, every fifty years;\ the preparation and furnishing of the indissoluble tabernacle, § and ten thousand other things which it would take a long time to enumerate. However, we must not pass over the most important points.
In the first place he represents Noah to us (and this man is the first who is specially entitled just, in the holy scriptures), as the tenth in succession from him who was formed out of the earth, not iutenaing by this statement to indicate the number * Leviticus xviii. 1. t Leviticus xxiii. 27.
X Leviticus xxv. 9. § Exodus xxvi. 1.
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of years that had elapsed, but rather to show clearly that as the decade is the most perfect boundary and end of the num. bers which proceed onwards from the unit, so also just in the soul is the perfection and true end of the actions of human life. For the number three when multiplied by itself so; make nine, the oracles have pronounced to be the most warlike of numbers; but when one is added to it so as to complete number ten, then they receive it as a friendly one. And as a proof of this, they allege the kingdoms of the nine kings,* (when the civil war was fanned into a flame, the four passions rising up against the five outward senses, and when the entire soul, like a city, was in danger of being subjected to an utter overthrow and destruction,) which the wise Abraham, appear- ing as the tenth king, put an end to, by joining in the warfare. He then caused a calm instead of a storm, and health instead of disease, and life, if one may speak the plain truth, instead of death, showing himself as the trophy-bearer of God who giveth the victory, to whom also he consecrated the tenths as a grateful offering on account of his victory.
Moreover, he also separates off the tenth of all the c which come " under the rod,"f I mean by this under instruction, and of all those which are of a tame and tractable sort, pro- nouncing them to be holy by an express provision of the law. In order that so, by many concurrent testimonies, we may learn the particular and especial appropriateness of the number ten to God, and of the number nine to our mortal race.
XVIII. But also it is expressly ordered, that men should offer as first fruits the tenths, not only of animals, but also of all the things which grow up out of the earth; " For," says the scripture, " every tenth of the earth from the seed and from the fruit of every tree, is holy to the Lord: and every tenth of oxen and sheep, and everything of any cattle which passes under the rod, of all these the tenth shall be holy to the Lord." You see that he thinks that it is proper to make an offering, by way of first fruits from the corporeal mass that is around us, which is really earthly and wooden; for life, and durability, and increase, and good health, fall to his share through the divine grace. You see also, that again an express command is 'given to offer first-fruits from all the irrational animals that are around ourselves; and by these are meaut * Genesis xiv. 1. t Leviticus xxvii. 32.
ON SEEKING INSTRUCTION. 177 the outward senses. For to see, and to hear, and to smell, and to taste, and also to touch are divine gifts, for which it is our duty to give thanks.
But not only are we taught to thank the giver of all good ness for these earthly, and wooden, and corporeal things, and for the irrational animals, the outward senses, but also for the mind, which, to speak with strict propriety, is man in man, the better in the worse, the immortal in the mortal. On this account I think it is, that God ordered to be consecrated the whole of the first-born, the tenth, I mean the tribe of Levi, taking them in exchange for the first-born, for the preservation and protection of holiness, and piety, and sacred ministrations, which all have reference to the honour of God. For the first and best thing in ourselves is our reason, and it is very proper to offer up the first-fruits of our cleverness, and acuteness, and comprehension, and prudence, and of all our other faculties which we have in connection with our reason as first-fruits to God, who has bestowed upon us this great abundance of power of exerting our intelligence. From this consideration it was, that Jacob, the practiser of virtue, at the beginning of Tris prayers, says: "Of all that thou givest me, I will set apart and consecrate a tenth to thee."* And the sacred scripture, which was written after the prayers on occasion of victory, which Melchisedek, who had received a self-instructed and self- taught priesthood, makes, says: " For he gave him a tenth of all the things, "f assigning to him the outward senses the faculty of feeling properly, and by the sense of speech the faculty of speaking well, and by the senses connected with the mind the faculty of thinking well.
Very beautifully, therefore, and at the same time most unavoidably, does the sacred historian tell us in the fashion of an incidental narrative, when the memorial of that heavenly and divine food was consecrated in the golden urn, that " gomor was the tenth part of three measures."} For in us men there appear to be three measures, the outwTard senses, and speech, and mind. The outward sense being the measure of the objects of outward sense, speech being the measure of nouns and verbs, and of whatever is said; and the mind being the measure of those things which can only be perceived by the intellect. We must therefore offer first-fruits of each of these i * Genesis xxviii. 22. f Genesis xiv. 20. £ Exodus xvi. 36. { VOL. II. if 178 PHILO JUD^EUS.
three measures as a sacred tenth, in order that our powers of speaking, and of feeling, and of comprehending, may be seen to be irreproachable and sound, in reference to and in connection with God. For this is the true and just measure, and the things that relate to ourselves are false and unjust measures.
