XXII. And what was said afterwards is uttered very beauti- fully, with reference either to the beauty of the interpretation of which it is susceptible, or to the conception which may be dis- covered in it. " The voice of the blood of thy brother calls to me from out of the earth." This now, which is a very sublime expression if we regard the language in which it is couched, is intelligible to all those who are not utterly uninitiated in elo- quence. But let us consider the ideas which are apparent in it as well as we are able.
And first of all, let us consider what is said about the blood; for in many places of the law as given by Moses, he pronounces the blood to be the essence of the soul or of life, saying dis- tinctly, " For the life of all flesh is the blood thereof."* And when the Creator of all living things first began to make man, after the creation of the heaven and the earth, and all the things which are between the two, Moses says, " And he breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul," showing again by this expression that it is the breath which * Leviticus xvii. 11.
262 PHILO JUDiEUS.
262 PHILO JUDiEUS.
is the essence of the life. And, indeed, he is accustomed dili- gently to record all the suggestions and purposes of God from the beginning, thinking it right to adopt his subsequent state- ments to aid to make them consistent with his first accounts. Therefore, after he had previously stated the breath to be the essence of the life, he would not subsequently have spoken of the blood as occupying the most important place in the body, unless he had been making a reference to some very neces- sary and comprehensive principle. What then are we to say? The truth is, that every one of us according to the nearest estimation of numbers, is two persons, the animal and the man. And each of these two has a cognate power in the faculties, the seat of which is the soul assigned to it. To the one portion is assigned the vivifying faculty according to which we live; and to the other, the reasoning faculty in accordance with which we are capable of reasoning. Therefore, even the irrational animals partake of the vivifying power; but of the rational faculty, God — I will not say partakes, but — is the ruler, and that is the fountain of the most ancient "Word.
XXIII. Therefore, the faculty which is common to us with the irrational animals, has blood for its essence. And it, having flowed from the rational fountain, is spirit, not air in motion, but rather a certain representation and character of the divine faculty which Moses calls by its proper name an image, showing by his language that God is the archetypal pattern of rational nature, and that man is the imitation of him, and the image formed after his model; not meaning by man that animal of a double nature, but the most excellent species of the soul which is called mind and reason.
On this account, Moses represents God as calling the blood the life of the flesh, though he is aware that the nature of the flesh has no participation in intellect, but that it does partake of life, as also does our whole body. And the soul of man he names the spirit, meaning by the term man, not the compound being, as I said before, but that Godlike creation by which we reason, the roots of which he stretched to heaven, and fastened it to the outermost rim of the circle of those bodies which we call the fixed stars. For God made man, the only heaveuly plant of those which he placed upon the earth, fastening the heads of the others in the mainland, for all of them bend their THE WORSE PLOTTING AGATNST THE BETTER. 263 heads downwards;" * but the face of man he has exalted and directed upwards, that it might have its food of a heavenly and incorruptible nature, and not earthly and perishable. With a view to which, he also rooted in the earth the foundations of our body, removing the most insensible part of it as far as possible from reason; and the outward senses, which are as it were the body-guards of the mind, and the mind itself, he established at a great distance from the earth, and from all things con- nected with it, and bound it with the periodical revolutions of the air and of the heavens, which are imperishable.
XXIV. Let us then no longer doubt, we who are the disciples of Moses, how man conceived an idea of God who is destitute of all figure, for he was taught the reason of this by the divine oracle, and afterwards he explained it to us. And he spoke as follows: — " He said that the Creator made no soul in any body capable of seeing its Creator by its own intrinsic powers. But having considered that the knowledge of the Creator and the proper understanding of the work of Creation, would be of great advantage to the creature (for such knowledge is the boundary of happiness and blessedness), he breathed into him from above something of his own divine nature. And his divine nature stamped her own impression in an invisible manner on the invisible soul, in order that even the earth might not be destitute of the image of God. But the arche- typal pattern was so devoid of all figure, that its very image was not visible, being indeed fabricated in accordance with the model, and accordingly it received not mortal but immortal conceptions. For how could a mortal nature at the same time remain where it was and also emigrate? or how could it see what was here and what was on the other side? or how could it sail round the white sea, and at the same time traverse the whole earth to its furthest boundaries, and inspect the customs and * This idea is the same as that which Ovid has expressed in the beginning of the Metamorphoses— Pronaque dum spectant animalia ccetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Which may perhaps be translated — And while all other creatures from their birth With downcast eyes gaze on their kindred earth, He bids man walk erect, and scan the heaven From which he springs, to which his hopes are given.
