Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis

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Book II._.9.4
[34] This is why Moses says, “He will not permit the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you” (Exod. 12:23): for He does indeed permit the destroyer—(“destruction” being the change or turning of the soul)—to enter into the soul, that He may make it evident that what is peculiar to created things is there; but God will not let the offspring of “the seeing” Israel be in such wise changed as to receive his death-blow by the change, but will force him to rise and emerge as though from deep water and recover.
Book II._.10.1
[35] “He took one of his sides” (Gen. 2:21). Of the many faculties of the mind He took one, the faculty of perception. “Took” must not be understood as equivalent to “removed,” but as equivalent to “enrolled,” “registered,” as we find it elsewhere “take the sum of the spoils of the captivity” (Numb. 31:26).
Book II._.10.2
[36] What idea is it, then, that he wants to convey? The word “perception” is used in two ways, first in that of a condition, in which sense it is ours when we are asleep, secondly in the sense of an activity. From perception in the former sense, as it is a state, we derive no benefit, for it does not enable us to apprehend the objects about us. It is from the second kind of perception, as an activity, that we get benefit, for our apprehension of the objects of sense-perception is made possible by this.
Book II._.10.3
[37] Having, then, brought into being the former sort of perception as a quiescent condition, at the time when He was bringing the mind itself into being—for He made the mind with many faculties lying dormant—now it is His wish to produce perception as an activity. Active perception is brought to pass when quiescent perception has been set in motion and extended to reach the flesh and the perceptive organs. For, just as growth is effected by seed being set in motion, so is activity or actuality by a quiescent condition being set in motion.
Book II._.11.1
[38] “And he filled up flesh in its stead” (Gen. 2:21), that is to say He fulfilled perception that was only a state by leading it on to be an activity, and extending it till it reached the flesh and the whole surface of the body. And so he adds the words, “He built it to be a woman” (Gen. 2:22), proving by this that the most proper and exact name for sense-perception is “woman.” For just as the man shows himself in activity and the woman in passivity, so the province of the mind is activity, and that of the perceptive sense passivity, as in woman.
Book II._.11.2
[39] It is easy to learn this from what is before our eyes. Sight is in a passive relation to the objects of sight that set it moving, white, black, and the rest. Hearing, again, is affected by sounds, and the sense of taste by savours, the sense of smell by odours, that of touch by things rough and smooth; and the faculties of perception are all dormant, until there draws near to each of them from outside that which is to set it in motion.
Book II._.12.1
[40] “And he led her to Adam; and Adam said, This is now bone out of my bones and flesh out of my flesh” (Gen. 2:22, 23). God leads active perception to the mind, knowing that its movement and apprehensive power must revert to the mind as their starting-point. The mind, on beholding that, which it had before as a potentiality and as a dormant state, now become a finished product, an activity, and in motion, marvels at it, and cries aloud declaring that it is not foreign to it but in the fullest sense its own, for it says,
Book II._.12.2
[41] “This is bone out of my bones,” that is, power out of my powers, for “bone” is here used as “power and strength”, “and feeling out of my feelings”; “and flesh,” he says, “out of my flesh”; for not without the mind does the perceptive faculty bear anything that it feels, for the mind is to it a fountain-head and a basis on which it rests.
Book II._.12.3
[42] It is worth our while to consider why the word “now” was added: for what he says is, “This is now bone out of my bones.” Perception by itself is now, subsisting only in relation to the present time.
Book II._.12.4
[43] For whereas past, present, and future are within the scope of the mind, as it grasps things present, remembers things past, and looks forward to things future, perception, on the other hand, has no power either to reach out to future things by experiencing something corresponding to hope or expectation, nor does it remember things past, but it is so constituted as to be affected only by that which is present and sets it in motion at the moment. For instance, the eye has a sensation of white now under the influence of the white that is present, but from that which is not present it feels no effect. The mind, on the contrary, is set in motion by occasion of that which is not present as well, if past, by way of memory, if future, by building hopes and expectations on it.
Book II._.13.1
[44] “To this one shall be given the title ‘woman’ ” (Gen. 2:23), as much as to say, for this cause shall perception be called “woman” because out of man that sets it in motion “this one is taken.” Why, then is “this one” put in? Because there is another perception, not taken from the mind, but brought into being together with it. For there are, as I have said already, two perceptions, one existing as quiescent condition, the other as activity. The one, then, that exists as quiescent condition, is not taken out of the man, that is to say the mind, but comes into being with it.
Book II._.13.2
[45] For the mind, as I have pointed out, when it came into existence, came into existence in association with many potentialities and conditions, those of reason, animal life, and growth, and so with that of perception also. But the one that exists as an activity comes out of the mind. For it was extended out of the perception which is in the mind as a condition, that it might come to be an activity. Thus the second one, the one that is characterized by movement, has been produced out of the mind itself.
