Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis

Sefaria · Second Temple > Philo · 622 sections

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(a) Man hiding from God (1–27).
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Contrasted with Moses (12–14),
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who is open before God, and shuns Distraction (“Pharaoh”).
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Contrasted with Jacob (15–23),
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who flies from Material Temptation (“Laban”), to heights of Virtue and Witness (“Gilead”).
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Contrasted with Abraham (24–27),
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who, loyal to God, refuses the offer of the World (King of Sodom).
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(b) Man taking refuge in Self (28–47).
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Exod. 22:1 f. Rejection of God, that comes to nothing, far less heinous than thorough-going Self-exaltation (32–35).
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Deut. 27:15. Evil of secretly holding false opinions (36).
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Exod. 2:12. Evil of being buried in our own loose mind (37).
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Gen. 15:5. Bliss of flying from Self to God (39).
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Gen. 24:7—and of quitting the mortal body to be with God (42).
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Exod. 9:29—and our own mind to open all to God (43).
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Exod. 33:7—of going out of Self, and seeking God, even if we fail (46 f.).
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B. THE CALL. Gen. 3:9–13 (49–64)
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The Call is addressed to Mind, for Mind is capable of instruction. (Sense-perception receives no special call.)
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The Question, “Where art thou?” capable of being taken in other ways.
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The Answer of Mind comes to this, “There where fear is, and hiding from Thee, and nakedness of virtue” (49–55).
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The words “gavest with me” imply the freedom of Sense-perception, which apprehends simultaneously with Mind, and gives it occasions of apprehending (“She gave it me”) (56–58).
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The Answer of Sense-perception is pertinent, though she says “I ate,” when asked about Adam’s eating, for Mind concurs at once with Sense-perception.
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And she rightly says “beguiled,” for, while Sense-perception gives without any guile, Pleasure falsifies the object (59–64).
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C. PLEASURE, EVIL IN ORIGIN. Gen. 3:14 (65–106)
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God cursing the serpent (viz. Pleasure), without giving him an opportunity to defend himself, is paralleled with God slaying Er (Gen. 38:7), without bringing an open charge against him. Slain Er is the Body, a corpse from the first, and the soul knows itself best to be a corpse-bearer when perfected (65 ff.).
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How the God of Goodness came to create Er and the Serpent, we are not told. We are told that creation is due to the goodness of God (75 ff.).
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And the Book of the Law affords many examples of wide divergence in original endowments. Noah “finds grace in the sight of the Lord,” and Melchizedeck is made His “Priest” and “King of peace,” no previous merit being mentioned in either case (79 ff.). (Philo stops to contrast M. with the Moabites and Ammonites, who failed to bring forth bread and water, Deut. 23:3 f.) Abram was created good, and led to a better city. Isaac, who is compared with Hope, was richly endowed before birth. The lots of Jacob and Esau were told when they were unborn (82). Ephraim and Manasseh have names denoting, the one Memory and its Fruitfulness, the other escape only from Forgetfulness (94). Bezalel called to a position, which he is not said to have earned, bears a name meaning “In the shadow of God” and is taught by Moses, while Moses is taught by God. In view of all this we must pray and ponder God’s goodness (95–103).
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D. THE CURSE ON PLEASURE. Gen. 3:14 (107–199)
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Its Ground, 107–110.
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Its Fitness, 111–114.
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Its Content, 115–199.
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Content of the Curse—115–159. Posture and Motion.
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(a) On the Breast (115–137).
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The Breast the seat of high spirit—the Urim and Thummim there point to Aaron’s control of high spirit which Moses wholly exscinds (Lev. 8:29).
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(b) On the Belly.
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(α) Appropriate to Pleasure whose lover goes “on” or “after” the belly and the four passions (138 f.).
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(β) The perfect man contrasted with the man of gradual improvement in their dealing with self-indulgence (140–144).
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(γ) The belly the basis of all passions (145–150).
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Note.—Breast cut out, while the belly is washed, for it is indispensable (147).
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(δ) Bodily necessity compels us to go forth from the house of wisdom—girded with Reason—putting out of sight all that is unreasonable (151–158).
