For they do in peace every thing that is done in war; they plunder, they ravage, they drag into slavery, they carry oil booty, they lay waste, they behave insolently, they assault, they destroy, they pollute, they murder treacherously, they murder openly if they are the more powerful; for every one of them, proposing to himself riches or glory as his object, aims all the actions of his life as so many arrows at it, and neglects equality, and pursues inequality, and repudiates associations, and labours to acquire to himself all the possessions together properly belonging to every one; he is a misanthrope and a hater of all his fellows, making a hypocritical pretence of benevolence, being a companion of a bastard kind of flattery, an enemy of genuine friendship, a foe to truth, a champion of falsehood, slow to do good, swift to do injury, very ready to calumniate, very slow to defend, clever at deceiving, most per- jured, most faithless, a slave of anger, yielding to pleasure, a guardian of all that is evil, a destroyer of all that is good.
XIII. These and other similar gifts are the most desirable treasures of peace, that blessing so celebrated and so admired, which the mind of each individual among the foolish men sets up for itself as an image, and admires and worships; at whom, very naturally, every wise man is grieved, and is accus- tomed to say to his mother and nurse, wisdom, " 0 mother, what a person hast thou brought me forth!" not in strength of body, but in energy and courage, a determined hater of wickedness, a man of disquietude and battle, by nature peace- ful, and, on this very account, an enemy to those who pollute the desirable beauty of peace. " I have done no good to them, nor have they done any good to me;" nor have they even de- rived any advantage from my good things, nor have I from their evil things; but according to the word of Moses, " I have received no desirable thing from any one of them,"* m- * Numbers xvi. 15.
12 PHILO JUD.EUS.
12 PHILO JUD.EUS.
asmuch as I look upon as exceedingly pernicious every object of their desire, which they treasure up in their hearts as the greatest possible advantage; " Nor has my strength failed by reason of the curses which they laid upon me;"* but em- bracing the divine doctrines with my most earnest power, I was not wearied so as to give up, but rather I vigorously re- proached those who cursed me from their hearts.
For God made us to be a contradiction to our neighbours, as is said in my hymns, meaning all of us who aim at right reason: but are not all those people naturally fond of contra- diction who have a zeal for knowledge and virtue, being always at variance with the neighbours of their soul, reproving the pleasures which live in union with them, and reproving the appetites which have the same abode, and looking morosely at acts of cowardice and fear, and the whole body of passions and vices?
Reproving then every outward sense, the eyes for what they saw, and the ears for what they heard, and the sense of smell for the smells that presented themselves to it, the taste for the flavours w7hich were subjected to it, and moreover the touch for its various powers developed in the body, with refer- ence to the peculiarities which come under its notice; and even uttered speech for the matters which it may have chosen to discuss; for what the outw7ard sense has perceived, or how it has done so, or why, or what speech has uttered, or how or why, or in what manner, and how and why passion has dis- posed men, it is worth while to investigate in no superficial manner, and to examine each of the errors into which they fall; but he wrho contradicts none of these things, but who assents to every one of them in succession, without being aware of it, is deceiving himself, and building up troublesome neighbours for his soul, which he had better have as subjects than as rulers; for as rulers they wrill do him manifold and great injury, since folly reigns among them; but as subjects they will serve him obediently in suitable matters, and will not at all raise their heads in arrogance, as they will if they are rulers.
Thus, indeed, while some are learning to be subjects, and others are obtaining authority, not by knowledge only but also by power, all the body-guards and champions of the soul, that * Psalm lxxix. 7» ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. J 3 is to say, its reasonings will keep them in order, and coming to that which is most important among them will say, " Thy children have taken the sum of the men that are warriors among us, and there is not one of them who has disagreed;"* hut like musical instruments, skilfully tuned in all their tones, so we sound in harmony in all our explanations, neither utter- ing any word nor doing any action which shall he unmelodious or discordant, that we may by the contrast show, that the other company of unlettered men is, in all respects, voiceless and dead, and an object of deserved ridicule, namely, that nourishment of the corporeal parts, Midian, and that his off- spring too, that mass of skins, whose name is Belphegor, is asleep; " for we are of the race of picked men of Israel, that sees God, of whom not one has disagreed;"t that the instru nient of the universe, the whole world, may be melodiously sounded in musical harmony.