Book II._.13.3
[46] But he is a shallow thinker who supposes that in strict truth anything whatever derives its birth from the mind or from himself. Do you not see that perception in the person of Rachel who sits upon the teraphim, is rebuked by “the seeing one,” when she imagines that movements have their source in mind? For she says, “Give me children; if you do not, I shall die” (Gen. 30:1); but he answers, “O woman, full of false fancies, the mind is the origin of nothing, but God who is antecedent to the mind is the only cause”; and so he adds, “Am I in the place of God who deprived thee of the fruit of the womb?” (ibid. 2).
Book II._.13.4
[47] But that it is God who brings about birth, Scripture will give evidence in the case of Leah, when it says, “And the Lord seeing that Leah was hated opened her womb, but Rachel was barren” (Gen. 29:31). The opening of the womb is man’s proper function. But mortal kind is prone of itself to hate virtue, and accordingly God has bestowed honour upon it and vouchsafes to her that is hated to bear the first-born.
Book II._.13.5
[48] He says elsewhere, “If a man have two wives, one of them beloved and one of them hated, and they shall bear children to him and the first-born son be the son of the hated wife … he shall not be able to give the right of the first-born to the son of the beloved wife, overlooking the son of the hated one who is the first-born” (Deut. 21:15, 16): for first of all and most perfect of all are the offspring of the hated virtue, while the offspring of the well-loved pleasure are last of all.
Book II._.14.1
[49] “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and the twain shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). For the sake of sense-perception the Mind, when it has become her slave, abandons both God the Father of the universe, and God’s excellence and wisdom, the Mother of all things, and cleaves to and becomes one with sense-perception and is resolved into sense-perception so that the two become one flesh and one experience.
Book II._.14.2
[50] Observe that it is not the woman that cleaves to the man, but conversely the man to the woman, Mind to Sense-perception. For when that which is superior, namely Mind, becomes one with that which is inferior, namely Sense-perception, it resolves itself into the order of flesh which is inferior, into sense-perception, the moving cause of the passions. But if Sense the inferior follow Mind the superior, there will be flesh no more, but both of them will be Mind. The man, then, of whom the prophet speaks is such as has been described; he prefers the love of his passions to the love of God.
Book II._.14.3
[51] But there is a different man, one who has made the contrary choice, even Levi, who “said to his father and his mother ‘I have not seen thee,’ and knew not his brethren, and disclaimed his sons” (Deut. 33:9). This man forsakes father and mother, his mind and material body, for the sake of having as his portion the one God, “for the Lord Himself is his portion” (Deut. 10:9).
Book II._.14.4
[52] Passion becomes the portion of the lover of passion, but the portion of Levi the lover of God is God. Do you not see again that he prescribes that on the tenth day of the seventh month they should bring two goats, “one portion for the Lord and one for the averter of evil”? (Lev. 16:8). For in very deed the portion of the lover of passion is a passion that needs an averter.
Book II._.15.1
[53] “And the two were naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.” “Now the serpent was the most subtil of all the beasts that were upon the earth, which the Lord God had made” (Gen. 2:25, 3:1). The mind that is clothed neither in vice nor in virtue, but absolutely stripped of either, is naked, just as the soul of an infant, since it is without part in either good or evil, is bared and stripped of coverings: for these are the soul’s clothes, by which it is sheltered and concealed. Goodness is the garment of the worthy soul, evil that of the worthless.
Book II._.15.2
[54] Now there are three ways in which a soul is made naked. One is when it continues without change and is barren of all vices, and has divested itself of all the passions and flung them away. For this reason “Moses fixes his tent outside the camp, a long way from the camp, and it was called the tent of testimony” (Exod. 33:7).
Book II._.15.3
[55] What this means is this. The soul that loves God, having disrobed itself of the body and the objects dear to the body and fled abroad far away from these, gains a fixed and assured settlement in the perfect ordinances of virtue. Wherefore witness is also borne to it by God that it loves things that are noble; “for,” says he, “it was called the tent of witness.” He leaves unmentioned who it is that calls it so, in order that the soul may be stirred up to consider who it is that bears witness to virtue-loving minds.
Book II._.15.4
[56] This is why the high priest shall not enter the Holy of Holies in his robe (Lev. 16:1 ff.), but laying aside the garment of opinions and impressions of the soul, and leaving it behind for those that love outward things and value semblance above reality, shall enter naked with no coloured borders or sound of bells, to pour as a libation the blood of the soul and to offer as incense the whole mind to God our Saviour and Benefactor.
Book II._.15.5
[57] Nadab and Abihu, too, who had drawn nigh to God and had forsaken the mortal life and become partakers of the life immortal are beheld naked of vain and mortal glory. For those who carried them away would not have borne them in their coats (Lev. 10:5), had they not become naked by bursting every bond of passion and of bodily constraint, in order that their nakedness and freedom from the body should not be debased by the irruption of impious thoughts. For not to all must leave be given to contemplate the secret things of God, but only to those who are able to hide and guard them.
Book II._.15.6
[58] And so Mishael and Elzaphan do not take them up in their own coats, but in those of Nadab and Abihu, who had been devoured by fire and been taken up (into heaven). For having stripped themselves of all that covered them, they offered their nakedness to God, but their coats they left behind for Mishael and Elzaphan. Now coats are those parts of the irrational by which the rational was hidden.
