XXIII. And the expression, " Sitting in the path," sug- gests some such meaning as this, as I persuade myself: a path is a road calculated for riding horses and driving car- riages on, well beaten by men and beasts. This road they say is very like pleasure, for almost from their earliest birth to extreme old age men proceed and walk along it, and with great indolence and easiness of temper spend all their lives in it, and not men only, but every species of animal whatever; for there is no single thing which is not attracted by the allurements of pleasure, and which is not, at times, entangled in its multifarious nets, from which it is very difficult to escape. But the paths of prudence, and temperance, and the other virtues, even though they may not be utterly untra- velled, are, at all events, not beaten much; for the number of those who proceed by those roads, and who philosophise in a genuine spirit, and who form associations with virtue alone, disregarding, once for all, all other allurements, is very small Therefore he sits constantly in the road, and not once only, who has an eagerness for, and a care for, patient endurances, in order to watch from his ambush and attack pleasure, to which men in general are accustomed, that fountain of everlasting evils, and so to keep it off, and to eradicate it from the whole district of the soul. Then, as Moses says, proceeding to the natural consequence of his position, he will of necessity bite the heel of the horse; for it is the especial attribute of patient eudurance and temperance to shake and overturn the 400 PHILO JUD^US.
foundations of vice, which lifts its head on high, and of exerted, and quickly-moved, and unmanageable passion.
XXIV. Moses, therefore, represents the serpent that ap- peared to Eve as planning the death of man, for he records, that God says in his curses, " He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." But he represents the serpent of Dan, which is the one which we are now discussing, as biting the heel of the horse and not of the man, for the serpent of Eve, being the symbol of pleasure, as has been. already shown, attacks man, that is to say, the reasoning power which is in every one of us; for the enjoyment and free use of excessive pleasure is the destruction of the mind; and the serpent of Dan being a sort of image of vigorous virtue and of patient endurance, will bite the horse, who is the emblem of passion and wickedness, because temperance is occupied about the overthrow and destruction of these things. Accordingly, when they are bitten and when they have fallen, " the horseman also," says Moses, " will fall;" and the meaning which he con- ceals under this enigmatical expression is such as this, that we must think it an excellent thing and an object worthy of all labour, that our mind shall not be mounted upon any one of the passions or vices, but that whenever an attempt is made by force to put it upon one of them,' we must endeavour to leap off and fall, for such falls produce the most glorious victories. On which account one of the ancients, when challenged to a contest of abuse, said, " I will never engage in such a contest as that in which he who wins is more dishonoured than he who is defeated."
XXV. Do you, therefore, my friend, never enter into a con- test of evil, and never contend for the pre-eminence in such practices, but rather exert yourself with all your might to escape from them. And if ever, being under the compulsion of some power which is mightier than yourself, you are com- pelled to engage in such a strife, take care to be without delay defeated; for then you, being defeated, will be a glorious con- queror, and those who have gained the victory will have got the worst. And do not ever entrust it to a herald to proclaim the victory of your rival or to the judge to crown; but do you go yourself and offer to him the acknowledgment of victory and the palm, and crown him, if he will, and bind him with wreaths of triumph, and proclaim him as conoueror yourself, pronounc- ON THE TILLING OF THE EARTH BY NOAH. 401 mg with a loud and piercing voice such a proclamation as this: " 0 ye spectators, and ye who have offered prizes at these games! In this contest which you have proposed to us of appe- tite, and passion, and intemperance, and folly, and injustice, I have been defeated, and this man whom ye behold has gained the victoiy. And he has gained it by such a superabundance of excellence, that even we, who might very naturally have envied our conquerors, do not grudge him the triumph."
Therefore, in all these unholy contests, surrender the prizes to others; but, as for those which are really holy, study yourself to gain the crown in them. And think not those con- tests holy which the different cities propose in their triennial festivals, when they build theatres and receive many myriads of people; for in those he who has overthrown any one in wrestling, or who has cast him on his back or on his face upou the ground, or he who is very skilful in wrestling or in the pancratium, carries off the first prize, though he may be a man who has never abstained from any act of violence or ot injustice.