264 PHILO JUDJEUS.
laws of the nations on all the affairs and bodies which are in existence?
On separating them from the things of the earth, how could it arrive at a contemplation of the sublimer things of the air and its revolutions, and the peculiar character of its seasons, and all the things which at the periodical changes of the year are made anew, and, according to their usual habit, brought to perfection? Or again, how could it fly through the air from earth to heaven, and investigate the natures which exist in heaven, and see of what nature they are, how they are moved, what are the limits of their movements, of their be- ginning and of their end; how they are adapted to one another and to the universe according to the just principles of kindred? Is it easy to have an accurate comprehension of the different arts and of the different branches of knowledge which bring ex- ternal things into shape, and which are concerned with the affairs of the body and of the soul, with a view to the improve- ment of the two, and to understand ten thousand other things, of which it is not easy to describe either the number or the nature in language? For of all the faculties which exist in us, the mind alone, as being the most rapid in its motions of all, appears to be able to outrun and to pass by the time in which it originates, according to the invisible powers of the universe and of its parts existing without any reference to time, and touching the universe and its parts, and the causes of them.
And now, having gone not only to the very boundaries of earth and sea, but also to those of air and heaven, it has not stopped even there, thinking that the world itself is but a brief limit for its continued and unremitting course. And it is eager to advance further; and, if it can possibly do so, to com- prehend the incomprehensible nature of God, even if only as to its existence. How, then, is it natural that the human intellect, being as scanty as it is, and enclosed in no very ample space, in some membrane, or in the heart (truly very narrow bounds), should be able to embrace the vastness of the heaven and of the world, great as it is, if there were not. in it some dortion of a divine and happy soul, which cannot be separated from it? For nothing which belongs to the divinity can be cut off from it so as to be separated from it, but it is only extended. On which account the being which has had imparted to it a THE WORSE PLOTTING AGAINST THE BETTER. 2 05 share of the perfection which is in the universe, when it arrives at a proper comprehension of the world, is extended in width simultaneously with the boundaries of the universe, and is incapable of being broken or divided; for its power is ductile and capable of extension.
XXV. Let this then be enough to say concisely about the essence of the soul. And now proceeding in regular order, we will explain the expression, that " the voice of his blood cries out," in this manner, — of our soul, one part is dumb, and one part is endowed with utterance. All that part which is devoid of reason is likewise destitute of voice, but all that part which is rational is capable of speech, and that part alone has formed any conception of God; for, by the other parts of us, we are not able to comprehend God, or any other object of the intel- lect. Of our vivifying power, therefore, of which the blood is, as it were, the essence, one portion has particular honour, namely, that of speech and reason; I do not mean the stream which flows through the mouth and tongue, but I speak of the fountain itself, from which the channels of utterance are, in the course of nature, filled. And this fountain is the mind; by means of which, all our conversations with and cries to the living God take place, at one time being voluntary, and at another involuntary. But he, as a good and merciful God, does not reject his suppliants, and most especially he does not, when they, groaning at the Egyptian deeds and passions, cry to him in sincerity aud truth. For at such a time Moses says that, " their words go up to God,"* and that he listens to them, and delivers them from the evils that surround them. But that all these things should happen when the king of Egypt dies, should be a most strange thing; for it would be natural that when the tyrant died, all those who have been tyrannised over by him should rejoice and exult; but at that time they are said to groan. " For after many days the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned."t Now here, if we look merely at the words, the expression does not appear to be reasonable; but if we have regard to the faculties in the soul, then its consistency is discovered. For as long as he who scatters abroad and dissipates the opinions about good things, namely, Pharaoh, is vigorous in us, and appears in a sound and healthy state, if indeed we can say * Exodus ii. 21. t Exodus ii. 25.
