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+{
+ "title": "On the Migration of Abraham",
+ "language": "en",
+ "versionTitle": "merged",
+ "versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org/On_the_Migration_of_Abraham",
+ "text": {
+ "Introduction": [
+ "ON THE MIGRATION OF ABRAHAM (DE MIGRATIONE ABRAHAMI)
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION",
+ "The subject of this treatise is Gen. 12:1–4 and 6. This naturally falls into two divisions, of which the first contains the words of God to Abraham. This again is analysed as follows:",
+ "I. (a) The command to depart from country, kindred and father’s house.",
+ "(b) To the land which I will shew thee (this constitutes the first promise or gift to Abraham).",
+ "(c) And I will make thee a great nation (Second Gift).",
+ "(d) And I will bless thee (Third Gift).",
+ "(e) And I will magnify thy name (Fourth Gift).",
+ "(f) And thou shalt be blessed (Fifth Gift).",
+ "(g) I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee.",
+ "And in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed (the gifts to others through Abraham.)",
+ "In the second part we deal successively with the statements.",
+ "(а) He went as God spake to him.",
+ "(b) And Lot went with him.",
+ "(c) And Abraham was seventy-five years old, when he went forth out of Haran.",
+ "(d) And Abraham travelled through the land to the length of it, to the place Shechem to the high oak.",
+ "“Land” means spiritually body, “kinsfolk,” senses (2–4), while “father’s house” is speech, and this last is illustrated by the way in which the Logos itself is spoken of as God’s house (4–6). Thus the command is to alienate ourselves from these and so to “depart” to higher realities (7–12). Biblical examples of this departing follow: Abraham from Lot, the Exodus of Israel from Egypt (13–15), and in connexion with this Philo propounds the idea that when we read of Joseph’s body being placed in a coffin in Egypt, and later of his bones being taken to Canaan at the Exodus, we have an allegory of the spiritual burial of the lower qualities, and the survival of the higher qualities of the mixed or Joseph mind (16–17). An enumeration of these higher qualities as shewn in the story of Joseph follows (18–23), and from this we pass back to the theme of “departure,” as shewn in the order of Moses to make the Passover “with speed” (24–25), and (with a difference) in the injunction in Gen. 31:3 to Jacob to turn back to his father’s land, which must be understood in the sense of wisdom (26–30). The last words of that passage, “I will be with thee,” lead to a meditation on how independent of our efforts is the Divine presence and inspiration, which Philo illustrates from his own experience in literary composition (31–35), whence we pass almost insensibly to the consideration of the words of the First Gift, “The land which I will shew thee.” After some thoughts about the “thing shewn,” i.e. the perfect good, “the person who sees,” i.e. the wise man, and the “Shewer,” i.e. God (36–42), Philo points out that the shewing is in the future, thus calling for Abraham’s faith. He illustrates it further from the words of Deut. 34:4, “I shewed it to thine eyes but thou shalt not possess it,” and this points to the thought that possession of the perfect good is more than seeing it (43–46). And yet seeing is higher than hearing, and thus God’s words are said in certain places to be seen rather than heard, a noteworthy usage when we remember that hearing in the ordinary sense is even less than the other senses capable of being associated with sight (47–52).",
+ "We pass on to the Second Gift. “I will make thee a great nation.” Here nation can be taken to mean “multitude of qualities.” “Great” shews something more, namely that the qualities grow to their full stature (53–55). A great nation is elsewhere defined as one which draws nigh to God (56–59). Indeed, mere quantity or multitude is often spoken of as an evil thing, which is vanquished by the little and good (59–63). The many-footed is called an abomination in Leviticus. This reminds us that the footless which crawls on its belly, is equally an abomination (64–65). And thence he digresses for the moment to suggest that the breast stands for the spirited element, as the belly stands for desire, and it is when both these are exscinded as in the sacrificial directions of Lev. 8, and reason is left supreme, that we get both multitude and greatness (65–68). From another point of view the many-footed and the footless are respectively the polytheist and the atheist (69).",
+ "The Third Gift is “I will bless thee” (εὐλογήσω). Looking at the composition of the word, Philo takes this to mean “I will give thee excellent Logos.” Now Logos is both thought and speech, and this last leads him to the idea that mastery of language is needed by the sage and that otherwise he will be unable to hold his own against the sophist (70–75). This is illustrated first from the case of Cain and Abel and then from that of Moses, and there follows a commentary on Exodus 4:10–16 in which “Aaron thy brother” is shewn to represent the speech or eloquence which rejoices when it finds clear conceptions to express (76–81). It is this use of language in the service of truth which is shewn by the story of Moses with Aaron’s rod outdoing the Egyptian magicians (82–85).",
+ "The Fourth Gift is “I will magnify thy name.” Here “name” is interpreted as equivalent to what we seem. The seeming indeed is worthless without the being, but true happiness consists in both (86–88). The need of obedience to established custom is a necessary consequence, and here Philo takes the opportunity to define his attitude to the literal Law, Sabbath, Circumcision, Feast-days. Though these have their soul, namely the spiritual interpretation, they have also their body, and the body is the house of the soul, and must not be set at nought (89–94). The same lesson is taught by the “lesser substance” bequeathed by Abraham to the children of the concubines who, though of less account, were still children (94). So too Leah accounted herself blessed, because women will count her such, and by women are meant those comparatively earth-bound souls whose esteem is nevertheless valuable (95–96). This leads to an illustration from the work entrusted by Moses to the women—the senses, that is—but the senses also must have their due if happiness is to be had (97–100). This thought is further developed from Isaac’s prayer that Jacob may have the wealth of earth as well as of heaven, and from Aaron’s robe on which the sensible world is figured by the bells whose sound was to be audible when he entered the Holy Place (101–104). So the sensible must second the music of the mental in the great Choir, and the three-fold phrase of Ex. 21, the “needful,” the “raiment,” and the “fellowship,” means that the sensible and the mental must be so blended that we shall find in the first the sacrament of the second (104–105).",
+ "Yet in the three next sections Philo swings round to the other point of view. The Fifth Gift is “Thou shalt be blessed.” Here he reads εὐλογητός (meet to be blessed), for the εὐλογημένος (subject to blessing) of our texts, and thence deduces, in spite of all that has been said, that true blessedness is to him who is worthy of it rather than to him who is so reputed by men (106–108).",
+ "In the next words, “I will bless them who bless thee, and curse them who curse thee,” we go on to shew what the Abraham mind can do for others. It stands to reason that to praise the praiseworthy is in itself a praiseworthy act, if done in sincerity. But this is an important exception, and thus the blessing of Israel by Balaam, splendid as it is, only brought on him God’s curse (109–115). Conversely, curses which are meant to benefit, such as the rebukes of those who have charge of the young, bring blessings on those who speak them. All depends on the intention (115–117).",
+ "The next words “And in thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed” shew that the blessing conferred by the Abraham spirit is not to be limited to those who know its value. In one sense indeed the words may be applied to the individual himself. The perfect mind will sanctify all its tribes, that is, all its faculties (118–119). But in the wider sense the righteous man both by his influence and prayers is a pillar of society. We see this in God’s words to Moses (I will be merciful to them for thy word); in the willingness to spare Sodom, if only a few righteous could be found there; most of all in the story of Noah, who victorious over the deluge of moral decay, founded the line of Israel, which, though obscured at times, will be brought to the light again, when that season comes of which God spoke to Sarah (120–126).",
+ "The second part of the treatise begins with the words: “And Abraham went as the Lord spake.” Philo interprets this to mean that his way of going was in accordance with God’s word, i.e. his life was in accordance with God’s laws (127–132). And he proceeds to ask what the “end” and the “reward” of such “going” is. The true end and reward is to be able to recognize that the only thing we can know is our own ignorance (133–135). This leads to a denunciation of speculation about the universe instead of self-examination (136–138). A rambling discussion of some texts follows (139–142). And then in contrast to the “going” of Abraham, we have the weaklings who lag behind and are “cut off” as the “weary” part of Israel was by Amalek (143–144), though indeed there is a better kind of weariness which is typified by Leah (144–145). The treatment of this part concludes with the thought which has been fully developed in Quod Deus, that the true path of the soul is, as Aristotle taught, along the Mean (146–147).",
+ "“Lot went with him.” As Lot means “turning away,” we see that this was a companionship not to imitate but to hinder, and this is proved by his later disaster and Abraham’s separation from him (148–150). That this separation did not take place at once shews that the Abraham soul has still much to learn. The hindrance which is caused by such conflicting companionship is symbolized by the “mixed multitude,” which went up from Egypt and caused Israel to wander for forty years (150–155). (Incidentally we hear of this multitude weeping and this leads to a short digression on good and bad tears (155–157).) While some refuse all intercourse with this mixed multitude others make alliance with it, as Joseph, ever the man of compromise, did when he was accompanied by the Egyptians to his father’s funeral (158–163). Some illustrations of good fellow-travelling (συμπορεύεσθαι) are now given. Abraham’s comrades in war; Isaac going with Abraham to the sacrifice, signifying the union of natural gifts with effort (164–167). And while it is natural that higher minds should be drawn up to God, as Aaron and his fellow priests were, Moses will cry “Unless thou journey with me (συμπορεύῃ) bring me not up hence,” for God must be our fellow-traveller (168–172). Abraham, too, “journeyed with the angels.” For though in the imperfect state the Logos leads us, the perfected will walk at his side (173–175).",
+ "“Abraham was seventy-five years old when he went forth out of Haran.” What do these words mean? We remember that originally he went from Chaldea to Haran. Now Chaldea is astrology, which conceives of the universe as a whole where all the parts work in harmony with each other (176–179). So far Moses agrees with it: it is when the astrologers ignore God and His creative goodness that he disagrees (180–183). And when he shews Abraham as leaving Chaldea for Haran, that is, for the place of the senses, which is also the house of the mind, he is bidding us discard astrological speculations for the Socratic study of ourselves (184–189). And when we have done this we may leave Haran also, to contemplate God Himself, just as Saul had to be taken from the “baggage” before he could grasp the kingship (189–197).",
+ "“Seventy-five years old.” Seventy is the number of the higher mind and reason (198–202), five of the senses (203–206), and both these are proved by many texts (203–206). The combination indicates an intermediate and necessary stage in the soul’s progress (207). And so Rebecca bids Jacob even in his hour of triumph fly to Haran, for compromise with the senses is often necessary for a time (208–213). Yet Jacob also will ultimately leave Haran and “make a house for himself,” that is, “the fear of God” which won, according to Ex. 1:21 “ ‘their houses’ for the midwives” (214–215).",
+ "“He travelled through the land to the length of it to the place Shechem, to the high oak.” “Travelled through” shews us the course of the soul in its search for wisdom, a search which must cover the whole land i.e. whole of ethical philosophy (216–220). In Shechem, which means “shouldering,” and in the oak, we find a symbol of the solid labour which such travelling entails (221–223). But we remember that in Genesis we have a man Shechem, who represents evil labour, the seducer of Dinah. Or rather, the would-be seducer. For to Philo’s mind the spiritual Dinah being Virtue can never be corrupted, and the treatise ends with the thought that the vengeance of her brothers and defenders will overtake the seducer with his purpose unattained (224-end)."