Book II._.15.7
[59] Abraham too becomes naked when the words have been spoken to him, “Go forth out of thy country and thy kindred” (Gen. 12:1). Isaac also does not indeed become naked, but is always naked and without body, for an injunction has been given him not to go down into Egypt (Gen. 26:2), and “Egypt” is the body. Jacob, again, loves nakedness of the soul, for his smoothness signifies nakedness. “For Esau,” we read, “was a hairy man, but Jacob a smooth man” (Gen. 27:11), and accordingly he has “Leah” as wife.
Book II._.16.1
[60] This is one form, the noblest form, of stripping or becoming naked. The other is of a contrary nature, a deprivation of virtue due to a turning or change of condition, when the soul becomes foolish and deranged. This kind of stripping is experienced by Noah, who is made naked when he has drunk wine. But, thanks be to God, the change of condition and the stripping of the mind which ensued upon the deprivation of virtue, did not spread out abroad and reach those outside, but stayed in the house, for what is said is “he was made naked in his house” (Gen. 9:21): for the wise man, if he do commit sin, does not run riot, as does the bad man. The evil of the one has been spread forth; that of the other has been held in check; so he becomes sober again, that is to say, he repents and recovers as from an illness.
Book II._.16.2
[61] Let us contemplate more in detail the fact that the stripping takes place in the house. When the soul in its perversion only purposes some outrage, but does not follow it up so as to complete it in action, the sin has been committed in the soul’s abode and house. But if, in addition to designing the bad deed, it goes on to carry out its design and do the thing, the unrighteous act has been spread out of doors as well.
Book II._.16.3
[62] It is in accordance with this that a curse is pronounced on Canaan, because he reported abroad the change of the soul. This means that he gave it fuller scope and wrought it out further, adding a further evil to the evil wish, even its accomplishment by deeds. Shem and Japhet on the other hand receive praise for not joining in the soul’s act but covering over its sad change.
Book II._.16.4
[63] For this reason also the vows and determinations of the soul are annulled, when they have been made in the house of father or husband (Numb. 30:4 ff.), if the reason and reflection do not hold their peace and so add their weight to the soul’s failure, but remove the offence; for in that case the Lord of all also “shall cleanse her.” But he leaves with no removal the vow of a widow or of her that is cast off: “for whatever vows she shall have vowed,” he says, “against her soul, abide for her” (Numb. 30:10). And this is reasonable. For if she has been cast off and gone forth to the parts outside, not turning merely but sinning by overt deeds, she abides incurable with no part in a husband’s admonition and deprived of her father’s persuasion.
Book II._.16.5
[64] A third form of producing nakedness is the middle or neutral one. Here the mind is irrational and has no part as yet either in virtue or in vice. It is of this form that the prophet is speaking. In this the infant too is partaker. Accordingly the words, “The two were naked, both Adam and his wife,” amount to this: neither mind nor sense was performing its functions, the one being bare and barren of mental action and the other of the activity of sense-perception.
Book II._.17.1
[65] Let us look again at the words, “they were not ashamed.” The words suggest three points for consideration: shamelessness, and shamefastness, and absence of both shamelessness and shamefastness. Shamelessness, then, is peculiar to the worthless man, shamefastness to the man of worth, to feel neither shamefastness nor shamelessness to the man who is incapable of right apprehension and of due assent thereto, and this man is at this moment the prophet’s subject. For he who has not yet attained to the apprehension of good and evil cannot possibly be either shameless or shamefast.
Book II._.17.2
[66] Examples of shamelessness are all those unseemly actions, when the mind uncovers shameful things which it ought to hide from view, and vaunts itself in them and prides itself on them. Even in the case of Miriam, when she spoke against Moses, it is said, “If her father had but spat in her face, should she not feel shame seven days?” (Numb. 12:14).
Book II._.17.3
[67] For veritably shameless and bold was sense-perception in daring to decry and find fault with Moses for that for which he deserved praise. In comparison with him, who was “faithful in all God’s house” (ibid.), sense-perception was set at naught by the God and Father; and it was God Himself who wedded to Moses the Ethiopian woman, who stands for resolve unalterable, intense, and fixed. For this Moses merits high eulogy, that he took to him the Ethiopian woman, even the nature that has been tried by fire and cannot be changed. For, even as in the eye the part that sees is black, so the soul’s power of vision has the title of woman of Ethiopia.
Book II._.17.4
[68] Why then, seeing that results of wickedness are many, has he mentioned only one, that which attends on conduct that is disgraceful, saying “they were not shamed,” but not saying “they did not commit injustice,” or “they did not sin,” or “they did not err”? The reason is not far to seek. By the only true God I deem nothing so shameful as supposing that I exert my mind and senses.
Book II._.17.5
[69] My own mind the author of its exertion? How can it be? Does it know as to itself, what it is or how it came into existence? Sense-perception the origin of the perceiving by sense? How could it be said to be so, seeing that it is beyond the ken either of itself or of the mind? Do you not observe that the mind which thinks that it exercises itself is often found to be without mental power, in scenes of gluttony, drunkenness, folly? Where does the exercise of mind show itself then? And is not perceptive sense often robbed of the power of perceiving? There are times when seeing we see not and hearing hear not, whenever the mind, breaking off its attention for a moment, is brought to bear on some other mental object.
