{ "language": "en", "title": "On Providence", "versionSource": "https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI", "versionTitle": "Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1941", "status": "locked", "license": "Public Domain", "versionNotes": "", "actualLanguage": "en", "languageFamilyName": "english", "isSource": false, "isPrimary": true, "direction": "ltr", "heTitle": "על ההשגחה", "categories": [ "Second Temple", "Philo" ], "text": { "Introduction": [], "": [ "ON PROVIDENCE (FRAGMENT 1)", "As to the quantity of the substance assuming that it was really created what we have to say is this. God estimated for the creation of the world just sufficient matter that there should be neither deficiency nor excess. For it would be monstrous to suppose that while particular craftsmen when framing something, especially anything costly, estimate what material is just sufficient, He who invented numbers, measures and equality in them had no thought for what was adequate. I will say indeed with all confidence that the world needed neither less nor more substance for its construction, since otherwise it would not have been made perfect nor complete in all its parts, whereas actually it was made excellently out of a perfect substance. For it is a characteristic of a complete master of his art to see before he begins any constructive work that he has sufficient material. Now a man even if superior to everyone in knowledge may perhaps, as he cannot escape the errors congenital to mortals, be deceived as to the quantity of material needed when he practises his craft. He may sometimes find it too little and have to add, sometimes excessive and have to take away. But He who is as it were the fountain head of all knowledge was sure to provide nothing deficient or superfluous, since the standards which He employs are all to be extolled as elaborated with absolute accuracy. A person who wishes to waste his time in foolishness is sure also to confront us at once with the works of all other craftsmen as having improved their construction by adding to or diminishing the material. But we leave futile argument for the sophist: the task of wisdom is to investigate all that nature has to show.", "ON PROVIDENCE (FRAGMENT 2)", "[1] This is the method in which he conducts this discussion. Alexander says:", "“Do you maintain the existence of providence amid this vast welter and confusion of things? For what part of human life is subject to order, nay, what is not brimful of disorder and corruption? Or are you alone ignorant that to the worst and vilest of men good things in abundance come crowding in, wealth, high repute, honours paid to them by the masses, again authority, health with efficiency of the senses, beauty, strength, unimpeded enjoyment of pleasures through the abundance of their resources and the bodily well-being free from all disturbance which they possess, while the lovers and practisers of wisdom and every virtue are almost universally poor, obscure, of little repute and in a humble position?”", "[2] After stating these and a host of others on the negative side he next proceeds to refute the objections as follows.", "God is not a tyrant who has made a practice of cruelty and violence and all the deeds committed by a despot who rules by ruthlessness, but a king invested with a kindly and law-abiding sovereignty who governs the whole heaven and earth with justice. Now for a king there is no fitter name than father,", "[3] for what the father in family life is to the children the king is to the state and God is to the world,—God who under the immutable laws of nature has joined in indissoluble union two things most excellent, governorship and guardianship.", "[4] Now parents do not lose thought for their wastrel children but, in pity for their unhappy state, bestow on them care and attention, deeming that it is only mortal enemies who take advantage of the miseries of others to trample on them, while friends and kinsmen should lighten their downfall.", "[5] Often too they lavish their kindness on the wastrels more than on the well behaved, knowing well that these have in their sober disposition a plentiful source of prosperity while the wastrels’ one hope is in their parents, and if this fail them they will lack the very necessaries of life.", "[6] In the same way God too the Father of reasonable intelligence has indeed all who are endowed with reason under His care but takes thought also for those who live a misspent life, thereby giving them time for reformation and also keeping within the bounds of His merciful nature, which has for its attendant virtue and loving kindness well fitted to keep watch as sentry around God’s world.", "Here is one thought. Receive it, O soul,", "[7] and ponder it awhile as a trust committed to thee by Him, but receive also another in harmony and agreement with it. It is this. Mayst thou never be so led astray from the truth as to think that happiness is the lot of any of the wicked though he excel Croesus in wealth, Lynceus in keen sight, Milo of Croton in muscular strength and Ganymede in beauty,", "He who was for his beauty by the gods
Caught up to be the cupbearer of Zeus.", "[8] Surely if he has brought the ruler of his lot, that is his mind, into slavery to a host of masters, love, lust, pleasure, fear, grief, folly, incontinence, cowardice, injustice, happiness can never be his lot, however much it seems so to the multitude led astray from true judgement, seduced by the twofold pest, vain pomps and vain imaginations which are so highly skilled to cajole and mislead unballasted souls and are the source of disaster to most of the human race.", "[9] If indeed you would strain the soul’s eyes to contemplate the providence of God as far as human reason can do so, you will gain a clearer vision of the true good and laugh to scorn what here are reckoned as goods which hitherto had your admiration. For in the absence of the better things worse are always held in honour and succeed to the position which belongs to the better, but when these return the worse withdraw and have to be content with the second prize.", "[10] Then awestruck at that divine revelation, so good and excellent, you will surely recognize that none of the things mentioned above ranks of itself in the sight of God as a good; for mines of silver and gold are the most worthless portion of the earth, utterly and absolutely inferior to that which is given up to the production of fruit.", "[11] For there is no likeness between abundance of money, and