266 PHILO JUDjEUS.
that any wicked man is in such a condition, we receive pleasure, driving temperance away from our borders. But when he loses his strength, and in a manner dies, he who has been the cause of men's living in a filthy and lascivious manner, then we, fixing our eyes on modesty of life, bewail and groan over our- selves on account of our former way of living; because then, honouring pleasure before virtue, we joined a mortal life to an immortal one; and the law taking pity on our continued lamentation, gently receives our suppliant souls, and easily drives away the Egyptian calamities which are brought upon them by the passions.
XXVI. But on him who is incapable of receiving repent- ance on account of the enormity of the pollution which he has incurred by the murder of his brother, namely, on Cain, he lays well-deserved and fitting curses; for in the first place he says to him, "And now, cursed art thou upon the earth:"* show- ing first of all that he is polluted and accursed, not now for the first time when he has committed the murder, but that he was so before, the moment that he conceived the idea of it, the intention being of equal importance with the perfected action; for as long as we only conceive wicked things in the bad imagination of our minds, still, during that time, we are guilty of thoughts only, for the mind is capable of being changed even against its will; but when performance is added to the intention that has been conceived, then our deliberate purpose becomes also guilty; for this is the chief distinction between voluntary and involuntary sin. But the scripture here pronounces that the mind shall be accursed, not from anything else, but from the earth; for of all the most grievous calamities which can happen to it, the earthly portion which exists in each of us is found to be the cause. At all events, when the body is afflicted with disease, it adds the miseries which are derived from itself, and so fills the mind with grief and despondency; or, on the other hand, if it has grown fat immoderately through enjoyment of pleasures, it makes all the faculties of the mind duller for the comprehension of i obler objects.
For, indeed, each of the outward senses is capable of re- ceiving injury; for either a man beholding beauty is wounded by the darts of love, which is a terrible passion; or else, per- * Genesis iv. 11 THE WORSE PLOTTJJ.C? AGAINST THE BETTER. 207 baps, if he hears of the death of any one related to him by ht/iti, he is bowed down by sorrow: very often, too, taste gets tLe mastery of a man, when it is either tortured by disagree- able flavours, or weighed down by the multitude of delicacies. And why need I speak of the impetuous passions, which tend to the connexion of the two sexes? These have destroyed whole cities, and countries, and mighty nations of the earth; to which fact nearly the whole multitude, both of poets and of historians, bears abundant testimony.
XXVII. And as to the manner in which the mind becomes accursed upon the earth, he adds further information imme- diately afterwards, saying: " The earth which opened her mouth to receive the blood of thy brother." For it is very difficult for the mouths of the outward senses to be opened and widened, as even when they are not open the flood of the objects appreciable only by them rushes in like an overflowing river, nothing being capable of resisting their evident impetuosity; for then the mind is found to be overwhelmed, being wholly absorbed by so vast a wave, and being utterly unable to swim against it, or even to raise its head above it; but it is neces- sary to employ all these things not so much for whatever objects can possibly be effected, but for those that are best; for the sight can perceive all colours and all shapes; but still it ought to behold only things worthy of light, and not of dark- ness. Again, the ear can receive all kinds of sounds; but some it ought to disregard; for myriads of the things that are said are disgraceful. Nor, O foolish and arrogant man, because nature has given you the faculty of taste, ought you to fill your- self insatiably with everything, like a cormorant; for there are many things not merely among such as are nutritious, but of those which are exceedingly so, which have, nevertheless, produced diseases accompanied with great suffering.
