power], of the creative [one], because both are rightly turned toward each other and toward the mercy seat. 5For if God were not well disposed to those who are together, he would neither have made anything by the creative [power], nor would he have established good laws with the royal [power].
\n2.68.1What is, \u201cI will speak to you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim\u201d?
\n2First of all, by this [God] demonstrates that the Divinity is superior to the propitious, creative, and all [other] powers, and, furthermore, that he speaks right from the middle of the creative [and the kingly] power[s]. 3And the mind assumes this as follows: the Divine Logos, since it is right in the middle, leaves absolutely nothing void in nature, filling all things, and becomes a mediator and judge for the two sides that seem to be separated from each other, establishing love and agreement, for it is always the cause of partnership and the creator of peace. 4Now, the separate parts of the Ark have [already] been spoken about, but one should also summarily take up and go over [them] anew, in order to know what they are symbols of. 5For these symbols are the Ark, the Law treasured in it, the mercy seat on it; furthermore, on the mercy seat [were] the cherubim called [so] in the Chaldean language, and above them, in the middle, the Voice and the Logos, and above it, the Speaker. 6Now, if someone can correctly observe and understand their nature, it seems to me [that], captivated by their godlike beauty, [he will] give up all other things that are desirable. 7But let us examine what kind each of them is. 8First, [there is] he who is older than the one and the monad and the origin; then [there is] the Logos of the Existent, actually, the procreative essence of existing things. 9And from the Logos of the Existent, as if from a source, two powers split: one is the creative [power], by which the Craftsman set and regulated all things\u2014this is called \u201cGod\u201d\u2014and [the second is] the kingly [power], the one by which he is the ruler of those made by the Creator\u2014this is called \u201cLORD.\u201d 10And from these two powers the others have sprung, for alongside the creative [power] the propitious sprouts, whose name is \u201cbeneficial,\u201d and [alongside] the kingly [power], the lawgiving, whose exact name is \u201cchastening.\u201d 11And beneath them and near them is the Ark; and the Ark is a symbol of the intelligible world. 12And the Ark symbolically has everything set in the innermost part of the Holy: the incorporeal world, and the Law, which he has called \u201ctestaments\u201d; the lawgiving and the chastening powers, the mercy seat, the propitious and the beneficial [powers]; above these, the creative [power], which is the source of the propitious and of the beneficial [powers], and the kingly [power], which is the root of the chastening and the lawgiving [powers]. 13But the Divine Logos, since it is in the middle, is superior [to them], and higher than the Logos is the One Who Speaks. 14And of the things enumerated the number 7 is completed: the intelligible world and the two cognate powers, the chastening and the beneficial; and the two others before these, the creative and the kingly (having more relation to the Craftsman than to what is created), and the sixth, the Logos, and the seventh, He Who Speaks. 15Now, if you start from above, the Speaker is the first, and the Logos is the second, and the third is the creative power, and the fourth is the kingly [power]; then below the creative is the fifth [power], the beneficial; and below the kingly is the sixth [power], the chastening; and the seventh is the world [consisting] of ideas.
\n2.78.1Why are there seven lamps on the lampstand?
\n2It is clear to everyone that the seven lamps are symbols of the planets, which correspond to the hebdomad, the sacred divine number. 3Their motion and revolution is through the signs of the zodiac; they are the causes of the things under the moon\u2014of all those that are accustomed to coming to peaceful unity in the air, in the water, on the earth, and always in every mixture of animals and plants.
\n2.79.1Why does [Scripture] say that the lampstand gives light from one side?
\n2The planets do not wander around the heavenly sphere through all the parts and sides, but in one side\u2014in the southern. 3For their movement is as if close to our zone, so the shadow does not fall upon the southern side but upon the northern. 4That is why [Scripture] said not improperly that the lampstand gives light from one side, hinting at the revolution of each planet in the southern parts.
\n2.82.1What is, \u201cMake according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain\u201d?
\n2Once again by means of the pattern he hints at the incorporeal heaven, the model and archetype of the sensible [one]. 3For the former is the pattern and seal and measure of the visible [heaven]. 4To this fact he witnesses by saying, \u201cLook,\u201d exhorting [Moses] how to keep the contemplation of the soul awake and always watchful for the vision of incorporeal forms. 5For it is clear that if he were to see [something] sensible with the eyes of the body, there would be no need for any [special] command.
\n2.83.1What is the Tabernacle?
\n2First of all, hinting at the incorporeal and intelligible world by means of the Ark, and at the essence of the sensible [world] by means of the table, and at the heaven by means of the lampstand, [God] starts to describe sequentially the things that are under the moon: air, water, fire, and earth, describing the Tabernacle [in accordance with] their nature and essence. 3For the Tabernacle is a moveable temple of God, and it is not firm and fixed; and those beneath the heaven are [also] unstable and transformable, while only the heaven is immutable in itself and constant. 4But this passage also shows a certain imitation; since they were passing through a desert, where there were neither courts nor houses, but [only] tabernacles were made out of necessity (to provide the aid of warmth in case of cold), [Moses] deemed it right that there should [also] be the holiest temple of the Father and Creator of all things. 5Once again the Tabernacle showed the Divine Name, which needs nothing, [as] dwelling in the same house and tent and [as] a cohabitant with those in need\u2014so far as one may imagine\u2014for the sake of receiving piety and appropriate sanctity. 6For what were those who saw the structure of their dwelling place looking like the Divine Temple likely to do if not to worship and bless the Supervisor and Inspector and Caretaker of his power, in return for being close to him? 7And power is proper to God, O ministers!
\n2.101.1Why does the altar have horns, and not part of it but of one piece?
\n2[This is so] because it is not fitting to slaughter [any] of those [animals] that do not have horns, neither those that are sacrificial nor those for anything else. 3Now, the following three are to be offered as sacrifice: the sheep, the ox, [and] the goat; and for food, besides these, [there are] seven more: the gazelle, the deer, the wild goat, the buffalo, the white-rump, the oryx, [and] the giraffe. 4Each of them has horns, because [God] also wishes to distinguish [the animals] for food; for although they are not offered as sacrifice, they are similar to the sacrificial ones, so that, in this way, those who utilize them for their needs should not offer something contrary to, unworthy of, and alien to the sacrifice. 5Second, the downturned horns face toward the four sides of the world: toward the east, toward the west, toward the south, and toward the Plough. 6For it is appropriate that those who are in all the sides [of the world] should bring altogether the firstlings and firstfruits to this one altar and offer sacrifices to God, the Father of the world. 7Third, in a symbolic sense, [this is so] because the horns are outgrowths, which [God] gave instead of repelling weapons to the animals that grow horns (such as the sacrificial ones: the ram, the ox, and the goat), [so that] they repel enemies with their horns. 8In this way he wished to reproach the impious who dare offer sacrifices, instructing that when enemies of truth counteract, the Divine Logos repels them, tearing as if with horns every soul and revealing their wicked and unworthy deeds, which a little before it [the soul] had hidden. 9For these reasons, the horns are not to be put [on the altar] from outside, but [God] commanded that they should be of one piece with the altar, to project [from it], because the sacrificial animals, too, have the outgrowths of the horns from themselves.<\/p>\n
On the Creation of the World<\/p>\n
David T. Runia<\/p>\n
On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi) is Philo\u2019s best-known work and stands at the beginning of all editions and translations of his writings. It is the opening work of the series Exposition of the Law. In it, Philo gives a selective exegesis of the first three chapters of Genesis up to the expulsion from paradise. He argues that before we are ready to understand the Law as it applies to human beings, we must first have an understanding of the Law in its cosmic context, since there is a direct correlation between the Law of God for humanity and the law of nature for the cosmos as the totality of the physical world (Creation 3). This correlation goes right back to the way in which the cosmos was created. The cosmos was first conceived as a plan in the divine Logos, Philo\u2019s term for God\u2019s thinking in relation to the world (\u00a716). God\u2019s plan unfolds in the works of the six days of Creation, which are not to be taken literally, but rather as indicating the cosmos\u2019s order and structure (\u00a713). Because humanity is created \u201cafter the image of God,\u201d that is, in relation to his Logos (\u00a725), human beings possess the faculty of reason (\u00a769) and can understand the rationale behind the Law. The influence of the passions, and especially of desire, has caused human beings to turn away from God (\u00a7152). Understanding of the main lessons taught by Moses in the Creation account will allow them to achieve \u201ca blessed life of well-being, marked as he is by the doctrines of piety and holiness\u201d (\u00a7172, final words of the treatise).
\nIn giving its exegesis of the Mosaic Creation account, the treatise touches on many important theological, cosmological, and anthropological themes. The chief of these is the theme of God\u2019s sovereign power. Only God can create the universe (\u00a723), using his incomparable power (\u00a721). Unlike the Bible, however, Philo does give a reason why God created the cosmos. He did so because he was good (\u00a721), the same reason that Plato gave in his cosmological dialogue, the Timaeus (29e). The cosmos, as created through the divine Logos, is an ordered reality. The six days of the Creation account symbolically tell us much about that order (\u00a713). Order is expressed in numbers, which are heavily emphasized in Philo\u2019s exegesis (\u00a7\u00a713, 15). Philo\u2019s doctrine of human nature is basically dualistic, contrasting body and mind (or spirit). The human intellect can range far and even tries to gain a vision of God (\u00a771). But human beings living on earth consist of body and soul, infused by the divine spirit (\u00a7135). Because God created the cosmos and humanity, God\u2019s providence takes care of both, like a parent looking after children (\u00a7\u00a75, 171). This is the final of the five lessons with which Philo ends the treatise (\u00a7\u00a7170\u201372).
\nFor more on Philo, see the essay \u201cThe Writings of Philo,\u201d elsewhere in these volumes.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s treatise is the first example of a new genre of biblical exegesis, the hexaemeral literature, that is, works explaining the six days of Creation. This genre continued to be written until the Middle Ages. Philo\u2019s exegetical themes found their way into Christian writings, for example, in those of the church fathers Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine. Even in the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton was an avid reader of Philo\u2019s writings. They were not, however, used by later Jewish interpreters. Because the center of Jewish exegetical activity after Philo shifted to Palestine and Babylonia, where the Rabbis (who wrote in Hebrew and Aramaic and not in Greek) were less interested in philosophical exegesis, and because Christians preserved and used Philo\u2019s writings, his hexaemeral (and other) writings had more influence on Christians than on Jews.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s treatise is a commentary on the Creation account in Gen. 1\u20133, which he regards as the work of the prophet and lawgiver Moses. But it is not a running commentary on every word of the text. Instead Philo starts with an introductory section (\u00a7\u00a71\u201312), followed by \u201cchapters\u201d that cite small sections of the text, but generally assume the reader\u2019s familiarity with the biblical text as a whole. When reading, therefore, it is important at all times to bear in mind the biblical text on which Philo is commenting.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Runia, David T. Philo of Alexandria: On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses. Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 1. Leiden: Brill, 2002; Atlanta: SBL, 2005.<\/p>\n
TRANSLATION<\/p>\n
1\u201335<\/p>\n
INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n
1If you consider the other lawgivers, you will find that some drew up the regulations that they regarded as just in an unadorned and naked fashion, while others enclothed their thoughts with a mass of verbiage and so deceived the masses by concealing the truth with mythical fictions. 2Moses surpassed both groups, regarding the former as lacking reflection, indolent and unphilosophical, the latter as mendacious and full of trickery. Instead he made a splendid and awe-inspiring start to his laws. He did not immediately state what should be done and what not, nor did he, since it was necessary to form in advance the minds of those who were to make use of the laws, invent myths or express approval of those composed by others. 3The beginning is, as I just said, quite marvelous. It contains an account of the making of the cosmos, the reasoning for this being that the cosmos is in harmony with the law and the law with the cosmos, and the man who observes the law is at once a citizen of the cosmos, directing his actions in relation to the rational purpose of nature, in accordance with which the entire cosmos also is administered.