+ ],
+ "": [
+ [
+ "[1] “And the Lord said unto Abraham, Depart out of thy land, and out of thy kindred, and out of thy father’s house, into the land which I shall shew thee; and I will make thee a great nation and will bless thee and will make thy name great, and thou shalt be blessed. And I will bless them that bless thee, and them that curse thee I will curse, and in thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:1–3).",
+ "[2] God begins the carrying out of His will to cleanse man’s soul by giving it a starting-point for full salvation in its removal out of three localities, namely, body, sense-perception, and speech. “Land” or “country” is a symbol of body, “kindred” of sense-perception, “father’s house” of speech. How so?",
+ "[3] Because the body took its substance out of earth (or land) and is again resolved into earth. Moses is a witness to this, when he says, “Earth thou art and into earth shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19); indeed he also says that the body was clay formed into human shape by God’s moulding hand, and what suffers solution must needs be resolved into the elements which were united to form it. Sense-perception, again, is of one kin and family with understanding, the irrational with the rational, for both these are parts of one soul. And speech is our “father’s house,” “father’s” because Mind is our father, sowing in each of the parts of the body the faculties that issue from itself, and assigning to them their workings, being in control and charge of them all; house—because mind has speech for its house or living-room, secluded from the rest of the homestead. It is Mind’s living-place, just as the hearthside is man’s.",
+ "[4] It is there that Mind displays in orderly form itself and all the conceptions to which it gives birth, treating it as a man treats a house.",
+ "And marvel not at Moses having given to speech the title of Mind’s house in man; for indeed he says that God, the Mind of the universe, has for His house His own Word.",
+ "[5] It was the vision of this Word that the Self-trainer received when he emphatically declares “This is assuredly not the House of God” (Gen. 28:17), as much as to say “The House of God is not this that is all round me, consisting of things at which we can point or that fall under sense-perception generally, no, not such is God’s House, but invisible, withdrawn from sight, and apprehended only by soul as soul.",
+ "[6] Who, then, can that House be, save the Word who is antecedent to all that has come into existence? the Word, which the Helmsman of the Universe grasps as a rudder to guide all things on their course? Even as, when He was fashioning the world, He employed it as His instrument, that the fabric of His handiwork might be without reproach."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[7] We have now shewn how Moses uses “earth” to represent the body, “kindred” to represent sense-perception, “thy father’s house” to represent speech. The words “Depart out of these” are not equivalent to “Sever thyself from them absolutely,” since to issue such a command as that would be to prescribe death. No, the words import “Make thyself a stranger to them in judgement and purpose; let none of them cling to thee; rise superior to them all;",
+ "[8] they are thy subjects, never treat them as sovereign lords; thou art a king, school thyself once and for all to rule, not to be ruled; evermore be coming to know thyself, as Moses teaches thee in many places, saying “Give heed to thyself” (Ex. 24:12), for in this way shalt thou perceive those to whom it befits thee to shew obedience and those to whom it befits thee to give commands.",
+ "[9] Depart, therefore, out of the earthly matter that encompasses thee: escape, man, from the foul prison-house, thy body, with all thy might and main, and from the pleasures and lusts that act as its jailers; every terror that can vex and hurt them, leave none of them unused; menace the enemy with them all united and combined.",
+ "[10] Depart also out of sense-perception thy kin. For at present thou hast made a loan of thyself to each sense, and art become the property of others, a portion of the goods of those who have borrowed thee, and hast thrown away the good thing that was thine own. Yes, thou knowest, even though all men should hold their peace, how eyes draw thee, and ears, and the whole crowd of thine other kinsfolk, towards what they themselves love.",
+ "[11] But if thou desire to recover the self that thou hast lent and to have thine own possessions about thee, letting no portion of them be alienated and fall into other hands, thou shalt claim instead a happy life, enjoying in perpetuity the benefit and pleasure derived from good things not foreign to thee but thine own.",
+ "[12] Again, quit speech also, “thy father’s house,” as Moses calls it, for fear thou shouldst be beguiled by beauties of mere phrasing, and be cut off from the real beauty, which lies in the matter expressed. Monstrous it is that shadow should be preferred to substance or a copy to originals. And verbal expression is like a shadow or copy, while the essential bearing of the matters conveyed by words resembles substance and originals; and it behoves the man, whose aim it is to be rather than to seem, to dissociate himself from the former and hold fast to the latter."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[13] So we find that when the Mind begins to know itself and to hold converse with the things of mind, it will thrust away from it that part of the soul which inclines to the province of sense-perception, the inclining which among the Hebrews is entitled “Lot.” Hence the wise man is represented as saying outright, “Separate thyself from me” (Gen. 13:9). For it is impossible for one who is possessed by love for all that is incorporeal and incorruptible to dwell together with one who leans towards the objects of sense-perception doomed to die.",
+ "[14] Right well, then, did the Sacred Guide inscribe one entire sacred book of the Law-giving “Exagoge” or “Leading out,” for the name thus found was appropriate to the oracles contained in it. For being well qualified to train men and fully furnished for the admonition and correction of those who were capable of admonition and correction, he contemplates the task of taking out all the population of the soul right away from Egypt, the body, and away from its inhabitants; deeming it a most sore and heavy burden that an understanding endowed with vision should be under the pressure of the pleasures of the flesh, and should submit to such injunctions as its merciless cravings may lay upon it.",
+ "[15] These, indeed, groaned over and greatly bewailed their bodily well-being, and the lavish abundance of things outside the body, which was theirs, for we read that “the children of Israel groaned by reason of their works” (Ex. 2:23). When they do this, the gracious God instructs His prophet regarding their coming out, and His prophet delivers them.",
+ "[16] But some make a truce with the body and maintain it till their death, and are buried in it as in a coffin or shell or whatever else you like to call it. All the body-loving and passion-loving portions of these are laid in the grave and consigned to oblivion. But if anywhere by the side of these there grows up a virtue-loving tendency, it is saved from extinction by memories, which are a means of keeping alive the flame of noble qualities."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[17] So the Holy Word, deeming it unfitting that pure things should have impure things associated with them, provides for the safe-keeping of Joseph’s bones, by which I mean the only relics of such a soul as were left behind untouched by corruption and worthy of perpetual memory (Gen. 50:25).",
+ "[18] Those of the latter kind were these; Joseph’s confidence that “God will visit” the race that has vision (Gen. 50:24), and will not utterly hand it over to Ignorance, that blind task-mistress; his discernment between the mortal and the incorruptible portions of the soul and his leaving behind to Egypt those which had to do with bodily pleasures and other forms of unrestrained passion, while concerning the incorruptible parts he made an agreement, that they should accompany those who went up to the cities of virtue, and should be conveyed thither, and had the agreement secured by an oath.",
+ "[19] What, then, are the uncorrupted parts? His having nothing to do with Pleasure when she says, “Let us lie together” (Gen. 39:7) and enjoy the good things of mankind: the shrewdness coupled with the resoluteness which enabled him to recognize the products of empty fancies which many accounted to be good, and to distinguish them as mere dreams from those which are really so; and to confess that the true and certain interpretations of things are given under God’s guid ance (Gen. 40:8), while the doubtful imaginations that have no certainty follow the rule and line of the erring and deluded life of men who have not undergone purification, a life that finds its joy in the delights provided by bakers and cooks and butlers.",
+ "[20] Other traits of incorruption were these: he was proclaimed not the subject, but the ruler of all Egypt, the domain of the body (Gen. 41:41): he was proud to own himself a member of the Hebrew race (Gen. 40:15), whose wont it is, as the name “Hebrew” or “Migrant” indicates, to quit the objects of sense-perception and go after those of Mind: he gloried in the fact that “here he had done nothing” (ibid.), for to have performed no single act such as the worthless people there admired, but to have utterly hated and eschewed them all,",
+ "[21] was conduct that called for no slight praise: he derided lusts and all passions and their gross excesses (Gen. 39:14, 17): he feared God (Gen. 42:18) even though he was not yet ready to love Him: when in Egypt he claimed as his own the life that is real life,"
+ ],
+ [
+ "a claim which caused Israel to marvel in just amazement, and to cry, “It is a great matter in my eyes if my son Joseph still lives” (Gen. 45:28), and has not shared the death of vain opinions, and of the body the corpse he carries with him:",
+ "[22] he confesses that he is God’s (Gen. 50:19), not the property of any created being: when making himself known to his brethren he thrust perforce from his presence, shaken and tottering, all those frames of mind that make the body their delight and think that their own doctrines afford them a firm standing (Gen. 45:1 f.): he declared that he had not received his commission at the hands of men, but had been appointed by God (Gen. 45:7 f.) to be duly constituted controller of the body and of things outside the body.",
+ "[23] And these are but a few of the traits indicative of the better and holier standing, which utterly refuse to dwell in Egypt the bodily tenement, are never buried in a coffin at all, but, having passed out of all that is mortal, follow the guiding steps of Moses, the Law-giving Word.",
+ "[24] For Moses is the nursing-father who rears with fostering care noble deeds, words, designs, which, albeit often mingled with their opposites owing to the chaos and confusion which besets mortality, he none the less comes forward and separates from the rest, that the germs and shoots of moral excellence may not permanently be obliterated and lost.",
+ "[25] Moses also urges the Israelites to quit right stoutly her who bears the name of mother of every monstrous thing, with no slow or lingering steps, but with exceeding speed; for he bids them with haste to sacrifice the Passover (Ex. 12:11), which means “a passing over,” to the intent that the Mind with resolute purpose and unfailing eagerness may carry out both its passing away from the passions without turning back, and its thanksgiving to God its Saviour, Who brought it forth into liberty when it looked not for it."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[26] And what is there to wonder at in his urging the mind, that had been brought under the control of irrational passion, not to give in, nor to be swept down by the violence of that passion’s current, but to resist with all its might, and, should it fail, even to run away? For flight remains as an alternative way of reaching safety for those who are not able to repel the danger. See how Moses deals with one who was by nature a sturdy fighter and had never become the slave of passions, but was always engaged in the conflict with each one of them? Even him he forbids to keep up his wrestlings to the end, lest one day, by perpetually meeting them, he should contract from them a pernicious taint: for many before now have proved imitators of an opponent’s vice, as others on the other hand have imitated his virtue.",
+ "[27] For this reason a Divine intimation was vouchsafed to him to this effect: “Turn back to the land of thy father and thy kindred, and I will be with thee” (Gen. 31:3); as much as to say “Thou hast proved thyself a perfect athlete, and been awarded prizes and crowns with Virtue presiding and holding forth to thee the meed of victory: but now it is time for thee to have done with strife, lest thou be ever toiling, and have no power to reap the fruits of thy toil.",
+ "[28] This thou wilt never find while thou remainest where thou art, dwelling still with the objects of sense-perception, and spending thy days surrounded by bodily existence in its varied aspects, whose head and chief is Laban, bearing a name meaning variety of character. Nay, thou must change thine abode and betake thee to thy father’s land, the land of the Word that is holy and in some sense father of those who submit to training: and that land is Wisdom, abode most choice of virtue-loving souls.",
+ "[29] In this country there awaiteth thee the nature which is its own pupil, its own teacher, that needs not to be fed on milk as children are fed, that has been stayed by a Divine oracle from going down into Egypt (Gen. 26:2) and from meeting with the ensnaring pleasures of the flesh. That nature is entitled Isaac.",
+ "[30] When thou hast entered upon his inheritance, thou canst not but lay aside thy toil; for the perpetual abundance of good things ever ready to the hand gives freedom from toil. And the fountain from which the good things are poured forth is the companionship of the bountiful God. He shews this to be so when to set His seal upon the flow of His kindnesses, He says “I will be with thee.”"
+ ],
+ [
+ "[31] What fair thing, then, could fail when there was present God the Perfecter, with gifts of grace, His virgin daughters, whom the Father that begat them rears up uncorrupted and undefiled? Then are all forms of studying, toiling, practising at rest; and without interference of art by contrivance of Nature there come forth all things in one outburst charged with benefit for all.",
+ "[32] And the harvest of spontaneous good things is called “Release,” inasmuch as the Mind is released from the working out of its own projects, and is, we may say, emancipated from self-chosen tasks, by reason of the abundance of the rain and ceaseless shower of blessings.",
+ "[33] And these are of a most marvellous nature and passing fair. For the offspring of the soul’s own travail are for the most part poor abortions, things untimely born; but those which God waters with the snows of heaven come to the birth perfect, complete and peerless.",
+ "[34] I feel no shame in recording my own experience, a thing I know from its having happened to me a thousand times. On some occasions, after making up my mind to follow the usual course of writing on philosophical tenets, and knowing definitely the substance of what I was to set down, I have found my understanding incapable of giving birth to a single idea, and have given it up without accomplishing anything, reviling my understanding for its self-conceit, and filled with amazement at the might of Him that IS to Whom is due the opening and closing of the soul-wombs.",
+ "[35] On other occasions, I have approached my work empty and suddenly become full, the ideas falling in a shower from above and being sown invisibly, so that under the influence of the Divine possession I have been filled with corybantic frenzy and been unconscious of anything, place, persons present, myself, words spoken, lines written. For I obtained language, ideas, an enjoyment of light, keenest vision, pellucid distinctness of objects, such as might be received through the eyes as the result of clearest shewing."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[36] Now the thing shewn is the thing worthy to be seen, contemplated, loved, the perfect good, whose nature it is to change all that is bitter in the soul and make it sweet, fairest seasoning of all spices, turning into salutary nourishment even foods that do not nourish. So we read “The Lord shewed him a tree, and he cast it into the water” (Ex. 15:25), that is into the flabby, flaccid mind teeming with bitterness, that its savagery might be sweetened away.",
+ "[37] This tree offers not nourishment only but immortality also, for we are told that the Tree of Life has been planted in the midst of the Garden (Gen. 2:9), even Goodness with the particular virtues and the doings which accord with them to be its bodyguard. For it is Virtue that has obtained as its own the central and most honourable place in the soul.",
+ "[38] Such is that which is shewn, and he that sees it is the wise man, for fools are blind or dim-sighted. That is why in former times they called the prophets seers(1 Sam. 9:9); and the Trainer of self was eager to exchange ears for eyes, and to see what before he heard, and, going beyond the inheritance which has hearing as its source, he obtains that of which sight is the ruling principle.",
+ "[39] For the current coin of learning and teaching from which Jacob took his title is reminted into the seeing Israel. Hereby comes to pass even the seeing of the Divine light, identical with knowledge, which opens wide the soul’s eye, and leads it to apprehensions distinct and brilliant beyond those gained by the ears. For as the application of the principles of music is apprehended through the science of music, and the practice of each science through that science, even so only through wisdom comes discernment of what is wise.",
+ "[40] But wisdom is not only, after the manner of light, an instrument of sight, but is able to see its own self besides. Wisdom is God’s archetypal luminary and the sun is a copy and image of it.",
+ "But he that shews each several object is God, who alone is possessed of perfect knowledge. For men are only said to have knowledge because they seem to know; whereas God is so called because He is the possessor of knowledge though the phrase does not adequately express this nature; for all things whatever that can be said regarding Him that IS fall far short of the reality of His powers.",
+ "[41] He gives clear proof of His wisdom not only from His having been the Artificer of the universe, but also from His having made the knowledge of the things that had been brought into existence His sure possession.",
+ "[42] For we read “God saw all things that He had made” (Gen. 1:31). This does not just mean that He set His eyes on each of them, but that He had insight and knowledge and apprehension of the things which He had made. It follows then that to give teaching and guidance on each several thing, in fact to “shew” them, to the ignorant is proper only for the One who knows, seeing that He has not, as a man has, been profited by science and its lore, but is acknowledged to be Himself the Source and Fountain-head of science and knowledge in all their forms."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[43] There is a deliberate intention when his words take the form of a promise and define the time of fulfilment not as present but future. He says not “which I am shewing” but “which I will shew thee” (Gen. 12:1). Thus he testifies to the trust which the soul reposed in God, exhibiting its thankfulness not as called out by accomplished facts, but by expectation of what was to be.",
+ "[44] For the soul, clinging in utter dependence on a good hope, and deeming that things not present are beyond question already present by reason of the sure stedfastness of Him that promised them, has won as its meed faith, a perfect good; for we read a little later “Abraham believed God” (Gen. 15:6). To Moses, too, He says in like manner, when He had shewn to him all the Land, “I shewed it to thine eyes, but thou shalt not enter in” (Deut. 34:4).",
+ "[45] You must not think that this was said, as some unconsidering people suppose, to humiliate the all-wise leader; for indeed it is folly to imagine that the servants of God take precedence of His friends in receiving their portion in the land of virtue.",
+ "[46] No, what he wishes to bring home to you first of all is that children have one place and full-grown men another, the one named training, the other called wisdom: secondly, that the fairest things in nature are objects of sight rather than of possession. For how is it possible to become possessed of things whose allotted place is nearer to the Divine? Yet to see them is within the bounds of possibility: though not for all. It is exclusively for the purest and most keen-eyed class, on whom the Father of all things, by shewing to them His own works, bestows an all-surpassing gift.",
+ "[47] For what life is better than a contemplative life, or more appropriate to a rational being? For this reason, whereas the voice of mortal beings is judged by hearing, the sacred oracles intimate that the words of God are seen as light is seen; for we are told that “all the people saw the Voice” (Ex. 20:18), not that they heard it; for what was happening was not an impact on air made by the organs of mouth and tongue, but virtue shining with intense brilliance, wholly resembling a fountain of reason, and this is also indicated elsewhere on this wise: “Ye have seen that I have spoken to you out of Heaven” (Ex. 20:22), not “ye heard,” for the same cause as before.",
+ "[48] In one place the writer distinguishes things heard from things seen and hearing from sight, saying, “Ye heard a voice of words, and saw no similitude but only a voice” (Deut. 4:12), making a very subtle distinction, for the voice dividing itself into noun and verb and the parts of speech in general he naturally spoke of as “audible,” for it comes to the test of hearing: but the voice or sound that was not that of verbs and nouns but of God, seen by the eye of the soul, he rightly represents as “visible.”",
+ "[49] And after first saying “Ye saw no similitude” he adds “but only a Voice,” evidently meaning the reader to supply in thought “which you did see.” This shews that words spoken by God are interpreted by the power of sight residing in the soul, whereas those which are divided up among the various parts of speech appeal to hearing.",
+ "[50] Fresh and original as is the insight which he shews in all cases, there is a special and unusual originality in this instance in his saying that the voice is visible, practically the only thing in us, if understanding be left out of consideration, which is not visible: for the objects of the senses other than the eyes are all of them, colours, savours, perfumes, things warm, things cold, things smooth, things rough, things soft and hard, visible as bodies.",
+ "[51] What this means I will state more clearly. The savour is visible, not as a savour, but only as a body, for as savour, it is the taste that will know it; and the odour, as odour, will be assayed by the nostrils, but as body, by the eyes also; and the rest will be subject to the same double test. But it is not the nature of voice to be visible whether we regard it as something audible or as body, if body indeed it is; but of our properties these two are invisible, mind and speech.",
+ "[52] The truth is that our sound-producer is not similar to the Divine organ of voice; for ours mingles with air and betakes itself to the place akin to it, the ears; but the Divine is an organ of pure and unalloyed speech, too subtle for the hearing to catch it, but visible to the soul which is single in virtue of its keenness of sight."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[53] So then, the first boon which God vouchsafes to the soul after it has relinquished mortal things is, as I have said, the shewing of things immortal and the power to contemplate them; and the second, progress in the principles of virtue, alike as regards number and “greatness”: for He says, “And I will make thee to become a great nation,” implying by the word “nation” their number, and by the word “great” their improvement in quality.",
+ "[54] How great their advance was in either respect, alike in “greatness” and in number, is made evident by the words of the King of Egypt, “Lo the race of the children of Israel is a great multitude” (Ex. 1:9). There he bears witness to the race that has eyes to see Him that IS, that it has acquired both multitude and greatness, high achievement, that is, both in conduct of life and in principle.",
+ "[55] For he did not say, as a man strictly observing the association of noun and epithet would say, “much multitude,” but “a great multitude,” knowing that “much” is but an incomplete greatness, if it stands by itself without the addition of the power to understand and know. For what advantage is there in receiving(from our teachers) the results of study in plenty, unless we go on to develop each of them to its fitting stature? For a field, too, is but an imperfect one which contains any number of plants only a little above the ground, but in which no fully formed growth has shot up aided by skilful tillage and able now to yield fruit.",
+ "[56] The greatness and large number of the good and noble has for its beginning and end the perpetual recollection of God, and the calling down of the aid that comes from Him, to counter the intestine warfare of life, unbroken in its bewildering irregularity, for it says: “Lo this great nation is a wise and understanding people: for what kind of great nation is there, which has God drawing nigh to it, as the Lord our God in all things in which we call upon Him?” (Deut. 4:6 f.).",
+ "[57] So far it has been shewn that there is waiting ready and equipped at God’s side strong help to come to our succour, and that the Sovereign Ruler will Himself draw near for the benefit of those who are worthy to receive His benefits."
