difficult to understand this is, be then prays to be allowed learn from God himself who God is; for be has never hope to be able to learn this from any other of the beings that ai around him. But nevertheless, though inquiring into tl essence of the living God he has heard nothing. For, sai God, u thou shalt see my back parts, but my face thou sha not behold."* For it is sufficient for the wise man to kno the consequences, and the things which are after God; but h who wishes to see the principal essence will be blinded by tb exceeding brilliancy of his rays before he can see it.
XXX. Having now said thus much concerning the thir head of our subject, we will proceed to the fourth and last of th propositions we proposed to examine, according to whicl discovery sometimes comes to meet us without there havin] been any search. To this order belongs every self-taugh and self-instructed wise man; for such an one has not beei improved by consideration, and care, and labour, but from thi first moment of his birth he has found wisdom ready preoaret and showered upon him from above from heaven, of which hi drinks an unmixed draught and on which he feasts, and con tinues being intoxicated with a sober intoxication with correct ness of reason. This is the man whom the law calls Isaac whom the soul did not conceive at one time and bring forth a another, for says the scripture, "having conceived him sb< brought him forth," f as if without any consideration of time For it was not a man who was now being thus brough!
forth, but a conception of the purest character, beautiful rathei in its nature than in consequence of any study; for which reason also she who brings him forth is said to have given up the usual manner of women, that is to say her usual, and reasonable, and human customs. For the self-taught race is something new, and beyond any description, and truly divine.
existing not by any human conceptions, but by some inspired frenzy. Are you ignorant that the Hebrews stand in nc need of midwives for their delivery? But they, as Moses says, " bring forth before the midwives can arrive," by which iti meant that they have nature alone for a coadjutor, without having any need of methods, or arts, or sciences.
And Moses gives very beautiful and very natural definitions of what is taught a man by himself: one being such a thing * Exodus xxxiii. 23. f Genesis xxi. 2.
ON FUGITIVES. 229 as is speedily discovered, the other what God himself has given us; accordingly, that which is taught hy others requires a long time, but what is taught a man by himself is quick, and in a manner independent of time. And the one again has God for its expounder, but the other has man. Now the first definition he has placed in the question, " What is this that thou has found so quickly, O my son?"* But the other is •ontainedin the answer to this question, "What the Lord God unto me."
XXXI. There is also a third definition of what is taught a man by himself, namely that which of its own accord rises ipwards. For it is said in the hortatory injunctions, " Ye hall not sow, neither shall ye reap those things which arise torn the earth of their own accord, "t For nature has no need of any art since God himself sows those :hings, and by his agricultural skill brings to perfection, as if hey grew of themselves, things which do not grow of themselves, :xcept inasmuch as they stand in need of no human assistance vhatever. But this is not so much a positive exhortation as in announcement of his opinion, for if he had been giving a Positive recommendation he would have said, "Do not sow, and lo not reap:" but as he is only giving his opinion, he says, ' Ye shall not sow, neither shall ye reap." For as to those hings with which we meet by the voluntary bounty of nature, 'f these we cannot find either the beginnings or the ends in arse] ves as if we were the causes of them: therefore the •eginning is the seed-time and the end the harvest time. And t is better to understand these things thus: every beginning tid every end is spontaneous, that is to say, it is the work f nature and not of ourselves. For instance; what is the •'ginning of learning. It is plain that it is a nature in the erson who is taught which is well calculated to receive the articular subjects of meditation submitted to him. Again hat is the beginning of being made perfect? If we are to peak plainly without keeping anything back, it is nature, herefore he who teaches is also indeed to effect improvement, at it is God alone, the most excellent nature of all, who is ;ble to conduct oue to supreme perfection. I He who is bred up among such doctrines as these has ever- justing peace, and is released from wearisome and endless # Genesis xxvii. 20. t Genesis xxv. 11 230 piiilo jud^us.
labours. And according to the lawgiver there is no different between peace and a week; for in each creation lays aside tl appearance of energising and rests. Very properly, therefor si it said, " And the sabbath of the law shall be food for you speaking figuratively. For the only thing which is real nourishing and really enjoyable is rest in God; which confe: the greatest good, undisturbed peace. Peace, therefore, amor cities is mixed up with civil war; but the peace of the soul hi no mixture in it of any kind of difference.
And the lawgiver appears to me to be recommending mo manifestly that kind of discovery which is not preceded by ai search, in the following words, " When the Lord thy God sha lead thee into the land which he swore to thy fathers that 1 would give to thee, large and beautiful cities which the buildedst not, houses full of all good things which thou filled not, cisterns hewn out of the quarries which thou hewedst no vineyards and olive gardens which thou plantedst not."* Yc see here the ungrudging abundance of all the great blessing which are ready, and poured forth for man's possession ar enjoyment. And the generic virtues are here likened cities, because they are of the most comprehensive kind; ar the specific virtues are likened to houses, because they ai contracted into a narrower circle; and the souls of a goc disposition are likened to cisterns, which are well inclined I receive wisdom, as the cisterns are calculated to receive watei and the improvement, and growth, and production of fruit, ai compared to vineyards and olive gardens; and the fruit i knowledge is a life of contemplation, which produces unmixe joy, equal to that which proceeds from wine, and a ligl appreciable only by the intellect, as if from a flame of whic oil is the nourishment.
