And I was not wrong when I called those rewards, brothers to one another, but I said so, knowing that he cannot be made a true priest who is still serving in human and mortal warfare, in which vain opinions are the officers of the com- panies; and that he cannot be a peaceful man, who does not in sincerity cultivate and serve, with all simplicity, the only Being who has no share in warfare, and everlasting peace.
XIX. Such are the persons who honour their father, and the things belonging to their father, but who pay but little regard to their mother and to things that belong to her. But Moses represents the man who is at variance with both his father and his mother, and brings them forward as saying, II know not the Lord; and I will not let Israel go."f For * Numbers xxv. 8. t Exodus v. 2.
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he appears to put himself in opposition to those divine things which are established in accordance with divine reason, anc also to those which are established with reference to created beings, by means of education, and to be throwing everything into confusion in every direction. And there are even now — for the human race has not as yet entirely purified itself from unmixed wickedness — there are still persons who have absolutely determined to do nothing which has any bearing on piety or on human society, but who, on the contrary, are the companions of impiety and atheism, and treacherous towards their equals.
And these men go about, being the greatest imaginable pests of their cities, out of curiosity and a love of interfering, mixing themselves up with, or rather, if one must tell the truth, throwing into confusion all kinds of affairs, both public and private, men who ought to have put up prayers and offered sacrifices to avert (as if it had been a great disease) famine, or pestilence, or any other evil inflicted by God; for these calamities are great evils to those on whom they fall; in reference to which Moses sings their destruction, when they have been destroyed by their own allies, and swal lowed up by their own opinions, as if by the waves of a stormy sea.
XX. Let us now, therefore, proceeding in regular order, speak of the enemies of these persons, men who honour instruction and right reason, among whom are those who are attached to the virtue of one of their parents, being half- perfect companions; these men are the most excellent guardians of the laws which the father, that is to say, right reason, established, and faithful stewards of the customs which education, their mother, instituted; and they were instructed by right reason, their father, to honour the Father of the universe, and not to neglect the customs and laws established by education, their mother, and considered by all men to be founded in justice.
When, therefore, Jacob, the practiser of virtue, and the man who entered into the lists of, and was a candidate for, the prizes of virtue, was inclined to give his ears in exchange for his eyes, and words for actions, and improvements for perfection, as the bounteous God was willing to give eyes to his mind, in order that he might for the future clearly see ON DRUNKENNESS. 4(]") what hitherto he had only comprehended by hearing (for the eyes are more trustworthy than the ears), the oracle sounded in his ears, " Thy name shall not be called Jacob; but Israel shall thy name be, because thou hast prevailed with God and with men, with power."* Jacob then is the name of learning and of improvement, that is to say of those powers which depend upon learning, and Israel is the name of perfection, for the name being interpreted means " the sight of God; " and what can be more perfect among all the virtues than the sight of the only living God? Accordingly he who hath seen this good thing is confessed to be good by both his parents, having attained to strength in God and power both before the Lord and before men.
And it appears to me to be very well said in the book of Proverbs, " Men who see what is right before God and before men."f Since it is by the aid of both these that men attain to the complete possesssion of good. For when you have been taught to observe the laws of your Father, J and not to disregard the injunctions of your mother, you will be able to say with confidence and pride, " For I also was born a son, subject to my father, and beloved before the face of my "mother."
XXI. But, I should say to this man, were you not fated to be loved, if you kept the laws established among mortals out of a desire for fellowship, and if you paid due respect to the ordinances of the uncreate God out of a love for, and a desire to exhibit piety? Therefore Moses, the divine prophet of God, in his description of the building of the temple, shows the perfection of the temple in both points; for it is not without due consideration for us that he covers the ark both within and without with gold, or that he gives two robes to the chief priest, or that he builds two altars, one outside the tabernacle for the victims, and the other inside for the burning incense; but he does this, wishing by these emblems to exhibit the virtues of each species; for it is fitting that the wise man should be adorned both with the invisible excellences existing within in the soul, and also with those external ones which are outwardly visible, and with prudence which is more valuable than gold.