+ ],
+ [
+ "But who are they that are worthy to obtain these? Is it not clear that all the lovers of wisdom and knowledge are so?",
+ "[58] For these are the wise and understanding people which was spoken of, each member of which is with good reason great, since he reaches out after great things; and after one most eagerly, never to be severed from God, the supremely Great, but without dismay stedfastly to abide His approach as He draws near.",
+ "[59] This is the defining mark of the people that is “great,” to draw nigh to God, or to be that “to which God draws nigh.”",
+ "Now the world and the wise man, the world-citizen, is filled full of good things many and great, but the remaining mass of men experiences evil things in greater number, but fewer good things; for in the medley and confusion of human life that which is fair and goodly is rare and scanty.",
+ "[60] And for this reason the sacred oracles contain this utterance: “Not because ye are numerous beyond all the nations did the Lord prefer and choose you out: for ye surpass all the nations in fewness; but because the Lord loveth you” (Deut. 7:7 f.). For were a man to desire to distribute, as it were into nations, the crowd contained in a single soul, many disorderly companies would he find, commanded by pleasures or desires or griefs or fears or again by follies and wrongdoings, and the nearest kinsfolk of these, but one only well-ordered, of which right reason is the captain.",
+ "[61] Now, in the judgement of men the multitude of the unjust is preferred to the single just; but in God’s judgement the few good to the myriad unjust; and He charges the just never to agree with such a multitude: for He says “Thou shalt not be with many to engage in wickedness” (Ex. 23:2). Should we then be so with few? Nay, not with any bad man: and the bad man, one though he be, is made manifold by wickednesses, and to range oneself by his side is a very great disaster: on the contrary it behoves us to shew a vigour free from terror and resist him and be at war with him.",
+ "[62] For it says “If thou go out to war against thine enemies and see horse and rider,” that is passion, the insolent, the restive, the unruly, and the passion-loving mind mounted on it, “and a people more numerous than thou art,” even the devoted followers of these leaders advancing in serried mass “thou shalt not be afraid of them.” One as thou art thou shalt have One fighting on thy side, even the Ruler of all, as it says, “for the Lord Thy God is with thee” (Deut. 20:1).",
+ "[63] This companionship brings wars to an end, builds up peace, overthrows the host of evil things to which we grow accustomed, rescues the scanty band of those beloved of God, every loyal adherent of which loathes and hates the battalions of the earth-bound."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[64] For it says: “Whatsoever hath many feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, ye shall not eat, for they are an abomination” (Lev. 11:42). Now, is not a soul deserving of hatred which moves over the ground not on one part of itself but on all or most parts, even licking with a relish the things of the body, and altogether incapable of lifting its eyes to the holy revolutions of heaven?",
+ "[65] And further among creeping things just as that which has many feet is disallowed, so too is that which has no feet, the former for the reason just given, the latter because it lies its full length sprawling upon the earth, lifted out of it by nothing even to the smallest extent: for it says that all that goeth upon the belly is unclean (ibid.), indicating by this figure the man who is in pursuit of the pleasures of the belly.",
+ "[66] But some, exceeding all bounds, in their determination to kindle into activity all the irrational portion of the soul, and to destroy the mind, have not only indulged all that comes under the head of desire, but taken to them also its brother passion, fierce spirit. For that which was said, “Upon thy breast and thy belly shalt thou go” (Gen. 3:14), in the literal sense applies to the serpent, but is really a truly Divine oracle applying to every irrational and passion-loving man; for the breast is the abode of fierce spirit, and desire dwells in the belly.",
+ "[67] The fool’s whole course through every moment of his journey depends on this pair, fierce spirit and desire; since he has got rid of mind, who is the charioteer and monitor. The man of the opposite character has exscinded fierce spirit and desire, and chosen as his patron and controlling guide the Divine Word. Even so Moses, best beloved of God, when offering the whole burnt sacrifices of the soul, will “wash out the belly” (Lev. 8:21), that is, will cleanse away desire in every shape, but “the breast from the ram of consecration he will take away” (Lev. 8:29). This means, we may be sure, the warlike spirit in its completeness; and the object of taking it away is that the better portion of the soul, the rational part, that is left, may exercise its truly free and noble impulses towards all things beautiful, with nothing pulling against it any longer and dragging it in another direction.",
+ "[68] In these circumstances it will improve both in number and greatness: for it is said: “How long shall the people provoke? and how long shall they refuse to trust Me in all the signs which I wrought among them? I will smite them with death and will destroy them, and I will make thee and thy father’s house a nation great and numerous beyond this one” (Num. 14:11 f.). For, in the soul when once the great concourse is broken up, in which fierce spirit and desire prevail, there rises and springs up without fail another concourse, even that which wholly depends on the rational nature.",
+ "[69] Now just as the creature with many feet and that without feet, opposite species in the genus of creeping things, are proclaimed unclean, so also atheism and polytheism, mutually antagonistic doctrines in the soul, are alike profane. Here is the indication of this: the Law has expelled both of these doctrines from the sacred assembly, atheism, by debarring a eunuch from membership of it; polytheism, by likewise forbidding the son of a harlot to be a listener or speaker in it (Deut. 23:1 f.). For the sterile man is godless; and the son of a whore is a polytheist, being in the dark about his real father, and for this reason ascribing his begetting to many, instead of to one."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[70] Two gifts have been already spoken of, which are these, a hope held out of a life of contemplation, and progress towards abundance and “greatness” of things fair and beautiful. A third gift is “blessing” or excellence of reason and speech, and apart from this it is not possible to make the former gracious gifts secure. He says “And I will bless thee,” i.e. “I will endow thee with excellent reason and speech.” “Blessing” or “eulogy” is a word compounded of “well” and “logos.”",
+ "[71] Of these, “well” connotes nothing but excellence: “logos” has two aspects, one resembling a spring, the other its outflow; “logos” in the understanding resembles a spring, and is called “reason,” while utterance by mouth and tongue is like its outflow, and is called “speech.” That each species of logos should be improved is vast wealth, the understanding having good reasoning at its command for all things great and small, and utterance being under the guidance of right training.",
+ "[72] For many reason excellently, but find speech a bad interpreter of thought and are by it betrayed, through not having had a thorough grounding in the ordinary subjects of culture. Others, again, have shewn great ability in expounding themes, and yet been most evil thinkers, such as the so-called sophists; for the understanding of these men is wholly untrained by the Muses, whose united voice is heard in the output of the vocal organs.",
+ "[73] But God bestows on those who obey Him no imperfect boon. All His gifts are full and complete. And so, in this case also, He does not send the blessing or “logos-excellence” in one division of logos, but in both its parts, for He holds it just that the recipient of His bounty should both conceive the noblest conceptions and give masterly expression to his ideas. For perfection depends, as we know, on both divisions of logos, the reason which suggests the ideas with clearness, and the speech which gives unfailing expression to them.",
+ "[74] Do you not notice Abel, whose name stands for one to whom things mortal are a grief and things immortal are full of happiness, how, though he has the advantage of a faultless understanding, yet through lack of training in speaking he is worsted by Cain, a clever wrestler able to prevail by skill rather than strength?",
+ "[75] Wherefore, admiring as I do his character for its rich natural endowment, I find fault with him in so far as, when challenged to a contest of words, he came forward to engage in it, whereas he ought to have maintained his wonted quietude, totally disregarding his quarrelsome brother; and, if he was quite bent on fighting it out, not to have entered the lists until he had had some practice in scientific grips and tricks; for village sages usually get the worst of it when they encounter those who have acquired the cleverness of the town."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[76] That is why Moses, the man of all wisdom, though he excuses himself from investigating well-worded and specious arguments, from the time that God began to flash into him the light of truth by means of the undying words of the very self of Knowledge and Wisdom (Ex. 4:10), yet is led none the less to look into them, not for the sake of gaining acquaintance with a greater number of subjects—for the lover of contemplation finds researches touching God and His most holy powers all-sufficing—but with a view to getting the better of the sophists in Egypt, for whom specious sounding fables are of more value than the clear evidence of realities.",
+ "[77] Yes, whensoever the mind is moving amid matters concerned with the Ruler of all, it needs no extraneous help in its study, inasmuch as for objects of intellectual apprehension unaided mind is an eye of keenest sight: but when it is occupied besides with matters affected by sense-perception or passion or the body, of which the land of Egypt is a symbol, it will need alike the art of speaking and ability in exercising it.",
+ "[78] For the sake of this he was enjoined to call to his aid Aaron, the logos in utterance. “Lo,” saith He, “is not Aaron thy brother?” For the logical nature being the one mother of them both, its offspring are of course brothers. “I know that he will speak” (He continues). For it is the property of understanding to apprehend, and of utterance to speak. “He,” saith He, “will speak for thee.” For the mind, unable to report the thoughts stored up in it, employs speech which stands hard by as an interpreter, for the making known of its experiences.",
+ "[79] Then He adds, “Lo, it is he that shall come out to meet thee”: for it is indeed a fact that speech meeting the mind’s conceptions, and wedding the parts of speech to them, mints them like uncoined gold, and gives the stamp of expression to what was unstamped and unexpressed before. And saith He, “On seeing thee he will rejoice in it” (Ex. 4:14): for speech does exult and is glad, when the conception is not indistinct, because it finds that the wording which issues from its rich store of terms apt and expressive and full of vividness is fluent and unhalting when the thought is luminous."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[80] And similarly when the ideas to be expressed are in any way deficient in clearness, speech is stepping on empty air and is apt to slip and have a bad fall and be unable to get up again. “And thou shalt speak to him and shall put My words into his mouth.” This is equivalent to saying “Thou shalt suggest to him the thoughts,” for “thoughts” are nothing else than God’s “words” or speech.",
+ "[81] For without the prompter speech will give forth no utterance, and mind is the prompter of speech, as God is of mind. “And he shall speak to the people for thee, and he shall be thy mouth, and thou shalt be his Godward things” (Ex. 4:15 f.). Very vivid are his expressions. Not only does he say “he shall speak to them for thee,” as much as to say “he shall put thy thoughts into words”; but he adds “he shall be thy mouth”; for the stream of speech flowing over tongue and mouth carries forth the thoughts with it. But, whereas speech is understanding’s interpreter manward, understanding occupies toward speech the position of its Godward things, namely thoughts and intents, which are in God’s charge solely.",
+ "[82] It is a vital matter, then, for one about to face a contest with sophists to have paid attention to words with such thoroughness as not only to elude the grips of his adversary but to take the offensive in his turn and prove himself superior both in skill and strength.",
+ "[83] You must have observed how the aim of those who use charms and enchantments, when they bring their trickery into play against the Divine word and dare to attempt to do things like those which it does, is not so much to win honour for their own skill as to traduce and ridicule the miracles which are taking place. They transform the rods into real snakes, and turn the water to the colour of blood, and by incantations draw up on to land what frogs are still left (Ex. 7:12, 22, 8:7), and, as they add one thing to another tending to their own destruction, they are cheated, miserable fools, while they think that they are cheating.",
+ "[84] How would it have been possible for Moses to encounter these men, had he not had in readiness speech the interpreter of thought, who is called Aaron? In this place Aaron or speech is spoken of as a “mouth”; further on he will also bear the name of “prophet,” when the mind too is inspired and entitled “God.” For He says “I give thee as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet” (Ex. 7:1). How perfect is the harmony shewn in the sequence of thought! For it is the prophet kind, when under the influence of a Divine possession and ecstasy, that interprets the thoughts of God.",
+ "[85] Accordingly “Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods” (Ex. 7:12), as the oracle shews. For all the arguments of sophists are devoured and done away with by Nature’s many-sided skill, and the acknowledgement is made that these events are the Finger of God (Ex. 8:19), and the word “Finger” is equivalent to a divine rescript, declaring that sophistry is ever defeated by wisdom; for holy writ, speaking of the tables on which the oracles were engraved, says that they were written by the Finger of God (Ex. 32:16). Wherefore the sorcerers can no longer stand before Moses, but fall as in a wrestling-bout vanquished by the sturdy strength of the opponent (Ex. 8:18)."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[86] What, then, is the fourth gift? That of a great name; for He says “I will make thy name great” (Gen. 12:2). The meaning of this appears to me to be as follows. As it is an advantage to be good and morally noble, so is it to be reputed such. And, while the reality is better than the reputation, happiness comes of having both. For very many, after coming to Virtue’s feet with no counterfeit or unreal homage and with their eyes open to her genuine loveliness, through paying no regard to the general opinion have become the objects of hostility, just because they were held to be bad, when they were really good.",
+ "[87] It is true that there is no good in being thought to be this or that, unless you are so long before you are thought to be so. It is naturally so in the case of our bodies. Were all the world to suppose the sickly man to be healthy, or the healthy man to be sickly, the general opinion by itself will produce neither sickness nor health.",