\n4In celebrating the beauty of the thoughts contained in this creation account, no one, whether writing poetry or prose, can do them true justice. They transcend both speech and hearing, for they are greater and more august than what can be adapted to the instruments of a mortal being. 5This does not mean, however, that we must keep our peace. No, on behalf of the God-beloved (author) we must dare to speak, even if this goes beyond our ability, presenting nothing from our own supply and stating only a few things instead of many, namely those to which the human mind can reasonably attain when it is possessed by a love and desire for wisdom. 6For just as even the tiniest seal when it has been engraved is able to contain the representations of things with colossal dimensions, so it may be that the overwhelming beauties of the making of the cosmos as they have been written in the laws, even if they bedazzle the souls of the readers with their brightness, can be elucidated with delineations on a smaller scale. But first a preliminary remark needs to be made, which should not be passed over in silence.<\/p>\n
A PRELIMINARY COMMENT ON GOD AND THE COSMOS<\/p>\n
7There are some people who, having more admiration for the cosmos than for its maker, declared the former both ungenerated and eternal, while falsely and impurely attributing to God much idleness. What they should have done was the opposite, namely be astounded at God\u2019s powers as Maker and Father, and not show more reverence for the cosmos than is its due.
\n8Moses, however, had not only reached the very summit of philosophy, but had also been instructed in the many and most essential doctrines of nature by means of oracles. He recognized that it is absolutely necessary that among existing things there is an activating cause on the one hand and a passive object on the other, and that the activating cause is the absolutely pure and unadulterated intellect of the universe, superior to excellence and superior to knowledge and even superior to the good and the beautiful itself. 9But the passive object, which of itself was without soul and unmoved, when set in motion and shaped and ensouled by the intellect, changed into the most perfect piece of work, this cosmos. Those who declare that it is ungenerated are unaware that they are eliminating the most useful and indispensable of the contributions to piety, the (doctrine of) providence. 10Reason demands that the Father and Maker exercise care for that which has come into being. After all, both a father aims at the safety of his children and a craftsman aims at the preservation of what has been constructed, using every means at their disposal to repel all that is injurious and harmful, while desiring to provide in every way that which is advantageous and profitable. But there is no affinity between that which did not come into being and the one who did not make it. 11It is a worthless and unhelpful doctrine, bringing about a power vacuum in this cosmos, just like (what happens) in a city, because it does not then have a ruler or magistrate or judge, by whom everything is lawfully administered and regulated.
\n12But the great Moses considered that what is ungenerated was of a totally different order from that which was visible, for the entire sense-perceptible realm is in a process of becoming and change and never remains in the same state. So to what is invisible and intelligible he assigned eternity as being akin and related to it, whereas on what is sense-perceptible he ascribed the appropriate name \u201cbecoming\u201d (genesis). Since, therefore, this cosmos is both visible and sense-perceptible, it must necessarily also be generated. Hence he was not off the mark in also giving a description of its becoming, thereby speaking about God in a truly reverent manner.<\/p>\n
THE SCHEME OF SIX DAYS<\/p>\n
13He says that the cosmos was fashioned in six days, not because the maker was in need of a length of time\u2014for God surely did everything at the same time, not only in giving commands but also in his thinking\u2014but because things that come into existence required order. Number is inherent in order, and by the laws of nature the most generative of numbers is the six.
\nOf the numbers (proceeding) from the unit, six is the first perfect number. It is equal to [the product of] its parts and is also formed by their sum, namely the three as its half and the two as its third and the unit as its sixth. It is also, so to speak, both male and female by nature, forming a harmonic union out of the product of each of them, for among existing things the odd is male and the female is even. The first of the odd numbers is the three, of the even numbers it is the two, and the product of both is the six. 14So it was right that the cosmos, as the most perfect of the things that have come into existence, be built in accordance with the perfect number six, and, because births resulting from coupling would take place in it, also be formed in relation to a mixed number, the first even-odd number which contains both the form of the male who sows the seed and the form of the female who receives it.
\n15To each of the days he assigned some of the parts of the universe, making an exception for the first, which he himself does not actually call first, in case it be counted together with the others. Instead he gives it the accurate name \u201cone,\u201d because he perceived the nature and the appellation of the unit in it, and so gave it that title.<\/p>\n
DAY ONE: CREATION OF THE INTELLIGIBLE COSMOS<\/p>\n
We must now state as many as we can of the things that are contained in it, since it is impossible to state them all. It contains as pre-eminent item the intelligible cosmos, as the account concerning it [day one] reveals. 16For God, because he is God, understood in advance that a beautiful copy would not come into existence apart from a beautiful model, and that none of the objects of sense-perception would be without fault, unless it was modelled on the archetypal and intelligible idea. Therefore, when he had decided to construct this visible cosmos, he first marked out the intelligible cosmos, so that he could use it as an incorporeal and most god-like paradigm and so produce the corporeal cosmos, a younger likeness of an older model, which would contain as many sense-perceptible kinds as there were intelligible kinds in that other one.
\n17To state or think that the cosmos composed of the ideas exists in some place is not permissible. How it has been constituted we will understand if we pay careful attention to an image drawn from our own world. When a city is founded, in accordance with the high ambition of a king or a ruler who has laid claim to supreme power and, outstanding in his conception, adds further adornment to his good fortune, it may happen that a trained architect comes forward. Having observed both the favorable climate and location of the site, he first designs within himself a plan of virtually all the parts of the city that is to be completed\u2014temples, gymnasia, public offices, market-places, harbors, shipyards, streets, constructions of walls, the establishment of other buildings both private and public. 18Then, taking up the imprints of each object in his own soul like in wax, he carries around the intelligible city as an image in his head. Summoning up the representations by means of his innate power of memory and engraving their features even more distinctly (on his mind), he begins, as a good builder, to construct the city out of stones and timber, looking at the model and ensuring that the corporeal objects correspond to each of the incorporeal ideas. 19The conception we have concerning God must be similar to this, namely that when he had decided to found the great cosmic city, he first conceived its outlines. Out of these he composed the intelligible cosmos, which served him as a model when he completed the sense-perceptible cosmos as well. 20Just as the city that was marked out beforehand in the architect had no location outside, but had been engraved in the soul of the craftsman, in the same way the cosmos composed of the ideas would have no other place than the divine Logos who gives these [ideas] their ordered disposition. After all, what other place would there be for his Powers, sufficient to receive and contain, I do not speak about all of them, but just any single one in its unmixed state?
\n21Among these is also his cosmos-producing power, which has as its source that which is truly good. For if anyone should wish to examine the reason why this universe was constructed, I think he would not miss the mark if he affirmed, what one of the ancients also said, that the Father and Maker was good. For this reason he did not begrudge a share of his own excellent nature to a material which did not possess any beauty of its own but was able to become all things. 22Of itself it was unordered, devoid of quality, lacking life, dissimilar, full of inconsistency and maladjustment and disharmony; but it received a turning and change to the opposite and most excellent state, order, quality, ensoulment, similarity, homogeneity, sound adjustment, harmony, indeed all the characteristics possessed by the superior idea. 23With no one to assist him\u2014indeed who else was there?\u2014but relying solely on his own resources, God recognized that he had to confer the unstinting riches of his beneficence on the nature which of itself without divine grace could not sustain any good whatsoever. But he does not confer his blessings in proportion to the size of his own powers of beneficence\u2014for these are indeed without limit and infinitely great\u2014but rather in proportion to the capacities of those who receive them. The fact is that what comes into existence is unable to accommodate those benefits to the extent that God is able to confer them, since God\u2019s powers are overwhelming, whereas the recipient is too weak to sustain the size of them and would collapse, were it not that he measured them accordingly, dispensing with fine tuning to each thing its allotted portion.
\n24If you would wish to use a formulation that has been stripped down to essentials, you might say that the intelligible cosmos is nothing else than the Logos of God as he is actually engaged in making the cosmos. For the intelligible city too is nothing else than the reasoning of the architect as he is actually engaged in the planning of the foundation of the city. 25This is the doctrine of Moses, not my own. When describing the genesis of the human being in what follows, he explicitly declares that the human being was in fact formed \u201caccording to the divine image.\u201d Now if the part is image of an image, it is plain that this is also the case for the whole. But if this entire sense-perceptible cosmos, which is greater than the human image, is a representation of the divine image, it is plain that the archetypal seal, which we affirm to be the intelligible cosmos, would itself be the model and archetypal idea of the ideas, the Logos of God.<\/p>\n
\u201cIN THE BEGINNING\u201d DOES NOT MEAN CREATION IN TIME<\/p>\n
26When he says that \u201cin (the) beginning God made the heaven and the earth\u201d (Gen. 1:1), he does not take the (term) \u201cbeginning,\u201d as some people think, in a temporal sense. For there was no time before the cosmos, but rather it either came into existence together with the cosmos or after it. When we consider that time is the extension of the cosmos\u2019s movement, and that there could not be any movement earlier than the thing that moves but must necessarily be established either later or at the same time, then we must necessarily conclude that time too is either the same age as the cosmos or younger than it. To venture to affirm that it is older is unphilosophical.
\n27If \u201cbeginning\u201d in the present context is not taken in the temporal sense, it is likely that its use indicates beginning in the numerical sense, so that the expression \u201cin (the) beginning he made\u201d is equivalent to \u201che first made the heaven.\u201d It is indeed reasonable that heaven should in fact be the first thing to enter into becoming. It is the most excellent of the things that have come into existence and is also composed of the purest substance, because it was to be the holiest dwelling-place for the gods whose appearance is perceived by the senses. 28Even if the maker proceeded to make all things simultaneously, it is nonetheless true that what comes into a beautiful existence did possess order, for there is no beauty in disorder. Order is a sequence and series of things that precede and follow, if not in the completed products, then certainly in the conceptions of the builders. Only in this way could they be precisely arranged, and not deviate from their path or be full of confusion.<\/p>\n
THE CHIEF CONTENTS OF THE INTELLIGIBLE COSMOS<\/p>\n
29First, therefore, the Maker made an incorporeal \u201cheaven\u201d and an \u201cinvisible earth\u201d (Gen. 1:2) and a form of air and of the void. To the former he assigned the name \u201cdarkness,\u201d since the air is black by nature, to the latter the name \u201cabyss,\u201d because the void is indeed full of depths and gaping. He then made the incorporeal being of \u201cwater\u201d and of \u201cspirit,\u201d and as seventh and last of all of \u201clight\u201d (Gen. 1:3), which once again was incorporeal and was also the intelligible model of the sun and all the other light-bearing stars which were to be established in heaven.
\n30Both \u201cspirit\u201d and \u201clight\u201d were considered deserving of a special privilege. The former he named \u201cof God\u201d (Gen. 1:2), because \u201cspirit\u201d is highly important for life and God is the cause of life. Light he describes as exceedingly \u201cgood\u201d (Gen. 1:3), for the intelligible surpasses the visible in brilliance and brightness just as much, I believe, as sun surpasses darkness, day surpasses night, and intellect, which gives leadership to the entire soul, surpasses its sensible sources of information, the eyes of the body. 31That invisible and intelligible \u201clight\u201d has come into being as image of the divine Logos which communicated its genesis. It is a star that transcends the heavenly realm, source of the visible stars, and you would not be off the mark to call it \u201call-brightness.\u201d From it the sun and moon and other planets and fixed stars draw the illumination that is fitting for them in accordance with the capacity they each have. But that unmixed and pure gleam has its brightness dimmed when it begins to undergo a change from the intelligible to the sense-perceptible, for none of the objects in the sense-perceptible realm is absolutely pure. 32Well said too is the statement that there was \u201cdarkness over the abyss\u201d (Gen. 1:2), for in a way the air is over the void, since it is mounted on and has filled up the entire gaping, empty and void space that extends from the region of the moon to us.