And whenever it departs from human studies, worshipping * Genesis xxiii. 28. f ProverbB iii. 4. % Proverbs iv 8.
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the living God alone, it puts on the simple unvaried robe of truth, which no mortal thing can ever touch, for it is made of linen material, a material not produced from any being Avhose nature it is to die. But whenever it passes over to mix in political affairs, then it lays aside the man's robe and assumes the other embroidered one of a most admirable beauty to look at; for life being a thing of great variety and of great changes, requires the diversified wisdom of the pilot who is to hold the helm; and he will appear in the outer conspicuous altar of life to exercise abundant prudence with respect to the skin, and flesh, and blood, and everything relating to the body, in order not to offend the common multitude which gives the second place in honour to the good things of the body in close proximity to the good things of the soul; and at the inner altar he will use blood- less, fleshless, incorporeal things, things proceeding from rea- soning alone, which the compared to frankincense and other burnt spices; for as these fill the nostrds, so do those fill the whole region of the soul with fragrance.
XXII. We must also not be ignorant that wisdom, being the art of arts, appears to vary according to its different materials, but it shows its true species without alteration to those who have acute sight, and who are not carried away by the burden of the body with which they are surrounded: but who see the impression which is stamped upon it by art itself. They say that Phidias, the celebrated statuary, made statues of brass, and of ivory, and of gold, and of other different materials, and that in all these works he displayed one and the same art, so that not only good judges, but even those who had no pretensions to the title, recognized the artist from his works. For, as in the case of twins, nature having often employed the same character, has produced similitudes very slightly indeed differing from one another; in the same manner perfect art, being the imitation and copy of nature, when it has taken different materials, fashions and stamps the same appearance on all, so that the works pro- duced by her are in the highest possible degree kindred, and brother-like, and twins.
And the power which exists in the wise man will show the same result: for when it is occupied with the affairs of the living God it is called piety and holiness: but when it ON DRUNKENNESS. 471 employs itself upon the heaven, and the things in heaven, it is natural philosophy; and when it devotes itself to the investigation of the air, and of the different circumstances attending its variations and changes, whether taking place in the uniform yearly revolutions of the seasons, or in the partial periods of months and days, it is then called meteor- ology. It is called moral philosophy when it busies itself about the rectification of human morals; and this moral philosophy is divided into several subordinate species; that namely of politics, when occupied about state affairs; eco- nomy, when applied to the management of a household; when it is devoted to the subject of banquets and entertainments, it is then convivial philosophy.
Again, that power which concerns itself about the govern- ment of men, is royal; that which is conversant with com- mands and prohibitions, is legislative. For all these different powers the wise man of many names and many celebrities does truly contain within himself, namely, piety, holiness, natural philosophy, meteorology, moral philosophy, political knowledge, economy, royal power, legislative wisdom, and innumerable other faculties; and in every one of them he will be seen to wear one and the same appearance.
XXIII. But now that we have discussed the four dif- ferent classes of children, we must beware not to overlook this, which may be the most excellent proof of this partition and division of the chapter; for when a child is elated and puffed up by folly, his parents accuse him in this manner, saying, " This is our son,"* pointing to the disobedient and stiff-necked youth; for by the demonstration " this," they show that they have other sons likewise, some of whom obey one of them, and others of whom obey them both, being well-disposed reasonings, of whom Reuben is an ex- ample; others again, who are fond of hearing and learning, of whom Simeon is a specimen, for his name, being inter- preted, means "hearing;" others, people who fly to and become suppliants of God, this is the company of the Levites; others singing a song of gratitude, not so much with a loud voice as with the mind, of whom Judah is the leader; others, who have been thought worthy of rewards and presents, on account of their voluntary acquisition of * Deuteronomy xxL 19.
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virtue through labour, like Issachar; others, persons who have abandoned the Chaldsean meteorological speculations, and passed over to the contemplation of the uncreate God, like Abraham; some, who have attained to self-taught and spontaneous virtue, like Isaac; some, full of wisdom and strength, and beloved by Grod, like the most perfect Moses.