XIX. Very appropriately, therefore, in the case of sacrifices also, the tenth part of the measure of fine wheat flour will be brought upon the altar, together with the victims. But the number of nine, which is what is left of the number ten, will remain among us. And the daily sacrifice of the pri< corresponds also to these facts. For it is expressly commanded to them to offer every day the tenth part of an ephah *of fine wheat flour. For, passing over the ninth number, the god who was only discernible by the outward senses and by opinion, they learnt to worship the tenth, who is the only living and true God. For the world had nine portions assigned to it, eight in heaven, namely the portion of the fixed stars and the seven planets which are all borne forward in the same arrangement, and the ninth being the earth in conjunction with the air and water. For of these things there is only one bond and connection, though they admit all kinds of various changes and alterations. Therefore men in general have paid honours to these nine portions, and to the world which is compounded of them. But the perfect man honours only that being who is above the nine, and who is their creator, being the tenth portion, namely God. For having examined into the whole of his works, he has felt a love for the creator of them, and he has become anxious to be his suppliant and servant. On this account the priest offers up a tenth every day to the tenth, the only and everlasting God. This is, to speak properly, the spiritual passover of the soul, the passing over of all the passions and of every object of the outward senses to the tenth, which is the proper object of the intellect, and which is divine.
For it is said in the scripture: " On the tenth day of this month let each of them take a sheep according to his house;": in order that from the tenth, there may be consecrated to the tenth, that is to God, the sacrifices which have been preserved in the soul, which is illuminated in two portions out of the three, until it is entirely changed in every part, and becomes a heavenly brilliancy like a full moon, at the height of its * Exodus x. 20. " t Exodus xii. 3.
ON SEEKING INSTRUCTION. 179 increase at the end of the second week, and so is able not only to guard, but even to sacrifice uninjured and faultless improve- ments, that is to say, propitiations. For this propitiation also is established in the tenth day of the month, when the soul addresses its supplications to the tenth portion, namely to God, and has learnt, by its own sagacity and acuteness, the insigni- iicance and nothingness of the creature, and also the excessive perfection and pre-eminent excellence in all good things of the uncreated God.
Therefore God becomes at once propitious, and propitious too, even without any supplications being addressed to him, to those who abase and humble themselves, and who are not puffed up with vain arrogance and self-opinion. This is remission and deliverance, this is complete freedom of the soul, shaking off the wanderings in which it wandered, and fleeing for a secure anchorage to the one nature which cannot wander, and which rises up to return to the lot which it formerly received when it had brilliant aspirations, and when it vigorously toiled in labours which had virtuous ends for their object. For then admiring it for its exertions, the holy scripture honoured it, giving it a most especial honour, an immortal inheritance, a plaee namely in the imperishable race. Tin's is what the wise Abraham supplicates for, when that which in word indeed is the land of Sodom, but in real fact is the soul made barren of all good things and blinded as to its reason, is about to be burnt up, in order that if the memorial of justice, namely the tenth* part be found in it, it may obtain a sort of amnesty. Therefore he begins his supplication with a prayer for pardon, connected with the number fifty, and terminates with the number ten, the lowest number for whose deliverance he can dare to entreat.
XX. From which consideration it appears to me to have been, that Moses, after the appointment of chiliarchs, or com- manders of thousands, and of centurians, and of captains of fifties,t thought proper to appoint captains of ten over all, in order that if the mind was not able to be improved by means of the elder orders, it might at least be purified by these last in order. And the son of the man who was devoted to learning, learnt a very beautiful doctrine when he went on that admirable embassy, asking in marriage for the self-taught wise man that * Genesis xviii. 32. + Exodus xviii. 25.
most appropriate sister, namely, perseverance. For he takes ten camels,* a reminding of the number ten, that is to say, of right instruction, from among many and, indeed, infinite memorials of the Lord. He also takes of his good things, evidently not silver, nor any gold, nor any other of those things which consist of perishable materials; for Moses never gave the favourable appellation of good to any of these things, but those genuine good things which are the only good things of the soul; and those he appropriates for the use of his journey, and for his purposes of traffic, namely, instruction, improve- ment, study, desire, admiration, enthusiasm, prophecy, and the love of doing good actions; to which objects, a man who devotes all his care, and who practises the actions calculated to ensure their attainment, when he is about, as it were, to anchor in a safe harbour after having been tossed in a stormy sea, will take two earrings, each of a drachm in weight, and two golden armlets of ten shekels weight of gold for the arms of her who is sought in marriage. f Oh the divine ornament! We may understand that the drachm means the faculty of hearing, and the unbroken unit, and the attractive nature; for it is not becoming for hearing to have leisure to attend to anything except to that speech alone which sets forth in a suitable manner the virtues of the one and only God. And the ten shekels weight of gold mean attempts at works; for the actions, in accordance with wisdom, are esta- blished in perfect numbers, and every one of them is more precious than gold.