\n33As soon as the intelligible \u201clight,\u201d which existed before the sun, was ignited, its rival \u201cdarkness\u201d proceeded to withdraw. God built a wall between them and kept them separate (Gen. 1:4), for he well knew their oppositions and the conflict resulting from their natures. Therefore, in order to ensure that they would not continually interact and be in strife with each other, and that war would not gain the upper hand over peace and bring about disorder (akosmia) in the cosmos (kosmos), he not only separated light and darkness, but also placed boundaries in the extended space between them, by means of which he kept the two extremes apart. For if they were neighbors, they would produce confusion in the struggle for dominance and would strip in readiness for a great and unceasing rivalry, unless boundaries were fixed in between them to restrain and resolve their confrontation. 34These (boundaries) are \u201cevening\u201d and \u201cmorning\u201d (Gen. 1:5), of which the latter announces in advance that the sun is about to rise and gradually forces back the darkness, while the evening follows on the setting sun and gently admits the massive onset of the darkness. Mark well, however, that these two, I mean \u201cmorning\u201d and \u201cevening,\u201d must be placed in the order of incorporeal and intelligible reality. For in that realm there is nothing at all that is sense-perceptible, but everything there is ideas and measures and marks and seals, incorporeal entities required for the genesis of the other bodily realm. 35So when \u201clight\u201d came into being, \u201cdarkness\u201d retired and withdrew, while \u201cevening\u201d and \u201cmorning\u201d were fixed as boundaries in the extended space in between, this necessarily entailed that a measure of time was produced forthwith. The maker \u201ccalled\u201d this measure \u201cday\u201d (Gen. 1:5), and not the first day, but \u201cday one.\u201d It was named in this way because of the aloneness of the intelligible cosmos which has the nature of the unit.<\/p>\n
69\u201371<\/p>\n
WHY IS THE HUMAN BEING CREATED AFTER GOD\u2019S IMAGE?<\/p>\n
69After all these other creatures, as has been stated, he says that the \u201chuman being\u201d has come into existence \u201caccording to the divine image and according to the likeness\u201d (Gen. 1:26\u201327). This is most excellently said, for nothing earthborn bears a closer resemblance to God than the human being. But no one should infer this likeness from the characteristics of the body, for God does not have a human shape and the human body is not God-like. The term \u201cimage\u201d has been used here with regard to the director of the soul, the intellect.
\nOn that single intellect of the universe, as on an archetype, the intellect in each individual human being was modeled. In a sense it is a god of the person who carries it and bears it around as a divine image. For it would seem that the same position that the Great Director holds in the entire cosmos is held by the human intellect in the human being. It is itself invisible, yet it sees all things. Its own nature is unclear, yet it comprehends the natures of other things. By means of the arts and sciences it opens up a vast network of paths, all of them highways, and passes through land and sea, investigating what is present in both realms. 70Next it is lifted on high and, after exploring the air and the phenomena that occur in it, it is borne further upward toward the ether and the revolutions of heaven. Then, after being carried around in the dances of the planets and fixed stars in accordance with the laws of perfect music, and following the guidance of its love of wisdom, it peers beyond the whole of sense-perceptible reality and desires to attain the intelligible realm. 71And when the intellect has observed in that realm the models and forms of the sense-perceptible things which it had seen here, objects of overwhelming beauty, it then, possessed by a sober drunkenness, becomes enthused like the Corybants. Filled with another longing and a higher form of desire, which has propelled it to the utmost vault of the intelligibles, it thinks it is heading toward the Great King himself. But as it strains to see, pure and unmixed beams of concentrated light pour forth like a torrent, so that the eye of the mind, overwhelmed by the brightness, suffers from vertigo.<\/p>\n
134\u201335<\/p>\n
CREATION OF THE FIRST HUMAN BEING FROM THE EARTH<\/p>\n
134After this he says that \u201cGod formed man, taking dust from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath of life\u201d (Gen. 2:7). By means of this text too he shows us in the clearest fashion that there is a vast difference between the \u201chuman being\u201d who has been molded now and the one who previously came into being \u201caccording to the divine image\u201d (Gen. 1:27). For the human being who has been molded as sense-perceptible object already participates in quality, consists of body and soul, is either man or woman, and is by nature mortal. The human being after the image is a kind of idea or genus or seal, is perceived by the intellect, incorporeal, neither male nor female, and is by nature immortal.
\n135He says that the sense-perceptible and individual \u201chuman being\u201d has a structure which is composed of earthly substance and divine spirit, for the body came into being when the Craftsman took \u201cclay\u201d and \u201cmolded\u201d a human shape out of it, whereas the soul obtained its origin from nothing which has come into existence at all, but from the Father and Director of all things. What he \u201cbreathed in\u201d was nothing else than the divine \u201cspirit\u201d which has emigrated here from that blessed and flourishing nature for the assistance of our kind, in order that, even if it is mortal with regard to its visible part, at least with regard to its invisible part it would be immortalized. For this reason it would be correct to say that the human being stands on the borderline between mortal and immortal nature. Sharing in both to the extent necessary, he has come into existence as a creature which is mortal and at the same time immortal, mortal in respect of the body, immortal in respect of the mind.<\/p>\n
151\u201352<\/p>\n
WOMAN AND THE BEGINNING OF WICKEDNESS<\/p>\n
151But, since nothing is stable in the world of becoming and mortal beings necessarily undergo reverses and changes, the first human being too had to enjoy some ill fortune. The starting-point of a blameworthy life becomes for him \u201cWoman\u201d (Gen. 2:23). As long as he was single, he resembled God and the cosmos in his solitariness, receiving the delineations of both natures in his soul, not all of them but as many as a mortal constitution could contain. But when \u201cWoman\u201d too was molded, he observed a sisterly form and a kindred figure. Rejoicing at the sight, he came up to her and gave her a greeting. 152She, seeing no other living creature that looked more like herself than he, was glad and modestly responded to his greeting. The love that ensues brings together the two separate halves of a single living being as it were, and joins them into unity, thereby establishing in both a desire for union with the other in order to produce a being similar to themselves. But this desire also gave rise to bodily pleasure, which is the starting-point of wicked and law-breaking deeds, and on its account they exchange the life of immortality and well-being for the life of mortality and misfortune.<\/p>\n
170\u201372<\/p>\n
MOSES TEACHES FIVE VITAL LESSONS<\/p>\n
170By means of the creation account which we have discussed he (Moses) teaches us among many other things five lessons that are the most beautiful and excellent of all. The first of these is that the divinity is and exists, on account of the godless, some of whom are in doubt and incline in two directions concerning his existence, while others are more reckless and brazenly assert that he does not exist at all, but is only said to exist by people who overshadow the truth with mythical fictions. 171The second lesson is that God is one, on account of those who introduce the polytheistic opinion, feeling no shame when they transfer the worst of political systems, rule by the mob, from earth to heaven. The third lesson is, as has already been said, that the cosmos has come into existence, on account of those who think it is ungenerated and eternal, attributing no superiority to God. The fourth lesson is that the cosmos too is one, since the creator is one as well and he has made his product similar to himself in respect of its unicity, expending all the available material for the genesis of the whole. After all, it would not have been a complete whole if it had not been put together and constituted of parts that were themselves whole. There are those who suppose there to be multiple cosmoi, and there are others who think their number is boundless, whereas they themselves are the ones who are really boundlessly ignorant of what it is fine to know. The fifth lesson is that God also takes thought for the cosmos, for that the maker always takes care of what has come into existence is a necessity by the laws and ordinances of nature, in accordance with which parents too take care of their children.
\n172He, then, who first has learnt these things not so much with his hearing as with his understanding, and has imprinted their marvelous and priceless forms on his own soul, namely that God is and exists, and that he who truly exists is one, and that he made the cosmos and made it unique, making it, as was said, similar to himself in respect of its being one, and that he always takes thought for what has come into being, this person will lead a blessed life of well-being, marked as he is by the doctrines of piety and holiness.<\/p>\n
Allegorical Interpretation 1.31\u201362<\/p>\n
Maren R. Niehoff<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s Allegorical Interpretation in three books is a close reading of select passages from the book of Genesis, starting with Gen. 2:1 and ending with Gen. 3:19, where Philo focuses on the creation of Adam and Eve and man\u2019s introduction to the Garden of Eden. The creation of the world as described in the first chapter of Genesis does not seem to have been commented upon allegorically, in a sustained non-literal fashion. Rather, Philo considered that chapter to be a separate unit, which he distinguished from the historical and legal parts of the Torah as he perceived it (Rewards 1). He treated the creation of the world in his Exposition of the Law as an introduction to both the Lives of Fathers and Jewish Law (Creation 1\u201328).
\nAllegorical Interpretation is the earliest extant commentary of the Bible in the history of Jewish exegesis (interpretation of a text), where biblical verses are explicitly quoted and then commented upon. Prior to Philo, authors often rewrote biblical material (e.g., Artapanus, Jubilees) without commentary. Philo\u2019s exegetical method later became standard among the Rabbis and helps us to understand their interpretations of Scripture.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s Allegorical Commentary, of which the Allegorical Interpretation is a part, was originally written in Greek and based on the Septuagint (LXX). Its language is rich and often complicated, presupposing an educated audience rather than the beginners he seems to be writing for in some other of his works (e.g., the six-book series, Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus (QGE). Philo wrote the commentary in Alexandria in the early 1st century CE. Alexandria at that time was still one of the most important cultural centers of the Hellenistic world, boasting a long tradition of scholarship, research in the natural sciences, and poetic creativity. The Jews of Alexandria were a significant minority, which had adapted exceptionally well to the melting-pot culture of Alexandria, while maintaining a distinct Jewish identity.<\/p>\n
Place within Philo\u2019s Work<\/p>\n
Philo of Alexandria composed numerous works, which survived largely in Christian, not Jewish, circles. The church fathers, especially Origen and Eusebius, appreciated Philo\u2019s works, taking his allegorical method as a predecessor of its Christian counterpart. This adoption of Philo by early Christians gives the impression that his form of Judaism was the essence of Hellenistic Judaism, which was in reality characterized by great variety often difficult to reconstruct of Alexandrian Judaisms, which are often difficult to reconstruct. Thus, the context of Philo\u2019s work can often be known only from his own reference to discussion partners, some of whom held diametrically opposed views. Moreover, Philo\u2019s adoption by the church fathers may have led to his alienation from Jewish readers. Azariah de Rossi, who rediscovered his writings in the Italian Renaissance, made heroic efforts to show that Philo was not a Christian, as was generally assumed, but a Jew with characteristically Jewish views. This alienation, however, may have come at a relatively late date. While Philo is not quoted explicitly in any of the Rabbinic sources, there are similarities between his commentaries on Genesis and Genesis Rabbah, suggesting that his works may have been known to the Rabbis. D. Bath\u00e9lemy has even argued that Rabbinic scholars cooperated with the church father Origen in editing Philo\u2019s Allegorical Commentary.
\nPhilo wrote several types of commentary on the books of Genesis and Exodus, and their relationship to each other is still disputed among scholars today. Most similar to the Allegorical Commentary is Philo\u2019s QGE, in which he also quotes biblical verses, raising problems concerning each and solving them, usually with an allegorical interpretation. A. Terian and G. Sterling have argued that QE are the earliest of Philo\u2019s works, trying out his ideas here before developing them further in the Allegorical Commentary and in the Exposition of the Law. Their arguments, however, are not conclusive. One could equally interpret the QGE as an abbreviation of thoughts presented in the Allegorical Commentary. The difference between the works can well be explained as a difference of audience: the Allegorical Commentary addresses an educated readership, while QGE is designed for those with a more basic education, perhaps young students.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
The importance of Philo\u2019s Allegorical Commentary can hardly be overestimated. It is the earliest extant explicit commentary on the Jewish Scriptures. While Pesher Habakkuk from Qumran also comments on some biblical verses, it does not inquire into the text itself, but is motivated by a historical agenda (affirming its community\u2019s ideology in light of the scriptural text). Unlike the author of Pesher Habakkuk, Philo investigates every detail of the text, leaving scarcely any issue without discussion. But he was by no means the first Jew to examine Scripture. Other fellow Alexandrians, such as the Jew Demetrius, had been inspired by Homeric scholarship and had begun to tackle problems in the biblical text. Yet their work has survived only fragmentarily, making it impossible to accurately assess their scope. Furthermore, Philo provided a full allegorical reading of Scripture, thus creating a new synthesis between the text and philosophy, especially ethics. This combination of specifically Jewish and general values became a model for modern Judaism. In 19th-century Berlin, Philo was hailed as a harbinger of the Enlightenment. A direct line was drawn between him, Maimonides, and Mendelssohn.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Birnbaum, E. The Place of Judaism in Philo\u2019s Thought: Israel, Jews and Proselytes. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996.