XXIV. Very naturally, therefore, the sacred law com- mands the disobedient and contentious man — who brings contributions of evil, that is to say, who joins together and heaps up sin upon sin, great crimes on little ones, fresh guilt upon ancient, intentional upon involuntary misdeeds; and who, like a person inflamed by wine, is always intoxi- cated and drunk, and raging with ceaseless and unrestrained drunkenness, during the whole of his life — to be stoned; be- cause he has drunk of the unmixed and abundant cup of folly, and because he has destroyed the injunctions of right reason, his father, and the legitimate expositions of hi3 mother's instruction. And though he had an example of excellence and virtue in his brothers, who were approved of by his parents, he did not imitate their virtue, but, on the contrary, he thought fit to go to an additional length in his transgressions, so as to make a god of the body, and to make a god of Typhus, who is especially honoured among the Egyptians, the emblem of whom was the figure of a golden bull; around which his mad worshippers establish dances, and sing, and prelude, not with such melodies as are redolent of wine and revelry, like the sweet songs sung at feasts and entertainments, but a really melancholv and mournful lamentation, like men intoxicated, who have re laxed and quite destroyed the tone and energy of the soul.
For it is said, that when Joshua heard the people crying out he said to Moses, " There is the sound of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of men beginning to exert themselves in battle, nor is it the voice of men betaking themselves to flight, but it is the voice of men beginning revelry and drunkenness that I hear: and when he came near to the camp he saw the calf and the dances "* And the enigmatical meaning, which is concealed under these figurative expressions, we will explain to the best of our ability.
* Exodus xxxii. 17 ON DRUNKENNESS. 473 XXV. Our own affairs are at one time in a state of tran- quillity, and at another they behave as it were with un- seasonable impetuosity and loud cries; and their tranquillity is profound peace, and their condition, when in an opposite state, is interminable war; and the witness to this fact is one who has experienced its truth, and who cannot lie; for having heard the voice of the people crying out, he says to the manager and superintendent of the affairs, " There is a sound of war in the tent;" for as long as the irrational impulses were not stirred up, and had not raised any outerv in us, our minds were established with some firmness; but when they began to fill the place of the soul with all sorts of voices and sounds, calling together and awakening the passions, they created a civil sedition and war in the camp. Very naturally, for where else should there be strife, and battle, and contention, and all the other deeds of intermin- able war, except in the life according to the body, which he, speaking allegorically, calls the camp? This life the mind is accustomed to leave, when under the influence of God it approaches the living God, contemplating the incorporeal appearances; " for Moses," says the scripture, " having taken his own tent, fixed it outside the camp," and that too not near it, but a long way off, and at a great distance from the camp. And by these statements he tells us, figu- ratively, that the wise man is but a sojourner, and a person who leaves war and goes over to peace, and who passes from the mortal and disturbed camp to the undisturbed and peaceful and divine life of rational and happy souls.
XXVI. And he says in another passage that, " "When I have gone out of the city I will stretch forth my hands unto the Lord, and the voices shall cease." t Think not here that he who is speaking is a man, a contexture, or composi- tion, or combination of soul and body, or whatever else you may choose to call this concrete animal; but rather the purest and most unalloyed mind, which, while contained in the city of the body and of mortal life is cramped and con- fined, and like a man who is bound in prison confesses plainly that he is unable to relish the free air. But as soon as it has escaped from this city, then being released, as to its thoughts and imaginations, as prisoners are loosened as to I* Exodus xxxiii. 7 t Exodus ix. 29.
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their hands and feet, it will put forth its energies in their free, and emancipated, and unrestrained strength, so that the commands of the passions will be at once put an end to.
Are not the outcries of pleasure very loud with which she is accustomed to deliver such commands as please her? And is not the voice of appetite unwearied when she pours forth her bitter threats against those who do not serve her? And so again all the other passions have a voice of loud and varied sound. But even, if each one of the passions were to exert the ten thousand mouths and voices, and all the power of making an uproar spoken of by poets, it would not be able to perplex the ears of the perfect man, after he has already passed from them, and determined no longer to dwell in the same city with them.