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161–181. Food.
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The earthy body feeds on earth.—
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Contrast of the “Bread out of Heaven,” “the day’s portion for the day,” like dew—prolific as coriander-seed—like hoar-frost, called “What is it?” (Deut. 8:3).
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Contrast “The God who feedeth me,” said by Jacob, with “I will nourish thee,” by Joseph—true son of Rachel (“Give me children”).
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Enmity (182–199).
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The Combatants (185–187).
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Their Warfare (188).
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Jacob grips the heel of Esau, the man who says “Mine,” a word for God only to use (189–199).
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E. THE DISCIPLINE. Gen. 3:16–19 (200–253)
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(a) Of the Woman (Gen. 3:16) (200–245).
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(α) Grief the lot of Sense-perception (200).
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Contrast God confirming good to Abraham by an oath (201–203).
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Discussion of oath taken by God (204–208).
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Groaning—good and bad (211 continued from 200).
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(β) Subjection to her husband (220 ff.).
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Num. 21:27 ff., the women adding to the fire.
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Potiphar’s wife contrasted with Joseph and
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Phinehas. Sarah. Hagar (224 ff.).
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(b) Of the Man (Gen. 3:17 ff.) (246–253).
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Due to Serpent. Thorns. Grass. Return to Earth.
Book III._.1.1
[1] “And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God in the midst of the forest of the garden” (Gen. 3:8). He introduces a doctrine showing that the bad man is an exile. For if virtue is a city peculiar to the wise, the man who has no capacity to partake of virtue has been driven away from the city, in which the bad man is incapable of taking part. It is accordingly the bad man only who has been driven away and sent into exile. But the exile from virtue has by incurring such exile hidden himself from God. For if the wise, as being His friends, are in God’s sight, it is evident that all bad men slink away and hide from Him, as is to be expected in men who cherish hatred and ill-will to right reason.
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[2] The prophet, moreover, finds proof that the bad man is without city or dwelling-house, in the account of Esau, the hairy man, crafty in wickedness, when he says, “Esau was skilled in hunting, a countryman” (Gen. 25:27); for vice, that hunts after the passions, is by nature unfit to dwell in the city of virtue. Rather, in utter senselessness, it follows after rustic grossness, the life of the untrained. Jacob, the man full of wisdom, belongs to a city, and as a dwelling-house he occupies virtue. The prophet says of him: “But Jacob was a simple man dwelling in a house” (ibid.).
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[3] It accords with this too that the midwives, since they feared God, made houses for themselves (Exod. 1:21); for such(souls) as make a quest of God’s hidden mysteries—and this is what is meant by “saving the males’ lives” or “bringing the males to the birth”—build up the cause of virtue, and in this they have elected to have their abode. By these instances it has been made clear how the bad man is without a city or home, being an exile from virtue, while the good man has received it as his lot to have wisdom for both city and dwelling.
Book III._.2.1
[4] Let us see next how a man is said actually to hide himself from God. Were one not to take the language as figurative, it would be impossible to accept the statement, for God fills and penetrates all things, and has left no spot void or empty of His presence. What manner of place then shall a man occupy, in which God is not? The prophet elsewhere bears witness of this saying, “God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath and there is none else but He” (Deut. 4:39). And again, “Here stand I before thou (wert made)” (Exod. 17:6); for before every created thing God is, and is found everywhere, so that no one could possibly hide himself from God. And why should we marvel at this?
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[5] Whatever should happen, we could never escape or hide ourselves from those, even among things created, that are essential elements of creation. For instance, let a man fly, if he can, from earth or water or air or sky or the world at large. A man must needs have all these round him, for no one shall ever be able to escape out of the world.
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[6] Then, seeing a man is powerless to hide himself from the parts of the world or from the world itself, would he be able to escape the eye of God? By no means. Why then does it say “they hid themselves”? The bad man thinks that God is in a place, not containing but contained; and for this reason he imagines that he can hide from Him, fancying that God, the Author of all things, is not in that part, which he has chosen for his lurking-place.
