XL VI. Do you not see in the case of Abraham that, "when he had left his country, and his kindred, and his father's house,"* that is to say, the body, the outward senses, and reason, he then began to become acquainted with the powers of the living God? for when he had secretly departed from all his house, the law says that, " God appeared unto him,"f showing that he is seen clearly by him who has put off mortal things, and who has taken refuge from this body in the in- corporeal soul; on which account Moses taking his tent " pitches it without the tabernacle,"J and settles to dwell at a distance from the bodily camp, for in that way alone could he hope to become a worthy suppliant and a perfect minister before God. And he says that this tent was called the tent of testimony, taking exceeding care that it may really be the tabernacle of the living God, and may not be called so only.
For of virtues, the virtues of God are founded in truth, existing according to his essence: since God alone exists in essence, on account of which fact, he speaks of necessity about himself, saying, "I am that I am,"§ as if those who were with him did not exist according to essence, but only appeared to exist in opinion.
But the tent of Moses being symbolically considered, the virtue of man shall be thought worthy of appellation, not of real existence, being only an imitation, a copy made after the model of that divine tabernacle, and consistent with these facts is the circumstance that Moses when he is appointed to be the God of Pharaoh, was not so in reality, but was only conceived of as such in opinion, " for I know that it is God who gives and bestows favours, but I am not able to perceive that he is given, and it is said in the sacred scriptures, " I give thee as a God to Pharaoh," and yet what is given is the patient, not the agent; but he that is truly living must be the agent, and beyond all question cannot be the patient.
* Genesis xii. 1. + Genesis xii. 7.
£ Exodus xxxiiL 7. § Exodus iii. 14.
THE WORSE TLOTTINii AGAINST THE BETTER. 283 What then is inferred from these facts? Why, that the wise man is called the God of the foolish man, but he is not God iu reality, just as a base coin of the apparent value of four drachmas is not a four drachma piece. But when he is compared with the living God, then he will be found to be a man of God; but when he is compared with a foolish man, he is accounted a God to the imagination and in appearance, but he is not so in truth and essence.
XLV. Why then do you talk nonsense, saying, " If thou castest me forth from off the earth, and from thee I shall be hidden." For one might say on the contrary, if I remove thee from the earth by part of thee, then I will manifestly show thee my own image. And a proof of this is, thou wilt depart from before the face of God, but when thou hast departed thou wilt not the less inhabit thy earthly body. For Moses says, after- wards, " And Cain went forth from before the face of God and dwelt in the earth," * so that when thou art cast out from the earth, thou art not hidden from the living God; but when thou desertest him thou takest refuge on earth in a mortal country. And indeed it will not be the case, that every one who findeth thee will hide thee, as thou sayest, speaking sophistically. For that which is found, is found in every case by two people, by one who resembles itself, or by one who is dissimilar. By one who resembles itself according to the kindred and relationship which exists in all things, and by him who is not like, according to the contrary unlikeness.
The one, therefore, that is like, endeavours to preserve that which resembles itself, and that which is dissimilar endeavours to destroy that which differs from it. And let them know that Cain, and all other wicked men will not be slain by any one who meets them, but that evil doers imitating their kindred and connected wickednesses, will become guardians and pre- servers of them; but all those who have cultivated prudence or any other virtue, will destroy them if they can, as irrecon- cileable enemies. For, in short, all bodies and all things are preserved by the things which are akin to and attached to them, but are destroyed by those that are alien and hostile to them. On this account, also, the oracle which bears testimony against this pretended simplicity of Cain, says, " You do not think as you say " For you say, indeed, that whosoever finds out tne * Genesis iv. 16. T Genesis xlL 5.
284 PHILO JUD^US.
284 PHILO JUD^US.
devices of your act will slay you. But you know that it is not every one who will do so, as there are millions of men enrolled in your alliance; but he only who is a friend to virtue and an irreconcileable enemy to you. And God says, he " who slays Cain shall suffer sevenfold." But I do not know what analogy this real meaning of this expression bears to the literal inter- pretation of it, " He shall suffer sevenfold. For he has not said what is to be sevenfold, nor has he described the sort of penalty, nor by what means such, penalty is excused or paid.