On this account Moses says that the " reward of peace " £ was given to the very war-like reason, which is called Phinehas; because, having received a zeal for virtue, and having taken up war against vice, he cut up the whole of generation; and in the second place, to all those who are willing, after a careful examination and investigation, using their eyes in preference to their ears as a trustworthy witness, to believe that the human race is full of infidelity, depending solely on opinion. There- fore the afore-mentioned agreement is admirable; and most admirable of all is that common one which exceeds all the harmonies of all the others, according to which the whole people is represented as saying with one accord, " All the tilings which God has spoken, we will obey and do."§ For these men no longer obey reason as their ruler, but God, the governor of the universe, by whom they are assisted so as to display their energies in actions rather than in words. For when they hear of others doing such and such things, these men, which is a thing most contrary to what one would expect, say that, from some inspiration of God, they will act first and obey afterwards; in order that they may seem to have advanced to good actions, not in consequence of instruction and admoni- tion, but by their own spontaneous and self-taught mind. And then, when they have accomplished these ac Lions, they say * Numbers xxxi. 49. + Exodus xxiv. 11.
14 PHILO JUD^US that they will obey in order that they may form an opinion of what they have done, as to whether their actions are consistent with the divine injunctions and the sacred admonitions of scrip- ture.
XIV. But those who conspired to commit injustice, he says, " having come from the east, found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there; " * speaking most strictly in accord- ance with nature. For there is a twofold kind of dawning in the soul, the one of a better sort, the other of a worse. That is the better sort, when the light of the virtues shines forth like the beams of the sun; and that is the worse kind, when they are overshadowed, and the vices show forth. Now, the follow- ing is an example of the former kind: " And God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the east," t not of terrestrial but of celestial plants, which the planter caused to spring up from the incorporeal light which exists around him, in such a way as to be for ever inextinguishable.
I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses having uttered such a speech as this: " Behold, a man whose name is the East! " ^ A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns.
XV. But an example of the worse kind of dawning is afforded by the wTords used by the man who wras willing " to curse the people who were blessed by God.'' § For he also is represented as dwelling in the east. And this dawning, having the same name as the former one, has nevertheless an opposite nature to it, and is continually at war with it. For Balaam says, " Balak sent for me out of Mesopotamia, from the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me the people whom God doth not curse." But the name of Balak, being interpreted means, " void of sense; " a very felicitous name.
* Genesis xi. 2. + Genesis ii. 8.
± Zechariah vi. 12. § Numbers xxiii. 7.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 15 For how can it be otherwise than shocking to hope to deceive the living God, and to turn aside his most enduring and firmly established counsels by the sophistical devices of men? On this account he is represented as living in Mesopotamia, for his mind is overwhelmed as in the middle of the depth of the river, and is not able to emerge and to swim away. And this condition is the dawning of folly and the setting of sound reason.
They, then, who are tuned in an inharmonious symphony are said to be moved from the east. Is this, then, the east according to wickedness? But the dawning in accordance with virtue is described as a complete separation, and the motion from the dawning according to vice is a united one, as when the hands are moved, not separately and disjunctively, but in a certain harmony and connection with the whole body. For folly is to the wicked man the beginning of his energy in the works which are contrary to nature, that is, of his approach to the region of wickedness. But all those who have quitted the region of virtue, and have set forth to go over to folly, have found a most appropriate place in which they dwell, which is called in the Hebrew language Shinar. And Shinar in Greek, is called " shaking; " for the whole life of the wicked is shaken, and agitated, and torn to pieces, being always kept in a state of commotion and confusion, and having no trace of any genuine good laid up in itself. For as everything which is not held together by close union, falls out of what is violently shaken, in the very same manner, it seems to me, that the soul is shaken of every man who associates with others for the purpose of doing wrong; for he casts away every appearance of good, so that no shadow or image of it ever appears.