\nBorgen, P. Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
\nKamesar, A. The Cambridge Companion to Philo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
\nNickelsburg, G. W. E. \u201cPhilo among Greeks, Jews and Christians.\u201d In Philo und das Neue Testament: Wechselseitige Wahrnehmungen [Philo and the New Testament: Mutual Perceptions]. Edited by R. Deines and W.-K. Niebuhr, 53\u201372. T\u00fcbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004.
\nNiehoff, M. R. Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture. T\u00fcbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Jewish Bible Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
\nRunia, D. T. \u201cFurther Observations on the Structure of Philo\u2019s Allegorical Treatises.\u201d Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987): 105\u201338. Republished in D. T. Runia, Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of Alexandri, chap. 5. Hampshire, Great Britain: Variorum, 1990.
\nSterling, G. E. \u201c \u2018The School of Sacred Laws\u2019: The Social Setting of Philo\u2019s Treatises.\u201d VC 53 (1999): 148\u201364.<\/p>\n
TRANSLATION<\/p>\n
Allegorical Interpretation 1.31\u201362<\/p>\n
1.31\u201cAnd God molded man, taking earth from the land, and breathed into his face a breath of life, and man became a living soul\u201d (Gen. 2:7 LXX). There are two types of humans: for one is heavenly, while the other is earthly. Whereas just as the heavenly type has been born in the image of God, having no part in perishable and altogether earthly substance, the earthly type was shaped out of scattered material, which he has called \u201cearth.\u201d Therefore he says that the heavenly type was not fabricated, but was modeled in God\u2019s image, while the earthly type is a fabrication, rather than an offspring of the craftsman. 32Now one must think of the earthly man as the mind entering the body, but not having altogether penetrated it. And this earthly mind would have been also earthly and perishable, if god were not breathing into it a power of true life. Then it became\u2014no longer being fabricated\u2014a soul, not [one that is] idle and unshaped, but a truly intellectual and living soul, for he says \u201cand man became a living soul\u201d (Gen. 2:7 LXX). 33Someone may inquire why god generally considered worthy of the Divine spirit the earthborn and body-loving mind and not the mind born in the image of the Ideal Form and in his own image. Second, [one may inquire] what is the precise meaning of the expression \u201cbreathed into\u201d? Third, why was it breathed \u201cinto the face\u201d? Fourth, why does he mention the word \u201cbreath\u201d rather than \u201cspirit\u201d even though he knows the latter word, as when he said \u201cand the spirit of God was lying upon the water\u201d (Gen. 1:2 LXX)? 34In response to the first question one thing must be said, namely that god is generous and happily provides good things to everyone, even to the imperfect, inviting them to partnership and emulation of virtue as well as showing his own overwhelming wealth, which suffices even for those who will not derive very much profit from it. This he showed most clearly also concerning other matters. For whenever he rains upon the sea and causes springs to gush forth in the most desolate places, and waters the poor and rough and barren land by pouring on it rivers with overflowing waters, what else does he show but the superabundance of his wealth and his own goodness? This is the reason why God created no soul barren of the good, even if the use of it is impossible for some. 35Another explanation that needs to be mentioned is the following: he wants to introduce principles of righteousness to the ordinances. The one into whom no true life has been breathed, but is unacquainted with virtue, when being punished for his sins, might say that he is punished without justification, seeing that it is through unfamiliarity with the good that he failed in respect of it, and that he is to blame who breathed no notion of it into him. He will perhaps say that he has not sinned at all, if, as some say, acts committed involuntarily or out of ignorance are not reckoned as wrongs. 36Now the expression \u201cbreathed into\u201d is the same as \u201cblew into\u201d or \u201cput a soul into souless things.\u201d We ought not be filled with the kind of folly that suggests that god requires the organs of a mouth or a nose in order to breathe into. For God is without quality, not just lacking a human form. 37The utterance indicates something of a more scientific nature. For three things are necessary: a thing breathing in, a thing receiving and another thing being inbreathed. Whereas God does the breathing in, the mind is the receiver and the breath is the thing that is inbreathed. What can be inferred from these premises? A union of these three comes about after God has stretched out the power from himself through the intermediary breath even to the object\u2014for what reason other than that we may gain a notion of him? 38For how could the soul perceive of God, had he not inspired it and clung to it as far as possible. For the human mind would not have dared to rise enough to reach God\u2019s nature, had God himself not drawn him up to himself, as much as it was possible for the human mind to be drawn up, and had he not made an imprint on it in accordance with the powers susceptible of being grasped by it. 39 God\u2019s breathing \u201cinto the face\u201d [can be explained] both in scientific and ethical terms. On the scientific level, [we may say] that he created sense perception in the face. For this part of the body is, more than others, endowed with soul and breath. On the ethical level, the following may be said: as the face is the commanding part of the body, thus the mind is the commanding part of the soul. In it alone God places his breath, deeming it unsuitable to do the same for the other parts of the body, the senses or organs of speech and reproduction. For these are secondary in capacity. 40By what then were these also inspired? Evidently by the mind. For the mind gives to the irrational part of the soul a share of that which it has received from God, so that the mind is inspired by God and the irrational part by the mind\u2014as if the mind is the God of the irrational part, for which reason he did not hesitate to say that Moses is \u201ca God to Pharaoh\u201d (Exod. 7:1 LXX). 41Of the things coming into being, some come into being by God and his agency, while others by God, but not through his agency. The most excellent things are made by God and through his agency. A little further on he says that \u201cGod planted a park\u201d (Gen. 2:8 LXX). The mind is [of the nature] of these. The irrational part, on the other hand, is created by God and not through the agency of God, but through the agency of the logical part which is ruling and dominant in the soul. 42He said \u201cbreath\u201d and not \u201cspirit\u201d because there is, in his view, a difference between the two. While spirit is perceived of as implying strength and vigor and power, breath is like some air as well as a gentle and soft exhalation. The mind, which has been created according to the image and the idea, could therefore be said to have a share in the spirit\u2014for its reasoning power has strength\u2014whereas the mind created out of unsubstantial and even lighter material can be said to take a share in the air as if in some exhalation, such as those arising from aromatic plants. When these are preserved rather than being burnt for incense there is still a sweet smell from them.
\n43\u201cAnd God planted a garden in Eden facing the sunrise and placed there the man whom he had fabricated\u201d (Gen. 2:8a LXX).
\nMoses has indicated the manifold nature of sublime and heavenly wisdom by [using] many names for it, for he has celebrated it as the \u201cbeginning\u201d and the \u201cimage\u201d and the \u201cvision\u201d of God. Now, by using [the notion of] tending the plants of paradise, he presents earthly wisdom as a copy of that wisdom, as of an archetype. May no such impiety take hold of human reasoning so as to assume that God ploughs the earth and plants gardens, for we will at once raise the question of why [he would do so]. He would not thus procure for himself cheerful reposes and pleasures\u2014may no such mythical fiction ever enter our mind. 44For indeed the whole cosmos would not be worthy to be God\u2019s abode and dwelling-place, because God is His own place and full of Himself and sufficient onto Himself, filling and encompassing everything else which is inferior, incomplete and void, while He Himself is not encompassed by anything, inasmuch as He Himself is One and the Whole. 45God sows and plants earthly virtue in the mortal race, which is a copy and concrete representation of the heavenly one. Having taken pity on our race and seeing that it is composed of abundant and numerous evils, he planted earthly virtue as an assistant and helper against the ailments of the soul\u2014a copy, as I said, of heavenly and archetypal [virtue], which he calls by many names. Indeed, \u201cgarden\u201d figuratively means virtue, \u201cEden\u201d being a suitable place for a garden, because it means \u201cdelicacy.\u201d To virtue are suitably connected peace and enjoyment and pleasure in which there truly is living in delicacy. 46And indeed \u201cfacing the sunrise\u201d is the planting of the Garden. Right reason cannot set or quell, but is by nature disposed to grow always and, I think, just as the sun after rising fills the darkness of the atmosphere with light, so virtue after rising in the soul illuminates its gloom and disperses the wide darkness. 47\u201cAnd he placed there,\u201d [Moses] says, \u201cthe man whom he had fabricated.\u201d God being good and training our race to the most suitable work, that is virtue, places mind in the midst of virtue, clearly for the purpose that, like a good gardener, the mind may look after and care for nothing else than it. 48Someone may raise the question why, if imitating God\u2019s works is hallowed, I am not allowed to plant a grove near the altar, while God plants the garden, as [Moses] says: \u201cdo not plant for yourself a grove and do not make for yourself any wood near the altar of the LORD your God\u201d (Deut. 16:21 LXX). What can be said? That it is appropriate for God to plant and cherish the virtues in the soul. 49Yet the self-loving and godless mind believes it to be equal to God, deeming himself to be performing, while on close scrutiny it is passive. When God sows and plants good qualities in the soul, the mind who says \u201cI am the planter\u201d is impious. Indeed, do not plant whenever God tends His plants. But if you, O mind, set plants in the mind, plant all the fruit-producing trees, but not the grove, because in the latter there are trees of both a wild and a cultivated kind. Planting sterile wickedness in the soul amid cultivated and fruit-bearing virtue is like leprosy, which is of a double and mixed nature. 50However, whenever you bring together things unmixed as well as mixed, separate and distinguish those of a pure and undefiled nature, which offers unblemished fruits to God, this being the altar. It is alien to this [principle] to say that something is the work of the soul, because all things rely on a reference to God; and thus [alien to this principle] is also to mingle the sterile with the fruit-bearing. And this is a blemish, while unblemished things are offered to God. 51Now whenever, O soul, you transgress any of these, you will injure yourself, not God. Therefore he [Moses] says: \u201cdo not plant for yourself\u201d (Deut. 16:21 LXX). For nobody does such tillage for God, especially when the plants are paltry. And he [Moses] adds again: \u201cdo not make for yourselves\u201d (Deut. 16:21 LXX). He says so also on other occasions: \u201cYou shall not make together with me gods of silver and gods of gold you shall not make yourselves\u201d (Exod. 20:23 LXX). The one who thinks that God has a quality or that He is not One or not unbegotten or not imperishable or not immovable, wrongs himself, not God, for he says \u201cFor yourselves, you shall not make\u201d (Exod. 20:23 LXX). One must think of Him as lacking quality and being One and imperishable and immovable. The one who does not think thus fills his own soul with false and godless opinion. 52Do you not see that even if He leads us to virtue and, being thus introduced, we plant nothing fruitless, but \u201cevery eatable tree,\u201d yet He commands \u201cto purge its uncleanness\u201d (Lev. 19:23 LXX). In this case, the LXX notion of uncleanness should be kept. This is the notion of planting: he demands a cutting off of self-deceit, for self-deceit is by nature unclean. 53For now [Moses] only says that \u201cthe man whom He fabricated\u201d (Gen. 2:8 LXX) he placed in the Garden. Who indeed is it of whom he later says \u201cthe LORD God took the man whom He made in the Garden, so as to till it and guard it\u201d? (Gen. 2:15 LXX). At all events this man is distinct from the other man, the one created according to the image and the idea, such that two men were introduced to the Garden, one fabricated, and the other according to the image. 54The man created according to the idea is not only found in the cultivations of virtues, but is also their tiller and guardian. That means that he is mindful of things he has heard and practiced, while the man fabricated neither tills the virtues nor guards them, but is only introduced to the ordinances thanks to God\u2019s generosity, being about to become a fugitive from virtue. 55Therefore the man whom God only places in the Garden he [Moses] calls \u201cfabricated,\u201d while the one whom he appoints as tiller and guardian is not \u201cfabricated,\u201d but \u201ccreated.\u201d While He receives this one, He casts out that one. He considered the man whom He receives as worthy of three [gifts] of which well-being is composed: intellectual liveliness, perseverance and memory. Intellectual liveliness is the placing in the Garden, perseverance is the practice of good deeds, while memory is the guarding and careful observation of the precepts. The fabricated mind neither remembers the good nor practices it, being only clever. Therefore, being placed in the Garden he escapes a little later and is cast out.