XXVII. But the sacred Scriptures agree with the man who can speak from experience, when he says that in the camp of the body all the sounds of war were heard, the tranquillity dear to peace having been driven to a distance. For he does not say that it is not such a shout of war, but that it is not such a shout as some persons think the cry of men who have conquered or who have been con- quered to be, but rather such an one as would proceed from men heavy and overwhelmed with wine. For the expression, " It is not the voice of men beginning to exert themselves in battle," is equivalent to the words, " of men who have got the better in war," for exertion in battle is the cause of victory.
Thus he represents the wise Abraham, after the destruction of the nine kings, that is, of the four passions and the five powers of the outward senses, which were all set in motion in a manner contrary to nature, preluding with a hymn of gratitude, and saying, "I will stretch forth my hand to the most high G-od, who made heaven and earth; that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet of any thing that is thine." * And he means, as it appears to me, by this expression, everything in the world, the heaven, the earth, the water, the air, and all animals, and all plants.
For to every one of them, he who directs all the energies of his soul towards God, and who looks to him alone as * Genesis xiv. 22.
ON DRUNKENNESS. 475 the only source from which he can hope for advantage, may fitly say — I will take nothing that is yours; 1 will, not receive from the sun the light of day, nor by night will I receive light from the moon or from the other stars, nor rain from the air and from the clouds, nor meat and drink from the earth and from the water, nor the power of sight from the eyes, nor the faculty of hearing from the ears, nor that of smelling from the nostrils, nor from the palate in the mouth the sense of taste, nor the faculty of speaking from the tongue, nor the power of giving and taking from the hands, nor that of approaching and of retreating from the feet, nor that of breathing from the lungs, nor that of digesting from the liver, nor from the other internal organs of the body the power of exciting the energies which belong to them, nor the yearly pr xiuce from trees and seeds; but I will look upon every thine as proceeding from the only wise God, who extends his own beneficial powers in every direction, and who by their agency benefits me.
XXVII. He then who can thus look upon the living God, and who thus comprehends the nature of the cause of all things, honours the things of which he is the cause in a second- ary degree to himself; while at the same time he confesses their importance though without flattering them. And this confession is most just: I will receive nothing from you, but everything from God, to whom all things belong, though perhaps the benefits may be bestowed through the medium of you; for ye are instruments to minister to his everlasting graces. But man, who is devoid of any consideration, who is blinded as to his mind, by which alone the living God is comprehensible, does, by means of that mind, never see any- thing anywhere, but sees all the bodies which are in the world by his own outward senses, which he looks upon as the causes of all things which exist.
On which account, beginning to make gods for himself, he las filled the world with images and statues, and innumer- able other representations, made out of all kinds of different laterials, fashioned by painters and statuaries, whom the law- giver banished to a distance from his state, proposing both publicly and privately great rewards and surpassing honours to them, by which conduct he has brought about a contrary 476 PHILO JUDiEUS.
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result to that which he intended, namely, impiety instead of religion. For the worship of many gods in the souls of ignorant people is mere impiety; and they who deify mortal things neglect the honour due to God; who are not content with making images of the sun and of the moon to the extent of their inclination, and of all the earth, and of all the water, but they even gave beasts and plants devoid of reason a share in those nonours, which belonged of right only to immortal beings. And he, reproving them, began a song of victory as has here been shown.
XXIX. And Moses indeed, in the same manner, when he saw the king of Egypt,* that arrogant man with his six hundred chariots, that is to say, with the six carefully arranged motions of the organic body, and with the governors who were appointed to manage them, who, while none of all created things are by nature calculated to stand still, think nevertheless that they may look upon everything as solidly settled and admitting of no alteration; when he, I say, saw that this Hng had met with the punishment due to his impiety, and that thepeople who were practisers of virtue, had escaped from the attacks of their enemies, and had been saved by mighty power beyond their expectation, he then sang a hymn to God as a just and true judge, beginning a hymn in a manner most becoming and most exactly suited to the events that had happened, because the horse and his rider he had thrown into the sea;" t having utterly destroyed that mind which rode upon the irrational impulses of that four- footed and restive animal, passion, and had become an ally, and defender, and protector of the seeing soul, so as to bestow upon it complete safety.
