{
"title": "On Abraham",
"language": "en",
"versionTitle": "merged",
"versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org/On_Abraham",
"text": {
"Introduction": [
"INTRODUCTION TO DE ABRAHAMO",
"After stating his intention to follow Moses in describing the “living” before proceeding to the written Laws (1–6 Philo) deals with the first and less perfect triad. First Enos the hoper, whose name equivalent to “Man” shows that hope is the first mark of a true man (7–10). Secondly repentance represented by Enoch, who was “transferred” i.e. to a better life and was “not found,” for the good are rare and solitary (17–26). Thirdly, Noah, who was “just” in comparison with the wicked generation destroyed by the Flood (27–46).",
"The higher triad of the three great Patriarchs are not only typical of the trinity, Teaching, Nature and Practice, but are also the parents of Israel, the soul which attains to the sight of God (48–59). To come to Abraham himself, the literal story of his migrations shows his self-sacrifice (60–67); allegorically it denotes the soul’s journey from godless astronomy first to self-knowledge (Haran), then to the knowledge of God (68–88). His adventures in Egypt (89–98) suggest that the tortures which plagued Pharaoh represent what the sensual mind suffers from the virtues which, while it professes to love them, are incompatible with it (99–106). Next comes the story of the three Angelic Visitors (107–118). Allegorically they represent the Self-existent and the beneficent and sovereign potencies apprehended according as the soul can rise to the full conception or is moved by hope of benefits or fear, and Philo points out that while men distrust these last motives, God does not hold them worthless (119–132). In fact the tale of the destruction of the Cities of the Plain represents the Self-existent as leaving these tasks to His subordinates (133–146). This leads him to an allegory in which the five cities are the five senses, the noblest of which, sight, is figured by Zoar (147–166).",
"Next comes the sacrifice of Isaac (167–177). The greatness of Abraham is vindicated against hostile criticisms based on the frequency of similar stories of child immolation (178–199). Allegorically the story means that a devout soul often feels a duty of surrendering its “Isaac,” Joy, which nevertheless through God’s mercy it is allowed to retain (200–207).",
"These narratives have illustrated Abraham’s piety. Next comes his kindness to men as shewn in his settlement of the dispute with Lot (208–216). This dispute may be taken to represent allegorically the incompatibility of love for the goods of the soul with love for bodily or external things (217–224). Then his courage appears in his victory over the four kings who had routed the armies of the five cities (225–235), and this conflict is allegorized as one between the four passions and the five senses, in which the intervention of reason turns the scale against the former (236–244). Philo now goes on to say something of the virtues of Sarah, particularly as shewn by her advocacy of the mating with Hagar (245–254) and this leads on to an account of the grief coupled with resignation shown by Abraham at her death (255–261). The treatise concludes with an eloquent praise of Abraham’s faith and of his right to the title of “Elder” and the crowning tribute that he both did the law and was himself the Law (262-end)."
],
"": [
[
"ON ABRAHAM, THAT IS, THE LIFE OF THE WISE MAN MADE PERFECT THROUGH TEACHING, OR THE FIRST BOOK ON UNWRITTEN LAWS
[1] The first of the five books in which the holy laws are written bears the name and inscription of Genesis, from the genesis or creation of the world, an account of which it contains at its beginning. It has received this title in spite of its embracing numberless other matters; for it tells of peace and war, of fruitfulness and barrenness, of dearth and plenty; how fire and water wrought great destruction of what is on earth; how on the other hand plants and animals were born and throve through the kindly tempering of the air and the yearly seasons, and so too men, some of whom lived a life of virtue, others of vice.",
"[2] But since some of these things are parts of the world, and others events which befall it, and the world is the complete consummation which contains them all, he dedicated the whole book to it.",
"The story of the order in which the world was made has been set forth in detail by us as well as was possible in the preceding treatise ;",
"[3] but, since it is necessary to carry out our examination of the law in regular sequence, let us postpone consideration of particular laws, which are, so to speak, copies, and examine first those which are more general and may be called the originals of those copies.",
"[4] These are such men as lived good and blameless lives, whose virtues stand permanently recorded in the most holy scriptures, not merely to sound their praises but for the instruction of the reader and as an inducement to him to aspire to the same;",
"[5] for in these men we have laws endowed with life and reason, and Moses extolled them for two reasons. First he wished to shew that the enacted ordinances are not inconsistent with nature; and secondly that those who wish to live in accordance with the laws as they stand have no difficult task, seeing that the first generations before any at all of the particular statutes was set in writing followed the unwritten law with perfect ease, so that one might properly say that the enacted laws are nothing else than memorials of the life of the ancients, preserving to a later generation their actual words and deeds.",
"[6] For they were not scholars or pupils of others, nor did they learn under teachers what was right to say or do: they listened to no voice or instruction but their own: they gladly accepted conformity with nature, holding that nature itself was, as indeed it is, the most venerable of statutes, and thus their whole life was one of happy obedience to law. They committed no guilty action of their own free will or purpose, and where chance led them wrong they besought God’s mercy and propitiated Him with prayers and supplications, and thus secured a perfect life guided aright in both fields, both in their premeditated actions and in such as were not of freely-willed purpose."
],
[
"[7] Since, then, the first step towards the possession of blessings is hope, and hope like a high road is constructed and opened up by the virtue-loving soul in its eagerness to gain true excellence, Moses called the first lover of hope “Man,” thus bestowing on him as a special favour the name which is common to the race (for the Chaldean name for Man is Enos),",
"[8] on the grounds that he alone is a true man who expects good things and rests firmly on comfortable hopes. This plainly shows that he regards a despondent person as no man but a beast in human shape, since he has been robbed of the nearest and dearest possession of the human soul, namely hope.",
"[9] And, therefore, in his wish to give the highest praise to the hoper, after first stating that he set his hope on the Father and Maker of all, he adds, “this is the book of the coming into being of men,” though fathers and grandfathers had already come into being. But he held that they were the founders of the mixed race, but Enos of that from which all impurity had been strained, in fact of the race which is truly reasonable.",
"[10] For just as we give the title of “the poet” to Homer in virtue of his pre-eminence, though there are multitudes of poets besides him, and “the black” to the material with which we write, though everything is black which is not white, and “the Archon” at Athens to the chief of the nine archons, the Archon Eponymos, from whose year of office dates are calculated, so too Moses gave the name of man in pre-eminence to him who cherished hope and left unnoticed the many others as unworthy to receive the same title.",
"[11] He did well, too, in speaking of the book of the coming into being of the true man. The word was appropriate because the hoper deserves a memorial written not on pieces of paper which moths shall destroy but in the undying book of nature where good actions are registered.",
"[12] Further, if we reckon the generations from the first, the earth-born man, we shall find that he, who is called by the Chaldeans Enos and in our tongue Man, is fourth. ",
"[13] Now the number four has been held in high honour by the other philosophers who devoted themselves to the study of immaterial and conceptual realities, and especially by the all-wise Moses who when glorifying that number speaks of it as “holy and for praise,” and why he so called it has been shewn in the former treatise. ",
"[14] Holy, too, and praiseworthy is the hopeful man, just as on the contrary the despondent is unholy and blameworthy, since in all things he takes fear for his evil counsellor; for no two things are more at enmity with each other, men say, than fear and hope, and surely that is natural, for each is an expectation, hope of good, fear on the other hand of evil, and their natures are irreconcilable and incapable of agreement."
],
[
"[15] No more need be said about the subject of hope, set by nature as a door-keeper at the portals of the royal virtues within, to which access cannot be gained unless we have first paid our respects to her.",
"[16] Great indeed are the efforts expended both by lawgivers and by laws in every nation in filling the souls of free men with comfortable hopes; but he who gains this virtue of hopefulness without being led to it by exhortation or command has been educated into it by a law which nature has laid down, a law unwritten yet intuitively learnt.",
"[17] The second place after hope is given to repentance for sins and to improvement, and, therefore, Moses mentions next in order him who changed from the worse life to the better, called by the Hebrews Enoch but in our language “recipient of grace.” We are told of him that he proved “to be pleasing to God and was not found because God transferred him, ”",
"[18] for transference implies turning and changing, and the change is to the better because it is brought about by the forethought of God. For all that is done with God’s help is excellent and truly profitable, as also all that has not His directing care is unprofitable.",
"[19] And the expression used of the transferred person, that he was not found, is well said, either because the old reprehensible life is blotted out and disappears and is no more found, as though it had never been at all, or because he who is thus transferred and takes his place in the better class is naturally hard to find. For evil is widely spread and therefore known to many, while virtue is rare, so that even the few cannot comprehend it.",
"[20] Besides, the worthless man whose life is one long restlessness haunts market-places, theatres, law-courts, council-halls, assemblies, and every group and gathering of men; his tongue he lets loose for unmeasured, endless, indiscriminate talk, bringing chaos and confusion into everything, mixing true with false, fit with unfit, public with private, holy with profane, sensible with absurd, because he has not been trained to that silence which in season is most excellent.",
"[21] His ears he keeps alert in meddlesome curiosity, ever eager to learn his neighbour’s affairs, whether good or bad, and ready with envy for the former and joy at the latter; for the worthless man is a creature naturally malicious, a hater of good and lover of evil."
],
[
"[22] The man of worth on the other hand, having acquired a desire for a quiet life, withdraws from the public and loves solitude, and his choice is to be unnoticed by the many, not because he is misanthropical, for he is eminently a philanthropist, but because he has rejected vice which is welcomed by the multitude who rejoice at what calls for mourning and grieve where it is well to be glad.",
"[23] And therefore he mostly secludes himself at home and scarcely ever crosses his threshold, or else because of the frequency of visitors he leaves the town and spends his days in some lonely farm, finding pleasanter society in those noblest of the whole human race whose bodies time has turned into dust but the flame of their virtues is kept alive by the written records which have survived them in poetry or in prose and serve to promote the growth of goodness in the soul.",
"[24] That was why he said that the “transferred” was not found, being hard to find and hard to seek. So he passes across from ignorance to instruction, from folly to sound sense, from cowardice to courage, from impiety to piety, and again from voluptuousness to self-control, from vaingloriousness to simplicity. And what wealth is equal in worth to these, or what possession of royalty or dominion more profitable?",
"[25] For in very truth the wealth which is not blind but keen of sight is abundance of virtues, which consequently we must needs hold to be, in contrast to the bastard governments falsely so-called, genuine and equitable sovereignty ruling in justice over all.",
"[26] But we must not forget that repentance holds the second place to perfection, just as a change from sickness to health is second to a body free from disease; so, then, unbroken perfection of virtues stands nearest to divine power, but improvement in the course of time is the peculiar treasure of a soul gifted by nature, which does not stay in childish thoughts but by such as are more robust and truly manly seeks to gain a condition of serenity and pursues the vision of the excellent."