XXVI. There are some men, again, who, having armed and strongly fortified both their hands in a most hard and terrible manner, like iron, attack their adversaries, and batter their heads and faces, and the other parts of their bodies, and whenever they are able to plant a blow, they inflict great fractures, and then claim the decision in their favour, and the crown of victory, by means of their merciless cruelty. But what man in his senses would not laugh at the other competitions of runners, and candidates for the prize in the pentathlum, to see men studying with all their energies to leap the longest distance, and measuring spaces and distances, and contending with one another in swiftness of foot? men whom, not only those more active animals, an antelope, or a deer, but even the very smallest beasts, such as a dog, or a hare, without making any extraordinary haste, would outrun, though they were to exert themselves with all their speed, and to put themselves out of breath.
Of all these contests, then, there is not one which is truly sacred; no, not though all the men in the world should combine to bear witness in their favour, but they must be convicted by themselves of bearing false witness if they do so: for they who admire these things have established laws D D D D 402. FHILO JUD^EUS.
against men who behave with insolent violence, and have affixed punishments to assaults, and have appointed judges to decide on every action of that kind. How, then, is it natural for the same persons to be indignant at those who insult and assault others privately, and to establish in their cases punishments which cannot be avoided, but yet, in the case of those who commit these assaults publicly, and in assemblies of the people, and in theatres, to establish by law that they shall receive crowns, and that proclamations shall be made in their honour, and all sorts of other glorious circumstances? For when two opposite opinions are esta- blished concerning any one thing, whether it be person or action, it follows of necessity that one or other of them must be wrong, and the other right, for it is impossible for them both to be right: which of the two, then, will you praise deservedly? Will you not say that that sentence is right which orders those who begin acts of violence to be punished? You would justly blame the contrary law, which commands such persons to be honoured; that nothing sacred may be blamed, every such thing must be altogether glorious.
XXVII. Therefore the Olympian contest:'s the only one that justly deserves to be called sacred; meaning by this, not that which the inhabitants of Elis celebrate, but that which is instituted for the acquisition of the divine, and Olympian, and genuine virtues. Now, as competitors in this contest, all those have their names inscribed who are veiy weak in their bodies, but very vigorous in their souls; and then, having stripped off their clothes, and smeared themselves in the dust, thev do all those actions which belong to skill and to power, omitting nothing which may conduce to their gaining the victory. These men, therefore, get the better of their adversaries: and then, again, they have a competition with one another for the prize of pre-eminence, for they are not all victorious in the same manner, but all are worthy of honour, having routed and overthrown most grievous and formidable enemies; and he who shows himself superior to all the rest of these is most admirable, and we must not envy him, when he gets the first prize of all the wrestlers. And those who are thought worthy of the second or of the third place, must not be cast down; for these prizes are proposed for the acquisition of virtue. But to those who are ON THE TILLING OF THE EARTH BY NOAH. 403 unable to attain to the very highest eminence, even the acquisition of a moderate prize is serviceable. And it is even said that such is more stable, since it avoids the envy which always sticks to those who are excessively eminent.
Therefore it is said in a way to convey much instruction, " The horseman will fall," that if anyone falls from vice, he may be raised up by leaning on good things, and so may stand upright again And in a still more instructive manner is that other expression used, which bids one not leap off in front, but " fall backwards," since it is always advantageous to be behind-hand in vice and passion; for it is always good to be beforehand in doing what is good, but to be slack in doing what is disgraceful: and, on the other hand, it is good to come close to the one, but to stand aloof from and to be as far as possible removed from the other. And that man is free from all disorder, to whom it happens to be removed at a distance from the errors of passion. Accordingly, Moses says that he is " awaiting the salvation which comes from God,"* in order that, as far as he is removed from committing iniquity, so far he may also advance in well-doing.
XXVIII. Everything, then, that is requisite has now been said on the subject of a horseman and a rider, and a keeper of sheep and a shepherd, and a tiller of the ground and a husband- man; and all the difference existing between each of these pairs has been very accurately denned, as far as it was in our power. It is time now to turn to what follows.