the food without which we cannot live. The one clearest proof of this is famine, which tests what is truly necessary and useful. For anyone would gladly exchange all the treasures in the world for a little food.", "[12] But when the lavish supply of necessaries spreads in a vast resistless flood from city to city we enjoy the luxury of these good gifts of nature but are not content to confine ourselves to them. We take insolent satiety as our guide in life and prepare ourselves for the task of acquiring gold and silver, armed with every means by which we may hope to get some gain, like blind men whose mind through covetousness has lost the power to see that it is for lumps of earth that we forfeit peace and wage a constant and persistent war.", "[13] As for clothes, they are but what the poets call the flower of the sheep and on the craftsman’s side a credit to the weavers. And if anyone prides himself on his prestige and welcomes with open arms the approval of the worthless he may be assured of his own worthlessness, for like delights in like.", "[14] Let him pray to get purging medicine for his ears, through which pass heavy maladies to strike the soul. And all who puff themselves up on their bodily strength must learn not to be proud necked but turn their eyes to the myriad kinds of animals tame and wild, in which bodily strength and muscle are congenital. It is a monstrous absurdity for a human being to pride himself on excellencies which belong to savage beasts when actually he is outdone in these by them.", "[15] And why should anyone of good sense glory in bodily beauty which ere it has flowered for its full span is brought to extinction by a brief season which dims the brightness of its delusive prime?—particularly when he sees exhibited in lifeless forms the much prized work of painters, sculptors and other artists, in portraits, statues and cunning tapestry work, works which are famous in every city throughout Greece and the outside world.", "[16] None of these as I have said is ranked in God’s sight as a good. And why should we wonder that God does not accept them as goods?—since neither do godly men accept them, who honour things truly good and excellent, men who have been blest with a gifted nature and by study and exercise have further beautified that nature, men who have been made what they are by genuine philosophy.", "[17] But those whose study has been in a spurious culture do not even follow the example of the physicians who treat the body which is the servitor of the soul, though they claim to be healing the mistress. For those physicians of the body, when a man favoured by fortune is sick, even though he be the Great King himself, take no notice of the colonnades, of the men’s apartments, of the ladies’ bowers, of the pictures, of the silver and gold whether coined or uncoined, of the accumulation of goblets or tapestry work and the rest of the magnificence which adorns kingship. They care not for the multitude of serving men or the friends or kinsmen or subjects in high positions who are in attendance, but make their way to his bed and taking no account of the surroundings of the body itself nor noting with admiration that the beds are inlaid with jewels and of pure gold and that the bedding is of spider-web silk or brocaded, or the coverlets of different kinds of beauty, they go farther and strip the wrappings off him and take hold of his hands and squeezing the veins mark carefully the pulsations to see whether they are healthy. And often they draw up the undervest and make an examination to see whether the belly is over-loaded or the chest inflamed, or the heartbeats irregular, and then they apply the appropriate treatment.", "[18] So too the philosophers who profess to practise the art of healing that queen of Nature’s making, the soul, should despise all the vain inventions of idle opinion, and passing within take hold of the mind itself, to see whether anger makes its pulsations run at an irregular rate and with unnatural excitement: so too with the tongue to see whether it is rough and evil speaking or bawdy and licentious: so too the belly to see whether it is swollen by an insatiable form of lust; and in general if there appear to be a complication of passions, distempers and infirmities to investigate each of them so as not to miss anything which may serve to restore it to health. As it is,", "[19] dazzled by the brilliance of external things, because they are unable to see the spiritual light, they have continued to wander for ever, never able to reach King Reason, only just managing to make their way to his portal where, struck with admiration for those who wait at virtue’s doorstep, riches, reputation, health and their kin, they rendered homage to them.", "[20] But to take the judgement of the bad as to what is truly good is as grossly insane as to take that of the blind on colours or the deaf on musical sounds. For the bad have lost the use of their most dominant part, their mind, over which folly has shed profound darkness.", "[21] Can we then still wonder that Socrates and any virtuous person you like to name have continued to live a life of poverty, never having practised any method of gaining wealth, refusing indeed to take anything from wealthy friends or kings who offered them great gifts, because they considered that there is nothing good or excellent save acquiring virtue, for which they laboured neglecting all the other goods?", "[22] And who with the thought of the genuine before them would not disregard the spurious for its sake? But if possessed of a mortal body and brimful of the plagues which beset mankind and living amid the unjust, a multitude so great that it cannot even be easily counted, they become the victims of malice, why do we accuse Nature when we should reproach the cruelty of their assailants?", "[23] For if they had been living in a pestilential atmosphere they would have been bound to take the disease, and vice is more or at least no less destructive than pestilential surroundings. And as the wise man must needs get drenched if he stays in the open air when it is raining or suffer from the rigour of the cold when the north wind’s blast is chilly, or get heated in the summer, since it is a law of nature that our bodily feelings correspond to the annual changes of the season, so also he who lives in places Where murder’s rife and famine too and tribes of other ills must submit to the penalties which they successively impose.", "[24] For as for Polycrates, in requital for his terrible acts