],
[
"[27] Naturally, therefore, next to the repentant he sets the lover of virtue and beloved by God, who in the Hebrew language is called Noah but in ours “rest” or “just,” both very suitable titles for the Sage. “Just” is obviously so, for nothing is better than justice, the chief among the virtues, who like the fairest maiden of the dance holds the highest place. But “rest” is appropriate also, since its opposite, unnatural movement, proves to be the cause of turmoil and confusion and factions and wars. Such movement is sought by the worthless, while a life which is calm, serene, tranquil and peaceful to boot is the object of those who have valued nobility of conduct.",
"[28] He shews consistency, too, when he gives to the seventh day, which the Hebrews call sabbath, the name of rest; not, as some think, because the multitude abstained after six days from their usual tasks, but because in truth the number seven, both in the world and in ourselves, is always free from factions and war and quarrelling and is of all numbers the most peaceful.",
"[29] This statement is attested by the faculties within us, for six of them wage ceaseless and continuous war on land and sea, namely the five senses and speech, the former in their craving for the objects of sense, deprivation of which is painful to them, speech because with unbridled mouth it perpetually gives utterance where silence is due.",
"[30] But the seventh faculty is that of the dominant mind, which, after triumphing over the six and returning victorious through its superior strength, welcomes solitude and rejoices in its own society, feeling that it needs no other and is completely sufficient for itself, and then released from the cares and concerns of mortal kind gladly accepts a life of calmness and serenity."
],
[
"[31] So highly does Moses extol the lover of virtue that when he gives his genealogy he does not, as he usually does in other cases, make a list of his grandfathers, great-grandfathers and ancestors in the male and female line, but of certain virtues, and this is little less than a direct assertion that a sage has no house or kinsfolk or country save virtues and virtuous actions; “for these,” he says, “are the generations of Noah. Noah, a man just and perfect in his generation, was well-pleasing to God.” ",
"[32] But we must not fail to note that in this passage he gives the name of man not according to the common form of speech, to the mortal animal endowed with reason, but to the man who is man pre-eminently, who verifies the name by having expelled from the soul the untamed and frantic passions and the truly beast-like vices.",
"[33] Here is a proof. After “man” he adds “just,” implying by the combination that the unjust is no man, or more properly speaking a beast in human form, and that the follower after righteousness alone is man.",
"[34] He says, too, that Noah became “perfect,” thereby shewing that he acquired not one virtue but all, and having acquired them continued to exercise each as opportunities allowed.",
"[35] And as he crowns him as victor in the contest, he gives him further distinction by a proclamation couched in words of splendid praise, “he was well-pleasing to God.” What better thing than this has nature to give? What clearer proof can there be of nobility of life? For, if those who have been ill-pleasing to God are ill-fated, happy most surely are those whose lot it is to be well-pleasing to God."
],
[
"[36] But Moses makes a good point when, after praising him as possessed of all these virtues, he adds that he was perfect in his generation, thus shewing he was not good absolutely but in comparison with the men of that time.",
"[37] For we shall shortly find him mentioning other sages whose virtue was unchallenged, who are not contrasted with the bad, who are adjudged worthy of approval and precedence, not because they were better than their contemporaries but because they possessed a happily-gifted nature and kept it unperverted, who did not have to shun evil courses or indeed come into contact with them at all, but attained pre-eminence in practising that excellence of words and deeds with which they adorned their lives.",
"[38] The highest admiration, then, is due to those in whom the ruling impulses were of free and noble birth, who accepted the excellent and just for their own selves and not in imitation of or in opposition to others. But admiration is also due to him who stood apart from his own generation and conformed himself to none of the aims and aspirations of the many. He will win the second prize, though the first will be awarded by nature to those others.",
"[39] Yet great also is the second prize in itself, for how could anything fail to be great and worthy of our efforts which God offers and gives?",
"And the clearest proof of this is the exceeding magnitude of the bounties which Noah obtained.",
"[40] That time bore its harvest of iniquities, and every country and nation and city and household and every private individual was filled with evil practices; one and all, as though in a race, engaged in rivalry pre-willed and premeditated for the first places in sinfulness, and put all possible zeal into the contention, each one pressing on to exceed his neighbour in magnitude of vice and leaving nothing undone which could lead to a guilty and accursed life."
],
[
"[41] Naturally this roused the wrath of God, to think that man, who seemed the best of all living creatures, who had been judged worthy of kinship with Him because he shared the gift of reason, had, instead of practising virtue as he should, shewn zeal for vice and for every particular form of it. Accordingly, He appointed the penalty which fitted their wickedness. He determined to destroy all those who were then alive by a deluge, not only those who dwelt in the plains and lower lands, but also the inhabitants of the highest mountains.",
"[42] For the great deep rose on high as it had never risen before, and gathering its force rushed through its outlets into the seas of our parts, and the rising tides of these flooded the islands and continents, while in quick succession the streams from the perennial fountains and from the rivers spring-fed or winter-torrents pressed on to join each other and mounted upwards to a vast height.",
"[43] Nor was the air still, for a deep unbroken cloud covered the heaven, and there were monstrous blasts of wind and crashings of thunder and flashings of lightning and downfall of thunderbolts, while the rainstorms dashed down ceaselessly, so that one might think that the different parts of the universe were hurrying to be resolved into the single element of water, until, as in one form it rushed down from above and in another rose up from below, the streams were lifted on high, and thus not only the plains and lowlands were submerged and lost to sight, but even the peaks of the highest mountains.",
"[44] For all parts of the earth sank below the water, so that it was entirely carried away as though by violence, and the world seemed mutilated by the loss of a great section, its completeness and perfection destroyed and defaced, a thing too terrible for words or even for thoughts. Indeed even the air, except a small portion belonging to the moon, had been completely made away with, vanquished by the rush and violence of the water which perforce occupied its place.",
"[45] Then indeed at once all crops and trees perished, for excessive quantity of water is as destructive as the lack of it, and the numberless herds of animals died, tame and wild alike; for it was to be expected that if the highest kind, the human, was annihilated none of the inferior kinds would be left, since they were made for man’s needs, as slaves in a sense meant to obey their masters’ orders.",
"[46] When all these evils, so many and so vast, had burst upon the world in the downpour which that occasion brought, and the unnatural convulsion had shaken all its parts save the heavenly as with a grievous and deadly plague, one house alone, that of the man called just and dear to God, was preserved. Thus, he received two gifts of the highest kind—one that, as I have said, he did not perish with the rest, the other that he should be in his turn the founder of a new race of men. For God deemed him worthy to be both the last and the first of our kind—last of those who lived before the flood and first of those who lived after it."
],
[
"[47] Such was he who was best of his contemporaries, and such were the prizes awarded to him, the nature of which is made clear in holy writ. Now the three mentioned above, whether we think of them as men or types of soul, form a series of regular gradation: the perfect man is complete from the first; the transferred stands half-way, since he devoted the earlier part of his life to vice but the latter to virtue to which he passed over and migrated; the hoper, as his very name shews, is defective inasmuch as though he always desired the excellent he has not yet been able to attain to it, but resembles sailors eager to put into port, who yet remain at sea unable to reach their haven."
],
[
"[48] So now we have explained the first trinity of those who yearn for virtue; but greater is the second trinity of which we have now to speak. The first we may compare to the studies of children, but the latter to the exercises of athletes who are preparing for games which are really sacred, men who despise bodily training but foster robustness of soul in their desire for victory over their antagonists, the passions.",
"[49] How each of these differed from the others while pressing on to one and the same goal will be described in detail later; but there is something to be said about them taken as a whole which must not be omitted.",
"[50] We find that these three are all of one house and one family. The last is the son of the second and grandson to the first. All alike are God-lovers and God-beloved, and their affection for the true God was returned by Him, Who deigned, as His utterances shew, in recognition of their high and life-long virtues to make them partners in the title which He took,",
"[51] for He united them by joining His special name to theirs and calling Himself by one combined of the three. “For this,” He said, “is my eternal name —the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” relative instead of absolute, and surely that is natural. God indeed needs no name; yet, though He needed it not, He nevertheless vouchsafed to give to humankind a name of Himself suited to them, that so men might be able to take refuge in prayers and supplications and not be deprived of comforting hopes."
],
[
"[52] These words do indeed appear to apply to men of holy life, but they are also statements about an order of things which is not so apparent but is far superior to the order which is perceived by the senses. For the holy word seems to be searching into types of soul, all of them of high worth, one which pursues the good through teaching, one through nature and one through practice. The first called Abraham, the second Isaac and the third Jacob, are symbols of virtue acquired respectively by teaching, nature and practice.",
"[53] But indeed we must not fail to note that each possesses the three qualities, but gets his name from that which chiefly predominates in him; for teaching cannot be consummated without nature or practice, nor is nature capable of reaching its zenith without learning and practising, nor practice either unless the foundation of nature and teaching has first been laid.",
"[54] Very properly, then, Moses thus associated these three together, nominally men, but really, as I have said, virtues—teaching, nature, practice. Another name is given to them by men, who call them the Graces, also three in number; either because these values are a gift of God’s grace to our kind for perfecting its life, or because they have given themselves to the reasonable soul as a perfect and most excellent gift. Thus the eternal name revealed in his words is meant to indicate the three said values rather than actual men.",
"[55] For the nature of man is perishable, but that of virtue is imperishable. And it is more reasonable that what is eternal should be predicated of the imperishable than of the mortal, since imperishableness is akin to eternality, while death is at enmity with it."
],
[
"[56] There is another thing which we must not fail to know: while Moses represented the first man, the earth-born, as father of all that were born up to the deluge, and Noah who with all his house alone survived that great destruction because of his justice and excellent character in other ways as the father of the new race which would spring up afresh, the oracles speak of this august and precious trinity as parent of one species of that race, which species is called “royal” and “priesthood” and “holy nation.” ",
"[57] Its high position is shewn by the name; for the nation is called in the Hebrew tongue Israel, which, being interpreted, is “He who sees God.” Now the sight of the eyes is the most excellent of all the senses, since by it alone we apprehend the most excellent of existing things, the sun and the moon and the whole heaven and world; but the sight of the mind, the dominant element in the soul, surpasses all the other faculties of the mind, and this is wisdom which is the sight of the understanding. ",
"[58] But he to whom it is given not only to apprehend by means of knowledge all else that nature has to shew, but also to see the Father and Maker of all, may rest assured that he is advanced to the crowning point of happiness; for nothing is higher than God, and whoso has stretched the eyesight of the soul to reach Him should pray that he may there abide and stand firm;",
"[59] for journeys uphill are toilsome and slow, but the downhill course where one is swept along rather than descends is swift and most easy. And many are the forces which would bear us down, yet none of them avail when God sets the soul suspended to His potencies and with a mightier attraction draws it to Himself."
],
[
"[60] So much for what was needed by way of preliminary discussion on the three in common. We must now speak of the superior merits shewn by each separately, beginning with the first. Abraham, then, filled with zeal for piety, the highest and greatest of virtues, was eager to follow God and to be obedient to His commands; understanding by commands not only those conveyed in speech and writing but also those made manifest by nature with clearer signs, and apprehended by the sense which is the most truthful of all and superior to hearing, on which no certain reliance can be placed.",
"[61] For anyone who contemplates the order in nature and the constitution enjoyed by the world-city whose excellence no words can describe, needs no speaker to teach him to practise a law-abiding and peaceful life and to aim at assimilating himself to its beauties. But the clearest proofs of his piety are those which the holy scriptures contain, and the first which should be mentioned is that which comes first in order."