Nor does it follow that, because for the sake of the perpetua- tion of your race you have been endowed with the powers of generation, you ought to pursue pollutions and adulteries and other impure connections; but only such as, in a legitimate manner, engender and propagate the race of mankind. Nor, because you have been made endowed with a mouth and a tongue and the organs of speech, ought you to say everything and to reveal what ought not to be spoken, for there are tin es when to hold one's peace is useful. And, in my opinion, th. so 268 PHILO JUDJSUS.
who have learnt to speak have also learnt to be silent, the same capacity teaching a man both lines of conduct. But those men who relate what they ought not, do not display the faculty of eloquence, but the weakness of their faculty of silence. On which account we labour to bind each of the mouthpieces of the senses before-mentioned with the im- perishable bonds of temperance. " For whatever is not bound with a bond," says Moses, in another passage, "is impure,"* as if the cause of its unhappiness was the fact of the parts of the soul being relaxed and open and dissolved; but that the fact of their being compacted and tightly bound together con- tributed to goodness and soundness of life and reason.
He, therefore, curses the godless and impious Cain with deserved curses; because, having opened the caverns of this concrete creature, he opened his mouth for all external things, praying to receive them in an insatiable manner and to contain them, to the utter destruction of the God-loving doctrine, Abel.
XXVIII. " On this account shall he cultivate the earth;''f he does not say, " He shall become a farmer." For every farmer is an artist, because farming is an art. But any of the common people are cultivators of the earth, giving their service to provide themselves with necessaries, without any skill. These men, then, as they have no superintendent in all that they do, do much harm; and whatever they do well they do by chance, and not in accordance with reason. But the works of farmers, which are performed according to knowledge, are all of them, of necessity, useful.
On this account it is that the law-giver has attributed to the just Noah the employment of a farmer; J showing by this that, like a good farmer, the virtuous man eradicates in the wild wood all the mischievous young saplings which have been planted by the passions or by the vices, but leaves untouched all those which bear fruit, and which may act instead of a wall and prove a firm defence for the soul. And, again, among the trees capable of cultivation he manages them in different ways, and not all in the same way: pruning some and adding props to others, training some so as to increase their size, and cutting down others so as to keep them dwarf. Again, when he sees a vine flourishing and luxuriant he bends down its young shoots to the ground, digging trenches to receive them, and again * Numbers xix. 15. f Genesis iv. 12. J Genesis ix. 90.
THE WORSE PLOTTING AGAINST THE BETTER. 269 heaping up the ground on the top of them; and they at no dis- tant period, instead of parts, become whole trees, and instead of daughters they become mothers, having moreover put off the old age which is the usual companion of maternity. For, having desisted from distributing and apportioning its nourish- ment amongst numerous offspring, inasmuch as they are able to support themselves, that which was previously weak from being drained by this cause becomes so fully satiated as to grow fat and young again.
And I have seen another man who cut away the less de- sirable shoots of trees which admitted of cultivation, as soon as they appeared above the ground, and left only a small piece adhering to the root itself. And then taking a branch in good condition from another tree of a good sort, he scraped away the one shoot down till he came to the pith, and the shoot which was attached to the root he cut at no great depth, but opening it just sufficiently to make the union perfect, and then putting into the cleft the shoot which he had pared away he fitted it in; and from these two shoots one single tree of one united nature sprang up, each portion giving to the other tha* which was useful to it; for the roots support the shoot which has been fitted into them, and prevent it from drying up and withering, and the shoot which has been inserted as a reward for its nourishment supplies the root with good fruit in requital. There are also an innumerable host of other operations in farming which proceed on rules of art, which it would be superfluous to enumerate on the present occasion, for we have only dwelt on this point at such length for the purpose of showing the difference between the man who is only a cul- tivator of the earth, and one who is a farmer.
XXIX. Accordingly the bad man never ceases from employ- ing, without any of the principles of art, his earth-like body, and the outward senses which are akin to it, and all the external objects of these outward senses, and he injures his miserable soul, and he also injures what he fancies he is benefiting exceedingly, his own body.