Book II._.17.6
[70] So long then as they are naked, the mind without self-exertion, the perceptive sense without perceiving, they have nothing shameful: but when they have begun to apprehend, they fall into shameful and wanton conduct, for they will be found often showing silliness and folly rather than healthy knowledge, not only in times of loathsome surfeit and depression and mad fooling but also in the rest of their life. For when bodily sense is in command, the mind is in a state of slavery heeding none of its proper objects; but when the mind is in the ascendant, the bodily sense is seen to have nothing to do and to be powerless to lay hold of any object of sense-perception.
Book II._.18.1
[71] “Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts on the earth, which the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1). Two things, mind and bodily sense, having already come into being, and these being in nakedness after the manner that has been set forth, it was necessary that there should be a third subsistence, namely pleasure, to bring both of them together to the apprehension of the objects of mental and of bodily perception. For neither could the mind apart from bodily sense apprehend an animal or a plant or a stone or a log or any bodily shape whatever, nor could the bodily sense apart from the mind maintain the act of perceiving.
Book II._.18.2
[72] Since then it was necessary that both of these should come together for the apprehension of the objects about them, who was it that brought them together save a third, a bond of love and desire, under the rule and dominion of pleasure, to which the prophet gave the figurative name of a serpent?
Book II._.18.3
[73] Exceeding well did God the Framer of living beings contrive the order in which they were created. First He made mind, the man, for mind is most venerable in a human being, then bodily sense, the woman, then after them in the third place pleasure. But it is potentially only, as objects of thought, that they differ in age; but in actual time they are equal in age. For the soul brings all together with herself, some parts in virtue of actual existence, others in virtue of the potentiality to arrive, even if they have not yet reached their consummation.
Book II._.18.4
[74] The reason pleasure is likened to a serpent is this. The movement of pleasure like that of the serpent is tortuous and variable. To begin with it takes its gliding course in five ways, for pleasures are occasioned by sight and by hearing and by taste and by smell and by touch; but those connected with sexual intercourse prove themselves the most violent of all in their intensity, and this is the method ordained by Nature for the reproduction of the type.
Book II._.18.5
[75] Furthermore the fact that pleasure insinuates itself about all the organs of the irrational portion of the soul is not the only reason for our calling her variable; for we call her so also because she glides with many a coil about each part. For instance variegated pleasures come through sight, those afforded by every kind of painting and of sculpture, and by all other artistic creations which in one art after another charm the eye; by the changes too that plants go through as they shoot up, bloom, and bear fruit; by the beauty of animals seen in so many forms. Similarly the ear gets pleasure from the flute, from the harp, from every kind of instrument, from the tuneful voices of creatures without reason, swallows, nightingales, other birds which Nature has made musical; from the euphonious speech of beings endowed with reason, from musicians as they exercise their histrionic powers in comedy, tragedy, and all that is put on the stage.
Book II._.19.1
[76] What need to illustrate my point from the pleasures of the table? There are, we may roughly say, as many varieties of pleasure, as there are of dishes set before us stirring our senses with their delicious flavours. Pleasure being, then, a thing so variable, was it not fitly compared to a tortuous animal, the serpent?
Book II._.19.2
[77] For this reason, too, when the part of us that corresponds to the turbulent mob of a city, pines for the dwellings in Egypt, that is, in the corporeal mass, it encounters pleasures which bring death, not the death which severs soul from body, but the death which ruins the soul by vice. For we read, “And the Lord sent among the people the deadly serpents, and they bit the people, and much people of the children of Israel died” (Numb. 21:6). For verily nothing so surely brings death upon a soul as immoderate indulgence in pleasures.
Book II._.19.3
[78] That which dies is not the ruling part in us, but the part that is under rule, the part that is like the vulgar herd. And so long will it incur death, as it fails to repent and acknowledge its fall. For they came to Moses saying, “We have sinned in that we spake against the Lord, and against thee. Pray therefore to the Lord, and let Him take away the serpents from us” (ibid. 7). ’Tis well that they say, not “We spake against, we sinned” but “We sinned, we spake against.” For it is when the mind has sinned and ceased to cleave to virtue, that it blames God’s ways, fastening its own defection on God.
Book II._.20.1
[79] How, then, is a healing of their suffering brought about? By the making of another serpent, opposite in kind to that of Eve, namely the principle of self-mastery. For self-mastery runs counter to pleasure, a variable virtue to a variable affection, and a virtue that defends itself against pleasure its foe. So then God bids Moses make the serpent that expresses self-mastery, and says: “Make for thyself a serpent and set it upon a standard” (ibid. 8).
Book II._.20.2
[80] You notice that Moses makes this serpent for no one else, but for himself, for God’s bidding is “Make it for thyself.” This is that you may know that self-mastery is not a possession of every man, but only of the man beloved of God.