Book III._.3.1
[7] It is possible to take it in this way. In the bad man the true opinion concerning God is hidden in obscurity, for he is full of darkness with no divine radiance in him, whereby to investigate realities. Such an one is in banishment from the divine company, like the leper and the man with an issue. The former combines as joint causes God and creation, which are natures mutually hostile, for he shows two different colours, whereas there is one single Cause, even He who doeth all. The man with an issue, on the other hand, deriving everything from the world, and making it return into the world, imagines that nothing has been created by God, associating himself with the opinion of Heracleitus, in his advocacy of such tenets as “fullness and want,” “the universe one,” and “all things interchange.”
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[8] So the divine word saith, “Let them send forth out of the holy soul every leper, and everyone that hath an issue, and everyone that is unclean in soul, both male and female (Numb. 5:2), and eunuchs with the generative organs of the soul cut away, and fornicators, deserters from the rule of One, to whom entrance into the assembly of God is absolutely forbidden (Deut. 23:2).
Book III._.3.3
[9] But wise reasonings, so far from hiding themselves, are keenly desirous to be manifest. Do you not see that Abraham “was still standing before the Lord and drew nigh and said, ‘Destroy Thou not the just man together with the impious one’ ” (Gen. 18:22 f.), the one that is manifest and known to Thee together with him who shuns and avoids Thee? For this one is impious, but he that stands before Thee and avoids Thee not is just. For the only justice is that Thou, O Master, shouldst be honoured.
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[10] A pious man is not found with the same ease as an impious one. We have to be content with a just man. This is why he says, “Destroy not a just together with an impious man.” For no one honours God as He deserves but only as is just. It is impossible to requite even our parents with boons equal to those which we have received from them—for it is out of the question to requite by becoming their parents. How must it not be impossible to recompense or to praise as He deserves Him who brought the universe out of non-existence? For it was an exercise towards us of every virtue.
Book III._.4.1
[11] Through three seasons, then, O soul, that is throughout the whole of time with its threefold divisions, make thyself ever manifest to God, not dragging after thee the weak feminine passion of sense-perception, but giving forth as incense the manly reasoning schooled in fortitude. For the sacred word (Deut. 16:16) enjoins that at three seasons of the year every male is to show himself before the Lord the God of Israel.
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[12] For this reason Moses also, when he is being established as one standing open before God, avoids Pharaoh, the symbol of dispersion, for he boasts saying that he knows not the Lord (Exod. 5:2). “Moses,” we read, “withdrew from Pharaoh’s presence and settled in the land of Midian” (Exod. 2:15), or in the examination of the things of nature, “and sat on the well,” waiting to see what draught God would send to quench the thirst of his soul in its longing for that which is good.
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[13] So he withdraws from the godless opinion of Pharaoh, which the passions follow as their leader, and withdraws into Midian, the sifting-place, to inquire whether he is to be still or to dispute again with the evil man for his destruction; he considers whether, if he attack him, he shall prevail to win the victory, and so he is kept there waiting upon God, as I have said, to see whether He will bestow upon a deep reasoning faculty free from shallowness a stream sufficient to drown the onrush of the king of the Egyptians, the onrush, that is, of his passions.
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[14] And he is deemed worthy of the boon: for, having taken the field in the cause of virtue, he does not abandon the warfare till he beholds the pleasures prostrate and out of action. This is why Moses does not fly from Pharaoh, for that would have been to run away and not return, but, like an athlete taking an interval to regain his breath, “withdraws,” that is, brings about a cessation of arms, until he shall by divine words have raised forces of wisdom and every other virtue to aid him in renewing the attack with irresistible power.
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[15] But Jacob, “Supplanter” that he is, acquiring virtue with great toil by wiles and artifices, his name having not yet been changed into “Israel,” runs away from Laban and all his belongings, tints and shapes and material bodies generally, whose nature it is to inflict wounds on the mind through the objects of sense. For since when facing them he was not able completely to vanquish them, he flies, fearing defeat at their hands. And in doing so he is thoroughly deserving of praise; for Moses says, “Ye shall make the sons of the seeing one cautious” (Lev. 15:31), not bold and aiming at what is beyond their capacity.