X LVI. Therefore, one must suppose that all these things are said figuratively and allegorically; and perhaps what God means to set before us here is something of this sort. The irrational part of the soul is divided into seven parts, the senses of seeing, of smelling, of hearing, of tasting, and of touch, the organs of speech, and the organs of generation. If, therefore, any one were to slay the eighth, that is to say, Cain, the ruler of them all, he would also paralyse all the seven. For they are all con- firmed by the vigorous strength of the mind, and they all feel weak simultaneously with any weakness exhibited by the mind, and they all endure relaxation and complete dissolution in consequence of the destruction which complete wickedness brings upon them.
Now these seven senses are unpolluted and pure in the soul of the wise man, and here also they are found worthy of honour. But in that of the foolish man they are impure and polluted, and as I said before, punished, that is, they are worthy of punishment and chastisement. At all events, when the Creator determined to purify the earth by means of water, and that the soul should receive purification of all. its unspeakable offences, having washed off and effaced its pollutions after the fashion of a holy purification, he recommended him who was found to be a just man, who was not borne away by the violence of the deluge, to enter into the ark, that is to say, into the vessel containing the soul, namely, the body, and to lead into it " seven of all clean beasts, male and female,"* thinking it proper that virtuous reason should employ all the pure parts of the irrational portion of man.
XL VII. And this injunction which the lawgiver laid down, is of necessity applicable to all wise men; for they have their sense of sight purified, their sense of hearing thoroughly ex£. * Genesis vii 2.
THE WORSE PLOTTING AGAINST THE BETTER. 285 amined. and so on with all the rest of their outward senses. Accordingly, they have the faculty of speech free from all spot or stain, and their appetites which prompt them to indulge the passions in a state of due subjection to the law. And every one of the seven outward senses is in one respect male, and in another, female. For when they are stationary, or when it is in motion, they are stationary while quiescent in sleep, and they are in motion while they are energising in their waking state; and the one in accordance with habit and tranquillity, as being subject to passion, is called the female; and the one which exists according to motion and energy, as one that is only conceived in action, is called the male.
Thus, in the wise man, the seven senses appear to be pure; and on the contrary in the wicked man, they appear to be all liable to punishment. For how great a multitude of things do we imagine to be each day wrongly represented by our eyes, which go over to colours and shapes, and to things which it is not lawful to see? And how so great a multitude of things suffer similar treatment from the ears which follow all kinds of sounds? How many too are misrepresented by the organs of smelling and of taste, and by flavours and vapours, and' other things led on according to innumerable variations? I say nothing of that multitude of persons whom the unrestrainable impetuosity of an unbridled tongue has destroyed, or the in- curable violence which leads man on to carnal connections with intemperate appetite. Cities are full, and all the earth from one side to the other, is full of these evils, in consequence of which, continual and unceasing and terrible wars are set on foot among men, even in times of peace, both publicly and privately.
XLVIII. On which account it appears to me that all men who are not utterly uneducated would choose to be mutilated and to become blind, rather than to see what is not fitting to be seen, to become deaf rather than to hear pernicious dis- courses, and to have their tongues cut out if that were the only way to prevent their speaking things, which ought not to be spoken. At all events, they say that some wise men, when they have been tortured on the wheel to make them betray secrets which are not worthy to be divulged, have bitten out their tongues, and so have inflicted on their torturers a more grievous torture than they themselves were suffering, as th?y 286 PHILO JUD^EUS.
could not learn from them what they desired; and it is better to be made an eunuch than to be hurried into wickedness by the fury of the illicit passions: for all these things, as they overwhelm the soul in pernicious calamities, are deservedly followed by extreme punishments.
Moses says in the next passage that the Lord God set a mark upon Cain in order to prevent any one who found him from slaying him; but what this mark is, he has not shown, although he is in the habit of explaining the nature of everything by a sign, as he does in the affairs of Egypt, where God changed his rod into a serpent, and withered the hand of Moses till it became like snow, and turned the river into blood. Or may we not suppose that this mark was set upon Cain to prevent his being slain, as a token that he would never be destroyed? For he has never once mentioned his death in the whole of the law, showing enigmatically that, like that fabulous monster Scylla, so also folly is an undying evil, which never entirely perishes, and yet which as to its capability of dying receives all time, and is never wholly free from death.
And I would that the opposite event might happen, that all evils might be utterly eradicated, and might endure total destruction; but as it is they are constantly budding forth, and inflict an incurable disease on all who are once infected by them.