XXI. Something of this kind, now, is the contribution made by the princes, selected and appointed with reference to worth and merit, which they made when the soul being properly prepared and adorned by philosophy, was celebrating the festival of the dedication in a sacred and becoming manner, giving thanks to God its teacher and its guide; for it " offers up a censer full of frankincense, ten golden shekels in weight/' J in order that the wise man alone may judge of the odours which are exhaled by prudence and by every virtue. But when they appear to be made propitious, then Moses will sing a sacred hymn over them, saying, " The Lord has smelt the smell of a sweet savour," using the word to smell here as equivalent to approving of; for God is not • Genesis xxiv. 10. t Genesis xxiv. 22. t Numbers vii. 14.
ON SEEKING INSTRUCTION. 131 formed like a man, nor has he any need of nostrils, or of any other organic parts. But as he proceeds onwards he speaks alsoo f the divine abode, the tabernacle, and its ten curtains; "* for, in fact, the compound edifice of entire wisdom has been assigned the perfect number, the number ten.
And wisdom is the court and palace of the all governing and only absolute and independent king. Accordingly, this is his abode, discernible only by the intellect; but the world is per- ceptible by the outward senses; since Moses made the curtains of such things as are symbols of the four elements, for they were made of fine flax, and of hyacinthine colour, and of purple, and of scarlet, — four numbers, as I have said before. Now the fine flax is an emblem of the earth, for the flax grows out of the earth; and the hyacinthine colour is a symbol of the air, for it is black by nature; purple (fl*og£uga), again, is a symbol of the water; for the cause of this dye is derived from the sea, being the shell-fish of the same name (rj vogpvga); and scarlet is a symbol of fire, for it most nearly resembles a flame.
Again, that omnipotent overseer and ruler of the universe reproved the state of Egypt, when rebellious against the rein, when it was extolling with grandiloquent words the mind as an adversary of God, and bestowing on it all the ensigns of kingly authority, such as the throne, the sceptre, the diadem; and chastised it with ten stripes and severe punishment. And in the same manner, also, he promises the wise Abraham that he will work for him the overthrow and complete destruction of ten nations f exactly, neither more nor less, and that he will give the country of those who are thus destroyed to his descendants; in every instance choosing to employ the number ten, both for praise and for blame, and also for honour and for punishment. And yet why do we mention these things? For what is more important than this is the fact, that Moses gave laws to that sacred and divine assembly in a code of ten com- mandments in all. And these are the commandments which are the generic heads, and roots, and principles of the infinite multitude of particular laws; being the everlasting source of all commands, and containing every imaginable injunction and prohibition to the great advantage of those who use them.
XXII. Very naturally, therefore, is the connection of Abraham with Hagar, placed at the end of ten years after his * Exodua xxvi. 1. + Deuteronomy vii. 1.
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arrival in the land of the Chaldaeans. For it does not follow that the first moment that we become endowed with reason, while our intellect is still in a somewhat iluid state, we are able at once to derive encyclical instruction. But when we have attained to intelligence and acuteness of comprehension, then we no longer have a light and superficial mind, but rather a firm and solid intellect which we can exercise on every sub- ject. And it is for this reason that the expression which follows is added, in connection with the former statement, " And he went in unto Hagar." For it was becoming for the scholar to go to his teacher, who was a man of learning, in order to learn such branches of instruction as are suited to the nature of man. For now, also, the pupil is represented as going to the place where he may obtain learning; but learning very often anticipates him and runs forward to meet him, having driven out envy from her habitation, and she attracts those towards her who are well inclined to her. Accordingly, one may read that virtue, that is Leah, went forward to meet the practiser of virtue, and said unto him, "To-day you shall come in to me,"* when he was returning from the fields. For where was the man who had the care of the seeds and plants of knowledge found to come, except to that virtue which he himself had cultivated?
XXIII. But there are times when virtue, as if making experiment of those who come to her as pupils, to see how much eagerness and earnestness they have, does not come forward to meet them, but veiling her face like Tamar, sits down in the public road, giving room to those who are travel- ling along the road to look upon her as a harlot, in order that those who are over curious on the subject may take off her veil and disclose her features, and may behold the untouched, and unpolluted, and most exquisite, and truly virgin beauty of modesty and chastity. Who then is he who is fond of in- vestigating, and desirous of learning, and jvho thinks it not right to leave any of those things which are disguised or concealed unconsidered and unexamined? Who is he, I say, but the chief captain and king, he who abides by and rejoices in the agreements which he has made with God, by name Judah? For says the scripture, " He turned aside out of his road to 1 er, and said unto her, Suffer me to come in unto thee." * Genesis xxx. 16. f Genesis xxxviii. 16.