],
[
"[62] Under the force of an oracle which bade him leave his country and kinsfolk and seek a new home, thinking that quickness in executing the command was as good as full accomplishment, he hastened eagerly to obey, not as though he were leaving home for a strange land but rather as returning from amid strangers to his home.",
"[63] Yet who else would be likely to be so firm and unmoved of purpose as not to yield and succumb to the charms of kinsfolk and country? The desire of these may be said to be born and grow with each of us and is a part of our nature as much as or even more than the parts which unite to make the whole.",
"[64] And this is attested by the legislators who have appointed banishment as the penalty second only to death for those who have been convicted of the greatest crimes, though indeed, in my opinion, it is not second to death, if truth gives its verdict, but rather a far heavier punishment, since death ends our troubles but banishment is not the end but the beginning of other new misfortunes and entails in place of the one death which puts an end to pains a thousand deaths in which we do not lose sensation.",
"[65] Some men go on voyages for trading purposes in their desire for making money or on embassies or in their love of culture to see the sights of a foreign land. These are subject to influences driving them to stay abroad, in some cases financial gains, in others the chance of benefiting their country, when occasion offers, in its most vital and important interests, in others acquiring knowledge of things which they did not know before and thus providing at once pleasure and profit to the soul, for the stay-at-home is to the travelled as the blind are to the keen-sighted. Yet all these are eager to see and salute their native soil, and to greet their familiars and to have the sweet and most desired enjoyment of beholding their kinsfolk and friends. And often when they find the business for which they left home protracting itself they abandon it, drawn by the constraining desire for their own belongings.",
"[66] But Abraham, the moment he was bidden, departed with a few or even alone, and his emigration was one of soul rather than body, for the heavenly love overpowered his desire for mortal things.",
"[67] And so taking no thought for anything, either for his fellow-clansmen, or wardsmen, or schoolmates, or comrades, or blood relations on father’s or mother’s side, or country, or ancestral customs, or community of nurture or home life, all of them ties possessing a power to allure and attract which it is hard to throw off, he followed a free and unfettered impulse and departed with all speed first from Chaldea, a land at that time blessed by fortune and at the height of its prosperity, and migrated to Haran; then not long afterwards he left this too for another place, about which we shall speak after dealing with something else to which I now proceed. "
],
[
"[68] The migrations as set forth by the literal text of the scriptures are made by a man of wisdom, but according to the laws of allegory by a virtue-loving soul in its search for the true God.",
"[69] For the Chaldeans were especially active in the elaboration of astrology and ascribed everything to the movements of the stars. They supposed that the course of the phenomena of the world is guided by influences contained in numbers and numerical proportions. Thus they glorified visible existence, leaving out of consideration the intelligible and invisible. But while exploring numerical order as applied to the revolution of the sun, moon and other planets and fixed stars, and the changes of the yearly seasons and the interdependence of phenomena in heaven and on earth, they concluded that the world itself was God, thus profanely likening the created to the Creator.",
"[70] In this creed Abraham had been reared, and for a long time remained a Chaldean. Then opening the soul’s eye as though after profound sleep, and beginning to see the pure beam instead of the deep darkness, he followed the ray and discerned what he had not beheld before, a charioteer and pilot presiding over the world and directing in safety his own work, assuming the charge and superintendence of that work and of all such parts of it as are worthy of the divine care.",
"[71] And so to establish more firmly in his understanding the sight which had been revealed to him the Holy Word follows it up by saying to him, “Friend, the great is often known by its outlines as shown in the smaller, and by looking at them the observer finds the scope of his vision infinitely enlarged. Dismiss, then, the rangers of the heavens and the science of Chaldea, and depart for a short time from the greatest of cities, this world, to the lesser, and thus you will be better able to apprehend the overseer of the All.”",
"[72] This is why he is said to emigrate first from the land of Chaldea to that of Haran. "
],
[
"Now Haran in our language means “holes,” a symbol for the seats of our senses through which each of them naturally peers as through orifices to apprehend what belongs to it.",
"[73] Yet what use, we might ask, would they be if the invisible mind were not there like a juggler to prompt its faculties, sometimes relaxing and giving them a free rein, sometimes forcibly pulling and jerking them back, and thus causing its puppets at one time to move in harmony, at another to rest? With this example in yourself you will easily apprehend that which you so earnestly desire to know.",
"[74] For it cannot be that while in yourself there is a mind appointed as your ruler which all the community of the body obeys and each of the senses follows, the world, the fairest, and greatest and most perfect work of all, of which everything else is a part, is without a king who holds it together and directs it with justice. That the king is invisible need not cause you to wonder, for neither is the mind in yourself visible.",
"[75] Anyone who reflects on these things and learns from no distant source, but from one near at hand, namely himself and what makes him what he is, will know for certain that the world is not the primal God but a work of the primal God and Father of all Who, though invisible, yet brings all things to light, revealing the natures of great and small.",
"[76] For He did not deem it right to be apprehended by the eyes of the body, perhaps because it was contrary to holiness that the mortal should touch the eternal, perhaps too because of the weakness of our sight. For our sight could not have borne the rays that pour from Him that IS, since it is not even able to look upon the beams of the sun."
],
[
"[77] We have a very clear proof of the mind’s migration from astrology and the Chaldean creed in the words which follow at once the story of the departure of the Sage. “God,” it says, “was seen by Abraham.” This shews that God was not manifested to him before, when in his Chaldean way he was fixing his thoughts on the choric movement of the stars with no apprehension at all of an harmonious and intelligible order of things outside the world and the sphere of sense.",
"[78] But when he had departed and changed his habitation he could not help but know that the world is not sovereign but dependent, not governing but governed by its Maker and First Cause. And this his mind then saw for the first time with its recovered sight.",
"[79] For before a great mist had been shed upon it by the things of sense, and only with difficulty could it dispel this mist under the warmth and fervour of higher verities and so be able as in clear open sky to receive the vision of Him Who so long lay hidden and invisible. He in His love for mankind, when the soul came into His presence, did not turn away His face, but came forward to meet him and revealed His nature, so far as the beholder’s power of sight allowed.",
"[80] That is why we are told not that the Sage saw God, but that God was seen by him. For it were impossible that anyone should by himself apprehend the truly Existent, did not He reveal and manifest Himself."
],
[
"[81] What has been said is attested by the alteration and change in his name, for his original name was Abram, but afterwards he was addressed as Abraham. To the ear there was but a duplication of one letter, alpha, but in fact and in the truth conveyed this duplication shewed a change of great importance.",
"[82] Abram is by interpretation “uplifted father”; Abraham, “elect father of sound.” The former signifies one called astrologer and meteorologist, one who takes care of the Chaldean tenets as a father would of his children.",
"[83] The latter signifies the Sage, for he uses “sound” as a figure for spoken thought and “father” for the ruling mind, since the inward thought is by its nature father of the uttered, being senior to it, the secret begetter of what it has to say. “Elect” signifies the man of worth, for the worthless character is random and confused, while the good is elect, chosen out of all for his merits.",
"[84] Now to the meteorologist nothing at all seems greater than the universe, and he credits it with the causation of what comes into being. But the wise man with more discerning eyes sees something more perfect perceived by mind, something which rules and governs, the master and pilot of all else. And therefore he blames himself severely for his former life, feeling that all his years have been passed in blindness with no staff to support him but the world of sense, which is by its nature an insecure and unstable thing.",
"[85] The second migration which the man of worth undertakes, again in obedience to an oracle, is not as before from state to state but into a desert country in which he continued to wander, never complaining of the wandering or the insecurity which it caused. ",
"[86] Yet who else would not have felt it a burden not only to be severed from his own country, but also to be driven out of all city life into pathless tracts where the traveller could hardly find a way? Who would not have turned his course and hurried back homeward, paying little regard to future hopes, but eager to escape his present hardships, and thinking it folly to choose admitted evil for the sake of uncertain good?",
"[87] Yet he alone appears to have had feelings the opposite of these, and to have thought that no life was so pleasant as one lived without association with the multitude. And that is natural, for those who seek God and yearn to find Him love the solitude which is dear to Him, and in this way first of all hasten to make themselves like His blessed and happy nature.",
"[88] So in both our expositions, the literal as applied to the man and the allegorical as applied to the soul, we have shewn both man and soul to be worthy of our affection. We have shewn how the man in obedience to divine commands was drawn away from the stubborn hold of his associations and how the mind did not remain for ever deceived nor stand rooted in the realm of sense, nor suppose that the visible world was the Almighty and Primal God, but using its reason sped upwards and turned its gaze upon the intelligible order which is superior to the visible and upon Him who is maker and ruler of both alike."
],
[
"[89] This is the opening of the story of the friend of God, and it is followed by actions which call for anything but contempt. But their greatness is not clear to everyone, but only to those who have tasted virtue and who recognize the greatness of the good things which belong to the soul and therefore are wont to deride those which win the admiration of the multitude.",
"[90] God, then, approving of the action just related, at once rewards the man of worth with a great gift; for when his marriage was threatened through the designs of a licentious potentate, God kept it safe and unharmed.",
"[91] The occasion which led up to the attempted outrage originated in the following way. There had been a failure of the crops for a considerable period, at one time through a great and excessive rainfall, at another through drought and stormy weather; and the cities of Syria, hard pressed through continual famine, were stripped of their inhabitants who scattered in different directions to seek for food and to procure necessities.",
"[92] Abraham, then, learning that there was a rich and abundant supply of corn in Egypt, where the river by its seasonal flooding had turned the plains into pools, and well-tempered winds had produced and fostered a fine growth of corn, set off thither with his whole household.",
"[93] He had a wife distinguished greatly for her goodness of soul and beauty of body, in which she surpassed all the women of her time. When the chief people of Egypt saw her and admired her beauty, since the highly placed leave nothing unobserved, they told the king.",
"[94] He sent for the woman, and, marking her surpassing comeliness, paid little regard to decency or the laws enacted to shew respect to strangers, but gave rein to his licence and determined nominally to take her in marriage, but in reality to bring her to shame.",
"[95] She who in a foreign country was at the mercy of a licentious and cruel-hearted despot and had no one to protect her, for her husband was helpless, menaced as he was by the terror of stronger powers, joined him in fleeing for refuge to the last remaining championship, that of God.",
"[96] And God, Who is kindly and merciful and shields the wronged, had pity for the strangers and plied the king with almost intolerable pains and grievous penalties. He filled him body and soul with all manner of scarce curable plagues. All appetite for pleasure was eradicated and replaced by visitations of the opposite kind, by cravings for release from the endless tortures which night and day haunted and racked him almost to death.",
"[97] The whole household, too, shared the punishment with him, since none had shewn indignation at the outrage, but all by consenting were almost accomplices in the misdeed.",
"[98] Thus the chastity of the woman was preserved, while the nobility and piety of the man was evidenced by God, Who deigned to grant him this signal boon, that his marriage, which would have been in almost immediate danger of violation, should remain free from harm and outrage, that marriage from which was to issue not a family of a few sons and daughters, but a whole nation, and that the nation dearest of all to God, which, as I hold, has received the gift of priesthood and prophecy on behalf of all mankind."
],
[
"[99] I have also heard some natural philosophers who took the passage allegorically, not without good reason. They said that the husband was a figure for the good mind, judging by the meaning given for interpretation of this name that it stood for a good disposition of soul. The wife, they said, was virtue, her name being in Chaldean Sarah but in our language a sovereign lady, because nothing is more sovereign or dominant than virtue.",
"[100] Now in a marriage where the union is brought about by pleasure, the partnership is between body and body, but in the marriage made by wisdom it is between thoughts which seek purification and perfect virtues. Now the two kinds of marriage are directly opposed to each other.",
"[101] For in the bodily marriage the male sows the seed and the female receives it; on the other hand in the matings within the soul, though virtue seemingly ranks as wife, her natural function is to sow good counsels and excellent words and to inculcate tenets truly profitable to life, while thought, though held to take the place of the husband, receives the holy and divine sowings. Perhaps however the statement above is a mistake due to the deceptiveness of the nouns, since in the actual words employed νοῦς has the masculine, and ἀρετή the feminine form.",
"[102] And if anyone is willing to divest facts of the terms which obscure them and observe them in their nakedness in a clear light he will understand that virtue is male, since it causes movement and affects conditions and suggests noble conceptions of noble deeds and words, while thought is female, being moved and trained and helped, and in general belonging to the passive category, which passivity is its sole means of preservation."