of injustice and impiety he encountered his rewarder in the shape of lifelong misery. Add to this a lesser ill, that he was punished by the Great King and impaled, thus fulfilling an oracle. “I know,” he said, “that I saw myself not long ago anointed as it seemed by the sun and washed by Zeus.” For the riddle thus symbolically stated, though at first obscure, received very clear attestation from what actually occurred.", "[25] But it was not only at the end but through all his life from the first that his soul, though he knew it not, was in the same suspense which later befell his body. For he lived in perpetual fear and trembling, scared by the multitude of his assailants and knowing well that none was friendly to him, but all had been turned by their misery into implacable enemies.", "[26] The endless and continual fear shown by Dionysius is attested by the historians of Sicily, who tell us that he suspected even his dearly beloved wife. This is proved by his ordering that the entrance to the chamber through which she had to pass to join him should be covered with boards so that she should never creep in unawares but should give notice of her arrival by the creaking and rattling made by her stepping on them. Also she had to come not merely undressed but with the parts naked which it is indecent for men to see. Further he had the continuous line of the floor along the passage broken by a gap as deep and broad as a ditch in the farmland, so that if, as he dreaded, some secret attempt to do him a mischief were made in the darkness it would be detected by the visitors jumping or striding across the gap.", "[27] How vast a burden of ills was his who watched so craftily over the wife whom he was bound to trust above all others. Indeed he resembled the climbers who scale a precipitous mountain to get a clearer view of the heavenly bodies, and when they manage with difficulty to reach some outstanding cliff cannot go any higher because their heart fails them before the height which still remains, nor have they courage to descend as their heads swim at the sight of the yawning chasms below.", "[28] For enamoured as he was of tyranny as something divine and much to be coveted he did not consider it safe either to stay as he was or to flee. If he stayed he was sure to meet a torrent of innumerable evils in constant succession. If he wanted to flee, his life was menaced by danger from those whose minds at least if not their bodies were armed against him.", "[29] Another proof is the way in which he is said to have treated a person who asserted the felicity of the tyrant’s life. Having invited him to a dinner which had been provided on a very magnificent and costly scale he ordered a sharp-edged axe to be suspended over him by a very slender thread. When after taking his place on the couch the guest suddenly saw this, he had neither the courage in the tyrant’s presence to rise and remove himself nor the power in his terror to enjoy the dishes provided, and so regardless of the abundance and wealth of the pleasures before him, he lay with neck and eye strained upwards, expecting his own destruction.", "[30] Dionysius perceived this and said: “Do you now understand what this glorious and much coveted life of ours really is?” This is the sort of thing it is in the eyes of anyone who does not wish to deceive himself. For it includes wealth supplied in full abundance but not the enjoyment of anything worth having, only terrors in constant succession, dangers unescapable, a malady more grievous than the creeping and wasting sickness, bringing with it destruction that knows no remedy.", "[31] But the thoughtless multitude deluded by the brilliant outward appearance are in the same condition as men ensnared by unsightly courtesans who disguise their ugliness with fine raiment and gold and the paint upon their faces, and so for lack of the genuine beauty create the spurious to entrap those who behold them.", "[32] Such is the misery which fills to the brim the life of those greatly favoured by fortune, misery whose extent measured by the judgement of their own hearts is more than they can contain, and like those who are forced to proclaim their maladies they utter words of absolute sincerity wrung from them by their sufferings. Surrounded by punishments present and expected they live like beasts who are fattened for a sacrifice, for such receive the most careful attention to prepare them for the slaughter, because of the rich feast of flesh which they supply.", "[33] There are some who have been punished not obscurely but conspicuously for sacrilegious robbery, a numerous body which it would be superfluous labour to name in full. It will suffice to let one case stand as an example of them all. The historians who have described the sacred war in Phocis state that whereas there was a law enacted that the temple robber should be thrown from a precipice or drowned in the sea, or burnt alive, three persons who robbed the temple at Delphi, Philomelus, Onomarchus and Phaÿllus, had these punishments distributed between them. The first fell over a rugged and stony crag and as a piece of rock broke off he was killed both from the fall from the height and from the weight of the stone. In the case of the second the horse on which he was riding got out of control and rushed down to the sea and under the onrush of the tide both rider and horse sank in the deep gulf. As for Phaÿllus, there are two versions of his story, one that he wasted away in consumption, the other that he perished in the flame which consumed the temple at Abae.", "[34] To assert that these events are due to chance is pure contentiousness. No doubt if people had been punished at different times or by other penalties it would be sensible enough to ascribe them to the caprice of fortune. But when all were punished together about the same time and by penalties not of another kind but those contained in the laws, it is reasonable to assert that they were the victims of divine justice.", "[35] And if some of the men of violence still left unmentioned, insurgents who seized power over the populace and enslaved not only other peoples but their own countries, continued unpunished, why should we wonder? For in the first place the judgements of men and God are not alike. For we inquire into what is manifest but He penetrates noiselessly into the recesses of the soul, sees our thoughts as though in bright sunlight, and stripping off the wrappings in which they are enveloped, inspects our motives in their naked reality and