A TREATISE ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN, THE MAN WISE IN HIS OWN CONCEIT; AND ON THE WAY IN WHICH CAIN BECAME AN EXILE.
I. " And Cain went out from before the face of God, and dwelt in the land of Nod, opposite to Eden."* Now we may raise the question whether we are to take the expressions which occur in the books that have been handed down to us by Moses and to interpret them in a somewhat metaphorical sense, while the ideas which readily present themselves as derived from the names are very deficient in truth. For if the living God has a face, and if he who desires to leave it can with oerfect ease rise * Gnesis iv. 16.
ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN. 287 up and depart to another place, why do we repudiate the im- piety of the Epicureans, or the godlessness of the Egyptians, or the mythical suggestions of which life is full? For the face is a portion of an animal; but God is a whole, not a part: so that it becomes necessary to invent for him other parts also, a neck, and a chest, and hands, and moreover a belly, feet, and generative organs, and all the rest of the countless number of internal and external faculties. And the fact of God's having passions like unto those of man follows of necessity from the fact of his having a form like that of man: since all those limbs are not superfluous and mere exuberances, but have been made by nature as assistants of the weakness of those who possess them, and she has adapted them in a manner suitable to and consistent with their natural necessities and offices. But the living God has need of nothing; so that as he does not at all require the assistance to be derived from the parts of the body, he" cannot possibly have such parts at all.
n. And from whence does Cain go forth? is it from the palace of the ruler of the world? But what house of God can exist perceptible by the outward senses except this world which it is impossible and impracticable to quit? For the great circle of the heaven binds round and contains within itself everything which has ever been created; and of those things which have already perished, the componert parts are resolved into their original elements, and are ag:.Jn portioned off among those powers of the universe of which they consist, the loan which, as it were, was advanced to each, being restored back at unequal periods of time, in accordance with laws previously laid down, to the nature which originally made it, whenever that nature chooses to call in its debts.
Again, if any person goes out from any place, that which he leaves behind him is in a different place from that in which he now is, but if this be true it must follow that there are some portions of the universe deprived of the presence of God, who never leaves any place empty or destitute of himself, but who fills up all things for all time; and if God has not a face (inasmuch as he is not bound by what may seem appropriate for created things), and if he does not exist in parts inasmuch as he surrounds all things and is not surrounded by any, it is impossible for anything to remove and depart from this world as from a city, as there is no portion of it left without.
288 PHILO JUDiEUS.
It now remains for us, considering that none of these things are spoken of in terms of strict propriety, to turn to the alle- gorical system, which is dear to men versed in natural phi- losophy, taking the first principles of our argument from this source.
If it is hard to depart from before the face and out of the sight of a mortal king, how can it be anything but extremely difficult to depart and quit the appearance of God, and to determine no longer to come into his sight. This indeed is to be left without any idea of him, and to be mutilated as to the eyes of the soul, and all those who of necessity have endured this fate, being weighed down by the might of irresistible and implacable power, are objects rather for pity than for hatred; but all those who voluntarily and of deliberated purposes have rejected the living God, exceeding even the bounds of wickedness itself, for what other evil of equal weight can possibly be found? Such men should suffer not the usual punishments of evil doers, but something new and extraordinary. And surely no one could invent a more novel or more terrible penalty than a departure and flight from the presence of the Ruler of the universe.
III. Accordingly God banished Adam; but Cain went forth from his presence of his own accord; Moses here showing to us the manner of each sort of absence from God, both the voluntary and the involuntary sort; but the involuntary sort as not existing in consequence of any intention on our part, will subsequently have such a remedy applied to it as the case admits of; for God will raise up another offspring in the place of Abel, whom Cain slew, a male offspring for the soul which has not turned by its own intention, by name Seth, which name being interpreted means irrigation; but the voluntary flight from God, as one that has taken place by deliberate purpose and intention, will await on irremediable punishment in all eternity, for as good deeds that are done in consequence of forethought and design, are better than un- intentional ones, so also among offences those that are unde- signed are of less heinousness than those that are premeditated.
