doctrine, the account of Adam and Eve is deliberately chosen by Philo
as the text of a psychological treatise, in which he analyzes[134] the
relations of the mind, the senses, and the pleasures, represented
respectively by Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. The necessity of
explaining the story symbolically is professedly based on the fact
that otherwise we are driven to the idea that the Bible spoke
inaccurately about God. "It is silly," he says, "to suppose that Adam
and Eve can have hidden themselves in the Garden of Eden, for God
filled the whole." We are driven then to suggest another meaning; and
Philo passes into a homily about the false opinion of the man who
follows the bidding of the senses (Eve) at the instigation of pleasure
(the Serpent).[135]
The story of Cain and Abel is another piece of moral philosophy
embodied in a concrete form. Abel symbolizes pious humility, Cain the
deadly sin of atheism and intellectual pride, which denies the
absolute and ever-present power of the Deity. Philo asks himself the
question that other commentators have frequently raised, some in
reverence, some in ridicule, "Who was Cain's wife?"[136] And he
answers that the Bible expression about the children of Cain cannot be
taken literally, but suggests the union of the ill-ruled mind with
impious opinions, which have as their issue false pride and sin.
Philo here treats the stories in the opening of Genesis as pure
allegories, in which the men and women represent symbolically
characters and qualities. It should be remembered, however, that these
interpretations occur in the commentary where our author is not so
much expounding the Torah as deducing secret doctrines from it. His
proper exposition of the law proceeds from the book on the Creation to
the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then to the
lives of Joseph and Moses. And in this commentary the Bible narrative
is taken as historical truth: only in addition to the historical fact
there is a moral and universal value in every figure and every
episode. The patriarchs' lives represent the unwritten law which the
Greek world held in high honor, for it was considered to contain the
broad principles of individual and social conduct, and to be prior
logically and chronologically to the written codes. Moses, therefore,
the perfect legislator, according to Philo, has presented in the three
founders of the Hebrew race embodiments of the unwritten law of good
conduct for all mankind. Each of them is a moral type of eternal
validity and represents one of the ways in which blessedness may be
attained.[137] Abraham represents the goodness which comes from
instruction; Isaac, the spontaneous goodness that is innate, and the
joy (or laughter) of the soul that is God's gift to his favored sons;
Jacob, the goodness that comes after long effort, through the life of
practice and severe discipline. Before this triad, the Bible presents
another group of three, who represent the virtues preparatory to the
acquisition of perfect goodness: Enosh, Enoch, and Noah.[138] They
typify respectively, as their names indicate, hope, repentance, and
justice. It is a pretty thought, helped by an error in the Septuagint
translation,[139] which sees in the name of the first (_i.e._, man,
[Hebrew: 'nosh]) the symbol of hope. Hope, the commentator suggests, is the
distinguishing characteristic of man[140] as compared with other
animals, and hope therefore is our first step towards the Divine
nature, the seed of which faith is the fruit. Next in order come
repentance and natural justice, and from these stepping-stones we can
rise to the higher self. Philo's interpretation of these Bible figures
would appear to have behind it an old Midrashic tradition. As far back
as the book of Ben Sira, in the passage on "the Praises of Famous Men"
(xliv), they are taken as typical of the different virtues, and Enoch
notably is the type of repentance. In the first century the world was
becoming incapable of understanding abstract ideas, and required
ethics to be concretely embodied in examples of life. Philo found
within the Jewish Scriptures what the Christian apostles later
transferred to other events.
Joseph, whose life followed that of the patriarchs, is the type of the
political life, the model of the man of action and ambition. Taken
alone, this is inferior to the life of the saint and philosopher, but
mixed with the other it produces the perfect man, for the truly good
man must take his part in public life. The story of Joseph, then,
illustrates the full humanity of Moses' scheme, and it marks also,
according to Philo, the great moral lesson, that if there be one spark
of nobility in a man's soul, God will find it and cause it to shine
forth.[141] For Joseph, until he comes down to Egypt, is not a
virtuous man, but full of conceit and unworthy aspiration for
supremacy; he shows his true worth when he is sold into slavery; and
then by the Divine inspiration he becomes the ideal statesman. Very
suggestive is Philo's homily, by which he develops the Bible
narrative, that the function of the statesman is to expound
dreams;[142] because his task is to interpret the life of man, which
is one long dream of changing scenes, wherein we forget what has gone
before, as the fleeting shadow leads us from childhood to youth, from
youth to manhood, from manhood to old age. Lastly, from the story of
Joseph he draws the lesson that when the Hebrew has attained to a high
position in a foreign land, as in Egypt, where there is utter
blindness about the true God, he can and should retain his national
laws,[143] and not assimilate the practices of his environment.