at once distinguishes the counterfeit from the genuine.", "[36] Let us never then prefer our own tribunal to that of God and assert that it is more infallible and wiser in counsel, for that religion forbids. Ours has many pitfalls, the delusions of the senses, the malignancy of the passions and most formidable of all the hostility of the vices; while in His there is nothing that can deceive, only justice and truth, and everything that is judged according to these standards brings praise to the judge and cannot but be settled aright.", "[37] Secondly, my friend, do not suppose that a temporary tyranny is without its uses. For neither is punishment useless, and that penalties should be inflicted is actually profitable to the good or at any rate not detrimental. And therefore in all properly enacted laws punishment is included, and those who enacted them are universally praised, for punishment has the same relation to law as a tyrant has to a people.", "[38] So when a dire famine and dearth of virtue takes possession of states, and folly unstinted is prevalent, God, desiring to drain off the current of wickedness as if it were the stream of a torrent, gives strength and power to men naturally fitted to rule in order to purify our race.", "[39] For wickedness cannot be purged away without some ruthless soul to do it. And just as states maintain official executioners to deal with murderers and traitors and temple robbers, not that they approve of the sentiments of these persons, but with an eye to the usefulness of their service, so the Governor of this great city of the world sets up tyrants like public executioners over the cities which He sees inundated with violence, injustice, impiety and all the other evils, in order that they may be at last brought to a standstill and abate.", "[40] Then too it seems good to Him to crown the punishment of all by bringing to justice those who have carried it out. For knowing that their services were the outcome of an impious and ruthless soul He treats them as in a sense the capital offenders. For just as the force of fire after devouring all the fuel supplied to it finally consumes itself, so too those who have seized dominion over the populaces when they have exhausted the cities and emptied them of all their men pay the penalty due for all and perish as well.", "[41] And why should we wonder that God uses tyrants to sweep away the wickedness which has spread through cities and countries and nations. For often instead of employing other ministers He effects this by Himself by bringing famine or pestilence and earthquake, and all the other divine visitations whereby great bodies of people perish in huge numbers every day and a large part of the world is desolated for His purpose of promoting virtue.", "[42] Enough then I think has been said for the present on the theme that none of the wicked has happiness, and this is a very strong proof that providence exists. But if you are not yet convinced, fear not to tell me your still lingering doubts, for by combining our efforts we shall both get to know where the truth is to be found.", "[43] Later again he says:", "Storms of wind and rain were made by God, not as you supposed, to do grievous harm to voyagers and husbandmen, but to benefit our race as a whole. For He purges the earth with water and the whole sublunary region with breezes. And with both He gives sustenance, growth and maturity to animals and plants.", "[44] If these sometimes harm persons who travel by sea out of season or tillers of the land there is nothing wonderful. They are but a small fraction and His care is for the whole human race. So then as the course of training in the gymnasium is drawn up for the benefit of the pupils, but the gymnasiarch sometimes to suit civic requirements makes a change in the arrangement of the regular hours whereby some of those under training lose their lesson, so too God having the charge of the whole world as though it were a city is wont to create wintry summers and spring-like winters for the benefit of the whole, even though some skippers and workers on the land are bound to suffer loss through the irregular way in which they occur.", "[45] The interchanges of the elements out of which the world was framed and now consists He knows to be a vital operation and produces them in unimpeded succession. But frost and snow and similar phenomena are circumstances attendant on the refrigeration of the air as thunders and lightnings are on the clashing and friction of clouds. And none of these we may suppose is by providence, but while rainstorms and breezes are causal to the life and sustenance and growth of terrestrial things they have these others for their attendant circumstances.", "[46] Similarly a gymnasiarch prompted by ambition may often provide on a lavish scale and some vulgarly extravagant people wash themselves with oil instead of water and let the drops drip to the ground, so that at once we have some slippery mud; yet no sensible person would say that the slipperiness and the mud were due to the purposive design of the gymnasiarch or anything but mere concomitants to the munificent scale of the supply.", "[47] Again a rainbow and a halo and all similar phenomena are attendant circumstances caused by rays mixing with clouds, not primary works of Nature but happenings consequent upon her works. Not but what they often render essential service to the more thoughtful who from the evidence which they give predict the presence or absence of wind and fine or stormy weather.", "[48] Observe the porticoes in the cities. Most of them have been built to face the south so that persons who walk in them may enjoy the sun in winter and the breeze in summer. But they also have an attendant circumstance which does not arise through the intention of the builder. What is this? The shadows cast at our feet indicate the hours as we find by experience.", "[49] Fire too is a most essential work of nature and smoke is a circumstance attendant to it, yet smoke too itself is sometimes helpful. Take for instance beacon signals in the daytime: when the fire is deadened by the rays of the sun shining on it, the enemy’s approach is announced by the smoke.", "[50] Much the same may be said about eclipses as about the rainbow. The sun and moon are natural divinities, and so these eclipses are concomitant circumstances, yet eclipses announce the death of kings and the destruction of cities as is darkly indicated by Pindar on the occurrence of an eclipse in the passage quoted above.", "[51] As