],
[
"[103] All men, then, even the most worthless, professedly honour and admire virtue so far as outward appearance goes, but only the worthy practise its injunctions. And so the king of Egypt, under which figure is symbolized the mind which loves the body, acts a part as in a theatre and assumes a counterfeited fellowship, he, the licentious with chastity, the profligate with self-control, the unjust with justice, and in his desire to earn a good repute with the multitude invites virtue to join him.",
"[104] Seeing this, God the surveyor, since He alone can scan the soul, hates and rejects the sham character and submits it to the test of most painful tortures. What are the instruments of these tortures? Surely the different parts of virtue which enter in and plague and wound him grievously? For greediness is tortured by frugal contentment and lewdness by continence. And so the vainglorious is racked when simplicity prevails, and the unjust when justice is praised.",
"[105] For it is impossible for the single soul to have for its tenant two hostile natures, vice and virtue, and therefore when they meet factions and wars are set on foot incapable of truce or reconciliation. And yet virtue’s nature is most peaceable, and she is careful, so they say, to test her own strength before the conflict, so that if she is able to contend to the end she may take the field, but if she finds her strength too weak she may shrink from entering the contest at all.",
"[106] For vice feels no disgrace in defeat, since ill-repute is congenital to her, but to virtue it is a reproach, for nearest and dearest to her is good fame which makes it natural for her to be victorious or at least to keep herself undefeated."
],
[
"[107] I have described the inhospitality and licentiousness of the Egyptians. Turning to the victim of this outrage, we may well admire his kindness of heart. When at noon he saw three travellers in the form of men, for their diviner nature was not apparent to him, he ran to them and earnestly begged of them not to pass his tent but to enter as was fitting and partake of hospitality. But they, knowing, not so much by his words as by the feeling he showed, that he spoke the truth, assented without hesitation.",
"[108] And he, his soul full of joy, was eager to carry out the reception without delay, and said to his wife: “Hasten and bake three measures of cakes in the ashes.” Meanwhile he himself hurried to the stalls and brought a tender and well-fed calf which he gave",
"[109] to the servant who killed it and dressed it with all speed. For in a wise man’s house no one is slow in showing kindness; but women and men, slaves and free, are full of zeal to do service to their guests.",
"[110] After feasting not so much on the viands prepared for them as on the goodwill of their host, and on this example of a great and unbounded generosity, they presented him with a reward surpassing his hopes, by promising him the birth of a son born in wedlock. And this promise, which was to be made good in the next year, was given through one, and that the highest, of the three. For wise refinement demanded that all should not speak together at once but rather that one should speak and the others shew assent.",
"[111] But to Abraham and Sarah the thing seemed incredible, and therefore they did not pay serious regard even to the promises of the three. For as they had passed the years of parenthood their great age had made them despair of the birth of a son.",
"[112] So the scripture says that the wife first laughed at the words and afterwards when they said, “Is anything impossible with God?” was ashamed and denied her laughter, for she knew that all things were possible with God, a truth which she had learnt long ago, and even from the cradle.",
"[113] It was then, I think, that she first saw in the strangers before her a different and grander aspect, that of prophets or angels, transformed from their spiritual and soul-like nature into human shape. "
],
[
"[114] We have described Abraham’s hospitality which was but a by-product of a greater virtue. That virtue is piety, of which we have spoken before, and it is quite clearly seen in this story, even if we think of the strangers as men.",
"[115] Some may feel that the house must have been happy and blessed in which such an event as this took place, that wise men halted there and made a stay who would not have deigned even to look inside if they saw anything hopelessly wrong in the souls of the inmates. And, if this is so, I do not know how to express the vast happiness and blessedness of that house where angels did not shrink from halting and receiving hospitality from men—angels, those holy and divine beings, the servitors and lieutenants of the primal God whom He employs as ambassadors to announce the predictions which He wills to make to our race.",
"[116] For how could they have brought themselves to enter at all if they had not known that all the household, like a well ordered crew, was obedient to a single call from him who steered them like a pilot? And how should they have given ground for the idea that they feasted and received hospitality unless they thought that the giver of the feast was their kinsman and fellow-servant who had sought refuge with their master? Indeed we must suppose that at their entrance all parts of the house advanced still further in goodness and felt some breath of the inspiration of perfect virtue.",
"[117] The conduct of the meal was such as it should be. The guests showed to their entertainer the frank simplicity of a festive gathering. Their manner in addressing him was unreserved, and their converse suited to the occasion.",
"[118] It is a marvel indeed that though they neither ate nor drank they gave the appearance of both eating and drinking. But that is a secondary matter; the first and greatest wonder is that, though incorporeal, they assumed human form to do kindness to the man of worth. For why was this miracle worked save to cause the Sage to perceive with clearer vision that the Father did not fail to recognize his wisdom?"
],
[
"[119] Here we may leave the literal exposition and begin the allegorical. Spoken words contain symbols of things apprehended by the understanding only. When, then, as at noon-tide God shines around the soul, and the light of the mind fills it through and through and the shadows are driven from it by the rays which pour all around it, the single object presents to it a triple vision, one representing the reality, the other two the shadows reflected from it. Our life in the light which our senses perceive gives us a somewhat similar experience, for objects standing or moving often cast two shadows at once.",
"[120] No one, however, should think that the shadows can be properly spoken of as God. To call them so is loose speaking, serving merely to give a clearer view of the fact which we are explaining, since the real truth is otherwise.",
"[121] Rather, as anyone who has approached nearest to the truth would say, the central place is held by the Father of the Universe, Who in the sacred scriptures is called He that Is as His proper name, while on either side of Him are the senior potencies, the nearest to Him, the creative and the kingly. The title of the former is God, since it made and ordered the All; the title of the latter is Lord, since it is the fundamental right of the maker to rule and control what he has brought into being.",
"[122] So the central Being with each of His potencies as His squire presents to the mind which has vision the appearance sometimes of one, sometimes of three: of one, when that mind is highly purified and, passing beyond not merely the multiplicity of other numbers, but even the dyad which is next to the unit, presses on to the ideal form which is free from mixture and complexity, and being self-contained needs nothing more; of three, when, as yet uninitiated into the highest mysteries, it is still a votary only of the minor rites and unable to apprehend the Existent alone by Itself and apart from all else, but only through Its actions, as either creative or ruling.",
"[123] This is, as they say, a “second best voyage ”; yet all the same there is in it an element of a way of thinking such as God approves. But the former state of mind has not merely an element. It is in itself the divinely-approved way, or rather it is the truth, higher than a way of thinking, more precious than anything which is merely thought. But it would be well to state the point in a more familiar guise."
],
[
"[124] There are three classes of human temperaments, each of them so constituted that the vision presents itself in one of the three ways above-mentioned. To the best class it presents itself in the middle form, that of the essentially existent; to the next best, in that which stands on the right, the beneficent, which bears the name of God; to the third, in that on the left, the governing, which is called Lord.",
"[125] Temperaments of the last kind worship the solely Self-existent and nothing can make them swerve from this, because they are subject to the single attraction which leads them to honour the one. Of the other two types, one is introduced and made known to the Father by the beneficial, the other by the kingly potency.",
"[126] My meaning is something as follows: men, when they see others approaching them under profession of friendship, in quest of advantages to be gained from them, look askance and turn away; they fear that counterfeited adulation and suavity which they regard as exceedingly pernicious.",
"[127] But God cannot suffer injury, and therefore He gladly invites all who set themselves to honour Him under any form whatsoever, and in His eyes none such deserves rejection. Indeed one might almost say that to those whose souls have ears God speaks plainly as follows:",
"[128] “My first prizes will be set apart for those who honour Me for Myself alone, the second to those who honour Me for their own sakes, either hoping to win blessings or expecting to obtain remission of punishments, since, though their worship is for reward and not disinterested, yet all the same its range lies within the divine precincts and does not stray, outside.",
"[129] But the prizes set aside for those who honour Me for Myself will be gifts of friendship; to those whose motive is self-interest they do not show friendship but that I do not count them as aliens. For I accept both him who wishes to enjoy My beneficial power and thus partake of blessings and him who propitiates the dominance and authority of the master to avoid chastisement. For I know well that they will not only not be worsened, but actually bettered, through the persistence of their worship and through practising piety pure and undefiled.",
"[130] For, however different are the characters which produce in them the impulses to do My pleasure, no charge shall be brought against them, since they have one aim and object, to serve Me.”",
"[131] That the triple vision is in reality a vision of a single object is clear not merely from the principles of allegory but from the literal text which contains the following account.",
"[132] When the Sage supplicates the three seeming travellers to accept his hospitality, he discourses with them as though they were one and not three. He says, “Sir, if indeed I have found favour with thee, do not thou pass thy servant by.” Here “Sir” and “with thee” and “do not thou pass” and the other like phrases must be addressed to one and not to more than one; and during their entertainment, when they show courtesy to their host, we find one only, as though no other was present, promising the birth of a son born in wedlock in the following words: “I will return and come to thee at this season next year, and Sarah, thy wife, shall have a son.” "
],
[
"[133] He brings out the point most clearly and elaborately in what follows. The land of the Sodomites, a part of the land of Canaan afterwards called Palestinian Syria, was brimful of innumerable iniquities, particularly such as arise from gluttony and lewdness, and multiplied and enlarged every other possible pleasure with so formidable a menace that it had at last been condemned by the Judge of All.",
"[134] The inhabitants owed this extreme licence to the never-failing lavishness of their sources of wealth, for, deep-soiled and well-watered as it was, the land had every year a prolific harvest of all manner of fruits, and the chief beginning of evils, as one has aptly said, is goods in excess. ",
"[135] Incapable of bearing such satiety, plunging like cattle, they threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied themselves to deep drinking of strong liquor and dainty feeding and forbidden forms of intercourse. Not only in their mad lust for women did they violate the marriages of their neighbours, but also men mounted males without respect for the sex nature which the active partner shares with the passive; and so when they tried to beget children they were discovered to be incapable of any but a sterile seed. Yet the discovery availed them not, so much stronger was the force of the lust which mastered them.",
"[136] Then, as little by little they accustomed those who were by nature men to submit to play the part of women, they saddled them with the formidable curse of a female disease. For not only did they emasculate their bodies by luxury and voluptuousness but they worked a further degeneration in their souls and, as far as in them lay, were corrupting the whole of mankind. Certainly, had Greeks and barbarians joined together in affecting such unions, city after city would have become a desert, as though depopulated by a pestilential sickness."