+ "[88] But he on whom God has bestowed both gifts, both to be morally noble and good and to have the reputation of being so, this man is really happy and his name is great in very deed. We should take thought for fair fame as a great matter and one of much advantage to the life which we live in the body. And this fair fame is won as a rule by all who cheerfully take things as they find them and interfere with no established customs, but maintain with care the constitution of their country.",
+ "[89] There are some who, regarding laws in their literal sense in the light of symbols of matters belonging to the intellect, are overpunctilious about the latter, while treating the former with easy-going neglect. Such men I for my part should blame for handling the matter in too easy and off-hand a manner: they ought to have given careful attention to both aims, to a more full and exact investigation of what is not seen and in what is seen to be stewards without reproach.",
+ "[90] As it is, as though they were living alone by themselves in a wilderness, or as though they had become disembodied souls, and knew neither city nor village nor household nor any company of human beings at all, overlooking all that the mass of men regard, they explore reality in its naked absoluteness. These men are taught by the sacred word to have thought for good repute, and to let go nothing that is part of the customs fixed by divinely empowered men greater than those of our time.",
+ "[91] It is quite true that the Seventh Day is meant to teach the power of the Unoriginate and the non-action of created beings. But let us not for this reason abrogate the laws laid down for its observance, and light fires or till the ground or carry loads or institute proceedings in court or act as jurors or demand the restoration of deposits or recover loans, or do all else that we are permitted to do as well on days that are not festival seasons.",
+ "[92] It is true also that the Feast is a symbol of gladness of soul and of thankfulness to God, but we should not for this reason turn our backs on the general gatherings of the year’s seasons. It is true that receiving circumcision does indeed portray the excision of pleasure and all passions, and the putting away of the impious conceit, under which the mind supposed that it was capable of begetting by its own power: but let us not on this account repeal the law laid down for circumcising. Why, we shall be ignoring the sanctity of the Temple and a thousand other things, if we are going to pay heed to nothing except what is shewn us by the inner meaning of things.",
+ "[93] Nay, we should look on all these outward observances as resembling the body, and their inner meanings as resembling the soul. It follows that, exactly as we have to take thought for the body, because it is the abode of the soul, so we must pay heed to the letter of the laws. If we keep and observe these, we shall gain a clearer conception of those things of which these are the symbols; and besides that we shall not incur the censure of the many and the charges they are sure to bring against us.",
+ "[94] Notice that it says that wise Abraham had good things both great and small, and it calls the great ones “property,” that is, realities, which went by entail to his legitimate son alone. The small ones it calls “gifts,” and to receive these the base-born sons of the concubines are deemed worthy (Gen. 25:5, 6). The former correspond to natural, the latter to positive laws."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[95] I admire also all-virtuous Leah, because when Asher was born, symbol of counterfeit wealth the outward and visible, she cries “Happy am I, for the women will call me happy” (Gen. 30:13). She aims at being favourably regarded, thinking praise due to her not only from thoughts masculine and truly manly, by which the nature that has no blemish and truth impervious to bribes is held in honour, but also from those which are more feminine, which are wholly at the mercy of appearances and powerless to understand anything presented to contemplation outside them.",
+ "[96] It is characteristic of a perfect soul to aspire both to be and to be thought to be, and to take pains not only to have a good reputation in the men’s quarters, but to receive the praises of the women’s as well.",
+ "[97] It was for this reason that Moses gave in charge not to men only but to women also to provide the sacred appointments of the Tabernacle: for it is the women who do all the weavings of blue and scarlet and linen and goat’s hair (Ex. 35:22 f.), and they contribute without hesitation their own jewellery, “seals, ear-rings, rings, bracelets, hair-clasps,” all that was made of gold, exchanging the adornment of their persons for the adornment of piety.",
+ "[98] Nay, in their abounding enthusiasm, they dedicate their mirrors for the making of the laver (Ex. 38:26), to the end that those who are about to perform sacred rites, as they are washing hands and feet, that is, the purposes which they take in hand and which form the base and support of the mind, may be helped to see themselves reflected by recollecting the mirrors out of which the laver was fashioned: for if they do this they will not overlook any ugly thing shewing itself in the appearance of the soul, and being thus purified will dedicate the most sacred and perfect of offerings, the offering of fasting and perseverance.",
+ "[99] These, in whose eyes Leah, that is virtue, desires to be honoured are citizen women and worthy of their citizenship; but there are others without citizenship who kindle a fire to add to the misery of the wretched mind; for we read that “women further kindled in addition a fire against Moab” (Num. 21:30).",
+ "[100] Is it not the case, that each one of the fool’s senses, kindled by the objects of sense, sets the mind on fire, pouring upon it a great and impassable flame, in violent and resistless current? It is best, then, that the array of women, that is of the senses, in the soul, should be propitiated, as well as that of the men, that is of our several thoughts: for in this way shall we feel the journey of life better than it else would be."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[101] Admirable therefore also is the prayer of Isaac the self-taught for the lover of wisdom that he may receive the good things both of mind and of sense: “May God give thee,” he says, “of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth” (Gen. 27:28), which is equivalent to saying in the first place “May He pour down on thee perpetually the heavenly rain apprehended by mind alone, not violently so as to deluge thee, but in gentle stillness like dew so as to do thee good”; and secondly “May He grant thee the earthly, the outward and visible wealth; may that wealth abound in marrow and fatness and may its opposite, the poverty of the soul and its parts, be withered and dried up by His grace.”",
+ "[102] If again you examine the High Priest the Logos, you will find him to be in agreement with this, and his holy vesture to have a variegated beauty derived from powers belonging some to the realm of pure intellect, some to that of sense-perception. The other parts of that vesture call for a longer treatment than the present occasion allows, and must be deferred. Let us however examine the parts by the extremities, head and feet.",
+ "[103] On the head, then, there is “a plate of pure gold, bearing as an engraving of a signet, ‘a holy thing to the Lord’ ” (Ex. 28:32); and at the feet on the end of the skirt, bells and flower patterns (Ex. 28:29 f.). The signet spoken of is the original principle behind all principles, after which God shaped or formed the universe, incorporeal, we know, and discerned by the intellect alone; whereas the flower patterns and bells are symbols of qualities recognized by the senses and tested by sight and hearing.",
+ "[104] And he has well weighed his words when he adds: “His sound shall be audible when he is about to enter into the Holy Place” (Ex. 28:31), to the end that when the soul is about to enter the truly holy place, the divine place which only mind can apprehend, the senses also may be aided to join in the hymn with their best, and that our whole composite being, like a full choir all in tune, may chant together one harmonious strain rising from varied voices blending one with another; the thoughts of the mind inspiring the keynotes—for the leaders of this choir are the truths perceived by mind alone—while the objects of sense-perception, which resemble the individual members of the choir, chime in with their accordant tuneful notes.",
+ "[105] For, to say all in a word, we must not, as the Law tells us, take away from the soul these three things, “the necessaries, the clothing, the fellowship” (Ex. 21:10), but afford each of them steadily. Now, the “necessaries” are the good things of the mind, which are necessary, being demanded by the law of nature; the “clothing,” all that belongs to the phenomenal world of human life; and the “fellowship,” persistent study directed to each of these kinds, that so in the world of sense we may come to find the likeness of the invisible world of mind."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[106] To proceed then; the fifth gift is that which consists in simple being only, and it is mentioned after those which precede it not as being of less value than they, but as outtopping and over-passing them all. For what could be more perfect than to be by nature good and free from all feigning and pretence, and worthy of blessing?",
+ "[107] For he says “Thou shalt be one to be blessed” (Gen. 12:2), not only “one who has been blessed,” for the latter is reckoned by the standard of the opinions and report of the many; but the former by that of Him Who is in reality “blessed.”",
+ "[108] For as being praiseworthy differs for the better from being praised, and being blameworthy for the worse from being blamed, the one pair expressing an inherent character, and the other nothing more than men’s opinion of us; and nature that cannot lie is a more sure foundation than opinion; so being blessed by men, which we have found to be an introduction into blessing by the avenue of repute, is inferior to natural worthiness of blessing, even though that finds no expression on human lips; and it is this which is celebrated in the sacred oracles as “blessed.”"
+ ],
+ [
+ "[109] These are the prizes which He bestows upon him who is to become wise. Let us see next those which He accords to others too for the wise man’s sake. “I will bless,” He says, “those that bless thee, and those that curse thee I will curse” (Gen. 12:3).",
+ "[110] That these promises as well as the others are made to shew honour to the righteous man is clear to everybody, but they are set forth not on that account only, but because they so admirably fit in with and follow the truth of facts, for encomiums are due to him who praises the good man and blame again to him who blames him. Praise and blame are not accredited so much by the ability of speakers and authors, as by the truth of facts; so that we do not feel that either term is applicable to the words of those who give falsehood any place in either.",
+ "[111] Do you not see the toadies who by day and night batter to pieces and wear out the ears of those on whom they fawn, not content with just assenting to everything they say, but spinning out long speeches and declaiming and many a time uttering prayers with their voice, but never ceasing to curse with their heart? What then would a man of good sense say?",
+ "[112] Would he not say that those who talk in this way talk as though they were enemies rather than friends, and blame rather than praise, even though they compose and recite whole oratorios of panegyric to charm them?",
+ "[113] Accordingly, that empty one, Balaam, though he sang loftiest hymns to God, among which is that most Divine of canticles “God is not as man” (Num. 23:19), and poured out a thousand eulogies on him whose eyes were open, even Israel, has been adjudged impious and accursed even by the wise lawgiver, and held to be an utterer not of blessings but of curses.",
+ "[114] For Moses says that as the hired confederate of Israel’s enemies he became an evil prophet of evil things, nursing in his soul direst curses on the race beloved of God, but forced with mouth and tongue to give prophetic utterance to most amazing benedictory prayers: for the words that were spoken were noble words, whose utterance was prompted by God the Lover of Virtue, but the intentions, in all their vileness, were the offspring of a mind that looked on virtue with loathing.",
+ "[115] Evidence of this is afforded by the oracles relating to the matter; for it says “God did not give Balaam leave to curse thee, but turned his curses into blessing” (Deut. 23:5), though indeed every word he uttered was charged with fulness of benediction. But He Who looks upon what is stored up in the soul, saw, with the Eye that alone has power to discern them, the things that are out of sight of created beings, and on the ground of these passed the sentence of condemnation, being at once an absolutely true Witness, and an incorruptible Judge.",
+ "For on the same principle praise is due to the converse of this, namely, when one seems to revile and accuse with the voice, and is in intent conveying blessing and benediction.",
+ "[116] This is obviously the custom of proctors, of home tutors, schoolmasters, parents, seniors, magistrates, laws: all of these, by reproaches, and sometimes by punishments, effect improvement in the souls of those whom they are educating. And not one of them is an enemy to a single person, but all are friends of them all: and the business of friends inspired by genuine and unfeigned goodwill is to use plain language without any spite whatever.",
+ "[117] Let no treatment, then, that is marked by prayers and blessings on the one hand, or by abusing and cursing on the other hand, be referred to the way it finds vent in speech, but rather to the intention; for from this, as from a spring, is supplied the means of testing each kind of spoken words."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[118] This is Moses’ first lesson; he tells us what befalls others for the virtuous man’s sake, whenever they consent to visit him with blame or praise, with prayers or imprecations: but greatest of all is that which follows; he tells us that, when these hold their peace, no portion of rational existence is left without its share of benefit bestowed: for He says that “In thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).",
+ "[119] This is a pregnant and significant announcement; for it implies that, if the mind continues free from harm and sickness, it has all its tribes and powers in a healthy condition, those whose province is sight and hearing and all others concerned with sense-perception, and those again that have to do with pleasures and desires, and all that are undergoing transformation from the lower to the higher emotions.",
+ "[120] Further there have been instances of a household or a city or a country or nations and regions of the earth enjoying great prosperity through a single man giving his mind to nobility of character. Most of all has this been so in the case of one on whom God has bestowed, together with a good purpose, irresistible power, just as He gives to the musician and every artist the instruments which his music or his art requires, or as He gives to fire logs as its material.",