XVI. Accordingly, the body-loving race of the Egyptians is represented as fleeing, not from the water, but " under the water,'" that is to say, beneath the impetuous speed of the passions. And when it has once placed itself under the power of the passions, it is shaken and agitated; it casts away the stable and peaceful qualities of virtue, and takes up in their stead the turbulent and confused character of wickedness; for it is said that " God shook the Egyptians in the middle of the sea, fleeing under the water." * These are they who * Exodus xiv. 27.
16 PH1L0 JUD^US.
neither knew Joseph — the diversified pride of life — but who, having their sins revealed, have not received any trace, or shade, or image of goodness and excellence. For, says Moses, " Another king arose over the Egyptians who knew not Joseph,"* the latest and most modern good perceptible by the outward senses, who utterly destroyed not only the perfections but even all improvements, and all the energy which can be exerted by the sight, and all the teaching which can be im- planted by means of the hearing, saying, " Come, curse me Jacob; and come, defy Israel for me:" t an expression which is equivalent to, Destroy both these things, the sight and the hearing of the soul, that it may neither see nor hear any true and genuine good thing; for Israel is the emblem of seeing and Jacob of hearing. Accordingly the mind of such persons rejects the whole nature of good, being in some degree shaken; and, on the other hand, the mind of good persons, setting up a claim to the unmingled and unalloyed ideas of good things, shakes off and discards all that is evil.
Consider, therefore, what the practiser of virtue says: " Take up the foreign gods that are among you from out of the midst of you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments, and rise up and let us go to Bethel; "^ in order that, even if Laban should demand a power of examining, the images might not be found in his whole house, but only such things as have a real subsistence and essence, being fixed like pillars in the mind of the wise man, which the self-taught offspring Isaac has received as his inheritance; for he alone receives his father's substance as his inheritance." § XVII. And take notice that Moses does not say that they came unto a plain in which they remain, but that they " found ' one, having searched around in every direction, and having considered what might be the most suitable region for folly; for in reality every foolish man does not take from another for himself, but he seeks for and finds evils, not being content only with those which wicked nature proceeds towards of its own accord, but also adding thereto such perfect skill in evil as arises from constant practice in contriving wrong. And I wish indeed that after he had remained there a brief time he had changed his abode; but even now he thinks fit to remain, i Genesis xxzv. 2. § Genesis xxv. 5.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 17 for it is said that having found the plain they dwelt there; having settled there as if in their own country and not as if in a foreign land; for it would have been less terrible for men who had fallen in with wicked actions to look upon them as strange and foreign to them, and not to consider that they had any kindred or connection with them. For if they had looked upon themselves as sojourners among them, they would have changed their abode at a subsequent time, but now having settled fixedly among them they were likely to dwell there for ever.
For this reason all the wise men mentioned in the books of Moses are represented as sojourners, for their souls are sent down from heaven upon earth as to a colony; and on account of their fondness for contemplation, and their love of learning, they are accustomed to migrate to the terrestrial nature. Since therefore having taken up their abode among bodies, they behold all the mortal objects of the outward senses by their means, they then subsequently return back from thence to the place from which they set out at first, looking upon the heavenly country in which they have the rights of citizens as their native land, and as the earthly abode in which they dwell for a while as in a foreign land.
For to those who are sent to be the inhabitants of a colony, the country which has received them is in place of their original mother country; but still the land which has sent them forth remains to them as the house to which they desire to return. Therefore, very naturally, Abraham says to the guardians of the dead and to the arrangers of mortal affairs, after he has forsaken that life which is only dead and the tomb, " I am a stranger and a sojourner among you, "# but ye are natives of the country, honouring the dust and earth more than the soul, thinking the name Ephron worthy of precedence, for Ephron, being interpreted, means " a mound " and naturally, Jacob, the practiser of virtue, bewails his being a sojourner in the body, saying, " The days of the years of my life which I spend.here as a sojourner have been few and evil; they have not come up to the days of my fathers which they spent as sojourners." t But to him who was self-taught the following injunction of scripture was given, " Do not go down, " says the scripture, " to Egypt," that is to say to passion; "but dwell in this land * Genesis xxiii. 4. f Genesis xlvii. 9.