for the belt of the Milky Way it possesses the same essential qualities as the other stars, and though it is difficult to give a scientific account of it students of natural phenomena must not shrink from the quest. For while discovery is the most profitable, research is also a delight to lovers of learning.", "[52] Just then as the sun and moon have come into being through the action of providence so too have all the heavenly bodies, even though we, unable to trace the natures and powers of each, are silent about them.", "[53] Earthquakes, pestilence, thunderbolts and the like though said to be visitations from God are not really such. For nothing evil at all is caused by God, and these things are generated by changes in the elements. They are not primary works of nature but a sequel of her essential works, attendant circumstances to the primary.", "[54] If some persons of a finer character participate in the damage which they cause, the blame must not be laid on God’s ordering of the world, for in the first place it does not follow that if persons are considered good by us they are really such, for God judges by standards more accurate than any which the human mind employs. Secondly providence or forethought is contented with paying regard to things in the world of the most importance, just as in kingdoms and commands of army it pays regard to cities and troops, not to some chance individual of the obscure and insignificant kind.", "[55] Some declare that just as when tyrants are put to death it is justifiable to execute their kinsfolk also, so that wrongdoings may be checked by the magnitude of the punishment, so too in times of pestilence it is well that some of the guiltless should perish also as a lesson extending further to call all others to a wiser life. Apart from this they point out that persons who move in a tainted atmosphere must needs take the sickness just as in a storm or on board a ship they share the danger equally.", "[56] The stronger kinds of wild animals were made in order to give us practice in warlike contests, for I feel bound to mention this point though you as a skilful advocate anticipated this defence and tried to discredit it. For the training in gymnastics and constant hunting expeditions weld and brace the body admirably and affect the soul even more than the body by inuring it in the starkness of its strength to meet unconcernedly sudden onsets of the enemy.", "[57] And people of peaceful nature can live sheltered within the walls of their cities and even of their chambers without fear of attack with abundance of different kinds of animals for their enjoyment, since boars and lions and the like following their natural inclination are banished to a distance from the town, preferring to be immune from men’s hostility.", "[58] And if some persons are so careless that they do not fear to resort unarmed and unprepared to the lairs of these beasts they must lay the blame of what happens on themselves and not on Nature, since they have neglected to take precautions when they could. Thus in chariot races too I have seen people giving way to thoughtlessness who, instead of sitting in their places as they should as orderly spectators, stood in the middle of the course and pushed over by the rush of the chariots were crushed under the feet and wheels, a proper reward for their folly.", "[59] Enough has been said on these matters. As for reptiles the venomous kinds have not come into being by direct act of providence but as an attendant circumstance as I have said above. For they come to life when the moisture already in them changes to a higher temperature. In some cases putrefaction breeds them. For instance putrefaction in food and in perspiration breed respectively worms and lice. But all kinds which are created out of their proper substance by a seminal and primary process of nature are reasonably ascribed to providence.", "[60] As to them I have heard two theories, which I should be sorry to suppress, to the effect that they are made for the benefit of mankind. One of them was as follows. Some have said that the venomous animals co-operate in many medical processes, and that those who practise the art scientifically by using them with knowledge where suitable are well provided with antidotes for saving unexpectedly the life of patients in a particularly dangerous condition. And even to this day we may see those who take up the medical profession with care and energy making use of every kind of these creatures as an important factor in compounding their remedies.", "[61] The other theory clearly belongs not to medicine but to philosophy. It declares that these creatures were prepared by God as instruments for the punishment of sinners just as generals and governors have their scourges or weapons of steel, and therefore while quiescent at all other times they are stirred up to do violence to the condemned whom Nature in her incorruptible assize has sentenced to death.", "[62] But the statement that they hide themselves chiefly in houses is false, for they are to be seen in the fields and desolate places outside the town, avoiding man as though he was their master. Not but what if it really is true there is some reason for it. For rubbish and a great quantity of refuse accumulate in the corners of houses, into which the creatures like to creep, and also the smell has a powerful attraction for them.", "[63] If swallows live with us there is nothing to be wondered at for we do not attempt to catch them, and the instinct of self-preservation is implanted in irrational as well as in rational souls. But birds which we like to eat will have nothing to do with us because they fear our designs against them except in cases where the law forbids that their kind should be used as food.", "[64] There is a city on the sea coast of Syria called Ascalon. While I was there at a time when I was on my way to our ancestral temple to offer up prayers and sacrifices I observed a large number of pigeons at the cross roads and in each house, and when I asked the reason I was told that it was not lawful to catch them because they had been from old times forbidden food to the inhabitants. In this way the creature has been so tamed by its security that it not merely lives under their roof but shares their table regularly and takes delight in the immunity which it enjoys.", "[65] In Egypt you may see a still more wonderful sight, for the man-eating crocodile, the most dangerous of wild animals, which is born and bred in the holiest of rivers the