Book II._.20.3
We must consider why Moses makes a brazen serpent, no direction having been given him as to material. Possibly these are the reasons. In the first place, matter is not an element in God’s gifts making them to be of this or that sort; but the gifts of us mortals are always looked upon embodied in matter. A second reason: Moses loves excellences without bodily form, whereas our souls, being unable to get out of our bodies, crave for excellence in bodily shape.
Book II._.20.4
[81] But the principle of self-mastery, being forcible and unyielding, is likened to the strong and firm substance of brass, perhaps also because, whereas the self-mastery found in the man beloved of God is most precious and like gold, that which is found in him who has absorbed wisdom by gradual progress holds the second place. Everyone, then, “whom a serpent shall have bitten, when he looks on it shall live” (ibid.). This is quite true. For if the mind, when bitten by pleasure, the serpent of Eve, shall have succeeded in beholding in soul the beauty of self-mastery, the serpent of Moses, and through beholding this, beholds God Himself, he shall live; only let him look and mark well.
Book II._.21.1
[82] Do you not notice that Sarah, that is dominant wisdom, says: “For whosoever shall hear of it shall rejoice with me” (Gen. 21:6)? Just suppose that someone has succeeded in hearing that Virtue has given birth to Happiness (Isaac). Straightway he will sing a hymn of sympathetic joy. As then fellowship in joy is his who has heard of Isaac’s birth, so is escape from death his who has looked with clear vision on self-mastery and God.
Book II._.21.2
[83] But many souls, after being enamoured of endurance and self-mastery and divested of passions, nevertheless do experience the might of God and receive the turning to the lower way, the Master making a sharp distinction between Himself and His creation. He Himself stands ever steadfast, while His creation wavers and inclines in opposite directions.
Book II._.21.3
[84] For the prophet says: “Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, where there was biting serpent and scorpion and drought, where there was no water, who brought out a spring of water for thee from the hard rock, who fed thee with manna in the wilderness, which thy fathers knew not” (Deut. 8:15 f.). You see that it is not only when attracted by the passions of Egypt that the soul falls in with the serpents, but when it is in a wilderness too it is bitten by pleasure, that subtle and snake-like passion. And pleasure’s mode of action has received a most appropriate name, for it is here called a biting.
Book II._.21.4
[85] But not those in a wilderness only are bitten by pleasure, but those also who are a prey to scattering. For many a time have I myself forsaken friends and kinsfolk and country and come into a wilderness, to give my attention to some subject demanding contemplation, and derived no advantage from doing so, but my mind scattered or bitten by passion has gone off to matters of the contrary kind. Sometimes, on the other hand, amid a vast throng I have a collected mind. God has dispersed the crowd that besets the soul and taught me that a favourable and unfavourable condition are not brought about by differences of place, but by God who moves and leads the car of the soul in whatever way He pleases.
Book II._.21.5
[86] To return to what I was saying, the soul falls in with a scorpion, which is “scattering,” in the wilderness, and the drought of the passions seizes upon it, until God send forth the stream from His strong wisdom and quench with unfailing health the thirst of the soul that had turned from Him. For the flinty rock is the wisdom of God, which He marked off highest and chiefest from His powers, and from which He satisfies the thirsty souls that love God. And when they have been given water to drink, they are filled also with the manna, the most generic of substances, for the manna is called “somewhat,” and that suggests the summum genus. But the primal existence is God, and next to Him is the Word of God, but all other things subsist in word only, but in their active effects they are in some cases as good as non-subsisting.
Book II._.22.1
[87] Note now a difference between him who turns aside in the wilderness and him who does so in Egypt. The one has experience of deadly serpents, that is to say insatiable pleasures inflicting death; but the disciplined one is only bitten and scattered, not done to death, by pleasure. And while the one is cured by self-mastery, even the brazen serpent made by the wise Moses, the other is caused by God to drink a draught most excellent, even wisdom out of the fountain which He drew out from His own wisdom.
Book II._.22.2
[88] Not even from Moses, most beloved of God, does Pleasure, the serpent-like one, refrain, but this is what we read: “If therefore they say, ‘God has not appeared to thee,’ and believe me not and hearken not to my voice, what shall I say to them? And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘What is that in thine hand?’ And he said, ‘A rod.’ And He said, ‘Cast it upon the ground.’ And he cast it upon the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Stretch forth thine hand and lay hold of its tail’ (and he stretched forth his hand and took hold of its tail, and it became a rod in his hand): that they may believe thee” (Exod. 4:1 ff.).
Book II._.22.3
[89] How should one come to believe God? By learning that all other things change but He is unchangeable. Therefore God asks the wise man what there is in his hand or in the active life of his soul, for the hand represents activity; and he answers, “Schooling,” giving it the name of a rod. So Jacob also, the supplanter of the passions, says, “For in my rod I crossed this Jordan” (Gen. 32:10). The meaning of Jordan is “descent” or “coming down.” And to the nature that is down below, earthly, corruptible, belongs all that is done under the impulse of vice and passion. Over these Mind, the disciplined One, crosses in schooling himself. To take the words to mean that he crossed the river with a staff in his hand would be tame.