VOL. II. C IS PHILO JUDJEUS.
land which I will tell thee of, "* namely, in the incorporeal wisdom which cannot he pointed ont to the eye; and be a sojourner in this land, the substance which can be pointed out and appreciated by the external sense. And this is said with a view to show, that the wise man is a sojourner in a foreign land, that is to say in the body perceptible by the outward senses, who dwells among the virtues appreciable by the intellect as in his native land, which virtues God utters as in no way differing from the divine word. But Moses says, " I am a sojourner in a foreign land; " speaking with peculiar fitness, looking upon his abode in the body not only as a foreign land, as sojourners do, but also as a land from which one ought to feel alienated, and never look upon it as one's home.
XVIII. But the wicked man, desiring to exhibit the fact that identity of language, and the sameness of dialect does not consist more in names and common words than in his participation in iniquitous actions, begins to build a city and a tower as a citadel for sovereign wickedness; and he invites all his fellow revellers to partake in his enterprise, preparing beforehand abundance of suitable materials. For, " Come, " says he, " let us make bricks, and let us bake them in the fire," an expression equivalent to, Now we have all the parts of the soul mingled together and in a state of confusion, so that there is no species whatever the form of which is evident to be seen. Therefore it will be consistent with these beginnings that, as we have assumed a certain essence destitute of all particular species; and of all distinctive qualities, and have also taken up with passion and vice, we should also divide it into suitable qualities, and keep on reducing the proximate to the ultimate species; and with a view to the more distinct comprehension of them, and also to this employment and enjoyment of them combined with experience, which appears to produce many pleasures and delights.
Come, therefore, all ye reasonings of counsellors, in some way or the other to the assembly of the soul; come, all ye who meditate the destruction of justice and of all virtue, and let us consider carefully how we may attain to the end which w7e desire. Now of success in this matter these will be the most established foundations: to give to things without form shape * Genesis xzvi. 9 + Exodus ii. 29.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 19 and character, and to distinguish each thing separately with distinct outlines, lest, if they become shaken and lame (though fixed on firm foundations,) and if they have assumed a con- nection with the nature of a quadrangular shape, (for this is a nature always unshaken), they may then, being established steadily like a building of brick, support even those things which are built upon them.
XIX. Of such a structure as this every mind adverse to God, which we call the king of Egypt (that is to say of the body), is found to be the maker. For Moses represents the mind as rejoicing in the buildings made of brick; for after some being or other made the two substances of water and earth to be the one dry and the other solid, and mingling the two together, for they were easily dissoluble and corruptible, made a third substance to be on the confines of the two, which is called clay, he has never ceased from dissecting this into small portions, giving its own appropriate figure to each of the fragments, in order that they might be very well compacted together, and very suitable to the objects for which they were intended. For in this way what was being made was sure to be very easily perfected.
Imitating this work, those men who are wicked in their natures, when they mingle the irrational and extravagant im- pulses of the passions with the most grievous vices, are, in reality, dissecting that which has been combined into various species, and unhappy that they are fashioning them again and reducing them into shape, by means of which the blockade of the soul will be raised on high; these being, in fact, the divi- sions of the outward sense into seeing, and hearing, and taste, and smell, and touch. Passion, again, is divided into pleasure, and appetite, and fear, and grief; and the universal genus of vices is divided into folly, and intemperance, and cowardice, and injustice, and all the other vices which are akin to or closely connected with them.
XX. And before now some persons, even more excessively extravagant in wickedness than these, have not only prepared their own souls for such actions, but have also put a force upon those of a superior class and of the genus which is endowed with acuteness of vision, and have " compelled them to make bricks and to build strong cities" * for the mind, which has ap- 20 PHILO JUDiEUS.
peared to occupy the place of king, wishing to point out this fact, that what is good is the slave of what is evil, and that subjec- tion to the passions is more powerful than tranquillity of soul, and prudence, and all virtue is, but, as it were, a subject of folly and all wickedness, so as of necessity to minister in all the matters which the master power enjoins; for behold, says Moses, the most pure, and brilliant, and far-sighted eye of the soul, to which alone it is permitted to behold God, by name Israel, being formerly bound in the corporeal nets of Egypt, endures severe commands, so as to be compelled to make bricks and all sorts of things of clay with the most grievous and intolerable labours, at which it is very naturally pained, and at which it groans, having laid up this, as it were, to be its only treasure amid its evils, the power of bewailing its present distresses.