+ "[121] For in truth the righteous man is the foundation on which mankind rests. All that he himself has he brings into the common stock and gives in abundance for the benefit of all who shall use them. What he does not find in his own store, he asks for at the hands of God, the only possessor of unlimited riches; and He opens his heavenly treasury and sends His good things, as He does the snow and the rain, in ceaseless downpour, so that the channels and cavities of earth’s whole face overflow.",
+ "[122] And it is His wont to bestow these gifts in answer to the word of supplication, from which He does not turn His ear away; for it is said in another place, when Moses had made a petition, “I am gracious to them in accordance with thy word” (Num. 14:20); and this is evidently equivalent to “In thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.”",
+ "And it is by reason of this that Abraham, the wise, when he had made trial of God’s unvarying loving-kindness, believed that, even if all else be done away, but some small relic of virtue be preserved as a live coal to kindle with, for the sake of this little piece He looks with pity on the rest also, so as to raise up fallen things and to quicken dead things (Gen. 18:24 ff.).",
+ "[123] For a smouldering spark, even the very smallest, when it is blown up and made to blaze, lights a great pile; and so the least particle of virtue, when, warmed into life by bright hopes, it has shone out, gives sight to eyes that erst were closed and blind, and causes withered things to bloom again, and recovers to prolific fertility all that were barren by nature and therefore without offspring. Even so scanty goodness by God’s favour expands and becomes abundant, assimilating all else to itself."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[124] Let us pray then that, like a central pillar in a house, there may constantly remain for the healing of our maladies the righteous mind in the soul and in the human race the righteous man; for while he is sound and well, there is no cause to despair of the prospect of complete salvation, for our Saviour God holds out, we may be sure, the most all-healing remedy, His gracious Power, and commits it to His suppliant and worshipper to use for the deliverance of those who are sickly, that he may apply it as an embrocation to those soul-wounds which were left gaping by the sword-edge of follies and injustices and all the rest of the horde of vices.",
+ "[125] The most patent example is righteous Noah, who, when so many parts of the soul had been swallowed up by the great Flood, valiantly riding upon the waves that buoyed him up, stood firm high above every peril, and, when he had come safe through all, put forth from himself fair roots and great, out of which there grew up like a plant wisdom’s breed and kind; which, attaining goodly fertility, bore those threefold fruits of the seeing one, even of “Israel,” that mark the threefold divisions of eternity, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob;",
+ "[126]for in the All virtue is, shall be, has been: covered with a dark shadow, it may be, by men’s missings of the due season but revealed again by due season that ever follows in God’s steps. In such due season does “Sarah” who is sound sense, give birth to a man-child, putting forth her fruit not according to the changes of the year measured by lapse of time, but in accordance with a fitness and fulness of season that time does not determine: for it is said “I will certainly return unto thee according to this season when the time comes round; and Sarah thy wife shall have a son” (Gen. 18:10)."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[127] We have now dealt with the subject of the gifts which God is wont to bestow both on those who are to become wise and for their sake on others. We are told next that “Abraham journeyed even as the Lord spoke to him” (Gen. 12:4).",
+ "[128] This is the aim extolled by the best philosophers, to live agreeably to nature; and it is attained whenever the mind, having entered on virtue’s path, walks in the track of right reason and follows God, mindful of His injunctions, and always and in all places recognizing them all as valid both in action and in speech.",
+ "[129] For “he journeyed just as the Lord spake to him”: the meaning of this is that as God speaks—and He speaks with consummate beauty and excellence—so the good man does everything, blamelessly keeping straight the path of life, so that the actions of the wise man are nothing else than the words of God.",
+ "[130] So in another place He says, “Abraham did ‘all My law’ ” (Gen. 26:5): “Law” being evidently nothing else than the Divine word enjoining what we ought to do and forbidding what we should not do, as Moses testifies by saying “he received a law from His words” (Deut. 33:3 f.). If, then, the law is a Divine word, and the man of true worth “does” the law, he assuredly “does” the word: so that, as I said, God’s words are the wise man’s “doings.”",
+ "[131] To follow God is, then, according to Moses, that most holy man, our aim and object, as he says elsewhere too, “thou shalt go in the steps of the Lord thy God” (Deut. 13:4). He is not speaking of movement by the use of our legs, for, while earth carries man, I do not know whether even the whole universe carries God; but is evidently employing figurative language to bring out how the soul should comply with those Divine ordinances, the guiding principle of which is the honouring of Him to Whom all things owe their being."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[132] Using still loftier language to express the irrepressible craving for moral excellence, he calls on them to cleave to Him. His words are: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and Him shalt thou serve, and to Him shalt thou cleave” (Deut. 10:20). What then is the cementing substance? Do you ask, what? Piety, surely, and faith: for these virtues adjust and unite the intent of the heart to the incorruptible Being: as Abraham when he believed is said to “come near to God” (Gen. 18:23).",
+ "[133] If, however, as he goes on his way, he neither becomes weary, so that he gives in and collapses, nor grows remiss, so that he turns aside, now in this direction, now in that, and goes astray missing the central road that never diverges; but, taking the good runners as his example, finishes the race of life without stumbling, when he has reached the end he shall obtain crowns and prizes as a fitting guerdon.",
+ "[134] Are not the crowns and prizes just this, not to have missed the end of his labours, but to have obtained those final aims of good sense that are so hard of attainment?",
+ "What, then, is the end of right-mindedness? To pronounce on himself and all created being the verdict of folly; for the final aim of knowledge is to hold that we know nothing, He alone being wise, who is also alone God.",
+ "[135] Accordingly Moses does right well in representing Him as both the Father of the universe and Overseer of the things created, where he says: “God saw all things which He had made, and lo! they were fair exceedingly” (Gen. 1:31): for it was not possible for anyone perfectly to see the things which had been formed save their Maker.",
+ "[136] Come forward now, you who are laden with vanity and gross stupidity and vast pretence, you that are wise in your own conceit and not only declare (in every case) that you perfectly know what each object is, but go so far as to venture in your audacity to add the reasons for its being what it is, as though you had either been standing by at the creation of the world, and had observed how and out of what materials its several parts were fashioned, or had acted as advisers to the Creator regarding the things He was forming—come,",
+ "[137] I say, and then, letting go all other things whatever, take knowledge of yourselves, and say clearly who you are, in body, in soul, in sense-perception, in reason and speech, in each single one, even the most minute, of the subdivisions of your being. Declare what sight is and how you see, what hearing is and how you hear, what taste, touch, smelling are, and how you act in accordance with each of them, or what are the springs and sources of these, from which is derived their very being.",
+ "[138] For pray do not, O ye senseless ones, spin your airy fables about moon or sun or the other objects in the sky and in the universe so far removed from us and so varied in their natures, until you have scrutinized and come to know yourselves. After that, we may perhaps believe you when you hold forth on other subjects: but before you establish who you yourselves are, do not think that you will ever become capable of acting as judges or trustworthy witnesses in the other matters."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[139] This being the case, the Mind, when he has reached the summit, will render the sum of his tribute to God the consummator, in accordance with the all-holy writ, for there is a law that the sum is the Lord’s (Num. 31:28 ff.). When, then, does he render it? When he has arrived “on the third day at the place which God had told him of” (Gen. 22:3), having passed the greater number of the divisions of time, and already quitting them for the existence that is timeless:",
+ "[140] for then too he will sacrifice his only son, no human being (for the wise man is not a slayer of his offspring), but the male progeny of the rich and fertile soul, the fruit that blossomed upon it. How the soul bore it she does not know: it is a Divine growth; and when it appeared she that seemed to have given birth to it acknowledges her ignorance of the good thing that had occurred in the words “who shall announce to Abraham” (for she assumed that he did not believe in the rising up of the breed that learns without a teacher), “who shall tell Abraham that Sarah is suckling a child” (Gen. 21:7)? It does not say “a child is being suckled by Sarah,” for the kind that is taught without a teacher is nourished by no one, but is a source of nourishment to others, being capable of teaching and not needing to learn.",
+ "[141] “For I bare a son,” she continues, not as Egyptian women do in their bodily prime (Ex. 1:19), but as the Hebrew souls do, “in my old age” (Gen. 21:7), at a time, that is, when all things that are mortal and objects of sense-perception have decayed, while things immortal and intellectually discerned have grown young again, meet recipients of honour and esteem.",
+ "[142] Furthermore, “I gave birth” without requiring extraneous aid from the midwife’s skill: for we give birth even before there come in to us any imaginations of man’s knowledge, without the co-operation that custom supplies, for God begets and sows the seed of those goodly births, which, as is meet and right, are rendered to Him Who gave them, in fulfilment of the law laid down for thanksgiving: “My gifts, My endowments, My fruits” He says, “be careful to offer unto Me” (Num. 28:2)."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[143] This is the end of the way of those who follow the words and injunctions of the law, and march in whatever direction God leads the way: but the man who gives in under the assaults of the foe, who hungers after pleasure and is lickerish for passion, whose name is “Amalek,” which means “a people licking up”—this man shall find himself cut off.",
+ "[144] The oracles signify that the Amalek type of character lies in ambush, when it is aware that the more stalwart portion of the soul-army has gone by, rises up from its ambuscade and “smites or ‘cuts’ the hindmost” (Deut. 25:17 f.) or the labouring rear.",
+ "“Labouring” may be used of a readiness to give in, a feebleness of reason’s functioning, an inability to bear the burdens needed to win virtue. This is a condition which, when found lagging at the extreme rear, falls an easy prey. Or the word may connote brave endurance in a noble cause, a sturdy readiness to undertake all noble tasks together, a refusal to support the weight of any base thing, though it be the very lightest, nay a rejection of it as though it were the heaviest burden.",
+ "[145] Hence it comes that the Law gave Virtue the appropriate name “Leah,” which when translated is “growing weary”; for Virtue has, as she well may do, made up her mind that the way of life of the wicked, so essentially burdensome and heavy, is full of weariness, and she refuses so much as to look at it, turning her gaze away from it and fixing it on the morally beautiful alone.",
+ "[146] But let the mind be bent not only on following God with alert and unfailing steps, but also on keeping the straight course. Let it not incline to either side, either to what is on the right hand or to what is on the left, where Edom, of the earth earthy, has his lurking holes, and thus be the victim now of excesses and extravagances, now of shortcomings and deficiencies. For better is it to walk on the central road, the road that is truly “the king’s” (Num. 20:17), seeing that God, the great and only King, laid it out a broad and goodly way for virtue-loving souls to keep to.",
+ "[147] Hence it is that some of those who followed the mild and social form of philosophy, have said that the virtues are means, fixing them in a borderland, feeling that the overweening boastfulness of a braggart is bad, and that to adopt a humble and obscure position is to expose yourself to attack and oppression, whereas a fair and reasonable mixture of the two is beneficial."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[148] We have to consider what is meant by “Lot went with him” (Gen. 12:4). “Lot” by interpretation is “turning aside” or “inclining away.” The mind “inclines,” sometimes turning away from what is good, sometimes from what is bad. Oftentimes both tendencies are observable in one and the same person: for some men are irresolute, facers both ways, inclining to either side like a boat tossed by winds from opposite quarters, or swaying up and down as though on a pair of scales, incapable of becoming firmly settled on one: with such there is nothing praiseworthy even in their taking a turn to the better course; for it is the result not of judgement but of drift.",
+ "[149] Of this crew Lot is a member, who is said to have left his home with the lover of wisdom. When he had set out to follow his steps, it would have been well for him to unlearn lack of learning and to have retraced his steps to it no more. The fact is, however, that he comes with him, not that he may imitate the man who is better than he and so gain improvement, but actually to create obstacles which pull him back, and drag him elsewhere and make him slip in this direction or that.",
+ "[150] Here is a proof of it. We shall find Lot having a relapse, suffering from the old complaint, carried off a prisoner of war by the enemies in the soul; and Abraham, resorting to every device to guard against his ambuscades and attacks, setting up separate quarters.",
+ "This separation he will effect later on, but not as yet. For at present he is but a novice in the contemplation and study of things Divine and his principles are unformed and wavering. By and by they will have gained consistency and rest on a firmer foundation, and he will be able to dissociate from himself the ensnaring and flattering element as an irreconcilable and elusive foe.",
+ "[151] For it is this from which the soul can so hardly disengage itself as it clings to it and hinders it from making swift progress in reaching virtue. This it was, when we were abandoning Egypt, all the bodily region, and were hastening to unlearn the passions in obedience to the instructions of the word of prophecy, even Moses,—it was this, I say, that followed us, checking our zeal to be gone, and moved by envy to retard the speed of our departure:",
+ "[152] for we read “and a mixed multitude went up with them, both sheep and oxen and beasts very many” (Ex. 12:38), and this mixed multitude was, in fact, the soul’s herd of beast-like doctrines."