IV, Therefore punishment which is the chastiser of im- pious men, will await Cain who has now departed from before the face of God, but Moses will suggest to those who know God, a most excellent suggestion, to love God and to obey ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN. 289 him. and cleave to him, for he tells men that this is the life which in truth is tranquil and lasting,* and he very empha- tically invites us to the honour of the one being who is above all others to be beloved and honoured, bidding us cleave to him, recommending to us a continual and constant and inseparable harmony and union of friendship with him. These suggestions and such as these are what he gives to the rest of the world, but he himself so insatiably desires to behold him, and to be beheld by him, that he supplicates him to display to his eye his nature of which it is impossible to form a con- jecture, so that he may become acquainted with it,f that thus he might receive a most well-grounded certainty of knowledge that could not be mistaken, in exchange for uncertain doubts; and he will never cease from urging his desire, but even, though he is aware that he desires a matter which is difficult of attainment, or rather which is wholly unattainable, he still strives on, in no way remitting his intense anxiety, but without admitting any excuse, or any hesitation, or vacillation; using all the means in his power to gain his object.
V. At all events, he will now penetrate into "the darkness where God was. "if That is to say, into those unapproachable and invisible conceptions which are formed of the living God. For the great Cause of all things does not exist in time, nor at all in place, but he is superior to both time and place; for, having made all created things in subjection to himself, he is surrounded by nothing, but he is superior to everything. And being superior to, and being also external to the world that he has made, he nevertheless fills the whole world with himself; for, having by his own power extended it to its utmost limits, he has connected every portion with another portion according to the principles of harmony.
When, therefore, the soul that loves God seeks to know what the one living God is according to his essence, it is enter- ing upon an obscure and dark subject of investigation, from which the greatest benefit that arises to it is to comprehend that God, as to his essence, is utterly incomprehensible to any being, and also to be aware that he is invisible. And it appears to me that the great hierophant had attained to the comprehension of the most important point in this investiga- tion before he commenced it, when he entreated God to become * Demeronomy xxx. 20. f Exodus xxxiii. 18. $ Exodus xx. 13.
U 290 PHILO JUDiEUS.
the exhibitor and expounder of his own nature to him,* for he says, " Show me thyself;" showing very plainly by this expression that no created being is competent by himself to learn the nature of God in his essence.
VI. On this account too, Abraham, when he had come unto the place which God had told him of, " On the third day, looking up, saw the place afar off."t What kind of place? Was it the place to which he came? And how was it still afar off, if he had already come to it? But perhaps the meaning which is intended under this expression may be something like this: — The wise man, being always desirous to comprehend the nature of the Ruler of the universe, when he is proceeding along the road which leads by knowledge and wisdom, pre- viously meets with words of God, among which he rests for a while; and though he had previously determined to proceed by some other road, he now stops and hesitates; for the eyes of his mind being opened, he sees more clearly that he had entered upon a chase after a thing which was difficult to over- take, which constantly retreated before him, and was always at a distance, and which outstripped its pursuers by placing an immeasurable distance between them. You think, therefore, rightly that all the speediest things which are under heaven would appear to be standing still if compared with the rapidity of the sun, and moon, and other stars. And yet the whole heaven was made by God; and the maker always goes before that which is made. So that, of necessity, not only the other things which exist among us, but also that which has the most rapid motion of all, namely, the mind, may fall short of a proper comprehension of the great cause of all things by an undescribable distance.
But the stars, as they are themselves in motion, pass by all things that move; but, though it seems incredible, God, while standing still, outstrips everything. And it is said that he, at the same moment, is close to us and at a great distance, touch- ing us with his creative or his punishing powers, which are close to each individual, and yet at the same time driving away the creature to an excessive distance from his nature as existing according to its essence, so that it cannot touch him without oven the unalloyed and incorporeal efforts of the intellect. Therefore we sympathise in joy with those who love God and * Exodus xxxiii. 12. * Genesis xxii. 4.
ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN. 29 j seek to understand the nature of the living God, even if they fail to discover it; for the vague investigation of what is good is sufficient by itself to cheer the heart, even if it fail to attain the end that it desires. But we participate in indignation against that lover of himself, Cain; because he has left his soul without any conception whatever of the living God, having of deliberate purpose mutilated himself of that faculty by which alone he might have been able to see him.