Nile, understands the benefit of this though it is a deep water creature. For among the people who honour it, it is found in great numbers, but where men try to destroy it not a glimpse of it is to be seen, so that in some places people sailing on the Nile do not venture, even the very boldest, to dip the tip of a finger in the water as the crocodiles resort thither in shoals, while in other places quite timid people jump out and swim and play about.", "[66] As to the land of the Cyclopes, since that race is a mythical fiction, it is not the case that cultivated fruit is produced without seed being sown or husbandmen tilling it, on the principle that from what does not exist nothing is generated. Greece must not be accused of being a sour unproductive land. For it too has plenty of deep rich soil, and if the world outside excels in fruitfulness its superiority in foodstuffs is counterbalanced by inferiority in the people to be fed for whose sake the food is produced. For Greece alone can be truly said to produce mankind, she who engenders the heavenly plant, the divine shoot, a perfect growth, even reason so closely allied to knowledge, and the cause of this is that the mind is naturally sharpened by the fineness of the air.", "[67] And so Heracleitus aptly says “where the land is dry the soul is best and wisest.” One may find evidence for this in the superior intelligence of the sober and frugal, while those who cram themselves with food and drink are most wanting in wisdom, because the reason is drowned by the stuff that is brought in.", "[68] And therefore in the world outside Greece the plants and trunks are so well nourished that they grow to a great height and it is exceedingly productive of the most prolific animals but very unproductive of intelligence, because the continual and unceasing exhalations from the earth and water overpower it and prevent it from rising out of the air which is its source.", "[69] The various kinds of fishes, birds and land-animals do not give grounds for charging Nature of inviting us to pleasure, but they constitute a severe censure on our want of restraint. For to secure the completeness of the universe and that the cosmic order should exist in every part it was necessary that the different kinds of living animals should arise, but it was not necessary that man the creature most akin to wisdom should be impelled to feast upon them and so change himself into the savagery of wild beasts.", "[70] And therefore to this day those who have thought for self-restraint abstain from every one of them and take green vegetables and the fruits of trees as a relish to their bread with the utmost enjoyment. And those who hold that feasting on these animals is natural have had placed over them teachers, censors and lawgivers who in the different cities make it their business to restrain the intemperance of their appetites by refusing to allow all people to use them all without restriction.", "[71] Violets, roses, and crocuses and the other flowers in their manifold variety were made to give health not pleasure. For their properties are infinite; they are beneficial in themselves by their scents, impregnating all with their fragrance, and far more beneficial when used by physicians in compounding drugs. For some things show their virtues more clearly when combined with others, just as the union of male and female serves to engender animal life while neither of them is qualified to do separately what they can do when combined.", "[72] This is the best answer I can make to the rest of the points raised by you, and it is enough to create in the mind of those who are not contentiously inclined solid grounds for believing that God takes care of human affairs." ], "Appendix": [ "APPENDIX TO DE PROVIDENTIA", "FRAGMENT 1", "Really created. In the preceding paragraph, if the Latin translation of the Armenian version is to be trusted, Philo has declared that he is ready to concede “universum ingenitum et sempiternum esse,” a belief which he ascribes not only to Parmenides and Empedocles but also to Zeno and Cleanthes. But still of the “ingenita materia” some part may be created and destroyed (“generetur et corrumpatur”), sometimes by providence, sometimes in the course of nature. He goes on to compare this with the work of a statuary and other craftsmen. According to this hypothesis God did not create eternally the primal matter but used matter to shape the Cosmos. And even if we go a step farther and suppose that the Cosmos itself as well as matter was uncreated (“etsi una cum materia mundus ingenitus supponatur”) there is still room for providence in directing it. In this case the analogy is with the Ephors at Sparta, which they rule though they did not build it. I cannot fit εἰ δὴ γέγονεν ὄντως into this. I should understand it better if for ὄντως we substituted οὕτως = “assuming that this is the method of its genesis.” This is not quite satisfactory, since properly speaking if it is ἀγένητος it has no genesis.", "The Armenian has “materiae specialiter factae,” of which Aucher says that the translator read τῆς ὕλης εἶδος. Is it not simpler to suppose that he took εἰ δὴ as a single word and unable to make anything of the rest omitted it?", "FRAGMENT 2", "§ 4. The thought here is very striking. Wendland cites for it from Sen. Ep. lxvi. 26–27. Here we have “num quis tam iniquam censuram inter suos agit, ut sanum filium quam aegrum magis diligat?… quoniam quidem etiam parentium amor magis in ea, quorum miseretur, inclinat.” But this is not quite the same. For as the sequel “virtus quoque opera sua, quae videt affici et premi, non magis amat, sed parentium bonorum more magis complectitur ac fovet” shows, it is pity for the sufferings of the good and not a yearning for those who have gone astray which Seneca means. Philo’s words come nearer to the spirit of the story of the Prodigal Son than anything I have seen elsewhere in ancient philosophy.", "§ 8. περὶ ἃ κηραίνει. This phrase is here given in Gifford’s translation by “about which … are anxious”; in Mangey’s by “quorum in cupiditate … contabescit,” and L. & S. revised, connecting it with κῆρ and citing a very similar passage to this (De Dec. 153), has “be sick at heart or anxious.” But the evidence of Philo’s use of the phrase points to the meaning given in the translation, i.e. “incurring disaster” or “getting into trouble in connexion with something.” Leisegang has eight examples of it, to which add this passage and perhaps De Virt. 31. In none of these is “suffering disaster” impossible and in some “being anxious” is impossible. Thus in Spec. Leg. i. 81 the body of the would-be priest must be scrutinized ἵνα περὶ μηδὲν ἀτύχημα κηραίνῃ; ib. 260 the bodies of the victims sacrificed must be without flaw and the souls of the offerers must κηραίνειν περὶ μηδὲν πάθος; De Praem. 