For it is said, very correctly, that " the children of Israel groaned by reason of their tasks."* And what man in his senses is there who, if he saw the tasks of the generality of men, and the exceeding earnestness with which they labour at the pursuits to which they are accustomed to devote them- selves, whether it be the acquisition of money, or glory, or the enjoyment of pleasure, would not be greatly concerned and cry out to God, the only Saviour, that he would lighten their labours, and pay a ransom and price for the salvation of the soul, so as to emancipate and deliver it?
What, then, is the surest freedom? The service of the only wise God, as the scriptures testify, in which it is said, " Send forth the people, that they may serve me."f But it is a pecu- liar property of those who serve the living God neither to regard the works of cup-bearers, or bakers, or cooks, or any other earthly employments, nor to trouble themselves about arranging or adorning their bodies like bricks, but to mount up with their reason to the height of heaven, having elected Moses, the type of the race which loves God, to be the guide of their path; for then "they will see the place which is visible," J on which the unchangeable and unalterable God stands; and the footstool beneath his feet, which is, as it were, a work of sapphire stone, and, as it were, a resemblance to the firmament of heaven, namely, the world perceptible by the outward senses, which he describes allegorically by these figures. For it is very suitable for those who have made an association for * Exodus ii. 23. f Exodus viii. 1. J Exodus xxiv. 10.
ON THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES. 21 the purpose of learning to desire to see him; and, if they are unable to do that, at least to see his image, the most sacred word, and, next to that, the most perfect work of all the things perceptible by the outward senses, namely, the world? For to philosophise is nothing else but to desire to see these things accurately.
XXI. But he says that the world perceptible to the outward senses is, as it were, the footstool of God on this account: first of all, that he may show that there is no efficient cause in the creatures; secondly, for the purpose of displaying that even the whole world has not a free and unrestrained sponta- neous motion of its own, but God, the ruler of the universe, takes his stand upon it, regulating it and directing everything in a saving manner by the helm of his wisdom, using, in truth, neither hands nor feet, nor any other part whatever such as belongs to created objects; for God is not as man, but the reason why we at times represent him as such, for the sake of instruction, is because we are unable to advance out of our- selves, but derive our apprehension of the uncreate God from the circumstances with which we ourselves are surrounded.
And it is very beautifully said by Moses, in the form of a parable, when he speaks of the world as if it resembled a brick; for the world appears to stand and to be firmly fixed like a brick in a house, as far as the vision of the sight of the outward senses can inform us, but it has a very swift motion, and one which is able to outstrip all particular motions. For the eyes of our body look upon the appearance of the sun by day and of the moon by night as standing still, and yet who is there who does not know that the rapidity of movements of these two bodies is incomparable, since they go round the whole heaven in one day? Thus, indeed, the universal heaven itself also, while appearing to stand still, revolves in a circle; its move- ment being detected and comprehended by the invisible and more divine eye which is placed in our mind.
XXII. And they are represented as baking the bricks in the fire, for the purpose of intimating by this symbolical expression that they are strengthened and hardened as to their vices and their passions by warm and most energetic reason, so that they can never be overthrown by the body-guards of wisdom, by whom engines for their defeat are being continually put in operation. On which account we have this further statement 22 PHILO JUD^EUS.
also made, " Their brick was to them for stone;" for the weak and lax character of that impetuosity which is not in company with reason, when it is closely pressed and condensed so as to assume a nature capable of solidity and resistance, owes this change to powerful reasons and most convincing demonstrations; the comprehension of such speculations being, in a manner, endowed with manliness and vigour, which comprehensions, while in a tender age, melt away by reason of the mixture of the soul, which is not as yet able to consolidate and preserve the character impressed upon it.