VII. It is worth while also to consider the wickedness into which a man who flies from the face of God is driven, since it is called a tempest. The law-giver showing, by this expres- sion, that he who gives way to inconsiderate impulses without any stability or firmness exposes himself to surf and violent tossing, like those of the sea, when it is agitated in the winter season by contrary winds, and has never even a single glimpse of calm or tranquillity. But as when a ship having been tossed in the sea is agitated, it is then no longer fit to take a voyage or to anchor in harbour, but being tossed about hither and thither it leans first to one side and then to the other, and struggles in vain against the waves; so the wicked man, yield- ing to a perverse and insane disposition, and being unable to regulate his voyage through life without disaster, is constantly tossed about in perpetual expectation of an overturning of his life.
But the connection of the consequence affects me in no moderate degree; for it happens that that which comes near him who is standing still longs for tranquillity, as being some- thing which resembles itself. Now that which stands still without any deviation is God, and that which is moved is the creature, so that he who comes near to God desires stability; but he who departs from him, as by so doing he is approaching a creature easily overturned, is borne towards that which re- sembles it.
VIII. On this account it is written in the curses contained in scripture, " Thou shalt never rest; nor shall there be any rest for the sole of thy foot." * And, a little afterwards, we read that, " Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee."f For it is the nature of the foolish man, who is always being tossed about in a manner contrary to right reason, to be hostile to tranquillity and rest, and not to stand firmly or with a sure * Deuteronomy xxviii. 65. + Deuteronomy xxviii. 66, 292 PHILO JUDiEUS.
foundation on any doctrine whatever. Accordingly he is full of different opinions at different times, and sometimes, even in the same circumstances, without any new occurrence having arisen to affect them, he will be perfectly contrary to himself, — now great, now little, now hostile, now friendly; and, in short, he will, so to say, be everything that is most inconsistent in a moment of time. And, as the law-giver says, " All his life shall hang in doubt before him;" having no firm footing, but being constantly tossed about by opposing circumstances, which drag it different ways. On which account Moses says, in another place, " Cursed of God is he that hangeth on a tree;"* because what he ought to hang upon is God.
But such a man has, of his own accord, bound himself to the body, which is a wooden burden upon us, exchanging hope for desire and a perfect hope for the greatest of evils; for hope, being the expectation of good things, causes the mind to depend upon the bounteous God; but appetite, creating only unreason- able desires, depends on the body, which nature has made to be a sort of receptacle and abode for the soul.
IX. Let these men, then, hang by their appetites as by a halter; but the wise Abraham, where he stands, comes near to God, who is also standing. For Moses says that " Abraham was standing near to God; and coming nigh unto him, he said,''t • • • For in good truth the unalterable soul is the only thing that has access to the unalterable God; and being of such a disposition, it does really stand very near to the Divine power. Therefore the oracle which was given to the all-wise Moses most manifestly shows the lasting good condition and stability of the virtuous man. Now, the oracle is as follows: "And do thou thyself stand with me." J By which expression, two things are made clear. One, that it is the living God, who moves and turns about all other beings, being himself unchangeable and immoveable. The second is, that he makes the virtuous man a participator in his own tran- quil nature. For, as I suppose, the crooked things are made straight by his straight rule; so, likewise, are the things that are in motion restrained and made stationary by the power of him who always stands still and firm.
In this passage, therefore, he commands another being to stand with him: but in another place he says, " I will go ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN. 293 down with thee to Egypt, and I will conduct thee to the end."* He does not say, Thou shalt go down with me. Why not? Because calmness and stability are the especial attributes of God; but a liability to change one's place, and every kind of motion which has a tendency to change the place, is incident to a created being. When, therefore, he invites the man to his own peculiar good, he says, " Stand thou with me:" not " I will stand with thee." For " will stand," cannot be said of God, who always stands still.
But when he comes to that which is the peculiar attribute of the creature, he says, with the most perfect correctness, " I will go down with you;" for change of place is adapted to you: so that no one shall go down with me, for in me there is no changing; but whatever is consistent with me, that is to say, with rest, shall stand. And with those who go down in such a manner as to change their place (for change of place is akin to and closely connected with them), I will go down also, not indeed changing my situation as to its actual place, inas- much as I fill every place with myself. And this, too, I do through the pity which exists in rational nature, in order that it may be raised from the hell of the passions to the heavenly region of virtue; I being the guide, who also have made the road which leads to heaven, so that it may be a plain road for suppliant souls, and have shown it to them all, in order that they may not foolishly wander out of the way.