Book III._.5.1
[16] “And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. So he fled with all that he had; and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead” (Gen. 31:20 f.). It is thoroughly in accordance with true principles that he is said to have concealed the fact that he is running away and not made it known to Laban, who represents the way of thinking governed by objects of sense. For instance, if thou hast caught sight of beauty and been captivated by it, and if it is like to be a cause of stumbling to thee, fly secretly from the vision of it, and give no further report of it to thy mind, that is to say, do not give it another thought or ponder it: for to keep on recalling anything is the way to engrave on the mind distinct outlines of it, which injure the mind and often bring it to ruin against its will.
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[17] The same principle holds in the case of every kind of attraction by the avenue of whatever sense it may reach us; for here safety lies in secret flight; but recalling the attractive object in memory, telling of it, turning it over, spells conquest and harsh slavery for our reasoning faculty. If, therefore, O my mind, thou art in imminent danger of falling a prey to some object of sense that has shown itself, never report it to thyself, never dwell on it, lest thou be overcome and plunged into misery. Nay, rush forth at large, make thy escape, choose the freedom of the wild rather than the slavery of the tame.
Book III._.6.1
[18] Now(let us ask) why, as though Jacob were not aware that Laban was a Syrian, does he say, “Jacob kept Laban the Syrian in the dark”? In this likewise there is a point not without pertinence. For “Syria” means “Highlands.” Jacob, therefore, the mind in training, when he sees passion grovelling low before him, awaits its onset calculating that he will master it by force, but when it is seen to be lofty, stately, weighty, the first to run away is the mind in training, followed by all his belongings, being portions of his discipline, readings, ponderings, acts of worship, and of remembrance of noble souls, self-control, discharge of daily duties; he crosses the river of objects of sense, that swamps and drowns the soul under the flood of the passions, and, when he has crossed it, sets his face for the lofty high-land, the principle of perfect virtue:
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[19] “for he set his face towards the mountain of Gilead.” The meaning of this name is “migration of witness”; for God caused the soul to migrate from the passions that are represented by Laban, and bore witness to it how greatly to its advantage and benefit its removal was, and led it on away from the evil things that render the soul low and grovelling up to the height and greatness of virtue.
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[20] For this reason Laban, the friend of the senses and the man whose actions are regulated by them and not by the mind, is vexed, and pursues him, and says, “Why didst thou run away secretly” (Gen. 31:26), but didst not remain in the company of bodily enjoyment and of the teaching that gives the preference to bodily and external good things? But in addition to fleeing from this view of life, thou didst carry off my soundness of sense as well, Leah and Rachel to wit. For these, while they remained with the soul, produced in it sound sense, but when they removed elsewhither they left behind to it ignorance and indiscipline. This is why he adds the words “thou didst rob me” (ibid.), that is, didst steal my good sense.
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[21] What, then, his good sense was, he is going to explain; for he adds “and didst carry away my daughters as prisoners of war: and if thou hadst told me, I would have sent thee forth” (ibid.). Thou wouldst not have sent forth those at variance one with another; for hadst thou really sent forth and liberated the soul, thou wouldst have stripped from it all voices belonging to the body and senses: for it is in this way that the understanding is delivered from vices and passions. But as it is, thou sayest that thou art ready to send her forth free, but by thy actions thou ownest that thou wouldst have detained her in prison; for if thou hadst sent her on her way with “music and tabrets and harp” and the pleasures that suit each several sense, thou wouldst not really have sent her forth at all.
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[22] For it is not from thee only, O Laban, friend of bodies and of tints, that we are running away, but from all too that is thine: and this includes the voices of the senses sounding in harmony with the operations of the passions. For we have made our own, if so be that we are under virtue’s training, a study absolutely vital which was Jacob’s study also, to consign to death and destruction the gods that are alien to the soul, the gods moulded in metal, the making of which Moses has forbidden (Lev. 19:4); and these are a means of dissolving virtue and well-being, and a means of forming and giving fixity to wickedness and passions, for that which undergoes moulding, if dissolved, grows fixed and firm again.