],
[
"[137] But God, moved by pity for mankind whose Saviour and Lover He was, gave increase in the greatest possible degree to the unions which men and women naturally make for begetting children, but abominated and extinguished this unnatural and forbidden intercourse, and those who lusted for such He cast forth and chastised with punishments not of the usual kind but startling and extraordinary, newly-created for this purpose.",
"[138] He bade the air grow suddenly overclouded and pour forth a great rain, not of water but fire. And when the flames streamed down massed in one constant and perpetual rush, they burnt up the fields and meadows, the leafy groves, the overgrowths of the marshland and the dense thickets. They burnt the plainland and all the fruit of the corn and other crops. They burnt the forest-land on the mountains, where trunks and roots alike were consumed.",
"[139] The conflagration reached to byres and houses and walls and all public and private property contained in buildings; and in one day populous cities had become the grave of the inhabitants and fabrics of stone and timber had turned into ashes and fine dust.",
"[140] And when the flame had utterly consumed all that was visible and above ground it penetrated right down into the earth itself, destroyed its inherent life-power and reduced it to complete sterility to prevent it from ever bearing fruit and herbage at all. And to this day it goes on burning, for the fire of the thunderbolt is never quenched but either continues its ravages or else smoulders.",
"[141] And the clearest proof is what is still visible, for a monument of the disastrous event remains in the smoke which rises ceaselessly and the brimstone which the miners obtain; while the ancient prosperity of the country is most plainly attested by the survival of one of the cities of the neighbourhood and the land round it; for the city is thickly populated and the land rich in corn and pasturage and fertile in general, thus providing a standing evidence to the sentence decreed by the divine judgement."
],
[
"[142] However, I have given these details not in order to describe the unprecedented calamity of God’s mighty working, but in my wish to shew something else. Scripture tells us that of the three who appeared to the Sage in the guise of men two only went on to the land whose existence was blotted out to destroy the inhabitants, but the third thought good not to accompany them.",
"[143] In my opinion that one was the truly Existent, who held it fitting that He should be present to give good gifts by His own agency, but should leave the execution of the opposite of good entirely in the hands of His potencies acting as His ministers, that so He might appear to be the cause of good only, but not directly the cause of anything evil. ",
"[144] This is the practice, I think, of kings also, who imitate the divine nature. They are their own agents in granting boons, but employ others to enforce punishment.",
"[145] But since of the two potencies one is beneficial and the other punitive it was natural that each should make his appearance in the land of the Sodomites, since of the five most flourishing cities in it four were to be burnt but one was to be left, preserved from all evil that could harm it. It was right that the punitive should be employed for destruction, but the beneficial for preservation.",
"[146] Yet since the virtues of the part preserved were not complete and perfect, while it received benefits through a potency of the Existent, it was not thought worthy to be granted the vision of Him directly."
],
[
"[147] Such is the natural and obvious rendering of the story as suited for the multitude. We will proceed at once to the hidden and inward meaning which appeals to the few who study soul characteristics rather than bodily forms. Symbolically the group of five cities is the five senses in us, the instruments of the pleasures which, whether great or small, are brought to their accomplishment by the senses.",
"[148] For we get pleasure either by seeing varieties of colours and shapes in objects, whether possessed of physical life or not, or by hearing very melodious sounds or through taste in matters of food and drink, or through smell in fragrant perfumes or through touch in soft and warm and also in smooth substances.",
"[149] Now of the five, the three most animal and servile are taste, smell, and touch, which cause particular excitation in the cattle and wild beasts most given to gluttony and sexual passion. For all day and night they fill themselves with food insatiably or are at rut.",
"[150] The other two have a link with philosophy and hold the leading place—hearing and sight. But the ears are in a way more sluggish and womanish than eyes. The eyes have the courage to reach out to the visible objects and do not wait to be acted on by them, but anticipate the meeting, and seek to act upon them instead. Hearing, then, sluggish and more womanish as it is, must be put in the second place and a special precedence must be given to sight, for God has made it the queen of the other senses and set it above them all, and, establishing it as it were on a citadel, has associated it most closely with the soul.",
"[151] We may find a proof of this in the way in which it changes with the soul’s phases. When the soul feels grief, the eyes are full of anxiety and depression. When on the other hand it feels joy, they smile and rejoice. When fear is supreme, they are full of turbulent confusion, and move and quiver and roll confusedly.",
"[152] If anger prevails, the organ of sight is harsher and bloodshot, and during reflection and careful consideration of any question it has a quiet and distant appearance, almost as though it was accommodating itself to the outlook of the mind. In times of mental refreshment and relaxation it relaxes also and is at its ease.",
"[153] When a friend approaches, its peaceful and sunny look is the happy herald of the kindly feeling within, while in the case of an enemy it gives a warning of the soul’s displeasure. Courage makes the eyes dart swiftly forward. Modesty makes them gentle and reposeful. In short, one may say that sight has been created as an image of the soul, and through the perfection of the art which has produced so faithful a copy presents a clear and mirror-like reflection of the original whose nature is in itself invisible.",
"[154] But indeed it is not only in this way that the excellence of the eyes exceeds the other senses, but also because in waking moments, since we need not consider their inaction in sleep, they cease to function. For when no outward object moves them they are still, whilst the eyes, when open are constant and unceasing in their activities; they have always room for more, and in this way they shew their kinship with the soul.",
"[155] But, while the soul is always in motion and wakeful day and night, the eyes in which the fleshly is the principal ingredient must rest satisfied with the gift of continuing to exercise the activities which befit them for half the whole span of time and human life."
],
[
"[156] But the most vital part of the benefit we gain from sight remains now to be told. God made the light to shine upon sight alone of the senses, and light is the best of existing things and was the first to be called good in the sacred books.",
"[157] Now light has a double nature: one is the effulgence of the fire of common use, perishable as that which produces it and liable to extinction, the other, the unquenchable and imperishable, brought to us from heaven above, where each of the stars pours forth its rays as though from perennial fountains. With each of these the sight is conversant, and through both it strikes upon visible objects so as to apprehend them with all exactness.",
"[158] Need we still try to expend words in extolling the eyes, when God has set graven in the heaven their true praises, the stars? For with what purpose have the rays of the sun and moon and the other stars, planets or fixed, been made save to serve the action of the eyes and to minister to sight?",
"[159] And so it is, by using light, the best of gifts, that men contemplate the world’s contents, earth, plants, living creatures, fruits, seas with their tides, rivers spring-fed or winter torrents, various kinds of fountains, some sending up a cold, others a warm, stream, and all the phenomena of the air with their several natures, the different forms of which are so countless that speech can never include them all; above all, heaven, which in truth has been framed as a world within a world, and the divine and hallowed forms which beautify it. Which of the other senses, then, can boast that it ever traverses so great a span?"
],
[
"[160] Let us leave out of consideration those senses which do but fatten in its manger the beast which shares our nature, lust, and examine the one which does lay claim to reason, hearing. When its travelling is tense and at its fullest, that is when the violent winds with their long, sweeping sound or the loud thunders with their terrific claps make themselves heard, it halts within the air that surrounds the earth.",
"[161] But the eyes leave earth and in an instant reach heaven, and the boundaries of the universe, east, west, north and south alike, and when they arrive draw the understanding to the observation of what they have seen.",
"[162] And the understanding affected in like manner is not quiescent, but, unsleeping and constantly in motion as it is, takes the sight as the starting-point for its power of observing the things of the mind, and proceeds to investigate whether these phenomena are uncreated or had some beginning of creation, whether they are infinite or finite, whether there is one world or more than one, whether the four elements make up all things, or on the other hand heaven and its contents enjoy a special nature of their own and have been given a substance which differs from the others and is more divine.",
"[163] Further, if the world has been created, who is the Creator? What is His essence and quality? What was His purpose in making it? What does He do now and what is His occupation and way of life? And all the other questions which the curious mind with good sense ever at its side is wont to explore.",
"[164] But these and the like belong to philosophy, whence it is clear that wisdom and philosophy owe their origin to no other of our faculties but to the princess of the senses, sight. And this alone of all the bodily region did God preserve when He destroyed the four, because they were in slavery to flesh and the passions of flesh, while the sight had the strength to stretch its neck upwards, and to look, and to find in the contemplation of the world and its contents pleasures far better than those of the body.",
"[165] It was fitting, then, that the one of the five senses which form, so to speak, a group of five cities, should receive a special privilege and continue to exist when the others were destroyed, because its range is not confined to mortal things, as theirs is, but it aspires to find a new home amid imperishable beings and rejoice in their contemplation.",
"[166] And therefore it is excellently said, when the oracles represent this city first as small and then as not small, figuring thereby sight. For sight is said to be small in that it is a little part of all we contain, but great in that great are its desires, since it is the whole world and heaven which it yearns to survey."
],
[
"[167] I have now told with all the care that lay within my powers the story of the vision which was manifested to Abraham and of that splendid and magnificent exchange of hospitality, where the host who seemed to give the feast was himself the feasted. But his greatest action which deserves reporting must not be passed over in silence. For I might almost say that all the other actions which won the favour of God are surpassed by this; and on this subject I must say what is needed.",
"[168] The wife of the Sage bore to him in full wedlock his only and dearly-cherished son, a child of great bodily beauty and excellence of soul. For already he was showing a perfection of virtues beyond his years, so that his father, moved not merely by a feeling of natural affection but also by such deliberate judgement as a censor of character might make, cherished for him a great tenderness.",
"[169] Such were his feelings when suddenly to his surprise there came a divine message that he should sacrifice his son on a certain lofty hill at a very considerable distance, as much as three days’ journey, from the city.",
"[170] He, though devoted to his son with a fondness which no words can express, shewed no change of colour nor weakening of soul, but remained steadfast as ever with a judgement that never bent nor wavered. Mastered by his love for God, he mightily overcame all the fascination expressed in the fond terms of family affection, and told the divine call to none of his household, but taking out of his numerous following two only, the oldest and most loyal, he went forth with his son, four in all, as though to perform one of the ordinary rites.",
"[171] But, when, like a scout on some commanding point, he saw the appointed place afar off, he bade his servants stay there, but gave his son the fire and wood to carry; for he thought it good that the victim himself should bear the load of the instruments of sacrifice, a light burden indeed, for nothing is less toilsome than piety.",
"[172] They walked with equal speed of mind rather than body along the short straight road at the end of which is holiness and came to the appointed place. ",
"[173] And then, while the father was collecting stones to build the altar, the son, seeing everything else ready for sacrifice but no animal, looked at his father and said: “My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the victim?”",
"[174] To anyone else who knew what he was about to do, and was hiding it in his heart, these words would have brought confusion and tearfulness and he would have remained silent through extreme emotion, and thus given an indication of what was going to happen.",
"[175] But Abraham admitted no swerving of body or mind, and with visage and thought alike unmoved he said in answer to the question, “Child, God will provide Himself a victim, even in this wide desert, which perhaps makes you give up hope of finding it; but know that to God all things are possible, including those that are impossible or insuperable to men.”",
"[176] And, as he said this, he hastily seized his son, laid him on the altar and with his drawn knife in his right hand was preparing with it to deal the death blow. But ere he did so, God the Saviour stopped the deed half-way with a voice from the air, in which He ordered him to stay and not touch the lad. And twice He called the father by name to turn him and draw him back from his purpose and thus prevent his carrying out the slaughter."