+ ],
+ [
+ "And very well and appropriately does he call the soul of the bad man “mixed”: for it is brought together and collected and a medley in very deed, consisting of many discordant opinions, one in number but myriad in its manifoldness.",
+ "[153] For this reason it is called a “multitude” or “numerous” as well as “mixed”; for he that has an eye to a single aim only is single and unmixed and truly smooth and level, but he that sets before himself many aims for his life is manifold and mixed and truly rough. It is for this reason that the oracles represent Jacob, the trainer of himself for nobility, as smooth, but Esau, who exercised himself in basest things, as rough with hair (Gen. 27:11).",
+ "[154] What befell the Mind, when it escaped from Egypt the country of the body, was due to this mixed and rough multitude, a conglomeration of promiscuous and diverse opinions. It could have made rapid progress and in three days (Gen. 22:3) have entered upon the inheritance of virtue by a threefold light, memory of things gone by, clear sight of things present, and the expectation of things to come. Instead of this, for the space of forty years, for all that length of time, it wears itself out wandering and going round circle-wise, in obedience to the “manifold” element with its many twistings, when it behoved it to have taken the straight way which was the speediest.",
+ "[155] It is this mixed multitude which takes delight not in a few species of lusting only, but claims to leave out nothing at all, that it may follow after lust’s entire genus, including all its species. For we read “the mixed people that was among them ‘craved after lust,’ after the genus itself, not some single species, ‘and sat down and wept’ ” (Num. 11:4).",
+ "For the understanding is conscious of its feebleness, and when it cannot obtain what it is longing for, it weeps and groans; and yet it had cause to rejoice at missing passions and sicknesses, and to consider the dearth and absence of them great prosperity.",
+ "[156] And yet indeed it is not unusual for the devotees of virtue themselves to be much moved and to shed tears, either when bemoaning the misfortunes of the unwise owing to their innate fellow-feeling and humaneness, or by reason of being overjoyed. This last occurs when, as is sometimes the case, a sudden shower of unexpected good things falls, and they come all at once like a flood. I fancy that it is to this that we must refer the expression of the poet,",
+ "She laughed with glad tears in her eyes.",
+ "[157] For joy, that best of the good emotions, when it has fallen upon the soul unexpectedly, makes it larger than it was before, so that owing to its size the body has no longer room for it, and as it is squeezed and compressed it distils moist drops, which we are in the habit of calling “tears.” Of these it is said in the Psalms, “Thou shalt feed us with the bread of tears” (Ps. 79 [80] 6), and “My tears have been my bread by day and by night” (Ps. 41 [42] 4). For tears, that rise to the surface from the inward heart-felt laughter, are food to the understanding, coming when the love of God has sunk deep in and turned the dirge of created being into a canticle of praise to the Uncreate."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[158] While some regard this rough and motley type as outcast, and keep it at a distance from themselves, having delight in the God-beloved kind only, others actually form ties of fellowship with it, holding that their own place in human life should be midway, set as a borderland between virtues human and Divine, and thus they aim at being in touch with both the real and the reputed virtues.",
+ "[159] To this school belongs the politician’s frame of mind, to which it is customary to give the name “Joseph.” When he is about to bury his father there go off with him “all the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of his house and all the elders of Egypt and all his whole household, Joseph and his brethren and all his father’s house” (Gen. 50:7 f.).",
+ "[160] Do you notice that this politician takes his position in the midst between the house of Pharaoh and his father’s house? that his object is to be equally in touch with the concerns of the body, which is Egypt, and those of the soul which are kept as in a treasury in his father’s house? For when he says “I belong to God” (Gen. 50:19) and other things of this kind, he is abiding by the customs of his father’s house. But when he mounts “the second chariot” of the mind that fancies itself a king, even Pharaoh (Gen. 41:43), he again sets up the idol of Egyptian vanity.",
+ "[161] Though indeed more wretched than he is the king who is thought to be more glorious, who rides in the principal chariot: for to win distinction in things that are without moral beauty is a most patent disgrace, just as to carry off the second prize in such things is a less weighty evil.",
+ "[162] Of his proneness to face both ways you may get an idea from the oaths which he is represented as taking, at one moment swearing “yea by the health of Pharaoh” (Gen. 42:16) and then on the contrary, “no, by the health of Pharaoh” (Gen. 42:15). The oath containing the negative is one that his father’s house would prescribe, being always a mortal foe to passion and wishing it dead; the other oath is one that Egypt might prescribe, for passion’s welfare is dear to it.",
+ "[163] It is for all these reasons that, though so great a number went up with Joseph, Moses does not call them a mixed multitude; for whereas in the view of the man whose vision is quite perfect and who is a lover of virtue, all that is not virtue and virtue’s doing seems to be mixed up and to be in confusion, in the eyes of the man who still cherishes low aims earth’s prizes are deemed to be in themselves worthy of love and worthy of honour."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[164] The lover of sound sense will, therefore, as I said, set a barrier between him and the man who, like a drone, has set himself to make havoc of the useful labours of the bees, and who follows for the sake of doing this, while those who in their enthusiasm for all that is morally excellent accompany them on their journey from a wish to copy them, he will welcome and allot to them such portions as are suitable: for Abraham says “of the men that journeyed with me Eshcol and Aunan, these shall receive Mamre as their portion” (Gen. 14:24); meaning characters well endowed by nature and lovers of the higher vision.",
+ "[165] For Eshcol is a symbol of good natural ability, his name meaning “fire,” for natural ability like fire is full of daring, and hot, and fastens on whatever it touches. Aunan represents the vision-lover, for it means “eyes,” since the eyes of the soul also are opened by cheerfulness. And of both of these the contemplative life is the inheritance receiving the name of Mamre, which in our language is “from seeing”; and there is an intimate connexion between seeing and contemplation.",
+ "[166] When the mind, having such trainers as these, omits nothing that will make for its training, it runs by the side of perfect sound sense, neither getting in front nor dropping behind, but taking strides of the same length and strength. This is manifest from the plain statement of the oracle that they “both journeyed and came together to the place of which God had told him” (Gen. 22:8).",
+ "[167] There is indeed an extraordinary equality in virtues, when labour has vied with natural fitness, and acquired skill with self-tutored nature, and the pair have proved capable of carrying off virtue’s prizes in equal measure. It is just as though painting and sculpture were producing not only as they do now creations destitute of movement and life, but had the power to make the works of brush and chisel living and moving things; it would then be felt, that whereas they were formerly arts copying Nature’s works, they had now become themselves embodiments of nature."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[168] One that has been exalted so high above the earth will no longer suffer any parts of his soul to have their converse down below among things mortal, but will draw them all up with him, just like bodies hanging on a rope. So a divine intimation was given to the wise man to this effect: “Come up to thy Lord, thou and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Senate of Israel” (Ex. 24:1).",
+ "[169] This means: “Come up, O soul, to behold the Existent One, come with thy being in harmony, that is, with thy speech and reason active, come willingly, fearlessly, affectionately, come in the holy and perfect measures of seven multiplied tenfold.” For “Aaron” is called in the Laws Moses’ prophet (Ex. 7:1), speech acting as prophet to understanding, and “Nadab,” meaning voluntary, is he that under no constraint does honour to the Deity, while “Abihu” means “my father,” and represents the man who stands in need of God to govern him, not as a master owing to his folly, but much rather as a father owing to his good sense.",
+ "[170] These are the powers that form the bodyguard of the mind that is worthy of sovereignty, and it is meet that they should accompany the King as His escort.",
+ "But the soul has reason to fear ascending in its own strength to the sight of Him that IS, ignorant as it is of the way, lifted up as it is at once by ignorance and by daring, and grievous are the falls that have been occasioned by lack of knowledge and excess of boldness;",
+ "[171] and therefore Moses prays that he may have God Himself, to guide him to the way that leads to Him; for he says: “If Thou Thyself goest not with me on my journey, lead me not up hence” (Ex. 33:15): for loss is entailed by all movement that is not under Divine direction, and it is better to stay where we are, roaming, with the bulk of mankind, through this mortal life, rather than to lift ourselves heavenward and incur shipwreck as imposters. This has been the fate of multitudes of sophists, through their imagining that wisdom consists in finding specious arguments, and not in appealing to the solid evidence of facts.",
+ "[172] But perhaps the force of the prayer may be such as this: “Raise me not up on high, endowing me with wealth or fame or honours or offices, or aught else that is called good fortune, unless Thou Thyself art about to come with me.” For these things often bring upon those who have them very great losses as well as very great advantages, advantages, when the judgement is under God’s guidance; hurts, when this is not so: for to thousands the things I have named, not being really good things, have become the cause of incurable evils.",
+ "[173] Now he that follows God has of necessity as his fellow-travellers the words and thoughts that attend Him, angels as they are often called. What we read is that “Abraham travelled with them, joining with them in escorting them on their way” (Gen. 18:16). What a glorious privilege to be put on a level with them! The escort is escorted; he gives what he was receiving; not one thing in return for another, but just one thing only that lies ready to be passed backwards and forwards from one to the other.",
+ "[174] For as long as he falls short of perfection, he has the Divine Word as his leader: since there is an oracle which says, “Lo, I send My messenger before thy face, to guard thee in thy way, that he may bring thee in into the land which I have prepared for thee: give heed to him, and hearken to him, disobey him not; for he will by no means withdraw from thee; for My name is on him” (Ex. 23:20 f.).",
+ "[175] But when he has arrived at full knowledge, he will run with more vigorous effort, and his pace will be as great as that of him who before led the way; for so they will both become attendants on the All-leading God, and no holder of strange doctrines will follow after them any more. Nay, even Lot has been severed from their company, for he bent aside his soul which had the capacity to grow up straight and unswerving."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[176] “And Abraham was,” he says “seventy and five years old when he went out from Haran” (Gen. 12:4). On the number of the five and seventy years, whose import agrees with what has just been said, we will dwell in detail at a later time. Let us first examine the significance of Haran and of the removal from this country.",
+ "[177] No one versed in the Laws is likely to be unaware that at an earlier date Abraham migrated from Chaldea and dwelt in Haran, and that after his father’s death there, he removes from that country also, so that he has at this point already quitted two places.",
+ "[178] What remark does this call for? The Chaldeans have the reputation of having, in a degree quite beyond that of other peoples, elaborated astronomy and the casting of nativities. They have set up a harmony between things on earth and things on high, between heavenly things and earthly. Following as it were the laws of musical proportion, they have exhibited the universe as a perfect concord or symphony produced by a sympathetic affinity between its parts, separated indeed in space, but housemates in kinship.",
+ "[179] These men imagined that this visible universe was the only thing in existence, either being itself God or containing God in itself as the soul of the whole. And they made Fate and Necessity divine, thus filling human life with much impiety, by teaching that apart from phenomena there is no originating cause of anything whatever, but that the circuits of sun and moon and of the other heavenly bodies determine for every being in existence both good things and their opposites.",
+ "[180] Moses, however, while he seems to confirm the sympathetic affinity of its parts displayed throughout the universe, is at variance with their opinion concerning God. He endorses the former doctrine by declaring the universe to be one and to have been made; for if it came into being and is one, it stands to reason that all its completed several parts have the same elementary substances for their substratum, on the principle that interdependence of the parts is a characteristic of bodies which constitute a unity.",
+ "[181] He differs from their opinion about God, holding that neither the universe nor its soul is the primal God, and that the constellations or their revolutions are not the primary causes of the things that happen to men. Nay, he teaches that the complete whole around us is held together by invisible powers, which the Creator has made to reach from the ends of the earth to heaven’s furthest bounds, taking forethought that what was well bound should not be loosened: for the powers of the Universe are chains that cannot be broken.",
+ "[182] Wherefore, even though it be said somewhere in the Law-book “God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Deut. 4:39), let no one suppose that He that IS is spoken of, since the existent Being can contain, but cannot be contained. What is meant is that potency of His by which He established and ordered and marshalled the whole realm of being.",
+ "[183] This potency is nothing else than loving-kindness; it has driven away from itself envy with its hatred of virtue and of moral beauty; it is the mother of gracious deeds by which, bringing into created existence things that were not, it displayed them to view; for that which IS, though in opinion it be imagined everywhere, in reality shews itself nowhere, so that that is a most true oracle in which the words “Here am I” which describe Him—Him that cannot be pointed out, as though He were being pointed out, Him that is invisible, as though He were visible—are followed by the words, “before that thou wert made” (Ex. 17:6): for He is before all creation; His goings are outside it; nor is He present in any of the things that come after Him."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[184] All this is said to refute the Chaldean opinion, but side by side with this Moses deems it his duty to change the way of thinking of those whose judgement still inclines to Chaldeanism, and to recall them to the truth, and he begins his lesson in this way: “How strange it is, my friends, that you have been suddenly lifted to such a height above the earth and are floating there, and, leaving the lower air beneath you, are treading the ether above, thinking to master every detail respecting the movements of the sun, and of the circuits of the moon, and of the glorious rhythmical dances of the other constellations. These are too high to be reached by your powers of thought, for a lot is theirs happy and divine beyond the common.",
+ "[185] Come down therefore from heaven, and, when you have come down, do not begin in turn to pass in review earth and sea and rivers, and plants and animals in their various kinds; but explore yourselves only and your own nature, and make your abode with yourselves and not elsewhere: for by observing the conditions prevailing in your own individual household, the element that is master in it, and that which is in subjection, the living and the lifeless element, the rational and the irrational, the immortal and the mortal, the better and the worse, you will gain forthwith a sure knowledge of God and of His works.",
+ "[186] Your reason will shew you that, as there is mind in you, so is there in the universe, and that as your mind has taken upon itself sovereign control of all that is in you, and brought every part into subjection to itself, so too He, that is endued with lordship over all, guides and controls the universe by the law and right of an absolute sway, taking forethought not only for those which are of greater, but for those which are of less importance in our eyes."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[187] Quit, then, your meddling with heavenly concerns, and take up your abode, as I have said, in yourselves; leave behind you opinion, the country of the Chaldeans, and migrate to Haran, the place of sense-perception, which is understanding’s bodily tenement.",
+ "[188] For the translation of Haran is 188 “hole,” and holes are figures of openings used by sense-perception: for eyes are, in a way, openings and lairs used by sight, ears by hearing, nostrils to receive scents, the throat for tasting, and the whole structure of the body for touch.",
+ "[189] Gain, therefore, by a further sojourn, a peaceful and unhurried familiarity with these, and to the utmost of your power get an exact knowledge of the nature of each, and, when you have thoroughly learned what is good and bad in each, shun the one, and choose the other.",
+ "And when you have surveyed all your individual dwelling with absolute exactitude, and have acquired an insight into the true nature of each of its parts, bestir yourselves and seek for your departure hence, for it is a call not to death but to immortality.",
+ "[190] You will be able to descry sure indications of this, even while held fast in the dens and caves of the body and of the objects of sense. In deep sleep the mind quits its place, and, withdrawing from the perceptions and all other bodily faculties, begins to hold converse with itself, fixing its gaze on truth as on a mirror, and, having purged away as defilements all the impressions made upon it by the mental pictures presented by the senses, it is filled with Divine frenzy and discerns in dreams absolutely true prophecies concerning things to come. Thus is it at times. Or again it may be in waking hours.",