Eusebius[144] mentions, among the works of Philo which he had before
him, a book on "The Statesman," in which doubtless the principles of
government and social life were more fully treated. The book has
disappeared, but the life of Joseph suffices to show that Philo
recognized the place of public service in the human ideal.
Moses is not only the divinely inspired legislator, but he typifies
also the perfection of the human soul, the highest example of the man
at one with God, supreme as king, lawgiver, priest, and prophet. He is
the link between God and man, the perfect interpreter of the Divine
Word; and though Philo avoids the suggestion of any Divine power
incarnate in man, he speaks imaginatively of the Logos of Moses,[145]
_i.e._, his reason, as identical with the Logos of God, the Divine law
of the universe. It is significant of his attitude to religion that he
lays no stress upon the miracles of the Bible narrative. Not that he
rationalizes them away; he rejects all rationalizing whatsoever; but
he interprets them as great spiritual signs, rather than as diversions
from the laws of nature. His allegory of the burning bush, which Moses
saw at Horeb is typical, and presents a truth to which the whole
history of Israel bears witness. The weak thorn-bush, which was not
consumed by the fire, is the image of the idea of Israel, which almost
cries to the people in their misfortune: "Do not despair! Your
weakness is your strength, and by it you shall wound race after race.
You will be preserved by those who wish to destroy you, and you shall
not perish. In evil days you shall not suffer, and when a tyrant
thinks to uproot you, you shall shine forth the more in brighter
glory."[146] The passage is typical also of the rhetorical artifice
with which Philo, following the taste of the time, recommended the
Bible to the Greeks.
We turn now to Philo's treatment of the Mosaic legislation, the Torah
in its narrower sense, which is to modern Jewry perhaps the most
striking part of his commentary. His problem was the same as ours--to
bring the ancient law into harmony with the ideas of a non-Jewish
environment, and to show its essential value when tried by an external
cultural standard. Briefly his solution is that he sees everything in
the Torah _sub specie æternitatis_, in the light of eternity; and by
his faithfulness to the law, combined with his spiritual
interpretation of it, he stands forth as the greatest Jewish
missionary of his age. Unfortunately for Judaism, depth of thought and
philosophical judgment are not the qualities which mark the successful
religious missionary. Philo's philosophical treatment of the Torah was
understood only of the few; the fanatical Pauline rejection of the law
appealed to the masses. The spirit of the age demanded, indeed, the
ethical interpretation of the Bible, and it was carried out in many
ways, some true, some untrue to Judaism. Philo and Josephus tell us
how Judaism was spreading over the world.[147] "There is not any city
of the Greeks," says the historian, "nor of the barbarians, nor of any
nation whatsoever, to which our custom of resting on the seventh day
has not been introduced, and where our fasts and our dietary laws are
not observed.... As God Himself pervadeth all the universe, so hath
our law passed through the world." And their testimony is supported by
the frequent gibes against Judaizing Romans in the Roman poets,[148]
and by the explicit statements of Strabo,[149] the famous geographer,
and, more remarkable still, of Seneca, the Stoic
philosopher-statesman. The bitter foe of the Jews, he confessed that
this superstitious pest was infecting the whole world, and that the
conquered people (Judæa had lately been made a Roman province) were
taking their conquerors captive.[150] Philo, with his ardent hope,
looked for the near coming of the time when the worship of the Jewish
God would prevail over the world, and sought to show that the Jewish
law, which is the expression of Jewish belief, and which differs from
all others, not only in the extent of its sway, but in its
unchangeableness, could be universalized to fit its new service. To
this end he interpreted the Mosaic code, which "no war, tyrant,
persecution, or visitation, human or Divine, can destroy: for it is
eternal."[151] In the arrangement of the Torah, Philo finds a proof of
its universality. It begins with the account of the creation, to teach
us that the same Being that is the Creator and Father of the universe
is also its Legislator, and, again, that he who follows the law will
choose to live in harmony with nature, and will exhibit consistency of
action with words and of words with action. Other philosophers,
notably the Stoics, claimed to lay down a plan of life that followed
the law of nature; but their practice notoriously fell below their
unrealizable professions. In Judaism alone spirit and practice were at
one, so that each inspired the other and secured human excellence.