\n56\u201cAnd God caused to spring out of the earth every tree fair to look at and good to eat, and the Tree of Life was in the middle of the Garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil\u201d (Gen. 2:9 LXX).
\n[Moses] now elaborates on the trees of virtue which He has planted in the soul. These are the particular virtues, the corresponding activities, virtuous actions and what the philosophers call common duties, these being the trees of the Garden. 57[Moses] characterizes these very plants showing that the good is also most fair to be looked at and enjoyed. Some of the arts are theoretical and not practical, such as geometry and astronomy, while some are practical and not theoretical, such as architecture and the art of the smith and all the arts which are called manual. But virtue is both theoretical and practical. It has a theoretical aspect, because leading to it is philosophy with her three parts, logic, ethics and physics. Yet it also has a practical aspect, since virtue is the art of the whole life, which includes all actions. 58And indeed, encompassing theory and practice, virtue again excels very much in each of these. The theory of virtue is most noble, while its practice and use are most desired. Therefore [Moses] says that it is \u201cfair to look at,\u201d which is a symbol of theory, and \u201cgood to eat,\u201d which is a sign of the useful and practical. 59The tree of life is the most generic virtue, which some call goodness, from which derive the particular virtues. Therefore it is placed in the middle of the Garden, occupying the most essential place, so that like a king it may be served by guards on each side. Some, however, say that the Tree of Life is the heart, because it is the cause of life and occupies the central place of the body, and it is in their view the leading part. But these should notice that they are exposing a medical doctrine rather than the scientific meaning [of Scripture], while we, as has been said before, hold that generic virtue is called Tree of Life. 60[Moses] expressly says that the tree is in the middle of the Garden. He does not explain concerning the other tree, that of knowing good and evil, whether it is inside or outside the Garden. He merely says \u201cand the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil,\u201d immediately falling silent without explaining where it happens to be, in order that the uninitiated into natural philosophy may not regard with wonder the place of knowledge. What then should we say? That this tree is both inside the Garden and outside of it, inside by virtue of its nature, outside by virtue of its power. 61How so? Our leading principle is all-receiving and like wax receives all impressions, both good and ugly. Therefore Jacob, who strikes with a heel, confesses and says: \u201cUpon me came all these things\u201d (Gen. 42:36 LXX). Upon the soul, being one, are carried all the impressions of the whole universe. Whenever it receives the impression of perfect virtue, it becomes the Tree of Life, but whenever it receives the impression of evil, it becomes the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, since evil is banished from the divine choir. The leading principle which has received it [virtue] is thus within the Garden according to its nature, because in it there is an impression of virtue which is proper to the Garden, yet again it is also outside the Garden because of its power, because the impression of evil is alien to the Divine sunrise. 62What I say may also be understood thus: right now the leading principle of my soul is by nature in my body, but by its power in Italy or Sicily, or whichever country it considers, and in heaven whenever it investigates into it. Therefore it often happens that some, who by nature are in unhallowed places, find themselves in the most holy ones because they imagine virtuous things, and again others, who are in the most hallowed places, are profane in their thought, which inclines toward the worse and receives inferior impressions. Thus evil neither is in the Garden nor is not in the Garden. It can be there by its nature, but by its power it cannot.<\/p>\n
On the Life of Abraham<\/p>\n
Ellen Birnbaum<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s On the Life of Abraham is the second treatise in his exegetical series known as the Exposition of the Law. In this series, before presenting specific laws, Philo\u2014like Scripture\u2014tells of Creation, the early generations of humanity, and Israel\u2019s forebears. After his treatise on Creation, Philo\u2019s On the Life of Abraham introduces the \u201cunwritten laws,\u201d that is, the earliest figures, whose lives were models for the written, Mosaic laws (Abraham 1\u20136). These figures comprise two triads: Enos, Enoch, and Noah symbolize, respectively, hope, repentance\/improvement, and justice (7\u201347). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the superior triad, represent virtue attained, respectively, through teaching, nature, and practice. These latter three patriarchs are ancestors of Israel, whose name means \u201cone who sees God,\u201d and seeing God is \u201cthe height of happiness\u201d (48\u201359).
\nWith this introduction, Philo now turns to Abraham, the main subject of his treatise. Philo recounts five episodes in a section on the patriarch\u2019s virtue of piety in relation to God (60\u2013207) and three episodes in a section on his other virtues in relation to people (208\u201361). In each episode but one (245\u201361, see below), Philo presents the \u201cliteral\u201d account followed by an allegorical interpretation. In the section on Abraham\u2019s piety, Philo discusses:<\/p>\n
Abraham\u2019s migration from Chaldea to Haran, where he discovers God (Gen. 11:31\u201312:9). Allegorically, this journey is that of a wise man or soul who travels from false belief in astrology and the \u201cChaldean creed\u201d (which equates Creation with God) to knowledge of the true God (Abraham 60\u201388).
\nAbraham and Sarah\u2019s sojourn in Egypt (Gen. 12:10\u201320), which teaches symbolically that if vice and virtue come together within the soul, God uses virtue to torture the soul\u2019s vice-ridden part (Abraham 89\u2013106).
\nAbraham\u2019s reception of three angelic visitors (Gen. 18), who symbolize God and his two powers (the creative and the kingly) and who correspond to different human dispositions toward the Divine (Abraham 107\u201332).
\nThe destruction by fire of four of the five Sodomite cities (Gen. 19), which represent the five senses (Abraham 133\u201366). Philo discusses this episode in connection with the episode before and does not mention Abraham here.
\nAbraham\u2019s willingness to sacrifice the beloved son born to him and Sarah (Gen. 22). After responding to critics who question the greatness of this deed, Philo explains that the episode symbolizes the wise man\u2019s recognition that true joy belongs to God alone, who in turn allows humanity a share of this joy (Abraham 167\u2013207).<\/p>\n
In relation to people (208), Abraham displays such traditional Greek virtues as:<\/p>\n
justice, when he allows Lot to choose the better territory after their servants quarrel (Gen. 13:5\u201311). This episode shows that one who values wisdom and virtue cannot dwell together with one who values external goods (Abraham 209\u201324).
\ncourage, in the war between the kings (Gen. 14), which symbolizes the conflict between the five senses and four passions (Abraham 225\u201344).
\nwisdom and moderation, because he refrained from excessively grieving for Sarah (Gen. 23). Sarah evinces her own merits, especially when she offers her handmaid to Abraham for procreative purposes (Gen. 16:1\u20136; Abraham 245\u201361).<\/p>\n
After describing Abraham\u2019s piety in relation to God and his other virtues in relation to people, Philo now concludes by praising Abraham\u2019s faith in and obedience to God (Gen. 15:6, 24:1, 22:16, 26:5; Abraham 262\u201376).
\nA blend of genres, On the Life of Abraham combines Jewish exegesis with contemporary Hellenistic forms of writing, such as biography, encomium (expression of praise), and synkrisis (comparison). Because he assumes no prior knowledge of Scripture and provides no evidence to exclude an audience of either Jews or non-Jews, Philo may have had a mixed readership in mind. By presenting the ancestor of the Jews as a virtuous exemplar, and at times superior to others (e.g., Abraham 178\u201399, 262\u201367), perhaps Philo wished to bolster and encourage Jews\u2019 pride, inform less knowledgeable Jews or curious non-Jews, reclaim alienated Jews, or assuage hostile non-Jews (e.g., Abraham 28).
\nFor more on Philo, see the essay \u201cThe Writings of Philo,\u201d elsewhere in these volumes.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Because of its ideas, interpretations, and place in Philo\u2019s Exposition of the Law, On the Life of Abraham is one of Philo\u2019s most important treatises. Philo divides the Pentateuch into three parts\u2014Creation, exemplary lives and their opposites, and laws (Rewards 1\u20133; cf. Moses 2.45\u201347). On the Life of Abraham introduces the second of these parts, the \u201chistorical\u201d (Rewards 2) or \u201cgenealogical\u201d (Moses 2.47). Although Philo almost certainly composed treatises on Isaac and Jacob (Joseph 1, Decalogue 1), these are no longer extant. We are therefore fortunate to have this only remaining full-length treatment of one of the patriarchs, especially of Abraham, the first of the patriarchs and founder of the Jewish nation.
\nThe longer title of this treatise\u2014\u201cThe Life of the Wise Man Made Perfect through Teaching, or the First Book on Unwritten Laws\u201d\u2014expresses several of Philo\u2019s distinctive, original ideas. He views the early generations as embodying three kinds of laws known in the Greek world: unwritten laws, \u201claws endowed with soul and reason,\u201d and the law of nature (Abraham 3\u20136). In contrast to Jubilees\u2019 author and the Rabbis and other sources who believed that these early biblical figures followed the Mosaic ordinances before they were given, Philo claims that the very lives of these figures were laws in themselves, \u201coriginals\u201d that the written laws copied.
\nBy calling Abraham a wise man and rarely referring to him by name, Philo makes him a universal model. Influenced by the Greek philosophical idea of a telos (goal), for example, Philo transforms God\u2019s command to Abraham to leave his homeland into the sage\u2019s (or soul\u2019s) quest to discover God.
\nThe interpretation that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represent virtue acquired respectively through teaching, nature, and practice is in Philo\u2019s works a frequent topos (commonplace), which he never directly explains and may have inherited. The association of Abraham specifically with teaching appears to be related to Philo\u2019s interpretations of three episodes in Abraham\u2019s life, two of which are discussed prominently in Abraham 60\u201380. First, Abraham\u2019s departure from Chaldea to Haran and then to Canaan, where God appeared to him (Gen. 11:31, 12:1\u20137) signifies, according to Philo, Abraham\u2019s discovery of the true God. Although Philo does not explicitly link this episode to teaching here, he does so in Rewards 58. Second, based on this understanding of Abraham\u2019s departure from Chaldea, the change of Abram\u2019s name to Abraham (Gen. 17:5) confirms his transition from belief in astrology and false Chaldean tenets to recognition of the true God. Third and finally, Abraham\u2019s mating with Hagar prior to Sarah\u2019s conception of Isaac (Gen. 16:1\u20136) allegorically represents Abraham\u2019s pursuit of the encyclical studies (or preliminary curriculum, symbolized by Hagar) before he can mate productively with Sarah\u2014that is, acquire virtue (see e.g., On the Preliminary Studies 11\u201312). Philo reports that Sarah offers her handmaid to Abraham in order to procreate (Abraham 247\u201354) but does not include here the allegorical interpretation just described.
\nAlthough many Philonic interpretations, based on the Septuagint (LXX), diverge from exegesis based on the Hebrew, Philo may show awareness of broader Jewish trends. His grouping of the early generations into two triads is a new contribution. In designating Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as superior to Enos, Enoch, and Noah (Abraham 48), however, Philo may be implicitly responding to the glorification of Enoch and Noah in some other sources. Philo\u2019s depiction of the universal human striving for perfection\u2014with its stages of hope, repentance\/improvement, and justice\u2014brings within a single framework several earlier associations to Enos, Enoch, and Noah. In a beautiful tribute based on Gen. 4:26 and 5:1 LXX, though, Philo may be the first to extol hope as uniquely human. He also makes explicit and elaborates upon the notion\u2014heretofore mainly implicit in Greek philosophy\u2014of the human as a microcosm (Abraham 71\u201376). Although Philo may also derive several etymologies from a traditional source or list of etymologies, he is a rare, early witness to the explanation of \u201cIsrael\u201d\u2014found in several later, patristic writings\u2014as \u201cone who sees God.\u201d That Abraham left false Chaldean worship (variously understood) is a widespread motif already apparent in Josh. 24:2. In contrast, however, to Jubilees\u2019 author and Josephus, who portray Abraham as discovering God through observation of the heavens alone, Philo presents him discovering God also through observation of himself (Abraham 71\u201376).