],
[
"[177] So Isaac was saved, since God returned the gift of him and used the offering which piety rendered to Him to repay the offerer, while for Abraham the action, though not followed by the intended ending, was complete and perfect, and the record of it as such stands graven not only in the sacred books but in the minds of the readers.",
"[178] But quarrelsome critics who misconstrue everything and have a way of valuing censure above praise do not think Abraham’s action great or wonderful, as we suppose it to be.",
"[179] They say that many other persons, full of love for their kinsfolk and offspring, have given their children, some to be sacrificed for their country to serve as a price to redeem it from wars or drought or excessive rainfall or pestilence, others for the sake of what was held to be piety though it is not really so.",
"[180] Indeed they say that among the Greeks men of the highest reputation, not only private individuals but kings, have with little thought of their offspring put them to death, and thereby saved armed forces of great strength and magnitude when enlisted as their allies, and destroyed them without striking a blow when arrayed as enemies. ",
"[181] Barbarian nations, they add, have for long admitted child sacrifice as a holy deed and acceptable to God, and this practice of theirs is mentioned by the holy Moses as an abomination, for, charging them with this pollution, he says that “they burn their sons and daughters to their gods.” ",
"[182] Again they point out that in India the gymnosophists even now when the long incurable disease of old age begins to take hold of them, even before they are completely in its clutches, make up a funeral pile and burn themselves on it, though they might possibly last out many years more. And the womenfolk when the husbands die before them have been known to hasten rejoicing to share their pyre, and allow themselves to be burned alive with the corpses of the men. ",
"[183] These women might reasonably, no doubt, be praised for their courage, so great and more than great is their contempt for death, and the breathless eagerness with which they rush to it as though it were immortality."
],
[
". Why, then, they ask, should we praise Abraham, as though the deed which he undertook was unprecedented, when private individuals and kings and whole nations do it when occasion calls?",
"[184] To their malignity and bitterness I reply as follows. Some of those who sacrifice their children follow custom in so doing, as was the case according to the critics with some of the barbarians. Others have important and painful reasons for their action because their cities and countries cannot but fail otherwise. These give their children partly under compulsion and the pressure of higher powers, partly through desire for glory and honour, to win fame at the time and a good name in the future.",
"[185] Now those who are led by custom to make the sacrifice would not seem to be doing anything great, for long-standing custom often becomes equal to nature, so that in matters where patience and resolution are difficult to attain it gives ease and relief by reducing their terrors to moderate dimensions.",
"[186] Where the gift is made through fear no praise is due, for praise is recorded for voluntary good deeds, while for those which are involuntary other things are responsible, favourable occasions, chances or force brought to bear by men.",
"[187] And if anyone throws away a son or a daughter through desire for glory he will be justly blamed rather than praised, for with the life of his dearest he is purchasing an honour which he ought to cast aside, if he possessed it, to ensure the safety of his children.",
"[188] We must therefore examine whether Abraham, when he intended to sacrifice his son, was mastered by any of these motives, custom or love of honour or fear. Now in Babylonia and Mesopotamia and with the nation of the Chaldeans with whom he was brought up and lived the greater part of his life the custom of child slaughter does not obtain, so as to suggest that his realization of its horrors was rendered less powerful by the regularity of such a practice.",
"[189] Surely, too, he had nothing to fear from man, since no one knew of the oracular message which he alone had received; nor was he under the pressure of any public misfortune which could be remedied only by the immolation of a child of special worth.",
"[190] Or was the quest of praise from the multitude the motive which urged him to the deed? What praise could there be in a solitude where no one was present to report his fame afterwards, but even the two servants had been purposely left afar off lest he should appear to be making a boastful parade by bringing witnesses to his pious conduct?"
],
[
"[191] Let them, therefore, set bolt and bar to their unbridled evil-speaking mouths, control their envy and hatred of excellence and not mar the virtues of men who have lived a good life, virtues which they should rather help to glorify by their good report.",
"That the deed really deserves our praise and love can easily be seen in many ways.",
"[192] First, then, he made a special practice of obedience to God, a duty which every right-minded person holds to be worthy of all respect and effort. Hitherto he had not neglected any of God’s commands, nor ever met them with repining or discontent, however charged with toils and pains they might be, and therefore he bore the sentence pronounced on his son with all nobleness and firmness.",
"[193] Secondly, since human sacrifice was not in that country, as it was perhaps in some, sanctioned by custom which is so apt through constant repetition to weaken the realization of the terrible, he would have been the first himself to initiate a totally new and extraordinary procedure, and this, to my mind, is a thing which no one could have brought himself to do even if his soul had been made of iron or adamant, for, as it has been said, it is hard work to fight against nature.",
"[194] And, as he had begotten no son in the truest sense but Isaac, his feeling of affection for him was necessarily on the same high level of truth, higher even than the chaste forms of love and also the much talked-of ties of friendship.",
"[195] Further, he had a most potent incentive to love in that he had begotten the boy in his old age and not in his years of vigour. For parents somehow dote on their late-born children, either because they have longed for their birth for so many years or because they do not hope to have any more, since nature comes to a halt at this point as its final and furthermost boundary.",
"[196] For a father to surrender one of a numerous family as a tithe to God is nothing extraordinary, since each of the survivors continues to give him pleasure, and this is no small solace and mitigation of his grief for the one who has been sacrificed. But one who gives his only darling son performs an action for which no language is adequate, since he concedes nothing to the tie of relationship, but his whole weight is thrown into the scale on the side of acceptability with God.",
"[197] The following point is exceptional, and his conduct in it is practically unique. Other fathers, even if they give their children to be sacrificed for the safety of their country or armies, either stay at home or stand far away from the altars, or, if they are present, turn away their eyes, since they cannot bear the sight, and leave others to kill the victim.",
"[198] But here we have the most affectionate of fathers himself beginning the sacrificial rite as priest with the very best of sons for victim. Perhaps too, following the law of burnt offering, he would have dismembered his son and offered him limb by limb. Thus we see that he did not incline partly to the boy and partly to piety, but devoted his whole soul through and through to holiness and disregarded the claims of their common blood.",
"[199] Which of all the points mentioned is shared by others? Which does not stand by itself and defy description? Thus everyone who is not malignant or a lover of evil must be overwhelmed with admiration for his extraordinary piety; and he need not take into consideration at once all the points which I have mentioned, for any single one of them would be enough. For to picture in the mind one of these, however small the form which the picture takes, though no action of the Sage is small, is enough to show the greatness and loftiness of his soul."
],
[
"[200] But the story here told is not confined to the literal and obvious explanation, but seems to have in it the elements of a further suggestion, obscure to the many but recognized by those who prefer the mental to the sensible and have the power to see it.",
"[201] It is as follows. The proposed victim is called in Chaldaean Isaac, but, if the word is translated into our language, Laughter. But the laughter here understood is not the laughter which amusement arouses in the body, but the good emotion of the understanding, that is joy.",
"[202] This the Sage is said to sacrifice as his duty to God, thus showing in a figure that rejoicing is most closely associated with God alone. For mankind is subject to grief and very fearful of evils either present or expected, so that men are either distressed by disagreeables close at hand or are agitated by troublous fear of those which are still to come. But the nature of God is without grief or fear and wholly exempt from passion of any kind, and alone partakes of perfect happiness and bliss.",
"[203] The frame of mind which has made this true acknowledgement God, Who has banished jealousy from His presence in His kindness and love for mankind, fitly rewards by returning the gift in so far as the recipient’s capacity allows. And indeed we may almost hear His voice saying:",
"[204] “All joy and rejoicing I know well is the possession of none other save Me alone, the Father of All. Yet I do not grudge that this My possession should be used by such as are worthy, and who should be worthy save one who should follow Me and My will, for he will prove to be most exempt from distress and fear if he travels by this road which passion and vice cannot tread, but good feelings and virtue can walk therein.”",
"[205] But let no one suppose that joy descends from heaven to earth pure and free from any mixture of grief. No, it is a mixture of both, though the better element is the stronger, just as light too in heaven is pure from any mixture of darkness but in regions below the moon is clearly mixed with dusky air.",
"[206] This was the reason, I think, why Sarah who bears the name of virtue first laughs, and then, in reply to her questioner, denies the laughter. She feared lest she should be grasping for herself the joy which belongs not to created being but to God alone. Therefore, the holy word bids her be of good cheer and says: “Be not afraid: thou didst indeed laugh and dost participate in joy.”",
"[207] For the Father did not suffer the whole course of the human race to move amid griefs and pains and burdens which admit no remedy, but mixed with them something of the better nature and judged it well that the soul should at times dwell in sunshine and calm; and as for the soul of the wise He willed that it should pass the chief part of its life in glad-hearted contemplation of what the world has to show."
],
[
"[208] These examples must suffice for our treatment of Abraham’s piety, though others might be found in great plenty. But we must also examine the good and wise behaviour shown in his dealings with men. For the nature which is pious is also kindly, and the same person will exhibit both qualities, holiness to God and justice to men. It would be too long, indeed, to describe all his actions, but it would not be out of place to mention two or three.",
"[209] Though he was exceedingly rich in silver and gold and possessed many herds of numerous live-stock and in abundance of wealth rivalled those of the natives and original inhabitants who possessed good means, and became more opulent than would be expected of an immigrant, he incurred no censure from those who received him into their midst but continued to be praised by all who had experience of him.",
"[210] But, if, as often happens, any of his servants or regular associates had a quarrel or difference with his neighbours, he would try to put an end to it quietly, banishing and expelling from the soul by means of his greater dignity of character all that tended to strife and confusion and faction.",
"[211] And we need not wonder that he so bore himself to strangers who could have united to repel him with their superior weight of strength if he was the aggressor in injustice, when we see what moderation he showed to those who, connected with him by birth but estranged from him in moral principles, stood alone and unsupported and with possessions far inferior to his, and how he willingly accepted to be at a disadvantage when he might have taken advantage of them.",
"[212] For he had a nephew who had accompanied him when he migrated from his native land, an unreliable and hesitating person, ever inclining this way and that, sometimes fawning on him with loving greetings, sometimes rebellious and refractory through the inconsistency of his different moods.",
"[213] Therefore his servants too were quarrelsome and turbulent, as they had no one to control them, and this was particularly the case with the shepherds who were stationed at a distance from their master; thus breaking out of control in their wilfulness they were ever quarrelling with the Sage’s herdsmen who many times gave way to them because of their master’s gentleness. Then, advancing to a senseless audacity which knew no shame, they grew rampant and fostered in their hearts the flame of a passion beyond hope of conciliation until they compelled their opponents to begin defending themselves against the injustice.",
"[214] When the fight had become very serious, the man of worth, hearing how the aggressors had been countered, and knowing that his own party was more distinguished in strength and number, did not allow the quarrel to be terminated by a victory, as he did not wish to distress his nephew through seeing his own party defeated. So he took up his stand between them and reconciled the disputants by proposals of agreement, good not only for the present but for the future.",
"[215] For he knew that if they lived together and shared the same dwelling-place they would engage in obstinate contention, for ever stirring up wars and factions against each other. To prevent this, he thought it expedient to refuse to continue their living together and to arrange for their dwelling at a distance from each other. So, sending for his nephew, he gave him a choice of the better district, gladly agreeing that he should take whatever part he chose; for he considered that he would thereby get peace, the greatest of gains.",
"[216] And yet who else would give way in any single point to the weaker if he were the stronger? Who, when he could conquer, would be willing to be defeated and not avail himself of his power? He alone took for his ideal not the exercise of strength and self-aggrandizement but a life free from strife and so far as lay with him of tranquillity, and thereby he showed himself the most admirable of men."