"Not theory but practice is the root of the matter" ([Hebrew: l' hmdrsh
'kr 'l' hm'sha]), according to the rabbis:[152] and Philo, who,
contemplative philosopher as he was, yet recognized the all-importance of
conduct, writes in the same spirit:[153] "We must first study and then act,
for we learn, not for learning's sake, but in order to action."
Philo seeks to arrange the law under general moral heads, and he finds
in the Decalogue the holy text upon which the rest of the code is but
a commentary. He may be following a tradition common among all the
Jews, for in the Midrash to Numbers (xiii) it is said that the six
hundred and thirteen precepts are all contained in the Ten
Commandments: [Hebrew: shtrig mtsvt klilit bhn]. We do not know, however,
in what way the early rabbis carried out this idea, whereas we possess
Philo's arrangement; and some of its features are very suggestive.[154]
To the first two commandments he attaches the ritual laws relating to
priests and sacrifices, to the fourth the laws of all the festivals, to
the seventh the criminal and civil law, to the tenth the dietary laws.
The Decalogue he conceives as falling into two divisions, between which
the fifth commandment is a link. For the first four commandments are
ordinances that determine man's relation to God, and the last five
those which determine his relation to his fellows. Honor of the
parents is the link between the Divine and the human virtues, even as
parents themselves are a link between immortal God and mortal man.
Corresponding to the two divisions of the Decalogue are the two
generic virtues which the Mosaic legislation has set as its goal,
piety, and humanity, or what the rabbis called charity ([Hebrew: tsdka]).
"He who loves God, but does not show love towards his own kind,
has but the half of virtue."[155] Thus in one and the same age Hillel,
incited by a single scoffer, and Philo, moved by the taunts of a tribe
of anti-Semites, looked for the most vital lesson of the Torah, and
they found it alike in "the love of our neighbor." That was Judaism on
its practical side.
In order to show the humanitarian spirit of the Torah, Philo
emphasizes its socialistic institutions, the law of the seventh year's
rest to the land ([Hebrew: shnt hshmita]), of the emancipation of the
slaves, and of the Jubilee. These to him are not tribal laws, but the
ideal institutions for the whole world, which shall one day be set up
when the theocracy has been established over all mankind. And in an age
when slavery was as accepted a condition as factory-labor is to-day,
he ventured to assert the principle of the equality of man. "If,"
saith the law, "one of thy brethren be sold to thee, let him serve
thee for six years, and in the seventh year let him go free without
payment." And Philo thereon comments:[156] "A second time Moses calls
our fellow-creature brother, to impress upon the master that he has a
tie with his servant, so that he may not neglect him as a stranger.
Nay, but if he follows the direction of the law, he will feel sympathy
with him, and will not be vexed when he is about to liberate him. For
though we call our servants slaves, yet in verity they are only
dependents who serve us in order to have the means of life." This
corresponds with the Talmud dictum, "Whoever buys a Jewish slave buys
a master for himself."[157] Commenting again upon the verse in Exodus
xxi. 6, which says with seeming harshness that a servant who wishes to
stay with his master after the year of emancipation has arrived, shall
be nailed by the ear to a door, he explains that no man should consent
of his own will to be a slave, for we should only be servants of God;
and if a man deliberately rejects freedom for comfort, he should wear
a mark of degradation. The so-called Christian principle of the
dignity of human life and the equality of man, Philo shows to be the
spirit of the Mosaic law, not limited within the confines of one
nation, but valid for the world. Nor is it contained therein as a mere
sentimental aspiration, but it is realized in the institutions of the
Jewish polity.