\nIn a section of the treatise not included in the commentary below (Abraham 119\u201332), the interpretation of Abraham\u2019s three angelic visitors (Gen. 18) expresses important Philonic beliefs about God and his two powers and about human dispositions in relation to God. Philo\u2019s understanding of God\u2019s creative and kingly powers resembles the Rabbis\u2019 divine middot (attributes), but Philo and the Rabbis reverse the connections between God\u2019s qualities and his names (see comment on Abraham 59). While the Rabbis\u2019 Abraham exemplifies admirable qualities in general, Philo\u2019s sage illustrates traditional Greek virtues in specific: justice, courage, wisdom, and moderation, to which Philo adds piety and faith.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
The introduction and account of Abraham\u2019s migration (Abraham 1\u201388, presented below) offer an essential orientation to many important Philonic ideas described above, including Abraham\u2019s discovery of the true God. Echoing some themes from these opening sections, the conclusion to the treatise (Abraham 262\u201376, also presented below) underscores the importance of faith in God generally and the faith of Abraham specifically. Based on Gen. 26:5, this section also affirms that Abraham followed God\u2019s commands without their having been written down and was himself, as Philo declares, an unwritten law.
\nBeyond the detailed commentary on these two sections, presented below, because Philo ostensibly addresses a broad, general audience, one can benefit simply by a straightforward reading of the rest of this treatise. For insight into how Philo\u2019s \u201cliteral\u201d presentation differs from Scripture\u2019s plain sense, readers should compare his discussion with the Septuagint. His account of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt, for example, omits Abraham\u2019s apparently deceptive request that Sarah present herself as his sister and focuses instead on the Egyptian king\u2019s licentiousness and God\u2019s saving action. Because some Philonic interpretations (e.g., Enos as a symbol of hope) are based on Greek biblical readings that differ from the Hebrew, readers may wish to compare the Septuagint with the Hebrew Bible as well.
\nPhilo\u2019s selection and ordering of material support his purpose in presenting Abraham as a universal exemplar. Philo avoids such particularistic details, for example, as God\u2019s promises to Abraham regarding land and offspring, the covenant between God and Abraham, and the sign of circumcision. Abraham\u2019s separation from Lot (Gen. 13:5\u201311; Abraham 209\u201324) follows the near sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22; Abraham 167\u2013207) because the latter illustrates Abraham\u2019s piety (which is discussed in the first part of the treatise), and the former illustrates Abraham\u2019s justice in dealing with others (and thus belongs later with Philo\u2019s presentation of Abraham\u2019s virtues in relation to people). To contrast the Egyptian king\u2019s bad behavior with Abraham\u2019s generous hospitality, Philo juxtaposes Sarah and Abraham\u2019s Egyptian sojourn (Gen. 12:10\u201320; Abraham 89\u2013106) with Abraham\u2019s reception of his three visitors (Gen. 18; Abraham 107\u201332).<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
The sources below deal with On the Life of Abraham as a whole or with specific issues discussed in the introductory comments. For readings on additional topics, please see the notes.
\nBirnbaum, Ellen. \u201cExegetical Building Blocks in Philo\u2019s Interpretation of the Patriarchs.\u201d In From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition, edited by Patricia Walters, 69\u201392. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
\nB\u00f6hm, Martina. Rezeption und Funktion der V\u00e4tererz\u00e4hlungen bei Philo von Alexandria. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005.
\nBrenton, L. C. L. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1851; rpt. Pea MA: Hendrickson, 1999.
\nColson, F. H., trans. On the Life of Abraham. In Philo, vol. 6, 54\u2013135. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1935; rpt. 1984.
\nRahlfs, A., ed. Septuaginta, 8th ed., 2 vols. Stuttgart: W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1965, 1935.
\nRunia, David T. \u201cThe Place of De Abrahamo in Philo\u2019s oeuvre.\u201d SPhA 20 (2008): 133\u201350.
\nSandmel, Samuel. Philo\u2019s Place in Judaism: A Study of Conceptions of Abraham in Jewish Literature. Augmented ed. New York: Ktav, 1971.
\nTermini, Christina. \u201cThe Historical Part of the Pentateuch according to Philo of Alexandria: Biography, Genealogy, and the Philosophical Meaning of the Patriarchal Lives.\u201d In History and Identity: How Israel\u2019s Later Authors Viewed Its Earlier History, edited by N. Calduch-Benages and J. Liesen, 265\u201387. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006.<\/p>\n
TRANSLATION<\/p>\n
On Abraham: That Is, the Life of the Wise Man Made Perfect through Teaching, or the First Book on Unwritten Laws<\/p>\n
I. 1The first of the five books in which the holy laws are written bears the name and inscription of Genesis, from the genesis or creation of the world, an account of which it contains at its beginning. It has received this title in spite of its embracing numberless other matters; for it tells of peace and war, of fruitfulness and barrenness, of dearth and plenty; how fire and water wrought great destruction of what is on earth; how on the other hand plants and animals were born and throve through the kindly tempering of the air and the yearly seasons, and so too men, some of whom lived a life of virtue, others of vice. 2But since some of these things are parts of the world, and others events which befall it, and the world is the complete consummation which contains them all, he dedicated the whole book to it.
\n3The story of the order in which the world was made has been set forth in detail by us as well as was possible in the preceding treatise; but, since it is necessary to carry out our examination of the law in regular sequence, let us postpone consideration of particular laws, which are, so to speak, copies, and examine first those which are more general and may be called the originals of those copies. 4These are such men as lived good and blameless lives, whose virtues stand permanently recorded in the most holy Scriptures, not merely to sound their praises but for the instruction of the reader and as an inducement to him to aspire to the same; 5for in these men we have laws endowed with life and reason, and Moses extolled them for two reasons. First he wished to show that the enacted ordinances are not inconsistent with nature; and secondly that those who wish to live in accordance with the laws as they stand have no difficult task, seeing that the first generations before any at all of the particular statutes was set in writing followed the unwritten law with perfect ease, so that one might properly say that the enacted laws are nothing else than memorials of the life of the ancients, preserving to a later generation their actual words and deeds. 6For they were not scholars or pupils of others, nor did they learn under teachers what was right to say or do: they listened to no voice or instruction but their own: they gladly accepted conformity with nature, holding that nature itself was, as indeed it is, the most venerable of statutes, and thus their whole life was one of happy obedience to law. They committed no guilty action of their own free will or purpose, and where chance led them wrong they besought God\u2019s mercy and propitiated Him with prayers and supplications, and thus secured a perfect life guided aright in both fields, both in their premeditated actions and in such as were not of freely-willed purpose.
\nII. 7Since, then, the first step toward the possession of blessings is hope, and hope like a high road is constructed and opened up by the virtue-loving soul in its eagerness to gain true excellence, Moses called the first lover of hope \u201cMan,\u201d thus bestowing on him as a special favor the name which is common to the race 8(for the Chaldean name for Man is Enos), on the grounds that he alone is a true man who expects good things and rests firmly on comfortable hopes. This plainly shows that he regards a despondent person as no man but as a beast in human shape, since he has been robbed of the nearest and dearest possession of the human soul, namely hope. 9And, therefore, in his wish to give the highest praise to the hoper, after first stating that he set his hope on the Father and Maker of all, he adds, \u201cthis is the book of the coming into being of men,\u201d though fathers and grandfathers had already come into being. But he held that they were the founders of the mixed race, but Enos of that from which all impurity had been strained, in fact of the race which is truly reasonable. 10For just as we give the title of \u201cthe poet\u201d to Homer in virtue of his pre-eminence, though there are multitudes of poets besides him, and \u201cthe black\u201d to the material with which we write, though everything is black which is not white, and \u201cthe Archon\u201d at Athens to the chief of the nine archons, the Archon Eponymos, from whose year of office dates are calculated, so too Moses gave the name of man in pre-eminence to him who cherished hope and left unnoticed the many others as unworthy to receive the title. 11He did well, too, in speaking of the book of the coming into being of the true man. The word was appropriate because the hoper deserves a memorial written not on pieces of paper which moths shall destroy but in the undying book of nature where good actions are registered. 12Further, if we reckon the generations from the first, the earth-born man, we shall find that he, who is called by the Chaldeans Enos and in our tongue Man, is fourth. 13Now the number four has been held in high honor by the other philosophers who devoted themselves to the study of immaterial and conceptual realities, and especially by the all-wise Moses who when glorifying that number speaks of it as \u201choly and for praise,\u201d and why he so called it has been shown in the former treatise. 14Holy, too, and praiseworthy is the hopeful man, just as on the contrary the despondent is unholy and blameworthy, since in all things he takes fear for his evil counselor; for no two things are more at enmity with each other, men say, than fear and hope, and surely that is natural, for each is an expectation, hope of good, fear on the other hand of evil, and their natures are irreconcilable and incapable of agreement.
\nIII. 15No more need be said about the subject of hope, set by nature as a door-keeper at the portals of the royal virtues within, to which access cannot be gained unless we have first paid our respects to her. 16Great indeed are the efforts expended both by lawgivers and by laws in every nation in filling the souls of free men with comfortable hopes; but he who gains this virtue of hopefulness without being led to it by exhortation or command has been educated into it by a law which nature has laid down, a law unwritten yet intuitively learnt.
\n17The second place after hope is given to repentance for sins and to improvement, and, therefore, Moses mentions next in order him who changed from the worse life to the better, called by the Hebrews Enoch but in our language \u201crecipient of grace.\u201d We are told of him that he proved \u201cto be pleasing to God and was not found because God transferred him,\u201d 18for transference implies turning and changing, and the change is to the better because it is brought about by the forethought of God. For all that is done with God\u2019s help is excellent and truly profitable, as also all that has not His directing care is unprofitable.
\n19And the expression used of the transferred person, that he was not found, is well said, either because the old reprehensible life is blotted out and disappears and is no more found, as though it had never been at all, or because he who is thus transferred and takes his place in the better class is naturally hard to find. For evil is widely spread and therefore known to many, while virtue is rare, so that even the few cannot comprehend it. 20Besides, the worthless man whose life is one long restlessness haunts market-places, theaters, law-courts, council halls, assemblies, and every group and gathering of men; his tongue he lets loose for unmeasured, endless, indiscriminate talk, bringing chaos and confusion into everything, mixing true with false, fit with unfit, public with private, holy with profane, sensible with absurd, because he has not been trained to that silence which in season is most excellent. 21His ears he keeps alert in meddlesome curiosity, ever eager to learn his neighbor\u2019s affairs, whether good or bad, and ready with envy for the former and joy at the latter; for the worthless man is a creature naturally malicious, a hater of good and lover of evil.
\nIV. 22The man of worth on the other hand, having acquired a desire for a quiet life, withdraws from the public and loves solitude, and his choice is to be unnoticed by the many, not because he is misanthropical, for he is eminently a philanthropist, but because he has rejected vice which is welcomed by the multitude who rejoice at what calls for mourning and grieve where it is well to be glad. 23And therefore he mostly secludes himself at home and scarcely ever crosses his threshold, or else because of the frequency of visitors he leaves the town and spends his days in some lonely farm, finding pleasanter society in those noblest of the whole human race whose bodies time has turned into dust but the flame of their virtues is kept alive by the written records which have survived them in poetry or in prose and serve to promote the growth of goodness in the soul. 24That was why he said that the \u201ctransferred\u201d was not found, being hard to find and hard to seek. So he passes across from ignorance to instruction, from folly to sound sense, from cowardice to courage, from impiety to piety, and again from voluptuousness to self-control, from vaingloriousness to simplicity. And what wealth is equal in worth to these, or what possession of royalty or dominion more profitable? 25For in very truth the wealth which is not blind but keen of sight is abundance of virtues, which consequently we must needs hold to be, in contrast to the bastard governments falsely so-called, genuine and equitable sovereignty ruling in justice over all.
\n26But we must not forget that repentance holds the second place to perfection, just as a change from sickness to health is second to a body free from disease; so, then, unbroken perfection of virtues stands nearest to divine power, but improvement in the course of time is the peculiar treasure of a soul gifted by nature, which does not stay in childish thoughts but by such as are more robust and truly manly seeks to gain a condition of serenity and pursues the vision of the excellent.