+ "[191] For when the mind, possessed by some philosophic principle, is drawn by it, it follows this, and needs must be oblivious of other things, of all the concerns of the cumbersome body. And if the senses are a hindrance to the exact sight of the spiritual object, those who find happiness in beholding are at pains to crush their attack; they shut their eyes, and stop up their ears, and check the impulses bred by their other senses, and deem it well to spend their days in solitude and darkness, that no object of sense-perception may bedim the eye of the soul, to which God has given the power to see things spiritual."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[192] If in this way you learn to effect a divorce from what is mortal, you will go on to receive an education in your conceptions regarding the Uncreate. For you surely do not imagine that, while your mind, having divested itself of body, sense-perception, speech, can, apart from these, see in their nakedness the things that are, the Mind of the universe, God, has not His abiding-place outside all material nature, containing, not contained, or doubt that He has gone forth beyond its confines not in thought alone, as man does, but in essential being also, as befits God.",
+ "[193] For our mind has not created the body, but is the workmanship of Another; and it is therefore contained in the body as in a vessel. But the Mind of all things has brought the universe into existence; and that which has made is superior to the thing made, so that it could not be included in its inferior; nor indeed would it be fitting that a father should be contained in a son, but rather that a son should attain full growth under his father’s care.",
+ "[194] In this way the mind gradually changing its place will arrive at the Father of piety and holiness. Its first step is to relinquish astrology, which betrayed it into the belief that the universe is the primal God, instead of being the handywork of the primal God, and that the courses and movements of the constellations are the causes of bad and good fortune to mankind.",
+ "[195] Next it enters upon the consideration of itself, makes a study of the features of its own abode, those that concern the body and sense-perception, and speech, and comes to know, as the phrase of the poet puts it,",
+ "All that existeth of good and of ill in the halls of thy homestead.",
+ "The third stage is when, having opened up the road that leads from self, in hope thereby to come to discern the Universal Father, so hard to trace and unriddle, it will crown maybe the accurate self-knowledge it has gained with the knowledge of God Himself. It will stay no longer in Haran, the organs of sense, but withdraw into itself. For it is impossible that the mind whose course still lies in the sensible rather than the mental should arrive at the contemplation of Him that IS."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[196] This is why the character appointed to the highest post in God’s service, who is called “Samuel,” does not set forth the duties of kingship to Saul, while still lingering amid the baggage, but when he has drawn him out thence. For he inquires of the Lord whether the man is still on his way hither, and the divine reply is, “Lo, he hath hidden himself among the baggage.”",
+ "[197] What, then, does it become the recipient of this answer to do, endowed as he is by nature with power to exercise discipline, save to draw him forth with all haste? So we read, “he ran thither and taketh him thence” (1 Sam. 10:22 f.), because, while lingering amid such vessels of the soul as body and sense-perception, he was not competent to listen to the principles and rules of kingship—and we pronounce wisdom to be kingship, for we pronounce the wise man to be a king. These principles could only be learnt through his changing his place, when the dark mist would disperse and he would have keen vision. No wonder, then, that the associate of knowledge deems it necessary to quit also the country of sense-perception, called Haran.",
+ "[198] When he quits the country he is five and seventy years old; and this number represents the borderland between perceptible and intelligible being, between older and younger, between corruptible and incorruptible.",
+ "[199] For seventy represents the principle of intellectual apprehension, of seniority and of incorruption, while the principle that corresponds numerically to the five senses is that of juniority and sense-perception. Under the head of this principle is classed the Trainer of self still at his exercises, not yet qualified to carry off the prize of complete victory; for we read, “the full number of souls sprung from Jacob was five and seventy” (Ex. 1:5):",
+ "[200] for the offspring of the champion who does not make havoc of the truly holy contest for the winning of virtue, are not bodies but souls, souls from which the irrational element has not yet been eliminated, and which still have sense-perception’s gang hanging on to them. For “Jacob” is a name belonging to one wrestling, and preparing for the arena, and tripping up his adversary, not of one who has won the victory.",
+ "[201] But when, now deemed capable of seeing God, he shall have received the new name of “Israel,” he will have resort only to the principle of seventy, having cut out the five which pertains to the senses; for it is written “amounting to seventy souls thy fathers went down into Egypt” (Deut. 10:22).",
+ "This is the number intimately associated with the wise Moses; for the men picked out for their excellence from all the host were seventy, and all of them elders, not in age but in good sense and counsel and judgement and ways of thinking worthy of men of old.",
+ "[202] Sacrifices and dues paid to God are determined by this number, whenever the ripe fruits of the soul are gathered in and collected; for it is prescribed at the Feast of Tabernacles, over and above the other sacrifices, to offer seventy young bullocks as a burnt offering (Num. 29:13–36). The bowls of the princes are fashioned in keeping with the principle of seventy—for each of them is of the weight of seventy shekels (Num. 7:13 ff.)—since everything in the soul that tends to peace and friendship and agreement has a truly weighty power of attraction, that sacred principle set forth by seventy, which Egypt, the virtue-hating and passion-loving nature, is represented as mourning over; for among them mourning is reckoned as lasting seventy days (Gen. 50:3)."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[203] This number, then, is, as I have said, intimately associated with Moses; but the number belonging to the five senses with him who hails as friends the body and the things outside the body, him who is usually called “Joseph.” So great is his devotion to these, that, while hardly owning the tie of a common fatherhood, he bestows upon his uterine brother, the offspring of sense-perception, five changes of raiment (Gen. 45:22), deeming the senses pre-eminent and deserving of adornment and honour.",
+ "[204] He sets up laws moreover for all Egypt, that honour may be paid to the senses and tribute and contributions rendered to them as sovereigns every year: for he commands the Egyptians to pay a fifth part of the corn, which means that they are to store in treasuries materials and food in abundance for the five senses, that so each of them incessantly glutting itself with its own objects may wanton and drown the mind under the weight of all that it devours. For understanding is starved when the senses feast, as on the other hand it makes merry when they are fasting.",
+ "[205] Do you not notice, that the five daughters of Zelophehad, whom we take to be a figure of the senses, are of the tribe of Manasseh, who is Joseph’s son, elder in age, younger in efficiency? Fitly is he younger, for his name means “from forgetfulness,” and that is a thing equivalent to “recalling to mind.” But the first prize goes to Memory, the second to Recollection, and Ephraim is named after Memory, for his name when translated is “Fruit-bearing,” and the fairest and most nourishing fruit of the soul is remembering with no forgetfulness.",
+ "[206] And so the maidens say what perfectly fits in with what they really are. “Our father died”—yes, the death of recollection is forgetfulness—“and he died by reason of no sin of his own”—quite rightly said, for forgetfulness is no voluntary experience, but one of those things that are not in our power, coming upon us from outside—“and he had no sons” (Num. 27:3), but only daughters, for whereas the faculty of memory, being naturally wide awake, has male progeny, forgetfulness, wrapt in a slumber of reasoning power, has female offspring; for it is irrational, and the senses are daughters of the irrational portion of the soul.",
+ "[207] But if anyone has outstripped Joseph in speed and followed Moses, while he still lacks power to keep pace with him, he will live under a mixed and hybrid number, namely seventy-five, which denotes the nature alike of mind and sense-perception, which are both mingled together to produce a single kind, that does not call for our censure."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[208] I profoundly admire also Patience or Rebecca, when she exhorts him who is full-grown in soul and has overthrown the harsh tyranny of vice and passion, even then to flee away to Haran. She says, “Now therefore, my child, hearken to my voice, and arise and flee away to Laban my brother in Haran, and abide with him some days, until the wrath and anger of thy brother turn away from thee, and he forget what thou hast done to him�� (Gen. 27:43–45).",
+ "[209] Excellently well does she call the journey to the senses a flight or running away; for the mind proves itself indeed a runaway, whenever it forsakes the objects of intellectual apprehension which are proper to it, and turns to the opposite array of the objects of sense-perception. Yet sometimes even running away is serviceable, when a man does it not out of hatred for the better, but that he may not be exposed to the designs of the worse.",
+ "[210] What, then, is the advice of Patience? A most marvellous and valuable one! If ever, she says, thou seest stirred up to savagery in thyself or some other person the passion of wrath and anger, one of the stock bred and reared by our irrational and untamed nature, beware of whetting its fierceness and yet more rousing the beast in it, when its bites may be incurable, but cool down its excessive heat and perfervid temper and quiet it, for should it become tame and manageable it will inflict but little hurt.",
+ "[211] What, then, is the method of bringing it to a quiet and subdued state? Adapt and transform yourself in outward appearance and follow for the moment whatever it pleases, and opposing no single suggestion of its, profess to share its likes and dislikes. In this way it will be made quite friendly. And when it has been softened, you will drop your feigning, and, free now from the expectation of suffering any evil at its hands, you will comfortably return to the care of your own charges.",
+ "[212] For this is the reason why Haran is represented as full of beasts, and having cattle-rearers as its inhabitants; for what place could be more suitable for irrational nature and those who have taken upon them the charge and patronage of it, than our senses?",
+ "[213] For instance, when the trainer of self inquires “Whence are ye?” the shepherds answer truly “from Haran” (Gen. 29:4); for the irrational faculties come from sense-perception, as do the rational from understanding. When he further inquires whether they know Laban, they naturally say that they know him (Gen. 29:5): for sense-perception is familiar, so it imagines, with every colour and every quality, and Laban is the symbol of colours and varieties of quality.",
+ "[214] But as for Jacob himself, when at last he has been perfected, he quits, as we shall find, the dwelling-place of the senses, and founds that of the soul in the true sense of the word, the dwelling-place which he pictures to himself while still immersed in his toils and exercises; for he says, “When shall I also make for myself a dwelling-place?” (Gen. 30:30). When shall I, looking beyond things perceived and the senses which perceive them, inhabit mind and understanding, educated in and associating with matters which form reason’s contemplation, even as souls do that are in quest of things out of sight?",
+ "[215] To such souls it is customary to give the name of “midwives,” for, like the midwives in Egypt, these make places of shelter and security fit for virtue-loving souls: and the fear of God is as of old the most sure dwelling-place for those who have made Him their guard and impregnable fastness. For it says, “Since the midwives feared God, they made for themselves houses” (Ex. 1:21)."
+ ],
+ [
+ "[216] To resume. The mind, when it has gone forth from the places about Haran, is said to have travelled through the country as far as the place of Shechem, to the lofty oak-tree (Gen. 12:6). Let us consider what is meant by “travelled through.” Love of learning is by nature curious and inquisitive, not hesitating to bend its steps in all directions, prying into everything, reluctant to leave anything that exists unexplored, whether material or immaterial. It has an extraordinary appetite for all that there is to be seen and heard, and, not content with what it finds in its own country, it is bent on seeking what is in foreign parts and separated by great distances.",
+ "[217] We are reminded that merchants and traders for the sake of trifling profits cross the seas, and compass the wide world, letting stand in their way no summer heat nor winter cold, no tempestuous or contrary winds, neither youth nor age, no sickness of body, neither the daily intercourse with friends nor the pleasure too great for words which we take in wife and children and in all else that is our own, nor the enjoyment of our fatherland and of all the gracious amenities of civic life, nor the safe use of money and property and abundance of other good things, nor in a word anything else either great or small.",
+ "[218] If so, it is monstrous, such speakers urge, when we stand to gain a thing most fair, worth all men’s striving for, the special prerogative of the human race, namely wisdom, to refrain from crossing every sea, from exploring earth’s every recess, in the joy of finding out whether there is in any place aught that is fair to see or hear, and from following the quest of it with utmost zest and keenness, until we can come to the enjoyment of the things that we are seeking and longing for.",
+ "[219] Travel through man also, if thou wilt, O my soul, bringing to examination each component part of him. For instance, to take the first examples that occur, find out what the body is and what it must do or undergo to co-operate with the understanding; what sense-perception is and in what way it is of service to its ruler, mind; what speech is, and what thoughts it must express if it would contribute to nobility of character; what pleasure is, and what desire is; what pain and fear are, and what the healing art is that can counteract them, by means of which a man shall either, if he falls into their hand, without difficulty make his escape, or avoid capture altogether; what it is to play the fool, what to be licentious, what to be unjust, what the multitude of other sicknesses to which it is the nature of pestilential wickedness to give birth, and what the preventive of these; and on the other hand, what righteousness is, or good sense, or self-mastery, courage, discretion, in a word virtue generally and moral welfare, and in what way each of them is wont to be won.",
+ "[220] Travel again through the greatest and most perfect man, this universe, and scan narrowly its parts, how far asunder they are in the positions which they occupy, how wholly made one by the powers which govern them, and what constitutes for them all this invisible bond of harmony and unity. If, however, in your investigation, you do not easily attain the objects of your quest, keep on without giving in, for these “need both hands to catch them,” and only by manifold and painful toil can they be discovered.",
+ "[221] That is why the lover of learning took possession of the place called Shechem, a name which when translated is “shouldering,” a figure of toil, since it is with these parts of the body that we are accustomed to carry loads, as Moses himself calls to mind elsewhere speaking in this wise of one who worked and strove, “he submitted his shoulder to labour, and became a tiller of the soil” (Gen. 49:15).",
+ "[222] Never, then, O my understanding, do thou shew weakness and slacken, but even if aught seem to be hard to discern, open wide the organ in thyself that sees, and stoop to get a view of the inside, and behold with more accurate gaze the things that are, and never either willingly or unwillingly close thine eyes; for sleep is a blind thing, as wakefulness is a thing of keen sight. And it is a sufficient reward to obtain by unremitting inspection a clear impression of the things thou art in search of.",
+ "[223] Do you not see that he says further that a tall oak had been planted in Shechem, thus shewing in a figure the toil of education as a hard and unbreakable substance that never yields or bends? It is a vital matter that he who would be perfect should ply this toil, to the end that the soul’s court of justice, called “Dinah,” which means “judgement,” may not be ravished by him who sinks under the opposite kind of toil, which is the insidious foe of sound sense.",
+ "[224] For the man who bears the name of this place, Shechem, being son of Hamor, that is of an irrational being—for “Hamor” means “ass”—practising folly and nursed in shamelessness and effrontery, essayed—foul wretch that he was—to corrupt and defile the judgement faculties of the understanding. But the hearers and pupils of sound sense, Symeon and Levi, were too quick for him. They made secure their own quarters and went forth against them in safety, and overthrew them when still occupied in the pleasure-loving, passion-loving, toil of the uncircumcised: for albeit there was a Divine decree that “of the daughters of Israel, the seeing one, none might ever become a harlot” (Deut. 23:17), these men hoped to carry off unobserved the virgin soul (Gen. 34).",
+ "[225] Vain hope, for there is no lack of succourers to victims of a breach of faith; but even if some imagine that there is, they will only imagine, but will be convicted by events of holding a false opinion. For Justice has indeed existence, Justice the abhorrer of wickedness, the relentless one, the inexorable, the befriender of those who are wronged, bringing failure upon the aims of those who shame virtue, upon whose fall the soul, that had seemed to have been shamed, becomes again a virgin. Seemed, I said, because it never was defiled. It is with sufferings which we have not willed, as it is with wrongdoings which we have not intended. As there is no real doing in the second case, so there is no real suffering in the first."