Book II._.23.1
[90] Good, therefore is the reply of Moses beloved of God; for in truth the conduct of the virtuous man leans on discipline as on a rod, settling and allaying the tumult and tossing of the soul. This rod when cast away becomes a serpent; naturally; for if the soul casts away discipline, it at once becomes a lover of pleasure in place of a lover of virtue. And so Moses flies from it; for the lover of virtue runs away from passion and pleasure.
Book II._.23.2
[91] But, mark you, God does not applaud his flight. For while it well befits thee, O my mind, who art not yet made perfect, to get practice by flying and running away from the passions, it befits Moses, the perfect one, not to desist from the warfare against them, but to resist them and fight it out. Otherwise, finding nothing to alarm or to stop them, they will make their way up to the very citadel of the soul, and storm and plunder the whole soul after the fashion of a lawless ruler.
Book II._.23.3
[92] Wherefore also God bids him “lay hold of the tail.” This means, “Let not pleasure’s opposition and her savagery daunt thee. That is the very part to make for. Grip it fast and quell it; for then there shall be once more a rod instead of a serpent; that is to say, instead of pleasure there shall be in thy hand discipline.”
Book II._.23.4
[93] But it is “in the hand” in the doing of the wise man, that this shall come to pass. This is quite true. It would be impossible to lay hold of pleasure and get the mastery of it if the hand were not first stretched out, that is to say, if the soul were not first to acknowledge that all its achievements and successes are due to God’s impelling force and to refer nothing to itself. The man whose eyes are open determines to run away from this serpent, and he fashions another, the principle of self-mastery, that serpent of brass, in order that the man who has been bitten by pleasure may, on seeing self-mastery, live the real life.
Book II._.24.1
[94] Such a serpent does Jacob pray that Dan may become, and speaks on this wise:
Book II._.24.2
“Dan shall judge his people,
Book II._.24.3
As if indeed one tribe of Israel,” and
Book II._.24.4
“Let Dan become a serpent in the way,
Book II._.24.5
Seated on the beaten track, biting the horse’s heel,
Book II._.24.6
And the horseman shall fall backward,
Book II._.24.7
Waiting for the salvation of the Lord.”
Book II._.24.8
(Gen. 49:16–18.)
Book II._.24.9
Of those born of Leah Issachar is Jacob’s fifth genuine son, or if Zilpah’s two sons are reckoned in, he is the seventh. But Jacob’s fifth son is Dan, by Bilhah Rachel’s handmaid. The occasion of this remark we shall discover in my special treatise on the subject. The subject of Dan demands further study.
Book II._.24.10
[95] The soul bears two kinds of offspring, the one divine, the other perishable. The better kind she has already conceived, and with it she ceases to bear. For when the soul had attained to making full submission and acknowledgement to God there was no better possession for it to go on to gain. This is why she ceased when she had borne Judah, the spirit of praise and acknowledgement.
Book II._.24.11
[96] The soul now goes on to the fashioning of the mortal race. The mortal subsists by swallowing. For the taste, like a foundation, is the cause of living creatures continuing to live. And Bilhah means “swallowing.” From this woman there springs Dan, whose name signifies sifting or distinguishing: for this race distinguishes and separates things immortal from those that are mortal. So his father prays that he may prove a lover of self-mastery. But for Judah he will offer no such prayer, for Judah already has the property of praising and pleasing God.
Book II._.24.12
[97] So he says, “Let Dan become a serpent on the road.” The soul is our road; for as on the roads it is possible to see the distinction of existences, lifeless, living; irrational, rational; good, bad; slave, free; young, or older; male, female; foreign, or native; sickly, healthy; maimed, entire; so in the soul too there are lifeless, incomplete, diseased, enslaved, female, and countless other movements full of disabilities; and on the other hand movements living, entire, male, free, sound, elder, good, genuine, and, in a real sense, of the fatherland.
Book II._.24.13
[98] Let then the principle of self-mastery become a serpent upon the soul whose road lies through all the circumstances of life and let it seat itself upon the well worn track. What is this? The path of virtue is unworn, for few tread it, while that of vice is well worn. He calls on him to beset with his ambuscade and to lie in wait upon the beaten road of passion and vice, on which reasoning powers that flee from virtue wear out their life.
Book II._.25.1
[99] “Biting the horse’s heel.” It is quite in keeping that the character which upsets the stability of created and perishable life attacks the heel. The passions are likened to a horse. For passion, like a horse, is a four-legged creature, impulsive, full of wilfulness, and naturally restive. But the principle of self-mastery loves to bite and wound and destroy passion. When passion with its heel bitten has stumbled “the horseman shall fall backwards.” We must understand by “the horseman” the mind that is mounted on the passions, which falls off the passions when they are brought to a reckoning and overthrown.
Book II._.25.2
[100] ’Tis well that the soul does not fall forwards: let him not get in advance of the passions, but be behind them, and he shall learn self-control. And there is sound principle in what is said here. For if the mind, after starting out to do wrong, drops behind and falls backwards, it will not do the wrong deed; and if, after experiencing an impulse to an irrational passion, it does not follow it up, but stays behind, it will reap the fairest reward, even exemption from passion.