],
[
"[217] The actual words of the story are an encomium on Abraham as a man; but, according to those who proceed from the literal to the spiritual, characters of soul are indicated also, and therefore it will be well to investigate them too.",
"[218] Such characters are numberless, proceeding from numberless starting-points and arising from every kind and variety of circumstance; but those now to be examined are two only, one higher and senior and one lower and junior. The senior is that character which honours things primal and dominant in their nature, the junior that which honours things subject and lowest in the list.",
"[219] Now the senior and dominant are wisdom and temperance and justice and courage and virtue regarded as a whole and actions inspired by virtue, but the junior are wealth and reputation and office and good birth, good not in the true sense but in the sense which the multitude give to it, and everything else which coming after the things of soul and body takes the third place which is necessarily also the last.",
"[220] Each of the two characters possesses what we may call flocks and herds. The devotee of things external has silver, gold, raiment, all the materials of wealth and the means for procuring them, and again arms, engines, triremes, cavalry, infantry and naval forces, the foundations of sovereignty which produce security of power. The lover of moral excellence has the principles of each separate virtue and the truths discovered by wisdom itself.",
"[221] Now those who preside and have charge over each of these two are, as it were, herdsmen of cattle. The externals are cared for by lovers of wealth or glory, the would-be generals and all who hanker for power over multitudes, the things of the soul by lovers of moral excellence and virtue, who prefer the genuine goods to the spurious and not the spurious to the genuine.",
"[222] So there is a natural conflict between them since they have no common principle but are for ever jangling and quarrelling about the most important thing in life, and that is the decision what are the true goods.",
"[223] For a time the soul was in a state of war, and was the scene of this conflict, for as yet it was not perfectly purified, but its passions and distempers still prevailed over its healthy principles. But from the time when it began to grow more powerful and demolish by superior strength the works with which the opposing doctrines threatened it, it spreads its wings, and, its spirit grown to fullness, sets a wall and barrier between it and that side of its character which has given its admiration to the gear of external things. And it talks with it as with a man and says:",
"[224] “It is impossible that thou and the lover of wisdom and virtue should have a common home and common ties. Away, change thy dwelling and betake thyself afar off, for thou hast not, or rather canst not have, fellowship with him. For all that thou holdest to be on the right he thinks to be on the left, and conversely what to thee is on the wrong side in his judgement stands on the right.” "
],
[
"[225] So, then, the man of worth was not merely peaceable and a lover of justice but courageous and warlike, not for the sake of warring, for he was not quarrelsome or cantankerous, but to secure peace for the future, the peace which the opponents were destroying.",
"[226] The clearest proof of this is his actions. That part of the inhabited world which lies towards the east was in the hands of four great kings who held in subjection the nations of the Orient on both sides of the Euphrates. Now the other nations continued to be free from sedition, obeying the orders of the king, and paying their taxes without demur. Only the country of the Sodomites, before it was consumed by fire, began to undermine this peaceful condition by a long-standing plan of revolt.",
"[227] For, as it was exceedingly prosperous, it was ruled by five kings who taxed the cities and the land, which though not large was rich in corn and well wooded and teeming with fruits, for the position which size gave to other countries, was given to Sodom by its goodliness, and hence it had a plurality of rulers who loved it and were fascinated by its charm.",
"[228] These hitherto rendered the appointed tributes to the collectors of revenue out of both respect for and fear of the higher potentates whose satraps they were. But, when they had been surfeited with good things, and as so often happens satiety had begotten insolence, they grew ambitious beyond their powers and first shook off the yoke and then, like bad slaves, attacked their masters, trusting to sedition or violence. ",
"[229] But these masters, mindful of their higher birth and armed with more powerful force, advanced in great disdain to the attack, expecting to conquer them with the utmost ease. And, when they engaged, some they sent flying helter-skelter at once, others they mowed down in wholesale massacre, while a great number were taken prisoners and distributed with the rest of the booty. Among these they took the nephew of the Sage, who had migrated not long before into one of the five cities."
],
[
"[230] When this was reported to Abraham by one of those who escaped from the rout, it distressed him exceedingly. He could no longer rest, so severe was the shock, and mourned for the living with greater sorrow than if he had heard of his death. For he knew that death or decease, as the name itself shows, is the end of everything in life, and particularly of its ills, while the troubles which lie in wait for the living are numberless.",
"[231] But, when he made ready to pursue the enemy to rescue his nephew, he was at a loss for allies, since he was a stranger and an immigrant, and no one dared to oppose the invincible forces of the kings, considering their number and their recent victory.",
"[232] But he obtained allies in quite a new quarter, for resource is found where resource is none, when one is set on deeds of justice and kindness. He collected his servants and, after bidding those who had been acquired by purchase to remain at home, since he feared that they might desert, he made a roll-call of those who were home-bred, distributed them into centuries and advanced with three battalions. Yet he did not trust in these, for they were but a small fraction of the kings’ forces, but in God, the champion and defender of the just.",
"[233] So he pressed forward eagerly and never abated his speed until, watching for his chance, he attacked the enemy by night when they had supped and were preparing to go to sleep. Some fell helpless victims to him in their beds, others who took arms against him were completely annihilated, and all were mightily overcome more by his courage of soul than by the resources at his command.",
"[234] Nor did he stay his hand until he had completely slaughtered the opposing army with their kings as well and left them lying in front of the camp. His nephew he brought back in the triumph of his brilliant and magnificent victory, taking too with him all the horses of the cavalry and the whole multitude of the other beasts and spoil in vast plenty.",
"[235] When the high priest of the most high God saw him approaching with his trophies, leader and army alike unhurt, for he had lost none of his own company, he was astonished by the feat, and, thinking, as indeed was natural, that such success was not won without God’s directing care and help to their arms, he stretched his hands to heaven and honoured him with prayers on his behalf and offered sacrifices of thanksgiving for the victory and feasted handsomely those who had taken part in the contest, rejoicing and sharing their gladness as though the success were his own; and so indeed it was, for “the belongings of friends are held in common,” as the proverb says, and this is far more true of the belongings of the good whose one end is to be well-pleasing to God."
],
[
"[236] This is what we find in the scriptures read literally; but those who can contemplate facts stripped of the body and in naked reality, those who live with the soul rather than with the body, will say that of these nine kings, four are the power exercised within us by the four passions, pleasure, desire, fear and grief, and that the five are the five senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.",
"[237] For these nine are in a sense invested with sovereignty and are our kings and rulers but not all in the same way. For the five are subject to the four, and are forced to pay them the tolls and tributes determined by nature.",
"[238] Griefs and pleasures and fears and desires arise out of what we see or hear or smell or taste or touch, and none of the passions would have any strength of itself if it were not furnished with what the senses supply;",
"[239] for these supplies constitute the forces of the passions, taking the form of colours and shapes, or sounds spoken or heard, or flavours, or scents, or the qualities attached to things tangible, soft and hard or rough and smooth or warm and cold, all of which are supplied through the senses to each of the passions.",
"[240] And while the said tributes are rendered the alliance between the kings holds good, but when they are no longer paid discord and wars at once arise, and this obviously happens when old age with its pains arrives. For then, while none of the passions is weaker, and perhaps is even stronger than of old, yet the eyes are dim and the ears dull of hearing and each of the other senses blunted, so that it cannot in the same way judge each thing with accuracy or make the same contribution in amount as before. And so, weakened all round as they are and already giving way of themselves, it is natural that they should be easily routed by the opposing passions.",
"[241] There is much philosophical truth in the saying that of the five kings two fell into the wells and three took to flight. For touch and taste descend to the lowest recesses of the body and transmit to its inward parts what may properly be dealt with by them; but eyes and ears and smell for the most part pass outside and escape enslavement by the body.",
"[242] All this the man of worth was watching from his lair, and when he saw trouble festering, where but now was alliance and friendship, and war instead of peace arising between the nine kingdoms, with the four competing against the five for the sovereign power, he seized his opportunity and suddenly made the attack, ambitious to establish in the soul democracy, the best of constitutions, instead of the rule of tyrants and overlords, and legality and justice instead of lawlessness and injustice which hitherto prevailed.",
"[243] All this is no fable of my invention, but a fact, and that one of the surest which we may observe in ourselves. For the senses, though often they may maintain concord with the passions and provide them with the objects which they perceive, often too revolt and are unwilling any longer to pay the same dues or unable to do so because of the presence of reason, the chastener. For when reason puts on its panoply of the virtues and the doctrines and the lore which embody them, armed with this irresistible power it mightily overcomes. For corruptible and incorruptible may not live together.",
"[244] Now the nine overlords, the four passions and the five senses, are corruptible and the sources of corruption, but the truly divine and holy Word, whose stronghold is in the virtues, whose place in the order of number is tenth, the supremely perfect number, comes to the contest and with the help of the mightier power of God wins an easy victory over the said overlords."
],
[
"[245] After this in the course of time he lost the wife who was the darling of his heart and gifted with every excellence. She showed her wifely love by numberless proofs, by sharing with him the severance from his kinsfolk, by bearing without hesitation the departure from her homeland, the continual and unceasing wanderings on a foreign soil and privation in famine, and by the campaigns in which she accompanied him.",
"[246] Everywhere and always she was at his side, no place or occasion omitted, his true partner in life and life’s events, resolved to share alike the good and ill. She did not, like some other women, run away from mishaps and lie ready to pounce on pieces of good luck, but accepted her portion of both with all alacrity as the fit and proper test of a wedded wife."
],
[
"[247] Many a story I could relate in praise of this woman, but one I will mention which will be the clearest proof that the others are true. Being childless and barren and fearing lest the house beloved of God should be left entirely desolate,",
"[248] she came to her husband and said: “Long have we lived together in mutual goodwill. But the purpose for which we ourselves came together and for which nature formed the union of man and wife, the birth of children, has not been fulfilled, nor is there any future hope of it, through me at least who am now past the age.",
"[249] But do not let the trouble of my barrenness extend to you, or kind feeling to me keep you from becoming what you can become, a father, for I shall have no jealousy of another woman, whom you will take not for unreasoning lust but in fulfillment of nature’s inevitable law.",
"[250] And therefore I shall not be backward to lead to you a bride who will supply what is lacking in myself. And if our prayers for the birth of children are answered the offspring will be yours in full parenthood, but surely mine also by adoption.",
"[251] But to avoid any suspicion of jealousy on my part take if you will my handmaiden, outwardly a slave, inwardly of free and noble race, proved and tested by me for many years from the day when she was first brought to my house, an Egyptian by birth, but a Hebrew by her rule of life.",
"[252] We have much substance and abundance of wealth, not on the usual scale of immigrants, for in this we now outshine those of the native inhabitants who are noted for their prosperity, but no heir or successor has appeared, though there may be if you follow my advice.”",
"[253] Abraham with increased admiration for the wifely love, which never grew old and was ever showing itself anew, and her careful forethought for the future, took the mate whom she had approved and kept her till she had borne a child, or, as the surest version of the story runs, only till she became pregnant, and when this occurred not long after he abstained from her through his natural continence and the honour which he paid to his lawful spouse.",
"[254] So a son was born just at that time to the handmaiden, but long afterwards the wedded pair, who had despaired of the procreation of children, had a son of their own, a reward for their high excellence, a gift from God the bountiful, surpassing all their hopes."