+ ]
+ ],
+ "Appendix": [
+ "APPENDIX TO DE MIGRATIONE",
+ "§ 5. Soul as soul. This phrase, which occurred in Quod Det. 9, belongs, as Posner points out, to Stoic usage. See Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. vii. 233. The Stoics call the φαντασία a τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ ὡς ἂν ἐν ψυχῇ, because “impression on the soul” might in itself be applied to a pain felt in any part of the living organism. The addition, ὡς ἂν ἐν ψυχῇ signifies that it is “no chance part” which is affected, but the mind or dominant principle.",
+ "§ 17. Untouched by corruption and worthy of perpetual memory. What is the distinction between ἀξιομνημόνευτα and ἄφθαρτα or ἀδιάφθορα? Apparently the former are Joseph’s vision of, or hope for, the future, while the latter are the record of his life, so far as it is good. Philo may mean that while the record remains in the background as an example, the hope becomes the inspiring principle of the succeeding generations. If so, “ever to be borne in mind” might perhaps give better the sense of ἀξιομνημόνευτα.",
+ "§ 21. He derided lusts, etc. Neither Mangey nor Wendland give the reference to Gen. 39:14 and 17, where Potiphar’s wife says “Lo, he hath brought in a Hebrew servant to mock at us” (ἐμπαίζειν ἡμῖν). Presumably they supposed the words to be a general description of Joseph’s continence. But the form shews that it is a separate item in Joseph’s virtues, each based on a separate text. “Us” is interpreted as meaning “all the passions.” That in the story the “mocking” referred to Joseph’s alleged misconduct matters little or nothing to Philo.",
+ "§ 23. ἀνέχεται … ἐνθάπτεται … παρέπεται. I have no hesitation in rejecting Mangey’s and Wendland’s emendation of these to infinitives. Not only would these require, as Wendland indeed saw, the insertion of τὸ (or rather οἷον τὸ to agree with πολλά), and perhaps the change of οὐ to μή, but the sense seems to me quite inferior. This particular “trait” has already been given as one of the ἀξιομνημόνευτα in § 18. I understand the sentence to sum up all that has been said and to assert that the good deeds and words are the “bones,” which themselves cry to be taken from Egypt, and in fact never have been buried at all, a phrase quite inapplicable to Joseph himself. There would of course from this point of view be no objection to reading ἐνθάπτεσθαι dependent on ἀνέχεται, but no sufficient reason for the alteration.",
+ "§ 24. διακρίνει παρελθών. The text is very perplexing. As H has παρελθόντα, Wendland suggests as a possibility διακρίνεται παρʼ ἐλπίδα. This seems to me out of place. Mangey suggested διακρίνεται παραλυθέντα. The reading which Wendland actually prints, and which has been reproduced here, is not satisfactory, as the παρελθών is very pointless. I should hesitatingly suggest either διακρίνει παρελών, “removes” and “separates,” or better, as retaining the διακρίνεται of all MSS., διακρίνεται παρεισελθόντων, “is separated from adventitious accretions.” παρεισέρχομαι in the sense of “invading surreptitiously” is used by Philo, De Op. 150, De Ebr. 157.",
+ "§ 32. Release. An allusion to the ordinance by which in the sabbatical year the land (here compared to the mind) was to be left fallow, Ex. 33:11 τῷ δὲ ἑβδόμῳ ἄφεσιν ποιήσεις καὶ ἀνήσεις αὐτήν, καὶ ἔδονται οἱ πτωχοὶ τοῦ ἔθνους σου. In Lev. 25:4–7 we have the same ordinance, but with ἀνάπαυσις for ἄφεσις. Philo understands that the land by divine grace will bear plentifully of itself. Compare his φορὰ τῶν αὐτοματιζομένων ἀγαθῶν with τὰ αὐτόματα ἀναβαίνοντα of Lev. He may also be thinking of the somewhat similar ordinance of the Jubilee year, ἐνιαυτὸς ἀφέσεως, though there ἄφεσις means release for the people rather than for the land. On ὥσπερ τῶν ἑκουσίων Mangey wrote “omnino male” and proposed ὡς φόρτων τῶν ἐτησίων. But ἑκούσιος is in Philo’s thought the direct antithesis of αὐτόματος.",
+ "§ 35. ἔσχον γὰρ ἑρμηνείαν, εὕρεσιν. I have adopted Markland’s ἔσχον for σχεδόν, but see every reason against changing εὕρεσιν. The five elements of composition are εὕρεσις, τάξις or οἰκονομία, ἑρμηνεία (otherwise called φράσις, λέξις, ἀπαγγελία), μνήμη, ὑπόκρισις. Philo enumerates them in De Som. i. 205. Of these terms the two last belong entirely to spoken oratory, and τάξις would be out of place. When inspiration comes, the two things that come are “ideas” and “language.” These two (in Latin inventio and elocutio) are often given as the kernel of composition, e.g. Quintilian, Pr. 12 “omnia inventione atque elocutione explicanda sunt.” See note on De Cher. 105.",
+ "§ 42. Insight. The not very common word εἴδησιν is evidently introduced with reference to εἶδεν. So in the other place where Philo uses it (De Plant. 36), it is connected with the tree of knowledge, which in Gen. 2:9 is the tree τοῦ εἰδέναι.",
+ "Ibid. To give teaching … to the ignorant, etc. Or it might be taken “to give teaching … is proper not for the ignorant, but only for the One who knows.” Mangey translates the reading he adopted (see critical note), “decebat igitur ignorantes docere, commonstrareque illis singula, non vero scientem,” apparently meaning that it is right to teach the ignorant, but not to teach God who knows. But apart from the question whether εἶχε εὐπρεπές can mean “decebat,” this has no bearing on the proof that it is God who “shews.”",
+ "§ 49. The various parts of speech. By Philo’s time the primitive division into verbs, nouns, and conjunctions (the first two often standing alone in popular language) had been greatly developed and this is recognized in the συνόλως of § 48. The phrase οἱ εἰς ὀνομάτων καὶ ῥημάτων ἰδέας μεριζόμενοι may recur to the primitive division and suggest that there are only two main ἴδεαι (so the translation), or he may mean that verbs and nouns have their various ἴδεαι or subdivisions, the pronoun being a form of the noun and the adverb of the verb. See the loci classici in Quintilian, i. 4. 18, and Dion. Hal. De Comp. 2.",
+ "§ 54. Both in conduct of life and in principle. Philo’s conception of moral “greatness,” as shewn by his illustrations in § 55, is a full development and intensification of each particular virtue, and this he equates with the power to understand and know. Possibly, therefore, here τὰ περὶ τὸν βίον κατορθώματα = πλῆθος, and τὰ περὶ λόγον = μέγεθος. If so, the former will represent the καθήκοντα or “daily duties” of the Stoics, and the latter their κατορθώματα proper, which connoted to them inwardness and sustained moral purpose. See note on Quod Deus 100.",
+ "§ 69. ἐπιγραφόμενος. This correction of Wendland’s for αἰνιττόμενος is based on the close imitation of the passage in Clem. Alex. Protrept. 25 αἰνίττεται δε … τὸν πολλοὺς ἐπιγραφόμενον ψευδωνύμους θεοὺς ἀντὶ τοῦ μόνου ὄντος θεοῦ, ὥσπερ ὁ ἐκ τῆς πόρνης τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐπιγράφεται πατέρας ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν πατρός. Mangey suggested ἀναπλαττόμενος, which is not as good sense, though nearer to the MSS.",
+ "§ 79. Mints them … before. The paraphrastic translation is an attempt to bring out Philo’s play upon ἄσημος and ἐπίσημος as signifying (1) uncoined and coined money, (2) obscure and clear or conspicuous.",
+ "Ibid. In it. Philo quotes Ex. 4:14 in three other places. In De Mut. 168 the MSS. have as here ἐν αὐτῷ. In Quod Det. 126 and 135, they have, as the LXX itself, ἐν ἑαυτῷ and the comment on the latter of these shews that this is what Philo wrote. While printing ἐν αὐτῷ I feel very doubtful as to its correctness here and in De Mut.",
+ "§ 94. Realities. For the philosophical use of ὑπαρκτά cf. τεκμήριον τοῦ ὑπαρκτὴν εἶναι τὴν ἀρετήν, Diog. Laert. vii., and ἔστι μὲν ὑπαρκτὸν πρᾶγμα σοφία, De Mut. 37. Compare the same point in De Sac. 43, where the force of ὑπαρκτά was unfortunately not properly recognized in the translation. Similarly in Leg. All. iii. 197 Ἀβραὰμ … τὰ μὲν ὑπάρχοντα … κατέχει, ἀποπέμπεται δὲ τὴν ἵππον τοῦ βασιλέως Σοδόμων ὡς καὶ τὰ ὑπαρκτὰ τῶν παλλακῶν, it now seems clear to me that we should read τὰ <μὴ> ὑπαρκτά, perhaps also τῶν <υἵων τῶν> παλλακῶν.",
+ "§ 125. The threefold divisions of eternity. Or “time.” This curious interpretation of the three patriarchs is perhaps explained in § 154. “The clear sight of things present,” and the “expectation of things to come,” fit in fairly well with the αὐτομαθής and the προκόπτων, the characters regularly assigned to Isaac and Jacob, while the “memory of the past” suits, though not so well, the διδακτικὴ ἀρετή of Abraham. He may also be thinking of Ex. 3:15, where “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” is God’s αἰώνιον ὅνομα.",
+ "§ 138. Spin your airy fables. The word ἀερομυθεῖτε need not mean more than talk windily, cf. the use of ἀερόμυθος in the list of vices in De Sacr. 33. But there may be a special significance in it here, as the moon at any rate bordered on the ἀήρ (S.V.F. ii. 527).",
+ "§ 140. It does not say, etc. This amazing argument admits of no satisfactory explanation. It clearly demands that παιδίον may be nominative, but Mangey’s suggestion to read Σάρραν is out of the question. Apart from other difficulties, the natural negation would be οὐχὶ Σάρρα. Nor can Philo be supposed to have really thought that Σάρρα was indeclinable, seeing that he uses Σάρρας in the same sentence and elsewhere Σάρραν itself. The least unsatisfactory explanation I can give is that he means that Σάρρα, like other O.T. names, which though capable of being declined in Greek are not declined, e.g. Ἀαρών, might conceivably be undeclinable and that therefore Moses, wishing to suggest that, though literally Sarah suckles Isaac, spiritually Isaac suckles Sarah, uses this form rather than the passive, in which no ambiguity would be possible. Possibly also he puts some reliance on παιδίον preceding Σάρρα. See on De Conf. 102.",
+ "§ 150. The allusions in this section are (1) to Lot’s settling in Sodom (Gen. 13:12), which naturally signifies his “old complaint” of ἀμαθία, cf. De Conf. 27, (2) to his capture (14:12) by the Four Kings, signifying the four passions, cf. De Congressu 22, (3) the quarrel between the shepherds of Lot and Abraham (13:7), which Philo unfairly turns into a conflict between the two men.",
+ "§ 160. The idol of Egyptian vanity. The meaning of this is not clear. In the other places where Philo uses Αἰγυπτιακὸς τῦφος it is with reference to the Golden Calf as being a return to Egyptian idolatry. The meaning therefore here may be that by riding behind Pharaoh he acknowledges him as a god. But in De Som. ii. 46, where this incident is referred to, Joseph himself is ὑποτυφόμενος, and ibid. 16 we have ἀναβαίνει ἐπὶ τὴν κενὴν δόξαν ὡς ἐφʼ ἅρμα. This suggests that ἱδρύεται here may mean “seats himself on,” but no real parallel is forthcoming. Mangey suggested ἐνδύεται.",
+ "§ 164. μελιττῶν. The μὲν αὐτῶν of the MSS. seems to me to break down in two ways. There is no antithesis for the μέν. Philo’s μέν indeed is occasionally not followed by δέ, but in these cases there is, wherever I have noted them, an antithesis to something which has gone before. Again, the plural αὐτῶν is quite out of place where both the people concerned are in the singular, and the one cannot be supposed to have any share in the labours of the other. It will be admitted that μελιττῶν makes excellent sense. Textually the ΛΙ of ΜΕΛΙΤΤΩΝ passes very easily into Ν, and Τ with no great difficulty into Υ, and when ΜΕΝΥΤΩΝ had thus been obtained the insertion of Α to make sense would naturally follow.",
+ "§ 165. ὑπʼ εὐθυμίας. It is not clear what cheerfulness has to do with the φιλοθεάμων or why it opens the eyes of the soul. As all MSS. (except H) have ὑπὲρ εὐθυμίας, it is possible, I think, that the true reading may be ὑπʼ ἐρεύνης θείας, which exactly describes the φιλοθεάμων. Compare τῆς τῶν θείων ἐρεύνης, Leg. All. iii. 71 and (for the objective use of θεῖος) τῆς θεὶας θεωρίας, § 150 above, and θεῖος ἵμερος, § 157.",
+ "§ 167. Arts copying Nature’s works, etc. Cf. De Ebr. 90, where art is the μίμημα and ἀπεικόνισμα of nature, on which Adler remarks that, as the context shews, it does not mean that art imitates natural objects, but that it follows Nature’s methods. So here ἔργων may be “ways of working,” “processes.”",
+ "§ 174. ὑποστείληταί σε … The Hebrew and E.V. have “will not pardon thy transgression.” Did the LXX. mean much the same “he will not shrink (from punishing)”? At any rate Philo would seem to have taken it in some such sense, for where the text is quoted in the Quaestiones (in Exod. 2:13) the Latin version of the Armenian has “non enim verebitur te.”",
+ "§ 180. For if it came into being and is one, etc. Philo takes ἕν in the full sense of the Stoic ἡνωμένον (cf. note on Quod Det. 49) and argues that if the world is ἡνωμένον, it must be composed of the same elements throughout and this, it is implied, will in itself effect συμπάθεια. Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. ix. 78 (S.V.F. ii. 1013) puts the Stoic argument in much the same way but in reverse order. Only ἡνωμένα exhibit συμπάθεια, and since there is συμπάθεια between the parts of the Cosmos, the Cosmos must be an ἡνωμένον σῶμα.",
+ "§ 206. διανιστάμενον. My suggestion of διανεσταμένον is made provisionally subject to better knowledge as to this perfect passive in the compounds of ἵστημι. In Timaeus 81 D there is at any rate some authority for διεσταμένοι. So the LXX in Num. 31:48 καθεσταμένοι. Here a few MSS. have διενιστάμενον. The present must mean “waking up,” as in Quod Deus 97. Cohn’s suggestion of διασυνιστάμενον (presumably meaning “proved to be such,” i.e. μνημονικόν) does not give much point to ἅτε.",
+ "§ 207. That does not call for our censure. The application of the adjective ἀνεπιλήπτον, which usually denotes high praise, to the hybrid number seventy-five is at first sight strange, and Mangey’s proposal <οὐκ> ἀνεπιλήπτου is textually, considering our experience of the omissions of the negative in Philo, quite sound. But it would really give an inferior sense. The stress is here laid on the virtues of seventy-five, not on its shortcomings, and if we give ἀνεπίληπτος a somewhat reduced sense as in the translation (cf. ταμιείας ἀνεπιλήπτου § 89, and De Cong. 138), that stress is well brought out. Midway between Joseph and Moses stands the Jacob soul, ὁ προκόπτων, and in its progress the seventy-five is a necessary and therefore “blameless” stage. This is immediately illustrated by §§ 208 ff., where Jacob even in victory is well-advised to return to Haran, that is, to the world of sense and even (§ 209), of opportunism.",
+ "§ 210. ζωοτροφεῖ. Mr. Whitaker was inclined to adopt Mangey’s suggestion of ζωπυρεῖ, which is in accordance with ζέον καὶ πεπυρωμένον. On the other hand ζωοτροφεῖ serves to carry on the parable in which the passions are the wild cattle reared by the κτηνοτρόφοι of Haran.",
+ "§§ 210, 211 (footnote). De Som. ii. 85 ff. looks as if the advice to temporize with angry people is to be taken more literally than I have suggested in the note.",
+ "§ 221. τῇ ἑτέρᾳ. Further consideration shews beyond doubt that in De Sac. 37 where we printed, following Cohn and Mangey, οὐ τῇ ῥαστώνῃ ταῦτα ληπτά we should have put τῇ ἑτέρᾳ or θατέρᾳ. There one MS. has ῥαστώνη, others οὐ τη and οὐχ ἁπλῶς, while by far the best authority, the Papyrus, has ουθετερα, the origin of which is obvious. The phrase seems for some reason to have puzzled the scribes. It is strange that the two German scholars also failed to understand it, for even the old editions of Liddell & Scott record τῇ ἑτέρᾳ λαμβάνειν “ ‘to get with little trouble,’ a proverb,” and give the reference to Plato."
+ ]
+ },
+ "versions": [
+ [
+ "Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1932",
+ "https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI"
+ ]
+ ],
+ "heTitle": "על הגירת אברהם",
+ "categories": [
+ "Second Temple",
+ "Philo"
+ ],
+ "schema": {
+ "heTitle": "על הגירת אברהם",
+ "enTitle": "On the Migration of Abraham",
+ "key": "On the Migration of Abraham",
+ "nodes": [
+ {
+ "heTitle": "הקדמה",
+ "enTitle": "Introduction"
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "",
+ "enTitle": ""
+ },
+ {
+ "heTitle": "הערות",
+ "enTitle": "Appendix"
+ }
+ ]
+ }
+}
\ No newline at end of file