Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis

Sefaria · Second Temple > Philo · 622 sections

Book III._.83.1
[233] Sihon, therefore, the corrupter of the healthy rule of the truth, “and his seed shall perish together with Heshbon” (that is) the quibbling riddles “as far as Dihon,” a name given to going to law, and quite appropriately, for probabilities and plausible arguments involve no knowledge concerning truth, but trial and disputation and wrangling conflict and contentiousness and everything of that sort.
Book III._.83.2
[234] It was not, however, enough for Mind to have the troubles that are peculiar to it and belong to its own sphere, but over and above these the women, the senses, that is, lit a fire, a huge conflagration, to add to its disasters. Prythee see what I mean by this. It often happens in the night when we are actively employing no single one of our senses, that we entertain strange notions on many different subjects, for the soul is perpetually in movement and can turn ten thousand different ways. This being so, what it produces by itself would have been sufficient for its corruption.
Book III._.83.3
[235] But as it is, the mob of the senses has introduced into it from outside an untold host of mischiefs, drawn partly from visible objects, partly from sounds, as well as from savours and scents that touch the sense of smell; and we may say that the flame arising from them affects the soul more disastrously than the flame that is kindled in it by the soul itself without calling in the organs of sense to assist it.
Book III._.84.1
[236] One of these women is the wife of Potiphar, Pharaoh’s head-cook (Gen. 39:1 ff.). How, being a eunuch, he comes to have a wife, is a point to be considered: for those, who are occupied with the literal wording of the law rather than with its figurative interpretation, will find that it involves what appears to such a difficulty. For the Mind, that is really an eunuch and chief cook, dealing not in the simple pleasures only but in excessive ones also, deserves the title of eunuch as one who is incapable of begetting wisdom, seeing that he serves as eunuch none other than Pharaoh, the disperser of noble things. For you must bear in mind that from another point of view to become an eunuch would be a very good thing, if so our soul should be able to escape wickedness and unlearn passion.
Book III._.84.2
[237] So Joseph too, the self-controlling character, when pleasure says to him “Sleep with me” (Gen. 39:7) ‘and being human indulge human passions and enjoy the delights that come in life’s course,’ refuses to comply with her saying, ‘I shall be sinning against God the Lover of virtue, were I to show myself a lover of pleasure; for this is a wicked deed.’
Book III._.85.1
[238] And now he is merely skirmishing, but before long he is stoutly fighting it out, when the soul has entered into her own house, and falling back on her own energies has renounced all that is regulated by the body, and has set to work at business properly belonging to her inasmuch as they are activities of the soul. He goes neither into Joseph’s house nor into that of Potiphar, but “into the house.” He does not go on to say whose house, that you may think and interpret. He simply adds, “to do his business” (Gen. 39:11).
Book III._.85.2
[239] The house then is the soul, into which he retires, abandoning all that is outside, to the end that he may, as we say, get within himself. The “business” of the man of self-control is, we may take it, done by God’s will; for indeed, among all the reasonings wont to have their abode in the soul within, there was not one such uncongenial reasoning found there. Meanwhile pleasure does not desist from struggling, but laying hold of his garments says “Sleep with me.” As clothes are coverings of the body, so are food and drink of the living being. This is what she says, “Why do you decline pleasure, without which you cannot live?
Book III._.85.3
[240] See, I seize and carry off part of what goes to produce her, and I declare that you would be unable to exist without using something productive of pleasure.” What does the man of self-control do? “If,” he says, “I am going to be a slave to passion for the sake of the matter that is productive of it, I will even leave passion behind and go forth outside”; for “leaving his garments in her hands he fled and went forth outside” (Gen. 39:12).
Book III._.86.1
[241] “Who,” someone may ask, “goes forth within?” Do not many? Or have not some who have avoided the robbing of temples stolen goods from a private house, and some who have not been father-beaters, committed violence on a stranger? These people do indeed come forth from the sins mentioned, but they come into others. But he that exercises perfect self-control must shun all sins, both the greater and the lesser, and be found implicated in none whatever.
Book III._.86.2
[242] Joseph, however, being but a youth and lacking strength to contend with the Egyptian body and vanquish pleasure, runs away. But Phinehas the priest, who was zealous with the zeal for God, has secured his own safety, not by flight, but grasping the “spear,” i.e. the spirit of zeal, he will not desist before he has “pierced the Midianitish woman,” the nature that has been sifted out of the sacred company, “through her womb” (Numb. 25:7 f.), that she may never be able to cause plant or seed of wickedness to shoot up:
Book III._.87.1
in recompense for this, for the cutting out of folly, the soul obtains a twofold portion as its reward, peace and priesthood (ibid. 12 f.), virtues as near of kin as sisters.
Book III._.87.2
[243] To such a woman, therefore, we must not hearken, wicked sense I mean. For “God dealt well with the midwives” (Exod. 1:20), because disregarding the injunctions of Pharaoh, the scatterer, they “saved alive” the male offspring of the soul which he wished to destroy; for, enamoured of what is material and female, he knows not the First Cause and says, “I know Him not” (Exod. 5:2).
Book III._.87.3