Book II._.25.3
[101] That is why the prophet, understanding the falling backwards to be escape from the passions, adds the words, “waiting for the salvation of the Lord”: for he is indeed saved by God who falls away from the passions and comes short of realizing them in act. May my soul have such a fall, and never mount the beast of passion, wild like a bounding capering horse, that, having waited for God’s salvation, it may attain to bliss.
Book II._.25.4
[102] This explains why Moses in the Song praises God, that “He cast horse and rider into the sea” (Exod. 15:1). He means that God cast to utter ruin and the bottomless abyss the four passions and the wretched mind mounted on them. This is indeed practically the chief point of the whole Song, to which all else is subsidiary. And it is true; for if the soul be won by exemption from passion, it will have perfect bliss.
Book II._.26.1
[103] But we must inquire why, whereas Jacob says, “the horseman shall fall backwards” (Gen. 49:17), Moses sings of the drowning of horse and rider. We must remark then, that, whereas he that is to perish by drowning is the Egyptian character, which, even if it flees, flees under the water, that is, under the current of the passions; the horseman who falls backwards does not belong to the lovers of the passions. A proof of this is that he is called “horseman,” whereas the other is called “rider.”
Book II._.26.2
[104] A horseman’s business is to subdue his horse and use the bit when it disregards the rein, whereas a rider’s business is to be carried wherever the animal takes him. On the sea, too, the helmsman’s business is to guide the boat and keep it upright and in its course, but it is for the passenger to experience all that the ship undergoes. Accordingly the horseman who subdues the passions is not drowned but, dismounting from them, awaits the salvation that comes from the Master.
Book II._.26.3
[105] Now the sacred word in Leviticus directs them to feed “on creeping things that go upon all four, which have legs above their feet, so as to leap with them” (Lev. 11:21). Such are the locust, the wild locust, the grasshopper, and in the fourth place the cricket. And this is as it should be. For if serpentlike pleasure is a thing un-nourishing and injurious, self-mastery, the nature that is in conflict with pleasure, must be wholesome and full of nourishment.
Book II._.26.4
[106] Do thou also contend, O my mind, against all passion and above all against pleasure, for indeed “the serpent is the most subtle of all beasts upon the earth, which the Lord God made” (Gen. 3:1);
Book II._.26.5
[107] for pleasure is the most cunning of all things. Why is this? Because all things are enthralled to pleasure, and the life of bad men is under the dominion of pleasure. The things that yield pleasure are obtained by means of cunning of every kind; gold, silver, glory, honours, offices, the materials of objects of sense, the mechanical arts, and all other arts in great variety that minister to pleasure. It is for the sake of pleasure that we do wrong, and wrong deeds are ever associated with desperate cunning.
Book II._.26.6
[108] Therefore set judgement, the serpent-fighter, against it, and contend to the end in this noblest contest, and strive earnestly, by defeating pleasure that conquers all others, to win the noble and glorious crown, which no human assembly has ever bestowed.
Book II.Appendix.1
APPENDIX TO ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, II
Book II.Appendix.2
§ 6. Philo is alluding to the Stoic view that the πάθη are mental judgements. See Diogenes Laertius vii. 111 δοκεῖ δὲ αὐτοῖς τὰ πάθη κρίσεις εἶναι, καθά φησι Χρύσιππος ἐν τῷ Περὶ παθῶν· ἥ τε γὰρ φιλαργυρία ὑπόληψίς ἐστι τοῦ τὸ ἀργύριον καλὸν εἶναι, καὶ ἡ μέθη δὲ καὶ ἡ ἀκολασία ὁμοίως, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα. Here he may mean that he accepts this view in some cases, but not in all; or, perhaps, that his statement that the πάθη are ἄλογα might be doubted if the view that they are κρίσεις be accepted, but is certainly true if that view be rejected.
Book II.Appendix.3
§ 15. Greek philosophers. Presumably this includes (a) Plato; see Cratylus 401 B, where we are told that the first name-givers must have been considerable persons. Cf. ibid. 390 D. (b) Pythagoras. In Tusc. Disp. i. 62 Cicero, speaking of the greatness of the task of assigning names, says “summae sapientiae Pythagorae visum est.”
Book II.Appendix.4
§§ 16, 18. Having in 16 prepared the way for his interpretation of Gen. 2:19 by observing that τί = διὰ τί, “why,” Philo goes on to make καλεῖν = “invite,” “welcome,” to treat ψυχὴν ζῶσαν as predicative, putting ὡς before it in his paraphrase, practically to ignore αὐτό as an otiose accusative, πᾶν ὃ ἐὰν being the sufficient object of ἐκάλεσεν. The verse for him has to do, not with assigning names, but with proclaiming affinities. To welcome pleasure, desire, or cowardice as living souls is to proclaim affinity with them, and so to share their title or name.
Book II.Appendix.5
§ 20. εἴ γε μὴν … σαρκίνη δήπου; “if one of the two sides was filled up with flesh, are we to presume that the one not so treated was not made of flesh?” Philo captiously presses the words of Gen. 2:21, ἀνεπλήρωσεν σάρκα ἀντʼ αὐτῆς, to mean that in the filling up a different material, namely flesh, was substituted (ἀντι) for the material which was there before; which would of course imply that the other side was of a material other than flesh.