But the good man, for he has skill in the art of a farmer, manages the whole of his materials in accordance with the principles of art and reason; for when the outward senses behave insolently, being borne forward with irresistible im- petuosity towards the external objects of the outward senses, 270 PHILO JUD^US.
they are easily restrained by some contrivance among those which art has devised; but when an impetuous passion in the soul becomes violent, bringing forth voluptuous itchings and ticklings arising from pleasure or from appetite, or on the other hand, stings and agitation, caused by fear or grief, it is softened by the previously prepared saving medicine; and if any evil devouring as it goes, proceeds further, like a sister of the cancrous disease, which creeps over the body, it is cut out by reason which proceeds in its operations in accordance with knowledge.
In this manner then the trees of the wild wood are brought into a state of tameness, but all the plants of the cultivated and fruit-bearing virtues have for their shoots studies, and for their fruits virtuous actions, of each of which the farming skill of the soul promotes the growth, and as far as depends upon it, it makes them immortal by its industry.
XXX. Very clearly therefore is the good man thus shown to be a farmer, and the bad man to be only a cultivator of the land; and I wish that while he is thus cultivating the land, the earthly nature which environs him, had imparted some vigour to him, and had not, as it has, taken away something of the power which he had before, for we read in the scripture, "It shall not add its strength to thee to give it to thee," and such would be the character of a man who was always eating or drinking and never satisfied, or who was incessantly in- dulging in the pleasures of the belly, and devoting his energies to the gratifying of his carnal appetites, for deficiency produces weakness, but fulness produces strength; but when, amid abundance of things an insatiability is united with excessive in- temperance, that is hunger; and they are truly wretched whose bodies are filled, while their passions are empty and still thirsting; but of the lovers of knowledge the prophet speaks in a great song, and says, "That she has made them to ascend upon the strength of the earth, and has fed them upon the produce of the fields,"* showing plainly that the godless man fails in attaining his object, in order that he may grieve the more while strength is not added to these operations in which he expends his energies, but while on the other hand it is taken from them; but they who follow after virtue, placing it above all these things which are earthly and mortal, dis- * Deuteronomy xxxii. 13.
THE WORSE PLOTTING AGAINST THE BETTER. 271 regard their strength in their exceeding abundance, using God as the guide to conduct them in their ascent, who proffers to them the produce of the earth for their enjoyment and most profitable use, likening the virtues to fields, and the fruits of the virtues to the produce of the fields, according to the prin- ciples of their generation; for from prudence is derived prudent action, and from temperance temperate action, and from piety pious conduct, and from each of the other virtues is derived the energy in accordance with it.
XXXI. Now these energies are especially the food of the soul, which is competent to give suck, as the lawgiver says, " Honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock,"* mean- ing by the solid rock which cannot be cut through, the wisdom of God, which is the nurse and foster-mother and educator of those who desire incorruptible food; for it, as the mother of those things which exist in the world, immediately supplies food to those beings which are brought forth by her; but they are not all thought worthy of divine food, but only such are honoured with that as do not show any degeneracy from their parent; for there are many which a scarcity of virtue, which is more terrible than a scarcity of meat and drink, has de- stroyed; but the fountain of divine wisdom is borne along, at one time in a more gentle and moderate stream, and at another with greater rapidity and a more exceeding violence and impetuosity. When, therefore, it descends gently it sweetens after the manner of honey, but when it comes on swiftly the wLjle material enters like oil into the light of the soul.
This rock, Moses, in another place, using a synonymous expression, calls manna the most ancient word of God, by which appellation is understood, something of the most ge- neral possible nature, from which two cakes are made, one of honey and the other of oil, that is to say, two different sys- tems of life, exceedingly difficult to distinguish from one another, both worthy of attention, at the very beginning instilling the sweetness of these contemplations which exist in the sciences, and again emitting the most brilliant light to those who take hold of the things which are the objects of their desire, not fastidiously, but firmly, and scarcely by means of unremitting and incessant perseverance. These then, as I * Deuteronomy xxiii. 13.
972 PHILO JUD.EUS.
have said before, are they who ascend up upon the strength of the earth.