ON SEEKING INSTRUCTION. 183 (but he was not inclined to offer her any violence), and to see what is that power which is thus veiled, and for what purpose it is thus adorned; and after they had come together it is written, " And she conceived; " but the name of the person is not expressly mentioned. For art conceives and carries along with it him who is learning it, persuading him to feel amorously inclined towards her; and also he who is learning carries with him her who is teaching him, whenever he is fond of learning.
And it often happens that he who professes some one of the indifferent branches of knowledge, when he meets with a pupil of good natural qualifications, boasts of his success in teaching, thinking that he, by himself and alone, is the cause of his pupil's facility in learning. And then, becoming elated and puffing himself, up he holds his head high, and draws up his eyebrows and becomes full of pride, and asks very high terms from those who desire to become his pupils; but those whom he perceives to be poor but still to be eager for instruction, he rejects and repels, as if he were the only person who had found a treasure of wisdom. This is the meaning of the ex- pression, " to conceive," namely, to be full of pride, and to be puffed up with arrogance beyond all moderation, on which account some persons have appeared to dishonour the queen of all the intermediate and indifferent branches of knowledge, virtue, who deserves to be honoured, even for her own sake.
All the souls, therefore, which, in connection with prudence, are pregnant of real things, do nevertheless bring forth, sepa- rating and distinguishing between things previously in con- fusion, like Rebekkah; for she having conceived in her womb ideas of two nations, the knowledge of virtue and the know- ledge of wickedness, having a fortunate labour separated and distinguished between the nature of each; but those which have conceived without prudence either miscarry or else bring forth an offspring inclined to evil contention and so- phistry, always either aiming darts and arrows at others, or having darts and arrows aimed at themselves. And may we not say that this is natural? for some fancy that they are just conceiving, and others that they are actually pregnant, which is a very different thing; for those who think that they are already pregnant attribute their pregnancy and the birth of their offspring to themselves, and pride themselves upon it; 184 PHILO JUD^US.
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but those who look upon themselves as now conceiving, admit that they have of themselves nothing which they can call peculiarly their own, but they receive the seed and the pros- pects of posterity which are showered upon them from without, and they admire him who bestows it, and repel the greatest of evils, namely self-love, by that perfect good, piety towards the gods.
XXIV. In this manner also the seeds of the legislative wis- dom, which exists among men, were sown, " For there was," says the same historian, " a man of the tribe of Levi, named Amram, who took to wife one of the daughters of Levi, and had her, and she conceived and brought forth a male child; and seeing that he was a goodly child they concealed him for three months."* This is Moses, the purest mind, the child that is really goodly; the child that received at the same time all legislative and prophetic skill by the means of inspired and heaven-bestowed wisdom; who, being by birth a member of the tribe of Levi, and being flourishing both in the things relating to his mother and in those affecting his father, clings to the truth; and the greatest profession ever made by the author and chief of this tribe is this, for he makes bold to say, that " the only God is alone to be honoured by me;" and nothing besides of all the things that are inferior to Him, neither earth, nor sea, nor rivers, nor the nature of the air, nor the nature of the winds, nor the changes of the atmo- sphere, nor the appearances of any animals or plants, nor the sun, nor the moon, nor the multitude of the stars moving about in well-arranged revolutions, nor the whole heaven, nor the entire world.
This is a boast of a great and magnanimous soul, to rise above all creation, and to overleap its boundaries, and to cling to the great uncreated God alone, according to his sacred com- mands, in which we are expressly enjoined " to cleave unto him."f Therefore he, in requital, bestows himself as their in- heritance upon those who do cleave unto him, and who serve him without intermission; and the sacred scripture bears its testimony in behalf of this assertion, where it says, " The Lord himself is his inheritance. "J Thus the souls which are already pregnant are naturally likely to bring forth children, rather than those which are now * Exodus ii. 1. f Deut. xxx. 20. £ Deut x. 9.
ON SEEKING INSTRUCTION. 185 receiving the seed. But as the eyes of the body do oftentimes see obscurely, and often on the other hand see clearly, so in the same manner does the eye of the soul, at times, receive the particular impressions conveyed to it by things in a most confused and indistinct manner, and at other times it beholds them with the greatest purity and clearness; therefore an in- distinct and not clearly manifested conception resembles an embryo which has not yet received any distinct character or similitude within the womb: but that which is clear and dis- tinctly visible, is like one which is completely formed, and which is already fashioned in an artistic manner as to both its inward and its outward parts, and which has already received its suitable character. And with respect to these matters the following law has been enacted with great beauty and pro- priety: " If while two men are fighting one should strike a woman who is great with child, and her child should come from her before it is completely formed, he shall be mulcted in a fine, according to what the husband of the woman shall impose upon him, and he shall pay the fine deservedly. But if the child be fully formed, he shall pay life for life."*