Philo looked for the same broad principles in his treatment of the
ceremonial law. The Sabbath day is the central observance, one might
say, the lodestar of the Jewish life, round which the other ceremonies
revolve. The Sabbath is the call to man's higher nature, for it is the
day on which we are bidden to devote ourselves to the Divine power
within us and to seek to know God. "The six days in which the Creator
made the universe are an example to us to work, but the seventh day,
on which He rested, is an example to us to meditate. As on that day
God is said to have looked upon His work, so we, too, should
contemplate the universe thereon, and consider our highest welfare.
Let us never neglect the example of the best life, the combination of
action and thought, but keeping a clear vision of it before our minds,
so far as our human nature will permit, let us liken ourselves to
immortal God by word and deed."[158] High-flown this language may be,
but what Philo wishes to mark is the spiritual value of the Sabbath.
It is not merely a day of rest from workaday toil, but it is a day
upon which we devote all our thoughts to God, and enter into closer
communion with Him, [Hebrew: mnoht 'hba vndba], a repose of love and
devotion. Heine said that on one day of the week the lowliest Jew became
a prince, Philo that he became a philosopher. As in all of Philo's
interpretations of Jewish custom, there is something mystic in his
conception of the Sabbath. For he regards all Divine service and all
prayer as a mystic rite which leads the human soul unto God. In the
special ordinances of the day he finds a spiritual motive. We may not
touch fire, because fire is the seed and beginning of industry.[159]
The servant of the house may not work,[160] because on this day he
shall have a taste of freedom and humanity, and he will work the more
cheerfully during the remaining six days. Some rabbis later, when
numbers of Gentiles had adopted this without the other institutions of
Judaism, claimed the Sabbath as the special heritage of Israel; and in
the book of Jubilees[161] it is said that Israel alone has the right
to observe the Sabbath. Not so Philo, who, desiring to give the day a
value for all, regards it as God's covenant with the whole of
humanity.[162]
The Sabbath idea is reflected in all the festivals, which have as
their dominating idea man's joyful gratitude to God. Influenced
probably by a mystic fondness for certain numbers, Philo enumerates
ten festivals, as follows:[163] (1) Each day in the year, if we use it
aright--a truly Philonic conception; (2) The Sabbath; (3) The new
moon--then in Alexandria, as in Palestine, a solemn day; (4) The
Passover; (5) The bringing of the first barley ('Omer); (6) The Feast
of Unleavened Bread. These last three are separate aspects of one
celebration, which is divided up so as to produce the holy decad. (7)
Pentecost; (8) New Year; (9) Atonement (to the mystic the Feast of
feasts); (10) Tabernacles. Following his design of revealing in
Judaism a religion of universal validity, Philo points out in all
these festivals a double meaning. On the one hand, they mark God's
providence to His chosen people, shown in some great event of their
history--this is the special meaning for the Israelite--and, on the
other, they indicate God's goodness as revealed in the march of
nature, and thus help to bind man to the universal process. So
Passover is the festival of the spring and a memorial of the creation
([Hebrew: zbr lm'sha br'shit]) as well as the memorial of the great Exodus,
and of our gratitude for the deliverance from the inhospitable land of
Egypt. And those who look for a deeper moral meaning may find in it a
symbol of the passing over from the life of the senses to the life with
God. Similarly, Philo deals with the other festivals,[164] and in their
particular ceremonies he finds symbols which stamp eternal lessons of
history and of morality upon our hearts. The unleavened bread is the
mark of the simple life, the New Year Shofar of the Divine rule of
peace, the Sukkot booth of the equality of all men, and, as he puts it
elsewhere, of man's duty in prosperity to remember the troubles of his
past, so that he may worthily recognize God's goodness. Much of this
may appear trite to us; and the association of the festivals with the
seasons of nature may to some appear a false development of historical
Judaism; nevertheless Philo's treatment of this part of the Torah is
notable. It shows remarkable feeling for the ethical import of the
law, and it establishes the harmony between the Greek and Hebrew
conceptions of the Deity by combining the God of history with the God
of nature in the same festival. The ideas were not unknown to
Palestinian rabbis; Philo, by giving them a Greek dress, opened them
to the world.