And the same prophet begins a song to the well, not only for the destruction of the passions, but also because he has had strength given to him to acquire the most valuable of ali posessions, namely incomparable wisdom, which he compares to a well; for it is deep, and not superficial, giving forth a sweet stream to souls who thirst for goodness and virtue, a drink at once most necessary and most sweet.
But it is not entrusted to any person who is not initiated in wisdom to dig this well, but only to kings, on which * Exodua xiv. 7. f Exodus xv. 4.
ON DRUNKENNESS. 477 account it is said, " Kings hewed it out of stone."* For it is the office of mighty rulers to investigate and to establish wisdom, not meaning those who with their arms have subdued sea and land, but those who with the powers of the soul have fought against and subdued its diversified, and mingled, and confused multitude.
XXX. Now the pupils and followers of these persons are those who say, " Thy sons have taken the sum of the men ot war who are under our charge, and there is not one of them who has refused, but each man has brought his gift to the Lord of that which he has found." f For these men are likely again to prelude with a song of triumph, being eager to attain to perfect and dominant powers. For they say that the man who has taken the sum of the whole, has also taken the greatest number of the reasons of courage, which are by nature inclined to war, being arrayed in opposition to two squadrons, one of wrhich is led by cowardice, which is difficult to overtake, and the other by frantic temerity and rashness; and neither of them has any share in sound wisdom.
And it is very admirably said that no one refused, by way of intimating a participation in perfect and complete courage; just as the lyre and any other musical instrument is out of tune, if there is one single discordant note in it; but is in tune when the strings are all harmonious and pour forth the same symphony at one touch. In the same manner also, the instrument of the soul is out of tune when it is either strained by rashness and urged on to a degree of exceeding sharpness, or relaxed by cowardice in an immoderate degree, so as to be let down and become very flat. But it is in tune when all the tones of courage and of every virtue are well united and combined together, and so produce one well-arranged melody. And it is a great proof of good tune and of skilful management to bring his due gift to God; and this is to honour the living God in a becoming manner, by means of confessing most distinctly that this whole universe is his gift to us; for he says in, strictest accordance with natural truth, " the man has brought the gift which he found." But everyone of us, the moment that he * Numbers xxt. 18. t Numbers xxxi. 49.
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is born, finds the great gift of God, namely the universal world, which he has given to him, and to the most excellent parts of him.* XXXI. There are also particular gifts which it is suitable both to God to give, and to men to receive. And these must be the virtues and the energies in accordance with them, at the discovery of which, being almost without any connexion with time, by reason of the surpassing rapidity of the giver which he is accustomed to exhibit in his gifts, every one is full of admiration, even those to whom nothiLg else in the world appears great. On which account also, the question is put, " How didst thou find it so quickly, O my son? "t the questioner marvelling at the promptness of the virtuous disposition; and he who has received the benefit answers felicitously, " Because the Lord God gave it to me." For the gifts and explanations of men are slow, but those of God are most rapid, outstripping the motion of even the most speedy time.
Therefore those who by their strength and courage havo become chiefs and leaders of the chorus which raises the song of triumph and of gratitude, are those who have been already mentioned; but those who, by reason of having been put to flight, and of their weakness, are companions of the song of lamentation which is raised on occasion of defeat, are men whom one ought to look upon as cowards, rather than to pity; like those who have a body labouring under some natural defect, to whom any ordinary occasion of sickness is a great hindrance to their cure. But some persons have succumbed contrary to their inclinations, not because the energies of their souls are more effeminate, but because they have been overwhelmed by the more vigorous strength of their adversaries; and imitating those who are willing slaves, they have voluntarily cast themselves down before either masters, though they were freemen by birth; on which account being unable to be sold they have, which is the most incredible of all things, bought masters for themselves and so become slaves, doing the very same thing with those who are insatiably eager for drunkenness with wine; for they * This passage is certainly corrupt. Markland thinks that some words at least have been lost, t Genesis xxvii. 20.