],
[
"[255] We need give no further proofs of the merits of this wife. More numerous are those of the Sage, some of which I have praised in detail a little earlier. But I will speak of one which concerns the death of his wife, in which his conduct should not be passed over in silence.",
"[256] When he had lost his life-long partner, whose qualities have been described in our discourse and are related in the oracles, when sorrow was making itself ready to wrestle with his soul, he grappled with it, as in the arena, and prevailed. He gave strength and high courage to the natural antagonist of passion, reason, which he had taken as his counsellor throughout his life and now particularly was determined to obey, so excellent and profitable were its exhortations.",
"[257] The advice was that he should not grieve over-bitterly as at an utterly new and unheard-of misfortune, nor yet assume an indifference as though nothing painful had occurred, but choose the mean rather than the extremes and aim at moderation of feeling, not resent that nature should be paid the debt which is its due, but quietly and gently lighten the blow. ",
"[258] The testimonies for this are to be found in the holy books which may never be convicted of false witness. They show that after weeping for a little over the corpse he quickly rose up from it, holding further mourning, it appears, to be out of keeping with wisdom, which taught him that death is not the extinction of the soul but its separation and detachment from the body and its return to the place whence it came; and it came, as was shown in the story of creation, from God. ",
"[259] And, as no reasonable person would chafe at repaying a debt or deposit to him who had proffered it, so too he must not fret when nature took back her own, but accept the inevitable with equanimity.",
"[260] Now, when the chief men of the country came to sympathize and saw nothing of the sort of mourning which was customary with themselves, no wailing, no chanting of dirges, no beating of breasts either of men or of women, but a quiet sober air of sorrow pervading the whole house, they were profoundly amazed, though indeed the rest of his life had struck them with admiration.",
"[261] Then, as the greatness and glory of his virtue in all its pre-eminence were more than they could keep to themselves, they approached him and exclaimed: “Thou art a king from God among us.” The words were indeed true, for other kingdoms are established among men with wars and campaigns and numberless ills which the ambitious for power inflict on each other in mutual slaughter, with forces of foot and horse and ships which they raise for the strife. But the kingdom of the Sage comes by the gift of God, and the virtuous man who receives it brings no harm to anyone, but the acquisition and enjoyment of good things to all his subjects, to whom he is the herald of peace and order. "
],
[
"[262] There is another record of praise attested by words from Moses’ prophetic lips. In these it is stated that he “trusted in God.” Now that is a little thing if measured in words, but a very great thing if made good by action.",
"[263] For in what else should one trust? In high offices or fame and honours or abundance of wealth and noble birth or health and efficacy of the senses or strength and beauty of body? But office is wholly precarious, beset by countless foes who lie in wait for it, and if by chance it is secured the security is accompanied by countless ills in which those in high positions are either the agents or the victims.",
"[264] Fame and honour are a most precarious possession, tossed about on the reckless tempers and flighty words of careless men: and, when it abides, it cannot of its own nature contain genuine good.",
"[265] As for wealth and high birth, they attach themselves even to the most worthless of men, and even if they were confined to the virtuous they would be a compliment not to the actual possessors but to their ancestors and to fortune.",
"[266] Again, neither should we pride ourselves greatly on bodily endowments in which the unreasoning animals have the advantage over us; for what man is stronger or more muscular than the bull among domestic and the lion among wild beasts? Who has a keener sight than the hawk or the eagle? or who is so favoured in powers of hearing as that stupidest of animals, the ass? And as for smell, who has more accurate discernment than the hound, which, as the huntsmen tell us, led unerringly by the scent, races to the distant quarry which it has not seen; for what sight is to other animals the nostrils are to the hounds used for hunting or tracking.",
"[267] Health? Why, most of the unreasoning animals are exceedingly healthy and as far as possible free from disease. Beauty? In the competition for this, I should say that some lifeless objects can beat and surpass the comeliness both of men and women. Such are the images and statues and pictures and in general all the creations of the painters and the sculptors which achieve success in either art and rouse the enthusiasm of Greeks and barbarians alike, who set them up in the most conspicuous places to adorn their cities."
],
[
"[268] Faith in God, then, is the one sure and infallible good, consolation of life, fulfillment of bright hopes, dearth of ills, harvest of goods, inacquaintance with misery, acquaintance with piety, heritage of happiness, all-round betterment of the soul which is firmly stayed on Him Who is the cause of all things and can do all things yet only wills the best.",
"[269] For, just as those who walk on a slippery road are tripped up and fall, while others on a dry highway tread without stumbling, so those who set the soul travelling along the path of the bodily and the external are but learning it to fall, so slippery and utterly insecure are all such things; while those who press onward to God along the doctrines of virtue walk straight upon a path which is safe and unshaken, so that we may say with all truth that belief in the former things is disbelief in God, and disbelief in them belief in God.",
"[270] But not only do the oracles attest his possession of the queen of virtues, faith in the existent, but he is also the first whom they speak of as elder, though those who lived before him tripled or many times multiplied his years. Yet of none of them do we hear that he was held worthy of the title and rightly, for the true elder is shown as such not by his length of days but by a laudable and perfect life.",
"[271] Those who have passed a long span of years in the existence of the body without goodness or beauty of life must be called long-lived children who have never been schooled in the learning worthy of grey hairs; but he who is enamoured of sound sense and wisdom and faith in God may be justly called elder, a name of like significance to “first.”",
"[272] For indeed the wise man is the first of the human race, as a pilot in a ship or a ruler in a city or a general in war, or again as a soul in a body and a mind in a soul, or once more heaven in the world or God in heaven.",
"[273] That God marvelling at Abraham’s faith in Him repaid him with faithfulness by confirming with an oath the gifts which He had promised, and here He no longer talked with him as God with man but as a friend with a familiar. For He, with Whom a word is an oath, yet says “By Myself have I sworn,” so that his mind might be established more securely and firmly even than it was before.",
"[274] So, then, the man of worth is elder and first, and so must he be called; but younger and last is every fool who pursues the ways which belong to rebellious youth and stand lowest in the list.",
"[275] So much for all this, but to these praises of the Sage, so many and so great, Moses adds this crowning saying “that this man did the divine law and the divine commands.” He did them, not taught by written words, but unwritten nature gave him the zeal to follow where wholesome and untainted impulse led him. And when they have God’s promises before them what should men do but trust in them most firmly?",
"[276] Such was the life of the first, the founder of the nation, one who obeyed the law, some will say, but rather, as our discourse has shown, himself a law and an unwritten statute."
]
],
"Appendix": [
"APPENDIX TO DE ABRAHAMO",
"§ 5. Laws endowed with life and reason. Here we have the common idea that the king is a “living law” (given in that form in Mos. ii. 4, where see note) extended to the good and wise in general, cf. De Virt. 194 νόμοι δέ τινες ἄγραφοι καὶ οἱ βίοι τῶν ζηλωσάντων τὴν ἀρετήν.",
"§ 12. Enos … is fourth. That the number is obtained by the omission of Cain rather than Abel is suggested by Quaest. in Gen. i. 81 “quare neque terrigena patris successorem eum (i.e. Cain) indicat neque caput posteriorum generationum.”",
"§ 17. Transferred him. In this passage Philo, to support his idea of Enoch as signifying repentance, takes μετετέθη as referring to a moral change in this life. The common view (cf. Hebrews 11:5 “translated that he should not see death”) is adopted in Quaest. in Gen. i. 86, and perhaps also in De Mut. 38.",
"§ 51. Relative instead of absolute. Philo, as often, shews his familiarity with grammatical terms. The distinction between relative nouns (πρός τι, Lat. ad aliquid) and absolute (usually ἀπολελυμένα, whence Lat. absoluta) is regularly given by Greek and Latin grammarians. θεός is usually an “absolute,” but the addition “of Abraham,” etc., makes it a “relative,” as “father” or “king” always is. Cf. De Mut. 27 and note.",
"§ 99. Natural philosophers. The Stoic view of the higher study of nature is well illustrated by S. V. F. ii. 42 (from Chrysippus) τῶν δὲ φυσικῶν ἔσχατος εἶναι ὁ περὶ τῶν θεῶν λόγος, and ibid. 44 the study of φυσική comes later than λογική and ἠθική—θειοτέρα γάρ ἐστι καὶ βαθυτέρας δεῖται τῆς ἐπιστάσεως.",
"§§ 100–102. The thought of these sections is not quite clear and the translation might perhaps be improved. Philo seems to be criticizing an allegorization, which is not his own, on the ground that it reverses the spiritual connexion between the mind and virtue, though as a matter of fact he adopts the same interpretation of Abraham’s relation to Sarah in De Cher. and elsewhere. The criticism begins with ἐναντιώτατοι δέ (§ 100), where δέ = “but” rather than “now,” and ends with σωτήριον (§ 102), so that ἅπαντες μὲν οὖν might be translated “however that may be, all men …” In § 101 ἢ μήποτε, “or perhaps,” is not very clear, nor is the “perhaps however” of the translation. One would like to read καὶ μήποτε or μήποτε δὲ.",
"§ 118. Gave the appearance of both eating and drinking. So Josephus, Ant. i. 197 οἱ δὲ δόξαν αὐτῷ πάρεσχον ἐσθιόντων, and so later Rabbinical writers (references in Cohn’s translation of this book, p. 121). This is a point sometimes supposed to shew Josephus’s dependence on Philo. But the doubt whether angels would really eat and drink would naturally be felt and noted in any discussion of the story. The same may be said of § 170, where the statement that Abraham told no one in his household of the divine command to sacrifice, is compared by commentators to a similar statement in Joseph. Ant. i. 225.",
"§ 182. The practice of “Suttee” seems to have been well-known from the time of Alexander. Strabo xv. 30 and 62 quotes Onesicritus and Aristobulus, both companions of Alexander, as having reported the existence of the custom in different tribes. Diodorus Siculus xix. 33 gives a long account of the competition between the two wives of the Indian prince Keteus, who was killed in the wars of Antigonus 316 B.C., for the honour of dying on their husband’s pyre, and of the joy with which the one chosen went to her death.",
"§ 244. The supremely perfect number. The term Panteleia seems to have been rather a divine name for ten in Pythagorean use than a mere epithet. Stobaeus, Ecl. 1:1. 10 (p. 22 H.) says that Pythagoras gave the name of Apollo to one, Artemis to two, Aphrodite to six, Athena to seven, Poseidon to eight, and Panteleia to ten. The word is once applied by Philo to seven, but to ten in the other five cases, in which he uses it of a number.",
"§ 257. This passage is quoted by Wyttenbach in his note on Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium 102 D. Plutarch there advocates μετριοπάθεια in bereavements in similar terms and proceeds to quote Crantor the Academician Περὶ πένθους to the same effect. The same passage from Crantor is quoted by Cic. Tusc. Disp. iii. 12, and his book may very possibly have been in Philo’s mind.",
"§ 261. Here once more we have the Stoic paradox of the sage as king (see S. V. F. iii. 617). See note on De Mut. 152 (where the saying is founded on the same text as here) for other references in Philo."
]
},
"versions": [
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"Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1935",
"https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI"
]
],
"heTitle": "על אברהם",
"categories": [
"Second Temple",
"Philo"
],
"schema": {
"heTitle": "על אברהם",
"enTitle": "On Abraham",
"key": "On Abraham",
"nodes": [
{
"heTitle": "הקדמה",
"enTitle": "Introduction"
},
{
"heTitle": "",
"enTitle": ""
},
{
"heTitle": "הערות",
"enTitle": "Appendix"
}
]
}
}