Equally remarkable and equally suggestive is Philo's treatment of the
dietary laws. We have seen that he placed them under the governing
principle of the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet," or, more
broadly, "Thou shalt not have base desires." The dietary laws are at
once a symbol and a discipline of temperance and self-control. We know
that the Greeks, as soon as they had a superficial knowledge of Jewish
observance, jeered at the barbarous and stupid superstition of
refusing to eat pork. Again we are told in the letter of the false
Aristeas that when Ptolemy's ambassadors went to Jerusalem, to summon
learned men to translate the Torah into Greek, Eleazar, the high
priest, instructed them in the deeper moral meaning of the dietary
laws. Further, in the fourth book of the Maccabees--an Alexandrian
sermon upon the Empire of Right Reason--we find an eloquent defence of
these same laws as the precepts of reason which fortify our minds.
Philo, then, is following a tradition, but he improves upon it.
Accepting the Platonic psychology, which divided the soul into reason,
temper (_i.e._, will), and desire, he shows how the aim of the Mosaic
law about food is to control desire and will, so as to make them
subservient to reason. By practicing self-restraint in the two
commonest actions of life--eating and drinking--the Israelite acquires
it in all things. The hard ascetic who would root out bodily desires
errs against human nature, but the wise legislator controls them and
curbs them by precepts, so that they are bent to the higher reason.
Modern apologists for Judaism have been found who, trying to force
science to support their tottering faith, allege that the dietary law
is hygienic. Philo relies on no such treacherous reed. We may not eat,
he says,[165] the flesh of the pig or shell-fish, not because they are
unhealthy, but because they are the sweetest and most delightful of
all food, and for that very reason they are marks of the sensual life.
This and this alone is the true religious justification of the dietary
law.
In this way, by showing how the letter represents the spirit, Philo
fulfils the law; his religion is liberal in thought, conservative in
practice. He sees clearly that to throw off the law and reject
tradition involves in the end chaos and the overthrow of
righteousness. And certain Christian--and other--theologians, if one
may make bold to say so, fail to realize the spirit of Philo, when
they speak of him as a man who approached the light, but was too tied
down by the old traditions to receive the full illumination. Rather is
it true that the Jewish aspiration of "freedom under the law," or
spirit through the letter, is absolutely fundamental in Philo, and
loyalty to the Torah is a guiding principle in his religious outlook.
He asserts it clearly and strikingly, not only in his ethical
commentary on the law, but in his philosophical allegories. Both
passages deserve quotation, since they mark the fundamental contrast
between Philo and non-Jewish allegorists of the law. In the first
Philo is commenting upon the command "Thou shalt not add to or take
away from the law" (Deut. xix. 14).[166] He shows first how each of
the virtues is marred by excess in either direction; virtue in fact,
according to the Aristotelian formula, is "a mean."
"And in the same way, if we add anything great or small to
piety, the queen of virtues, or take anything away, we mar
it and change its form. Addition will engender superstition,
and diminution impiety, and true piety will disappear, which
above all things we should pray for to enlighten our souls:
for it is the cause of the greatest of goods, inducing in us
a knowledge of our conduct towards God, which is a thing
more royal and kingly than any public office or distinction.
Further, Moses lays down another general command, 'Do not
remove the boundary stone of thy neighbor, which thy
ancestors have set up.' This, methinks, does not refer
merely to inheritances and the boundary of land, but it is
ordained with a view to the preservation of ancient customs.
For customs are unwritten laws, the decrees of men of old,
not carved indeed upon pillars and inscribed upon parchment,
but engraved upon the souls of the generations who through
the ages maintain the chosen community. Children should take
over the paternal customs from their parents as part of
their inheritance, for they were reared on them, and lived
on them from their swaddling days, and they should not
neglect them merely because the tradition is not written.
The man who obeys the written laws is not, indeed, worthy of
praise, for he may be constrained thereto by fear of
punishment. But he who holds fast to the unwritten laws
gives proof of a voluntary goodness and is worthy of our
eulogy."
Clearly he is arguing here for the observance of the oral law, which
later was standardized in the Halakah.
In the other passage, which occurs in the philosophical book "On the
Migration of Abraham,"[167] he sets forth the reason of the authority
of the law with more argument, and controverts those who would
allegorize away the ordinances.