\nV. 27Naturally, therefore, next to the repentant he sets the lover of virtue and beloved by God, who in the Hebrew language is called Noah but in ours \u201crest\u201d or \u201cjust,\u201d both very suitable titles for the Sage. \u201cJust\u201d is obviously so, for nothing is better than justice, the chief among the virtues, who like the fairest maiden of the dance holds the highest place. But \u201crest\u201d is appropriate also, since its opposite, unnatural movement, proves to be the cause of turmoil and confusion and factions and wars. Such movement is sought by the worthless, while a life which is calm, serene, tranquil and peaceful to boot is the object of those who have valued nobility of conduct.
\n28He shows consistency, too, when he gives to the seventh day, which the Hebrews call Sabbath, the name of rest; not, as some think, because the multitude abstained after six days from their usual tasks, but because in truth the number seven, both in the world and in ourselves, is always free from factions and war and quarreling and is of all numbers the most peaceful. 29This statement is attested by the faculties within us, for six of them wage ceaseless and continuous war on land and sea, namely the five senses and speech, the former in their craving for the objects of sense, deprivation of which is painful to them, speech because with unbridled mouth it perpetually gives utterance where silence is due. 30But the seventh faculty is that of the dominant mind, which, after triumphing over the six and returning victorious through its superior strength, welcomes solitude and rejoices in its own society, feeling that it needs no other and is completely sufficient for itself, and then released from the cares and concerns of mortal kind gladly accepts a life of calmness and serenity.
\nVI. 31So highly does Moses extol the lover of virtue that when he gives his genealogy he does not, as he usually does in other cases, make a list of his grandfathers, great-grandfathers and ancestors in the male and female line, but of certain virtues, and this is little less than a direct assertion that a sage has no house or kinsfolk or country save virtues and virtuous actions; \u201cfor these,\u201d he says, \u201care the generations of Noah. Noah, a man just and perfect in his generation, was well-pleasing to God.\u201d 32But we must not fail to note that in this passage he gives the name of man not according to the common form of speech, to the mortal animal endowed with reason, but to the man who is man pre-eminently, who verifies the name by having expelled from the soul the untamed and frantic passions and the truly beastlike vices. 33Here is a proof. After \u201cman\u201d he adds \u201cjust,\u201d implying by the combination that the unjust is no man, or more properly speaking a beast in human form, and that the follower after righteousness alone is man. 34He says, too, that Noah became \u201cperfect,\u201d thereby showing that he acquired not one virtue but all, and having acquired them continued to exercise each as opportunities allowed. 35And as he crowns him as victor in the contest, he gives him further distinction by a proclamation couched in words of splendid praise, \u201che was well-pleasing to God.\u201d What better thing than this has nature to give? What clearer proof can there be of nobility of life? For, if those who have been ill-pleasing to God are ill-fated, happy most surely are those whose lot it is to be well-pleasing to God.
\nVII. 36But Moses makes a good point when, after praising him as possessed of all these virtues, he adds that he was perfect in his generation, thus showing he was not good absolutely but in comparison with the men of that time. 37For we shall shortly find him mentioning other sages whose virtue was unchallenged, who are not contrasted with the bad, who are adjudged worthy of approval and precedence, not because they were better than their contemporaries but because they possessed a happily gifted nature and kept it unperverted, who did not have to shun evil courses or indeed come into contact with them at all, but attained preeminence in practicing that excellence of words and deeds with which they adorned their lives. 38The highest admiration, then, is due to those in whom the ruling impulses were of free and noble birth, who accepted the excellent and just for their own selves and not in imitation of or in opposition to others. But admiration is also due to him who stood apart from his own generation and conformed himself to none of the aims and aspirations of the many. He will win the second prize, though the first will be awarded by nature to those others. 39Yet great also is the second prize in itself, for how could anything fail to be great and worthy of our efforts which God offers and gives?
\nAnd the clearest proof of this is the exceeding magnitude of the bounties which Noah obtained. 40That time bore its harvest of iniquities, and every country and nation and city and household and every private individual was filled with evil practices; one and all, as though in a race, engaged in rivalry pre-willed and premeditated for the first places in sinfulness, and put all possible zeal into the contention, each one pressing on to exceed his neighbor in magnitude of vice and leaving nothing undone which could lead to a guilty and accursed life.
\nVIII. 41Naturally this roused the wrath of God, to think that man, who seemed the best of all living creatures, who had been judged worthy of kinship with Him because he shared the gift of reason, had, instead of practicing virtue as he should, shown zeal for vice and for every particular form of it. Accordingly He appointed the penalty which fitted their wickedness. He determined to destroy all those who were then alive by a deluge, not only those who dwelt in the plains and lower lands, but also the inhabitants of the highest mountains. 42For the great deep rose on high as it had never risen before, and gathering its force rushed through its outlets into the seas of our parts, and the rising tides of these flooded the islands and continents, while in quick succession the streams from the perennial fountains and from the rivers spring-fed or winter-torrents pressed on to join each other and mounted upward to a vast height. 43Nor was the air still, for a deep unbroken cloud covered the heaven, and there were monstrous blasts of wind and crashings of thunder and flashings of lightning and downfall of thunderbolts, while the rainstorms dashed down ceaselessly, so that one might think that the different parts of the universe were hurrying to be resolved into the single element of water, until, as in one form it rushed down from above and in another rose up from below, the streams were lifted on high, and thus not only the plains and lowlands were submerged and lost to sight, but even the peaks of the highest mountains. 44For all parts of the earth sank below the water, so that it was entirely carried away as though by violence, and the world seemed mutilated by the loss of a great section, its completeness and perfection destroyed and defaced, a thing too terrible for words or even for thoughts. Indeed even the air, except a small portion belonging to the moon, had been completely made away with, vanquished by the rush and violence of the water which perforce occupied its place. 45Then indeed at once all crops and trees perished, for excessive quantity of water is as destructive as the lack of it, and the numberless herds of animals died, tame and wild alike; for it was to be expected that if the highest kind, the human, was annihilated none of the inferior kinds would be left, since they were made for man\u2019s needs, as slaves in a sense meant to obey their masters\u2019 orders.
\n46When all these evils, so many and so vast, had burst upon the world in the downpour which that occasion brought, and the unnatural convulsion had shaken all its parts save the heavenly as with a grievous and deadly plague, one house alone, that of the man called just and dear to God, was preserved. Thus he received two gifts of the highest kind\u2014one that, as I have said, he did not perish with the rest, the other that he should be in his turn the founder of a new race of men. For God deemed him worthy to be both the last and the first of our kind\u2014last of those who lived before the flood and first of those who lived after it.
\nIX. 47Such was he who was the best of his contemporaries, and such were the prizes awarded to him, the nature of which is made clear in holy writ. Now the three mentioned above, whether we think of them as men or types of soul, form a series of regular gradation: the perfect man is complete from the first; the transferred stands half-way, since he devoted the earlier part of his life to vice but the latter to virtue to which he passed over and migrated; the hoper, as his very name shows, is defective inasmuch as though he always desired the excellent he has not yet been able to attain to it, but resembles sailors eager to put into port, who yet remain at sea unable to reach their haven.
\nX. 48So now we have explained the first trinity of those who yearn for virtue; but greater is the second trinity of which we have now to speak. The first we may compare to the studies of children, but the latter to the exercises of athletes who are preparing for games which are really sacred, men who despise bodily training but foster robustness of soul in their desire for victory over their antagonists, the passions. 49How each of these differed from the others while pressing on to one and the same goal will be described in detail later; but there is something to be said about them taken as a whole which must not be omitted. 50We find that these three are all of one house and one family. The last is the son of the second and grandson to the first. All alike are God-lovers and God-beloved, and their affection for the true God was returned by Him, Who deigned, as His utterances show, in recognition of their high and life-long virtues to make them partners in the title which He took, 51for He united them by joining His special name to theirs and calling Himself by one combined of the three. \u201cFor this,\u201d He said, \u201cis my eternal name\u2014the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,\u201d relative instead of absolute, and surely that is natural. God indeed needs no name; yet, though He needed it not, He nevertheless vouchsafed to give to humankind a name of Himself suited to them, that so men might be able to take refuge in prayers and supplications and not be deprived of comforting hopes.
\nXI. 52These words do indeed appear to apply to men of holy life, but they are also statements about an order of things which is not so apparent but is far superior to the order which is perceived by the senses. For the holy word seems to be searching into types of soul, all of them of high worth, one which pursues the good through teaching, one through nature and one through practice. The first called Abraham, the second Isaac and the third Jacob, are symbols of virtue acquired respectively by teaching, nature and practice. 53But indeed we must not fail to note that each possesses the three qualities, but gets his name from that which chiefly predominates in him; for teaching cannot be consummated without nature or practice, nor is nature capable of reaching its zenith without learning and practicing, nor practice either unless that foundation of nature and teaching has first been laid. 54Very properly, then, Moses thus associated these three together, nominally men, but really, as I have said, virtues\u2014teaching, nature, practice. Another name is given to them by men, who call them the Graces, also three in number; either because these values are a gift of God\u2019s grace to our kind for perfecting its life, or because they have given themselves to the reasonable soul as a perfect and most excellent gift. Thus the eternal name revealed in his words is meant to indicate the three said values rather than actual men. 55For the nature of man is perishable, but that of virtue is imperishable. And it is more reasonable that what is eternal should be predicated of the imperishable than of the mortal, since imperishableness is akin to eternality, while death is at enmity with it.
\nXII. 56There is another thing which we must not fail to know: while Moses represented the first man, the earth-born, as father of all that were born up to the deluge, and Noah who with all his house alone survived that great destruction because of his justice and excellent character in other ways as the father of the new race which would spring up afresh, the oracles speak of this august and precious trinity as parent of one species of that race, which species is called \u201croyal\u201d and \u201cpriesthood\u201d and \u201choly nation.\u201d 57Its high position is shown by the name; for the nation is called in the Hebrew tongue Israel, which, being interpreted, is \u201cHe who sees God.\u201d Now the sight of the eyes is the most excellent of all the senses, since by it alone we apprehend the most excellent of existing things, the sun and the moon and the whole heaven and world; but the sight of the mind, the dominant element in the soul, surpasses all the other faculties of the mind, and this is wisdom which is the sight of the understanding. 58But he to whom it is given not only to apprehend by means of knowledge all else that nature has to show, but also to see the Father and Maker of all, may rest assured that he is advanced to the crowning point of happiness; for nothing is higher than God, and who so has stretched the eyesight of the soul to reach Him should pray that he may there abide and stand firm; 59for journeys uphill are toilsome and slow, but the downhill course where one is swept along rather than descends is swift and most easy. And many are the forces which would bear us down, yet none of them avail when God sets the soul suspended to His potencies and with a mightier attraction draws it to Himself.
\nXIII. 60So much for what was needed by way of preliminary discussion on the three in common. We must now speak of the superior merits shown by each separately, beginning with the first. Abraham, then, filled with zeal for piety, the highest and greatest of virtues, was eager to follow God and to be obedient to His commands; understanding by commands not only those conveyed in speech and writing but also those made manifest by nature with clearer signs, and apprehended by the sense which is the most truthful of all and superior to hearing, on which no certain reliance can be placed. 61For anyone who contemplates the order in nature and the constitution enjoyed by the world-city whose excellence no words can describe, needs no speaker to teach him to practice a law-abiding and peaceful life and to aim at assimilating himself to its beauties. But the clearest proofs of his piety are those which the Holy Scriptures contain, and the first which should be mentioned is that which comes first in order.
\nXIV. 62Under the force of an oracle which bade him leave his country and kinsfolk and seek a new home, thinking that quickness in executing the command was as good as full accomplishment, he hastened eagerly to obey, not as though he were leaving home for a strange land but rather as returning from amid strangers to his home. 63Yet who else would be likely to be so firm and unmoved of purpose as not to yield and succumb to the charms of kinsfolk and country? The desire of these may be said to be born and grow with each of us and is a part of our nature as much as or even more than the parts which unite to make the whole. 64And this is attested by the legislators who have appointed banishment as the penalty second only to death for those who have been convicted of the greatest crimes, though indeed, in my opinion, it is not second to death, if truth gives its verdict, but rather a far heavier punishment, since death ends our troubles but banishment is not the end but the beginning of other new misfortunes and entails in place of the one death which puts an end to pains a thousand deaths in which we do not lose sensation. 65Some men go on voyages for trading purposes in their desire for making money or on embassies or in their love of culture to see the sights of a foreign land. These are subject to influences driving them to stay abroad, in some cases financial gains, in others the chance of benefiting their country, when occasion offers, in its most vital and important interests, in others acquiring knowledge of things which they did not know before and thus providing at once pleasure and profit to the soul, for the stay-at-home is to the traveled as the blind are to the keen-sighted. Yet all these are eager to see and salute their native soil, and to greet their familiars and to have the sweet and most desired enjoyment of beholding their kinsfolk and friends. And often when they find the business for which they left home protracting itself they abandon it, drawn by the constraining desire for their own belongings.