Moses, then, introduces the man who is desirous of virtue as not possessing a complete knowledge of the whole business of a husbandman, but only as labouring with diligence at its prin- ciples and rudiments; for he says, " Noah began to be a husbandman. "f And the beginning, as the proverb of the old writers has it, is half of the whole; as yet, therefore, he is half of the distance removed from the end, and where the end is not attained, it has been often injurious to many persons, to have begun great enterprises. At all events, before now, some persons whose minds were not right, through their thoughts revolving in continued changes, have conceived a notion of some good things, but have derived no advantage from it; for it has happened that, as they did not attain the end which they deeired, they have been overwhelmed by the impetuosity of a * Genesis xlix. 18. f Gtnesis ix. 20.
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number of adverse circumstances coming against them, and so that good conception has been destroyed.
XXIX. "Was it not on this account that when Cain fancied that he had offered up a blameless sacrifice, an oracle came to him bidding him not to feel confidence as a man who had presented a well approved offering? for that he had not sacrificed with holy and perfect victims.
And the oracle is as follows: " If thou dost not bring thy offering properly, and if thou dost not distribute it rightly."* What is right, then, here is the honour of God, and that which is not properly distributed is not right. But let us now examine what meaning is contained under this expres- sion.
There are some persons who look upon piety as consisting in the affirmation that all things have been made by God, both what is good and the contrary; to whom we would say that one portion of your opinion is praiseworthy, but the other portion blameable. One portion is praiseworthy, be- cause it properly honours that which alone is worthy to receive honour; but that portion is blameable, which does so without any discrimination or division. For it was not proper to confuse and mingle everything together, nor to declare God the cause of everything without distinction, but to make a difference, and to pronounce him the cause only of those things which are good; for it is an absurdity to be anxious about priests, taking care that they shall be perfect in their bodies and free from all defect and mutilation, and to be very particular about the animals which are offered in sacrifice, to be sure that they have no defect of any kind whatever, not even the most insignificant possible; and to appoint men, and to say whom and how many ought to be appointed for this business, whom some call inspectors of blemishes, to take care that the victims may be brought to the altar without any blemish or imperfection, and yet to allow the opinions which are held concerning God to be in confusion in the soul of each individual, and not to take care that they are discriminated by the rule of right reason.
XXX. Do you not see that the law pronounces the camel to be an unclean beast, because it chews the cud and does not part the hoof.f And yet, if we considered this sentence * Genesis iv. 7. f Leviticus xi. 4.
ON THE TILLING OF THE EARTH BY NOAH. 405 as it is expressed in its literal sense, I do not see what reason there is in it when it is interpreted; but if we look at it in its allegorical meaning, it is very clear and inevitable. For as the animal which chews the cud, again masticates the food which is put before it and devoured by it, when it again rises up to its teeth, so also the soul of the man who is fond of learning, when it has received any speculative opinions by hearing them, does not abandon them to forgetfulness, but quietly by itself revolves over every one of them again in its mind in all tranquillity, and so comes to the recollection of them all. But it is not every memory which is good, but only that which is exerted on good subjects, since it is a most pernicious thing that what is bad should not be forgotten; on which account, with a view to perfection, it is necessary that the hoofs should be parted, in order that so the faculty of memory, being divided into two sections, the word which flows through the mouth may divide the lips, as being things which nature has made of a two-fold character, and may also separate the advantageous species of memory from that which is mischievous.
Again, the dividing the hoof without chewing the cud does not by itself appear to bring any advantage with it. For what advantage is there in distinguishing the natures of things beginning at the top, and going down to the most unimportant points, and yet not to be able to do so in one's self, not to have one's own divisions clearly distinguished, which by some persons are with great felicity named atoms and indivisible portions? for all these things are manifest displays of intelligence and excessive accuracy, sharpened to a degree of the most acute comprehension. But they have no influence in causing virtue, or in making men live a kfe free from reproach.