29 the defectiveness of human reason is shown by ὁ λογισμὸς περὶ πολλὰ κηραίνων. In De Ebr. 164 Lot περὶ ταῦτα μάλιστα κηραίνει, where ταῦτα is explained as the fact that Lot had only daughters and therefore could breed nothing masculine or perfect.", "§ 17. (Footnote 1, ἄξαντες.) I do not know what sense Dindorf and Gaisford supposed this to have. Gifford, clearly taking it from ἄγνυμι, says that “if it is retained the meaning will be ‘having broken through,’ ” but no such meaning of ἄγνυμι is known, and even if it were possible it would still be necessary to follow it with διά. Nor can any meaning be obtained by taking it from ἄγω. But it is not quite so impossible that it should be the participle of ἀίσσω, though the picture of the physicians being so eager to reach the royal bed that they dart or rush through the bodyguard is, like “breaking through,” somewhat grotesque. In this case we should print ᾄξαντες <διὰ> (though the MSS. would have it without the iota subscript) and ὄχλον and θεραπείαν would be governed by ὑπερβάντες. Wendland suggests as alternatives ἐξ ἐναντίας or ἀντικρὺ or ἀμελήσαντες.", "§ 18. σχήματι. Something is to be said for Mangey’s proposal to correct this to ῥεύματι. This is supported by Wendland, but it should be pointed out that in this case the word would be used in the medical sense of a flux or discharge. Galen and Dioscorides both speak of a ῥεῦμα γαστρός or κοιλίας in this sense. The Armenian has a word which Aucher translates by “laxitate” and it is possible that it is some medical term which might indicate discharges or as we should say “looseness” of the bowels, but is διῴδηκε a word which would be joined with ῥεῦμα in this medical sense?", "§ 23. (The quotation from Empedocles.) Two lines of this are quoted by Synesius", "“ἔνθα φόνος τε κότος τε καὶ ἄλλων ἔθνεα κηρῶν", "αὐχμηραί τε νόσοι καὶ σήψιες ἔργα τε ῥευστά.”", "Another line quoted by Clement", "“κλαῦσά τε καὶ κώκυσο ἰδὼν ἀσυνήθεα χῶρον”", "is no doubt rightly supposed to precede the two. The correction of φόνοι τελοῦνται to φόνοι λιμοί τε is apparently due to Stephanus, but I feel as Dindorf evidently did that it is somewhat arbitrary. There is no great similarity between τελοῦνται and λιμοί τε and nothing very strange in Philo quoting the first two words, then inserting the verb, and then quoting the conclusion of the line. Nor is hunger to the point. The places spoken of are those in which not physical evils but human cruelty predominates. The Armenian no doubt had τελοῦνται, for the Latin is “ubi caedes aliaeque huius modi pravae gentium consuetudines vigent.”", "§ 24. (Footnote 3, ᾐωρῆσθαι.) This correction of Dindorf for θεωρῆσαι, which is not noticed in Gifford’s later edition, is clearly based on the fact that in Her. iii. 124 Polycrates’ daughter dreamt that her father ἐν ἠέρι μετέωρον ὄντα was washed by Zeus and anointed by the sun. Mangey had suggested μετεωρίζεσθαι. The correction leads up well to κρεμάμενον.", "§ 24. The Armenian version of this section as it appears in Aucher’s translation is very curious. Wendland dismisses it as corrupt, but much of it admits of some interesting interpretation. It does not give the name of Polycrates at all, and Aucher in a note says that the translator seems to have read πολὺ κρατεῖ γε, which he rendered by a phrase which Aucher represents by “per multum temporis tenet.” This no doubt he tacked on to the clause about fortune given in the footnote as omitted by Eusebius. He made a full stop then and continued with what Aucher represents by “condigne iis quae patraverat inique impieque ut eorum promotor et auctor sortitus est deterioris vitae infortunium, atque iussu magni regis diu tortus et clavis compressus crudeliter consummatus est.” That is to say he took χορηγός as = “promoter and author” and as subject to ἠδίκησε καὶ ἠσέβησε. At the end of the sentence his “crudeliter consummatus est” seems to represent what he read for χρησμὸν ἐκπιπλάς or perhaps χρησμὸν ἐκπιπλὰς οἶδα. The Latin then proceeds “ilia vero dimiserunt eum quae non multis ante horis gloriae speciem ferebant ante solem ungi et a love lavari.” The words ἔφη κἀμαυτὸν of the received text are to some extent conjectural, for almost all the MSS. divide them otherwise such as ἐφῆκʼ ἐμαυτὸν or ἀμαυτὸν, and if the Armenian by a slight change got ἀφῆκεν αὐτὸν it will explain “dimiserunt eum.” I suspect therefore that he read ἀφῆκεν αὐτὸν τὰ οὐ πρὸ πολλοῦ ἐκτιμῆσαι (or some similar word which he substituted for θεωμῆσαι) δόξαντα, and the translation will run “He was sent out of life by the things which seemed a short time before to have promised him high honour, namely being anointed,” etc. If the similar word is θεῷ εἰκάσαι “to liken him to a god,” we should have something which would make admirable sense and be textually fairly satisfactory, but not well represented by “gloriae.” His version, I am afraid, cannot be accepted in face of the violent changes from the MSS. involved, but it is a much more sensible version. It avoids the pointlessness of putting these words into the mouth of Polycrates and also the contradiction of Herodotus’s story. If we had no access to the Greek and had to choose between his account and that in the translation no one would hesitate to choose the former.", "§ 26. ἀνείμονα. For this word see note on De Som. i. 99 (vol. v. p. 599), where this example should have been noted as well as Spec. Leg. i. 83. In all these cases Philo uses this apparently rare word in the sense of without the upper covering and contrasted with γυμνός. The contrast is obvious both here and in Spec. Leg., where it is explained as = “in short tunics,” almost as obvious in De Som. i. 99, where the phrase κοιρᾶσθαι ἀνείμονα means sleeping with inadequate covering. In that note I suggested that Philo had Od. iii. 348 in mind, but if so he misunderstood the meaning, for there the ἀνείμων is not a person who sleeps uncovered but a host who is unable to supply proper covering to himself or his guest. But the misunderstanding is shared by L. & S. which translates it as=“unclad.” I also commented on L. & S. revised being, like Stephanus, still unable to supply an example of the word except that in the Odyssey. In the Addenda however two examples are given, one from a fragment of Callimachus in a papyrus and our Spec. Leg. passage (which however should be given as Ph. 2. 