\n66But Abraham, the moment he was bidden, departed with a few or even alone, and his emigration was one of soul rather than body, for the heavenly love overpowered his desire for mortal things. 67And so taking no thought for anything, either for his fellow-clansmen, or wardsmen, or schoolmates, or comrades, or blood relations on father\u2019s or mother\u2019s side, or country, or ancestral customs, or community of nurture or home life, all of them ties possessing a power to allure and attract which it is hard to throw off, he followed a free and unfettered impulse and departed with all speed first from Chaldea, a land at that time blessed by fortune and at the height of its prosperity, and migrated to Haran; then not long afterward he left this too for another place, about which we shall speak after dealing with something else to which I now proceed.
\nXV. 68The migrations as set forth by the literal text of the Scriptures are made by a man of wisdom, but according to the laws of allegory by a virtue-loving soul in its search for the true God. 69For the Chaldeans were especially active in the elaboration of astrology and ascribed everything to the movements of the stars. They supposed that the course of the phenomena of the world is guided by influences contained in numbers and numerical proportions. Thus they glorified visible existence, leaving out of consideration the intelligible and invisible. But while exploring numerical order as applied to the revolution of the sun, moon and other planets and fixed stars, and the changes of the yearly seasons and the interdependence of phenomena in heaven and on earth, they concluded that the world itself was God, thus profanely likening the created to the Creator. 70In this creed Abraham had been reared, and for a long time remained a Chaldean. Then opening the soul\u2019s eye as though after profound sleep, and beginning to see the pure beam instead of the deep darkness, he followed the ray and discerned what he had not beheld before, a charioteer and pilot presiding over the world and directing in safety his own work, assuming the charge and superintendence of that work and of all such parts of it as are worthy of the divine care. 71And so to establish more firmly in his understanding the sight which had been revealed to him the Holy Word follows it up by saying to him, \u201cFriend, the great is often known by its outlines as shown in the smaller, and by looking at them the observer finds the scope of his vision infinitely enlarged. Dismiss, then, the rangers of the heavens and the science of Chaldea, and depart for a short time from the greatest of cities, this world, to the lesser, and thus you will be better able to apprehend the overseer of the All.\u201d 72This is why he is said to emigrate first from the land of Chaldea to that of Haran.
\nXVI. Now Haran in our language means \u201choles,\u201d a symbol for the seats of our senses through which each of them naturally peers as through orifices to apprehend what belongs to it. 73Yet what use, we might ask, would they be if the invisible mind were not there like a juggler to prompt its faculties, sometimes relaxing and giving them a free rein, sometimes forcibly pulling and jerking them back, and thus causing its puppets at one time to move in harmony, at another to rest? With this example in yourself you will easily apprehend that which you so earnestly desire to know. 74For it cannot be that while in yourself there is a mind appointed as your ruler which all the community of the body obeys and each of the senses follows, the world, the fairest, and greatest and most perfect work of all, of which everything else is a part, is without a king who holds it together and directs it with justice. That the king is invisible need not cause you to wonder, for neither is the mind in yourself visible. 75Anyone who reflects on these things and learns from no distant source, but from one near at hand, namely himself and what makes him what he is, will know for certain that the world is not the primal God but a work of the primal God and Father of all Who, though invisible, yet brings all things to light, revealing the natures of great and small. 76For He did not deem it right to be apprehended by the eyes of the body, perhaps because it was contrary to holiness that the mortal should touch the eternal, perhaps too because of the weakness of our sight. For our sight could not have borne the rays that pour from Him that IS, since it is not even able to look upon the beams of the sun.
\nXVII. 77We have a very clear proof of the mind\u2019s migration from astrology and the Chaldean creed in the words which follow at once the story of the departure of the Sage. \u201cGod,\u201d it says, \u201cwas seen by Abraham.\u201d This shows that God was not manifested to him before, when in his Chaldean way he was fixing his thoughts on the choric movement of the stars with no apprehension at all of an harmonious and intelligible order of things outside the world and the sphere of sense. 78But when he had departed and changed his habitation he could not help but know that the world is not sovereign but dependent, not governing but governed by its Maker and First Cause. And this his mind then saw for the first time with its recovered sight. 79For before a great mist had been shed upon it by the things of sense, and only with difficulty could it dispel this mist under the warmth and fervour of higher verities and so be able as in clear open sky to receive the vision of Him Who so long lay hidden and invisible. He in His love for mankind, when the soul came into His presence, did not turn away His face, but came forward to meet him and revealed His nature, so far as the beholder\u2019s power of sight allowed. 80That is why we are told not that the Sage saw God, but that God was seen by him. For it were impossible that anyone should by himself apprehend the truly Existent, did not He reveal and manifest Himself.
\nXVIII. 81What has been said is attested by the alteration and change in his name, for his original name was Abram, but afterward he was addressed as Abraham. To the ear there was but a duplication of one letter, alpha, but in fact and in the truth conveyed this duplication showed a change of great importance. 82Abram is by interpretation \u201cuplifted father\u201d; Abraham, \u201celect father of sound.\u201d The former signifies one called astrologer and meteorologist, one who takes care of the Chaldean tenets as a father would of his children. 83The latter signifies the Sage, for he uses \u201csound\u201d as a figure for spoken thought and \u201cfather\u201d for the ruling mind, since the inward thought is by its nature father of the uttered, being senior to it, the secret begetter of what it has to say. \u201cElect\u201d signifies the man of worth, for the worthless character is random and confused, while the good is elect, chosen out of all for his merits. 84Now to the meteorologist nothing at all seems greater than the universe, and he credits it with the causation of what comes into being. But the wise man with more discerning eyes sees something more perfect perceived by mind, something which rules and governs, the master and pilot of all else. And therefore he blames himself severely for his former life, feeling that all his years have been passed in blindness with no staff to support him but the world of sense, which is by its nature an insecure and unstable thing. 85The second migration which the man of worth undertakes, again in obedience to an oracle, is not as before from state to state but into a desert country in which he continued to wander, never complaining of the wandering or the insecurity which it caused. 86Yet who else would not have felt it a burden not only to be severed from his own country, but also to be driven out of all city life into pathless tracts where the traveler could hardly find a way? Who would not have turned his course and hurried back homeward, paying little regard to future hopes, but eager to escape his present hardships, and thinking it folly to choose admitted evil for the sake of uncertain good? 87Yet he alone appears to have had feelings the opposite of these, and to have thought that no life was so pleasant as one lived without association with the multitude. And that is natural, for those who seek God and yearn to find Him love the solitude which is dear to Him, and in this way first of all hasten to make themselves like His blessed and happy nature. 88So in both our expositions, the literal as applied to the man and the allegorical as applied to the soul, we have shown both man and soul to be worthy of our affection. We have shown how the man in obedience to divine commands was drawn away from the stubborn hold of his associations and how the mind did not remain forever deceived nor stand rooted in the realm of sense, nor suppose that the visible world was the Almighty and Primal God, but using its reason sped upward and turned its gaze upon the intelligible order which is superior to the visible and upon Him who is maker and ruler of both alike.
\nXLV. 262There is another record of praise attested by words from Moses\u2019s prophetic lips. In these it is stated that he \u201ctrusted in God.\u201d Now that is a little thing if measured in words, but a very great thing if made good by action. 263For in what else should one trust? In high offices or fame and honors or abundance of wealth and noble birth or health and efficacy of the senses or strength and beauty of body? But office is wholly precarious, beset by countless foes who lie in wait for it, and if by chance it is secured the security is accompanied by countless ills in which those in high positions are either the agents or the victims. 264Fame and honor are a most precarious possession, tossed about on the reckless tempers and flighty words of careless men: and, when it abides, it cannot of its own nature contain genuine good. 265As for wealth and high birth, they attach themselves even to the most worthless of men, and even if they were confined to the virtuous they would be a compliment not to the actual possessors but to their ancestors and to fortune. 266Again, neither should we pride ourselves greatly on bodily endowments in which the unreasoning animals have the advantage over us; for what man is stronger or more muscular than the bull among domestic and the lion among wild beasts? Who has a keener sight than the hawk or the eagle? or who is so favoured in powers of hearing as that stupidest of animals, the ass? And as for smell, who has more accurate discernment than the hound, which, as the hunstmen tell us, led unerringly by the scent, races to the distant quarry which it has not seen; for what sight is to other animals the nostrils are to the hounds used for hunting or tracking. 267Health? Why, most of the unreasoning animals are exceedingly healthy and as far as possible free from disease. Beauty? In the competition for this, I should say that some lifeless objects can beat and surpass the comeliness both of men and women. Such are the images and statues and pictures and in general all the creations of the painters and the sculptors which achieve success in either art and rouse the enthusiasm of Greeks and barbarians alike, who set them up in the most conspicuous places to adorn their cities.
\nXLVI. 268Faith in God, then, is the one sure and infallible good, consolation of life, fulfilment of bright hopes, dearth of ills, harvest of goods, inacquaintance with misery, acquaintance with piety, heritage of happiness, all-round betterment of the soul which is firmly stayed on Him Who is the cause of all things and can do all things yet only wills the best. 269For, just as those who walk on a slippery road are tripped up and fall, while others on a dry highway tread without stumbling, so those who set the soul traveling along the path of the bodily and the external are but learning it to fall, so slippery and utterly insecure are all such things; while those who press onward to God along the doctrines of virtue walk straight upon a path which is safe and unshaken, so that we may say with all truth that belief in the former things is disbelief in God, and disbelief in them belief in God. 270But not only do the oracles attest his possession of the queen of virtues, faith in the existent, but he is also the first whom they speak of as elder, though those who lived before him tripled or many times multiplied his years. Yet of none of them do we hear that he was held worthy of the title and rightly, for the true elder is shown as such not by his length of days but by a laudable and perfect life. 271Those who have passed a long span of years in the existence of the body without goodness or beauty of life must be called long-lived children who have never been schooled in the learning worthy of grey hairs; but he who is enamoured of sound sense and wisdom and faith in God may be justly called elder, a name of like significance to \u201cfirst.\u201d 272For indeed the wise man is the first of the human race, as a pilot in a ship or a ruler in a city or a general in war, or again as a soul in a body and a mind in a soul, or once more heaven in the world or God in heaven. 273That God marveling at Abraham\u2019s faith in Him repaid him with faithfulness by confirming with an oath the gifts which He had promised, and here He no longer talked with him as God with man but as a friend with a familiar. For He, with Whom a word is an oath, yet says \u201cBy Myself have I sworn,\u201d so that his mind might be established more securely and firmly even than it was before. 274So, then, the man of worth is elder and first, and so must he be called; but younger and last is every fool who pursues the ways which belong to rebellious youth and stand lowest in the list.
\n275So much for all this, but to these praises of the Sage, so many and so great, Moses adds this crowning saying \u201cthat this man did the divine law and the divine commands.\u201d He did them, not taught by written words, but unwritten nature gave him the zeal to follow where wholesome and untainted impulse led him. And when they have God\u2019s promises before them what should men do but trust in them most firmly? 276Such was the life of the first, the founder of the nation, one who obeyed the law, some will say, but rather, as our discourse has shown, himself a law and an unwritten statute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
weak bodily constitution. 6But they had obtained superior and great excellence in body, so it followed that they should also have keener senses and, moreover, philosophical sight and hearing. 7For it is not in vain that some try to become like them, as if they have obtained eyes with which they can see even the … <\/p>\n