[244] Quite a different woman claims our compliance, a woman such as Sarah is seen to have been, even paramount virtue. The wise Abraham complies with her when she recommends the course to follow. For at an earlier time, when he had not yet become perfect but, before his name had been changed, was still only inquiring into supramundane things, being aware that he could not beget seed out of perfect virtue, she advises him to beget children out of the handmaiden, that is school-learning, even Hagar (Gen. 16:2 ff.). This name means “Sojourning,” for he that is studying to make his home in perfect virtue, before he is registered as a member of her city, sojourns with the subjects learned in the schools, that he may be led by these to apply his unfettered powers to virtue.
Book III._.87.4
[245] Afterwards, when she sees him brought to perfection, and capable now of begetting … And if he, filled with gratitude towards the education by means of which he was brought into union with virtue, thinks it harsh to reject it, he shall be brought to compliance by an oracle of God bidding him, “In all that Sarah saith to thee listen to her voice” (Gen. 21:12). Let that which seems good to virtue be law for each one of us; for if we choose to hearken to all that virtue recommends, we shall be happy.
Book III._.88.1
[246] The words “and thou didst eat of the tree of which alone I commanded thee not to eat” are equivalent to “thou didst consent to wickedness, which it is thy duty to keep off with all thy might”: because of this “cursed”—not “art thou” but “is the earth in thy works” (Gen. 3:17). What then was the reason of this? The serpent, we saw, was pleasure, an irrational elation of soul. She is accursed on her own account, but mark well that she attaches herself only to the worthless man, not to any good man. Adam is the neutral mind, which now proves better, now worse.
Book III._.88.2
[247] For in so far as he is mind, his nature is neither bad nor good, but under the influence of virtue and vice it is his wont to shift towards good and bad. It is then just as we should expect, that he is not accursed on his own account, inasmuch as he is neither wickedness nor conduct with wickedness for its rule, but the earth is accursed in his works; for the doings of which the whole soul, to which is here given the name of “earth,” is the means and occasion, are blameworthy and faulty when he allows wickedness to regulate them in each case. Accordingly he goes on “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it.” This is tantamount to “thou shalt sorrowfully get the benefit of being alive.” For in pain does the bad man all his life long avail himself of his own vitality. He has no motive for joy. Such a motive is in the nature of things supplied by righteousness and good sense and the virtues that share her throne.
Book III._.89.1
[248] “Thorns therefore and burrs shall it cause to spring up for thee” (Gen. 3:18). Nay, what does grow and shoot up in the soul of a foolish man, but the passions which goad and wound it? To these, using figures, he has given the name of thorns. These the irrational impulse like a fire meets first, and ranging herself with them burns up and consumes all the soul’s possessions. For this is what is said: “If a fire break out and find thorns and go on to burn threshing-floor or standing corn or field; he that kindled the fire shall make restitution” (Exod. 22:6).
Book III._.89.2
[249] You see that the fire, the irrational impulse, when it has broken out does not burn the thorns but finds them; for being a searcher after the passions it finds what it wanted to get; and when it has found them it burns up these three things, perfect virtue, gradual progress, goodness of natural disposition. Virtue he likens to the contents of the threshing-floor, for as the grain has been gathered together on it, so in the soul of the wise man have been gathered noble things. To the standing corn he likens gradual advance, since either is incomplete and is earnestly set on its completeness. He likens goodness of natural disposition to the field, because it is receptive of the seeds of virtue.
Book III._.89.3
[250] He calls each of the passions “burrs” or “three-spiked caltrops,” because they are threefold, the passion itself, that which produces it, and the finished result of these. For instance, pleasure, the pleasant, feeling pleasure; desire, the desirable, desiring; sorrow, the sorrowful, feeling sorrow; fear, the fearful, fearing.
Book III._.90.1
[251] “And thou shalt eat the grass of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread” (Gen. 3:18 f.). He uses the terms grass and bread as synonyms; the thing meant is the same. Grass is food of an irrational creature; and such is a bad man with the right principle cut out of him; irrational also are the senses, being a part of the soul. But the mind striving to attain the objects of sense by means of the irrational senses, makes this striving not without toil and sweat. For exceeding painful and burdensome is the life of the foolish man, as he pursues with greedy desire all things that are productive of pleasures and of all things that wickedness loves to bring about.
Book III._.90.2
[252] And how long is this to be? “Until,” He says, “thou shalt turn back into the earth, from which thou wert taken” (Gen. 3:19). For, having forsaken the wisdom of heaven, is he not now ranked with things earthly and chaotic? How then he turns back yet further, we have to consider. But perhaps what he means is of this kind, that the foolish mind has indeed always turned back from the right principle, but has been taken not from the sublime nature but from the more earthly substance, and, whether staying still or in movement, is the same and devoted to the same interests.
Book III._.90.3
[253] And that is why he goes on to say, “Earth thou art and into earth shalt thou depart” (ibid.), which amounts to what I have already said. It signifies this also, “thine origin and thine end are one and the same, for thou tookest thine origin from earth’s decaying bodies, and into them shalt thou again come to thine end, after treading the way of life that comes between, along no high road but on a rough path, full of brambles and burrs whose nature is to prick and wound.”

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.