225—not 355).", "§ 45. For the Stoic doctrine of “incidental consequences” as distinguished from the “primary works of nature” cf. Gellius vii. 1. 7 “existimat (sc. Chrysippus) non fuisse hoc principale consilium ut faceret homines morbis obnoxios … sed cum multa, inquit, atque magna gigneret pareretque aptissima ac utilissima alia quoque simul agnata sunt incommoda, eaque non per naturam sed per sequelas quasdam necessarias facta dicit quod ipse appellat κατὰ παρακολούθησιν.” This dictum of Chrysippus applies primarily to diseases but the latter part gives it the same general application as Philo gives it here. See Zeller, Stoics and Epicureans, p. 179 (Eng. trans.). Zeller adds that the Stoics also pointed out that things ordinarily regarded as evil may be of the greatest service, and illustrates this from a saying of Chrysippus quoted by Plutarch that bugs do us good service by preventing us from sleeping too long. Cf. for this the incidental uses pointed out by Philo in §§ 47–51.", "§ 48. (Footnote 2.) I have allowed what may be called the generally received text to stand but further investigation since the translation was made makes me think that Gaisford and Dindorf were almost certainly right. Gaisford’s App. Crit. seems to indicate that he found τὰ μέτρα or τὰ ἡμέτερα μέτρα in his MSS. with one exception and found πείρᾳ in none. Gilford in the two MSS. which he relied on for this part of the Praeparatio found the same. Also ταῖς ὥραις, not τὰς ὥρας, appears to be universal. On the other hand τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ πείρᾳ goes back to Viger, 1688 and possibly (though I have had no opportunity of verifying it) to Stephanus in 1544. How then did Viger or Stephanus get it? The clue seems to be that the one exception noted by Gaisford has τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ πέτρᾳ. Assuming that Viger or Stephanus found this, the correction to πείρᾳ would be very natural. But if μέτρα is right, ἡρέτερα, which appears in nearly all MSS., must either be dismissed as a dittography or amended to ἡμέρινα (or ταῖς ἡμερίναις … ὥραις?). Wendland, quoting the Armenian, “diei mensuras notat et horas,” suggests τῆς ἡμέρας, but the adjective used in its common antithesis to νυκτέρινος seems to me preferable.", "Wendland also notes that the Armenian has “quae de columnis cadunt umbrae,” and suggests that παστάδων should replace ποδῶν.", "§ 50. (Quotation from Pindar.) The quotation here alluded to occurs in that part between the two divisions of the second fragment which was omitted by Eusebius. It is undoubtedly from the beginning of a fragment of Pindar preserved in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Vi Dem. 6. It is listed among the fragments of Pindar as 107 or 74 (Schröder, p. 427), in Sandys’s Loeb translation, p. 548 as Paean 9. The Latin version in Aucher has enough resemblance to show the identity, but otherwise is sheer nonsense and does not even suggest the general sense, which is that the sun is asked why by this darkening it threatens the world with evil. A version supplied by Conybeare, from which Schröder quotes various bits, would probably explain it better. But it certainly seems that the Armenian who could manage Philo with general accuracy was unable to tackle Pindar. The continuation as given by Dionysius does not suggest the death of kings or the destruction of cities, but war and faction, abnormal storms and floods and through these the destruction of mankind. Some lines however seem to be missed out in the continuation, which may have been more specific.", "§ 53. The inconsistency between this and the view expressed in § 41 may perhaps be explained by supposing that though earthquakes, pestilences, etc., are in themselves incidental consequences they may still be employed by God as a means of chastisement.", "§ 67. οὗ γῆ ξηρή, κτλ. Zeller in Presoc. Phil. vol. ii. pp. 80–81 (Eng. trans.) has a long discussion on this Heracleitean saying. It is quoted by numerous writers, Stobaeus, Musonius, Plutarch, Galen, Clement and others in various forms and the variation extends to different MSS. of these authors. The chief variants are αὔη ψυχὴ, αὔγη ξηρὴ ψυχὴ, ξηρὴ ψυχὴ. Zeller thinks that αὐγὴ ξηρὴ can hardly be the original form, largely on the ground that there is no such thing as a wet beam. The form οὗ γῆ ξηρή does not appear in any of these quotations, though one variant in the MSS. of Musonius has αὖ γῆ ξηρή, but Zeller has no doubt that this is a true reading in our passage, though his remarks, which are transcribed by Gifford, are oddly worded and not very logical. “Philo,” he says, “ap. Eus. Praep. Evang. viii. 14. 67 has οὗ γῆ ξηρή, κτλ., and that this is the true reading … is clear from the passage in Philo, De Prov. ii. 109 ‘in terra sicca,’ ” etc., i.e. Zeller, unless the translator has misrepresented him, and Gifford certainly, were not aware that Philo ap. Eus. and Philo, De Prov. were the same, and that what he is quoting is only the Latin translation of the Armenian translation of the same passage. What the words in Aucher show beyond doubt is that the Armenian found οὗ γῆ in his text, for he is not likely to have had the acumen to make the correction independently, and they thus give a very convincing support to what we might otherwise have supposed to be an emendation of Stephanus or Viger.", "§ 68. (Footnote 1.) The Armenian also presumably read αἰτίου. The full sentence is “mens tamen nusquam nascitur ob frigefactionem gelationemque, quoniam aer, terra et aquae in causis sunt simul, et frequentes exhalationes densae supereminent.” I imagine that he read or translated as if he read ἐξ ἀέρος αἰτίου καὶ γῆς καὶ ὕδατος instead of αἱ γῆς.", "§ 71. ἴα. So Wendland from the Armenian “viola vero et rosa crocusque”; this is perhaps the best example of the value which the Armenian occasionally has, see Introd. pp. 449 f. The common reading εἰ does not give any good sense. The rendering which I had given, “though roses, etc., exist they exist for health not pleasure,” lays a difficult stress upon γέγονεν and Gifford’s “roses, etc., are meant, if for health, yet not all for pleasure” misplaces the “if” and gives no clear meaning." ] }, "schema": { "heTitle": "על ההשגחה", "enTitle": "On Providence", "key": "On Providence", "nodes": [ { "heTitle": "הקדמה", "enTitle": "Introduction" }, { "heTitle": "", "enTitle": "" }, { "heTitle": "הערות", "enTitle": "Appendix" } ] } }