XXXI. Accordingly, in their daily discussions, the com- pany of sophists all over the world annoys the ears of those whom they meet, by discussing with minute accuracy, and expounding precisely, all expressions of a double and ambi- guous character, and distinguishing everything which appears to occur to the recollection (and a great many things are fixed deeply in it). Do not these men divide the elements of grammatical speech into consonants and vowels? And do.not some men divide speech into their first princi- 406 PHILO JUDiEUS.
pies, noun, verb, and conjunction? Do not musicians again divide their own science into rhythm, and part, and melody? and subdivide melody into the chromatic, the enharmonic, and the diatonic species, into the divisions of fourths, and fifths, and the diapason, and into combined and distinct melodies? Do not geometricians divide their science into two generic lines, the straight line, and the circumference? And do not other professors of other arts draw careful distinctions between the species which exist in each of their arts, going accurately through them all from beginning to end? And the whole company of students of philosophy may argue with them on their line of conduct, each going through the studies to which he is accustomed; because, of all existing things some are corporeal, and some incorporeal; some again are inanimate, and some have vitality; some are endowed with, others destitute of reason; some are mortal, others divine; and of mortals some are male, and some female, these being the two divisions of the human race. Again, of incorporeal things, some are perfect and others imperfect; and of perfect things, some are questions and interrogations, others are imprecatory or adjurative; and there are other kinds which have special differences in the elementary principles of such things.
Again, there are some things which the dialecticians are accustomed to call actions; and of these some are simple, and others are not simple; and of those which are not simple some are conjunctive, and others are adjunctive in a greater or lesser degree; moreover some are disjunctive, and there are others which come under a similar description. Again, some are true, some are false, some are doubtful; some possible and some impossible; some are corruptible, others incorruptible; some necessary, and others not neces- sary; some are easy of solution, others difficult to understand; and there are other classifications akin to these. Again, of those which are imperfect there are proximate divisions into what are called categorems and accidents, and other classi- fications which are subordinate to these.
XXXII. And although the intellect, when it has sharp- ened itself so as to render itself more acute than before (as a physician gives strength to bodies), dissects the natures of things, but yet derives no advantage with respect to the ON THE TILLING OF THE EARTH BY NOAH. 407 acquisiton of virtue; it will divide the hoof, being able to divide, and to distinguish, and to discriminate between each separate thing; but it will not chew the cud so as to avail itself of any useful food which may be able, by means of its recollections, to soften the asperity of the soul which has been engendered by sins, and to produce a really gentle and pleasant motion. Therefore a vast number of those who are called sophists, being admired in their respective cities, and having attracted almost all the world to look upon them with honour, on account of the accuracy of their definitions and their excessive cleverness in inventions, have grown old while vehemently bound by the passions, and have passed their whole life in them, in no respect differing from private individuals who are of no account and are held in no consideration. For which reason the lawgiver very admirally compares those of the sophists who live in this manner to the race of swine, who live a life in no respect pure or brilliant, but confused and disorderly, and who are devoted to the basest habits.
For he says that the swine is an unclean animal, because it divides the hoof and does not chew the cud, just as he has pronounced the camel unclean for the contrary reason because it chews the cud and does not divide the hoof. But as many animals as partake of both these qualities are very appropriately described as clean, because they have avoided impropriety in both the aforementioned particulars. For division, without memory, and care, and a diligent exami- nation of what is best, is but an imperfect good; but the combination and union of the two in the same animal is a most perfect good.
XXXIII. And even the enemies of the soul are afraid of this perfection, whom, as they are no longer able to stand up against it, a genuine peace gets the mastery over. And all those who have attained to a half-perfect or half-esta- blished wisdom, are too weak to be able to make any effectual opposition to the brood of sins, which have become confined by long usage, and which have gained strength by time. On this account, when in the time of war the general makes a levy of his army, he does not summon all the youth, not even, though it displays all imaginable willingness and spontaneous readiness to come forward to repel the enemy. But he 408 PHILO JUDGED S.
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commands some to depart and to remain at home, in order that by continued exercise they may acquire such an amount of miiitary power and skill as may afterwards be sufficient to secure the victory.