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[23] We read as follows: “And they gave Jacob the strange gods, which were in their hands, and the ear-rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth that was in Shechem” (Gen. 35:4). These are bad men’s gods. And Jacob is not said to receive them, but to hide and destroy them. This is in every point perfectly accurate. For the man of sterling worth will take nothing to make him rich in the products of evil, but will hide them secretly and do away with them.
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[24] In like manner when the king of Sodom is artfully attempting to effect an exchange of creatures without reason for reasonable beings, of horses for men, Abraham says that he will take none of the things that are his but will “stretch out” his soul’s operation, which he figuratively called his “hand,” “to the Most High God” (Gen. 14:22), for that he would not take of all that was the king’s “from a cord even to a shoelace,” in order that he may not say that he has conferred wealth on the man whose eyes were open, by giving him poverty in return for his wealth of virtue.
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[25] The passions are always hidden away and placed under guard in Shechem—“shoulder” is the meaning of the name—for he that devotes toil to pleasures is prone to keep pleasures well guarded. But in the case of the wise man the passions perish and are destroyed, not for some short period but “even to this day,” that is, always. For the whole age of the world is made commensurate with to-day, for the daily cycle is the measure of all time.
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[26] For this reason too Jacob gives as a special portion to Joseph Shechem (Gen. 48:22), the things of the body and of the senses, as he is occupied in toiling at these things, but to Judah who openly acknowledges God he gives not presents, but praise and hymns and hallowed songs from his brethren (Gen. 49:8). Jacob receives Shechem not from God, but by dint of “sword and bow,” words that pierce and parry. For the wise man subjects to himself the secondary as well as the primary objects, but, having subjected them, does not keep them, but bestows them on him to whose nature they are akin.
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[27] Mark you not that, in the case of the gods also, though apparently receiving them, he has not really done so, but hid them and did away with them and “destroyed” them for ever from himself? What soul, then, was it that succeeded in hiding away wickedness and removing it from sight, but the soul to which God manifested Himself, and which He deemed worthy of His secret mysteries? For He says: “Shall I hide from Abraham My servant that which I am doing?” (Gen. 18:17). It is meet, O Saviour, that Thou displayest Thine own works to the soul that longs for all beauteous things, and that Thou hast concealed from it none of Thy works. That is why it is strong to shun evil and always to hide and becloud and destroy passion that works cruel havoc.
Book III._.9.1
[28] In what manner, then, the bad man is in banishment and hiding himself from God we have shown; let us consider now where he hides himself. “In the midst,” it says, “of the wood of the garden” (Gen. 3:8), that is in the centre of the mind, which in its turn is the centre of what we may call the garden of the whole soul: for he that runs away from God takes refuge in himself.
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[29] There are two minds, that of the universe, which is God, and the individual mind. He that flees from his own mind flees for refuge to the Mind of all things. For he that abandons his own mind acknowledges all that makes the human mind its standard to be naught, and he refers all things to God.
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[30] On the other hand he that runs away from God declares Him to be the cause of nothing, and himself to be the cause of all things that come into being. The view, for instance, is widely current that all things in the world tear along automatically independently of anyone to guide them, and that the human mind by itself established arts, professions, laws, customs, and rules of right treatment both of men and animals on the part of the state and in our conduct whether as individual persons or as members of communities.
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[31] But thou perceivest, O my soul, the difference of the two opinions; for the one turns its back on the particular being, created and mortal mind, and whole-heartedly puts itself under the patronage of the universal Mind, uncreate and immortal; the other opinion on the contrary, rejects God, and by a grievous error calls in to share its warfare the mind that is insufficient even to help itself.