Book II.Appendix.6
§ 22. The power of holding together, etc. This fourfold classification is Stoic (see S. V. F. ii. 457–460). It is explained more fully in Quod Deus 35 ff. It is difficult to see at first sight how the “naked” mind can have these powers, at any rate that of ἕξις, which is the characteristic of inorganic matter. But in Quod Deus 35 we find that the ἕξις which holds together a stone or a piece of wood is a breath or spirit, which extends itself from the centre of the body in question to its extremes and then reverses its course. Thus ἕξις and the others are conceived of as powers distinct from the objects or persons in which they are found. In fact we are told (Themistius, De anima 72 B) that the Stoics held that God ποὺ μὲν εἶναι νοῦν, ποὺ δὲ ψυχήν, ποὺ δὲ φύσιν, ποὺ δὲ ἕξιν. Seneca translates ἕξις when used in this way by unitas. The sense seems different, and perhaps has a different origin, from that of “state” or “disposition” (Lat. habitus). Zeller, however, equates the two by regarding the ἕξις of this passage as = simple quality without any further characteristic (Stoics, p. 208).
Book II.Appendix.7
§ 44. For the construction ταύτῃ κληθήσεται cf. Jer. 19:6 οὐ κληθήσεται τῷ τόπῳ τούτῳ ἔτι Διάπτωσις. In Judges 18:12 A has ἐκλήθη ἐκείνῳ τῷ τόπῳ Παρεμβολὴ Δάν, omitting ἐν found in some MSS. before ἐκείνῳ. (Or, as the words that follow perhaps suggest, Philo may have taken ταύτῃ as an adverb and explained it as = διὰ τοῦτο.)
Book II.Appendix.8
§ 46. Rachel, who represents sense-perception (or superficiality), takes her seat upon idols (E.V. “teraphim,” Gen. 31:33), and is rebuked by Jacob (or “Israel,” the man of vision) when her words show that she imagines that mind is the author and originator of movements.
Book II.Appendix.9
§ 63. The actual meaning of Num. 30:4 ff. is that a woman’s vows hold if her father or husband silently acquiesce, but not if they forbid them; whereas those of a widow, seeing there is no such person to prohibit them, must hold. By taking “husband” or “father” to represent reason, Philo extracts the thought that our wishes are not guilty if our reasoned thoughts prohibit them, so that we do not translate them into action. The “widow” stands for the soul, which has cut itself off from any such controlling influence, and whose guilt is abiding.
Book II.Appendix.10
§ 65. They were not ashamed. The real meaning of the story is of course that they did not feel shame, but in 68 ff. Philo gives the words a sense, which they are capable of bearing, “they were not shamed,” i.e. “brought to do anything shameful.”
Book II.Appendix.11
§ 67. Intense and fixed, or “full (or ‘deep’) coloured.” The word κατακορής may be used of any colour. But as in the Timaeus, which Philo knew so well, it is associated (68c) with μέλαν (=“intense black”), he probably uses it here with reference to the complexion of the Ethiopian woman. There may also be a play on its similarity to κόρη in the sense of “a pupil of the eye.”
Book II.Appendix.12
§ 78. ’Tis well that they say, etc. A clearer meaning could be obtained by reading οὐχ ὅτι “κατελαλήσαμεν ὅτι ἡμάρτομεν,” ἀλλʼ ὅτι “ἡμάρτομεν ὅτι κατελαλήσαμεν.” “It is well that they say, not ‘we spake against the Lord (laying it to His charge) that we sinned,’ but ‘we sinned (in) that we spake against the Lord.’ ” This harmonizes with the next words. It was easy for scribes to confuse the ὅτι’s.
Book II.Appendix.13
§ 83–87. The meaning of these sections seems to be as follows. We here deal with souls which are more blessed than those mentioned above, yet are subjected to a τροπή by God to convince them of their frailty and that of human kind (§ 83). These souls Philo takes to be described in Deut. 8. They are in contrast with those of Num. 21. in the following ways. First these (the historical situation being ignored) are in Egypt (87 init.). As they were “craving for the habitations of Egypt,” they are virtually (cf. L.A. i. 61) in Egypt. The others are in the wilderness, which is the reverse of Egypt. They too, indeed, are bitten by the serpent of pleasure and the scorpion of scattering, yet these bites are not deadly like those of Numb. 21. And they do not need the brazen serpent of καρτερία to cure them; for they are already καρτερίας ἐρασταί (83). They have the higher spiritual food of the manna and the rock-water, and are thus brought back from their τροπή spiritually enriched. Philo evidently associates himself with these souls.
Book II.Appendix.14
§ 99. Four-legged. The reference is to the four passions, grief, fear, desire, pleasure. See S. V. F. iii. 381 ff.
Book III.Introduction.1
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III
Book III.Introduction.2
A. MAN EXILED. Gen. 3:8 (1–48)

Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1929. Via Sefaria (sefaria.org), Sefaria-Export. Version source: https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI Licence: Public Domain. Source.