And the order of this levy is made through the medium of the heralds of the army when the war is at hand, and already at the very gates. And the heralds will make this announcement: " What man is there who has built a new house, and has not handselled it? Let him go and return to his house, that he may not die in the war, and another man handsel it instead of him. And what man is there who has planted a vineyard and has not received any joy from the fruit thereof? Let him go and turn away back to his house, that he may not die in the war, and another man be delight- ed with the fruit of his vineyard. And what man has espoused a wife, and has not received her? Let him go and return back to his house, that he may not die in the war, and another man take his wife.* XXXIV. For why, I should say, 0 most excellent man, do you not think it more proper to summon these men to follow you to the contest of war rather than the others, men who have acquired marriages, and houses, and vineyards, and all other kinds of possessions in abundance? For they will most cheerfully undergo dangers, even if they be altogether most formidable, for the sake of the safety of all these things. Since those men who have none of these things which have been enumerated will be very likely to exhibit indifference and inactivity in the war, as having no very important pledges at stake. Or do you think that, just in proportion to the absence of any enjoyment from the possession of such things that they have hitherto felt, will be their apprehension lest they never be able to enjoy such things, and that this will give them energy? For what advantage from all the possessions that they may have acquired is left to those who have been subdued in war? But will they not be taken prisoners? Then they will immediately suffer for their ab- sence from the field of battle; for while they are sitting at home and wallowing in luxury, it is evidently inevitable that their enemies, who are conducting all the operations of the war with energy, will, not merely without any loss, but even without the slightest exertion, make themselves masters of * Deuteronomy xx. 5.
ON THE TILLING OF THE EARTH BY NOAH. 4o9 all that they possess. But the multitude of their other allies will cheerfully encounter the contest on behalf of these things. At first sight, indeed, it seems absurd to rely upon the energies or fortune of others; and especially when it is both an individual and a common danger, involving defeat, and slavery, and utter destruction, which hangs over men's heads, who are able of themselves to encounter the toils and perils of war, and who are not hindered by any disease, or by old age, or by any other disaster. It is rather fitting that those, whom the danger chiefly concerns, should seize their arms and stand in the front battalions and hold their shields over their allies, fighting cheerfully and with a spirit which even courts dangers.
XXXV. In the next place, will they not have displayed examples, not of treachery only, but of the greatest insensi- bility, if they allow others to fight in their cause, while they themselves are occupied about their domestic affairs? And shall others be willing to incur contests and dangers in the cause of their safety, which they are afraid to encounter for their own? And shall others cheerfully endure scarcity of provisions, and sleeping on the ground, and other hardships of body and soul, from their desire for victory, while they, covering their houses with stucco and nonsense, so much lifeless ornament, or gathering in their harvests from their fields, and celebrating the festival of the vintage, or coming into connection, now for the first time, with virgins who have long since been betrothed to them, and sleeping with them, as if it were the most opportune season for marriage, pass their time in such vanities? It is a good thing, no doubt, to take care of one's walls, to collect one's revenues, to feast, to revel in wine, to contract marriages, to go court- ing the old and withered dames (as the proverb calls them); but these are the employments of peace, and to do all these things in the crisis of a war raging in all its freshness and vigour, while neither father, nor brother, nor any relation or connection whatever shares the fatigues of the war; when this, I say, is the case, must we not say that universal cowardice has occupied the whole house r Oh, but you will say there are at all events myriads of relations who are fight- ing in their cause. Then, while they are encountering danger to their lives, must not those who are spending their 410 PHILO JUDiEUS.
time in luxury and delicate living appear to surpass even the worst of wild beasts in the excess of their inhumanity? Again, they will say, but it is hard that others, without enduring any labour themselves, should reap the fruits of our labours. "Which, then, is worst, that enemies should come into one's inheritance while one is still alive, or that friends and relations should do so after one is dead? It is absurdity even to compare things which are so widely different; and yet it is not inconsistent with reason, not only that all the property which belongs to these men who shun military service, but that even they themselves, too, may become the property of their enemies when they have ob- tained the mastery. So those, indeed, who die in defence of the general safety, even if they have not enjoyed as yet any advantage from those possessions which they previously had, meet with death in its most pleasant form, considering that, by their saving the others, their property goes to those whom they desired to have for their successors.