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[32] This is the ground for Moses’ words, “If the thief be found where he has just broken through and be smitten and die, there is no blood-guiltiness for him: but if the sun have risen upon him,(then he) is liable, he shall die in requital” (Exod. 22:1 f.). For if a man cleave and break through the tenet that stands firm in its soundness and uprightness, testifying of unlimited power as belonging to God alone, and he be found where he has broken through, that is, in the pierced and cloven doctrine that is conscious of a man’s own mind at work but not of God, he is a thief abstracting what belongs to another;
Book III._.10.2
[33] for all things are God’s possessions, so that he who assigns anything to himself is appropriating what is another’s, and he receives a blow grievous and hard to be healed, even self-conceit, a thing akin to boorish ignorance. Moses does not make distinct mention of the man who strikes, for he is no other than the man who is struck; just as the man who rubs himself is also rubbed, and the man who stretches himself is also stretched; for in his own person he is at the same time active and passive, employs the force and submits to its effect. Even so he that steals what is God’s and assigns it to himself, is the victim of the outrage inflicted by his own impiety and self-conceit. A good thing it would be should he die when struck, that is to say permanently fail of the accomplishment of his purpose; for he must then be held to be less a sinner.
Book III._.10.3
[34] For wickedness presents itself now as stationary, now as moving. It is wickedness in motion that is ripe for filling up its full measure by carrying its designs to completion, and so it is worse than stationary wickedness.
Book III._.10.4
[35] If, therefore, the understanding which fancies itself and not God to be the cause of all that comes into existence die, that is, shrink into inactivity, blood-guiltiness does not pertain to it; it has not gone the full length of abolishing the living doctrine which ascribes to God the totality of powers. But if the sun shall have risen, that is the mind that shines so brilliantly in us, and shall have conceived the notion that it discerns all things, and decides all things, and that nothing ever escapes it, he is guilty, he shall die in requital for the living doctrine which he destroyed, which acknowledges God as the sole Cause. For he is found futile and dead indeed in himself; he has come forward as the author of a lifeless, mortal, and erroneous doctrine.
Book III._.11.1
[36] In keeping with this the sacred word pronounces a curse on one setting up in secret a graven or molten image, the work of the hands of the craftsman (Deut. 27:15). For why, O mind, dost thou hoard and treasure in thyself those wrong opinions, that God is as the graven images are, of this or that kind, God the Being that is without kind, and that He the incorruptible is, as the molten images are, corruptible? Why dost thou not rather bring them forth into the open, to the end that thou mayest be taught the things which it behoves thee to learn from those who study the truth? For thou fanciest thyself one versed in science because thou hast conned over methods of persuasion unworthy of an educated man, wherewith to combat the truth. But thy science proves itself no science, in that thou refusest to submit to healing treatment of thy soul’s sore malady of ignorance.
Book III._.12.1
[37] That the bad man sinks down into his own incoherent mind as he strives to avoid Him that is, we shall learn from Moses who “smote the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Exod. 2:12). This means that he took full account of the man who maintains that the things of the body have the pre-eminence and holds the things of the soul to be naught, and regards pleasures as the end and aim of life.
Book III._.12.2
[38] For having noted the toil imposed by the king of Egypt on him who sees God—and the king is wickedness whose lead the passions follow—he sees the Egyptian man, that is, human and perishable passion, beating and outrageously treating the seeing one; and having looked round upon the whole soul in this direction and in that, and seen no one standing, save God who IS, but all other things tossing in wild confusion, after smiting and thoroughly reckoning up the lover of pleasure, he hides him in his mind, which is a congeries of disconnected grains, devoid of cohesion and union with the beautiful and noble. So this man has been hidden away in himself.
Book III._.12.3
[39] But the man of a character the reverse of his flies indeed from himself but takes refuge in the God of those that are.
Book III._.13.1
And for this reason he says, “He led him forth abroad and said, Look up to heaven and count the stars” (Gen. 15:5). These we would fain take in in one all-encompassing view, being insatiable in our love of virtue, but we are powerless to take the measure of the riches of God.
Book III._.13.2
[40] Yet thanks be to the Lover of Giving, for telling us in-this way that He has set for Himself in the soul seeds farshining, radiant, full charged with meaning, as he has set the stars in heaven. But is not “abroad” a superfluous addition to “led him forth”? For who is ever led forth within? But it may be that this is what he means; He led him forth to outermost space, not just to one of the outside spaces, one that can be encompassed by others. For just as in our houses the women’s apartments have the men’s quarters outside them and the passage inside them, and the courtyard door is outside the court but inside the gateway, even so, in the case of the soul too, that which is outside one part can be inside another part.

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.