XXXII. Having now said thus much on the subject i discovery, we will proceed in due order to what comes next i the context. Moses proceeds, " Therefore the angel of tl Lord found her sitting by a fountain of water." Now a foui tain is spoken of in many senses; in one manner our mind meant by a fountain, in another the rational habit ar instruction; in a third sense a bad disposition is intitimate< in a fourth sense a good disposition, the contrary of the pr ceding; in a fifth sense, the Creator arid Father of tl universe is himself thus spoken of in a figure; and there a * Deuteronomy vi. 10.
ON FUGITIVES. 231 ON FUGITIVES. 231 passages written in the sacred scriptures which give proofs of these things. What they are we must now consider. Now in the very beginning of the history of the law there is a passage to the following effect: " And a fountain went up from the earth, and watered all the face of the earth."* Those men, then, who are not initiated in allegory and in the nature which loves to hide itself, liken the fountain here mentioned to the river of Egypt, which every year overflows and makes all the adjacent plains a lake, almost appearing to exhibit a power imi- tating and equal to that of heaven; for what the heaven during winter bestows on other countries, the Nile affords to Egypt at the height of summer; for the heaven sends rain from above upon the earth, but the river, raining upward from below, which seems a most paradoxical statement, irrigates the corn-fields.
And it is starting from this point that Moses has described the Egyptian disposition as an atheistical one, because it values the earth above the heaven, and the things of the earth above the things of heaven, and the body above the soul; but, how- ever, we shall have an opportunity of speaking on these sub- jects hereafter when occasion permits.
But at present, for we must study not to be too prolix, we had better have recourse to an explanation which may be drawn from looking on the words as used figuratively; and we may say that the meaning of the statement that "a fountain went up and watered all the face of the earth," is something of this kind. The dominant part of us, like a fountain, pours forth many powers through the veins of the earth as it were, till they reach the organs of the external senses, that is to say, the eyes, and ears, and nostrils, and other organs; and these organs in every animal are situated about the head and face. Therefore, the face, which is the dominant portion of the body, is irrigated as from a fountain from the dominant portion of the soul; making the spirit, which is calculated for seeing, reach to the eyes, that which has the power of hearing reach the ears, the spirit of smelling reach the nostrils, that of taste the mouth, and causing that of touch to pervade the whole surface of the body.
XXXIU. There are also many various fountains of instruc- tion, by means of which most nutritious reasonings have sprung up like the trunks of palm-trees; " for," says Moses, * Genesis ii. 6.
232 PHILO JUD^EUS.
11 they came to Aileim, and in Aileim there were twelve foun- tains of water and seventy trunks of palm-trees. And they pitched their tents there by the side of the water."* The name Aileim is interpreted to mean " vestibules/' a symbol of the approach to virtue. For as vestibules are the beginning of a house, so also are the encyclical preliminary branches of instruction the beginning of virtue, and twelve is the perfect number, of which the circle of the zodiac in the heaven is a witness, studded as it is with such numbers of brilliant con- stellations. The periodical revolution of the sun is another witness, for he accomplishes his circle in twelve months, and men also reckon the hours of the day and of the night as equal in number to the months of the year, and the passages are not few in which Moses celebrates this number, describing the twelve tribes of his nation, appointing by law the offering of the twelve cakes of shewbread, and ordering twelve stones, on which inscriptions are engraved, to be woven into the sacred robe of the garment, reaching down to the feet of the high- priest, on his oracular dress.
He also celebrates the number seven, multiplied by the number ten; at one time speaking of the seventy palm-trees by the fountains, and in other passages he speaks of the elders, who were only seventy in number, to whom the divine and prophetical Spirit was vouchsafed. And again, it is the same number of heifers which are sacrificed at the solemn fes- tival of the feast of tabernacles, f in a regular and proper division and order, for they are not all sacrificed together, but in seven days, the beginning being made with thirteen bulls; for thus, by every day subtracting one till they come to the number seven, the arranged number of seventy is properly completed.
And when they have come to the gates of virtue, the pre- liminary liberal sciences, and have seen the fountains, and the stems of the palm-trees growing by them, they are said to pitch their tents, not by the palm-trees, but by the waters. Why is this? Because those who carry off the prizes of per- fect virtue are adorned with palm-leaves and with fillets; but those who are still exercising themselves in the preliminary branches of instruction, as people thirsting for learning, settle * Exodus xv. 27. + Numbers xxix. 13.
ON FUGITIVES. 233 themselves by the side of those sciences which are able to bedew and irrigate their souls.
XXXIV. Such then are the fountains of intermediate in- struction. Let us now consider the fountain of folly, concerning which the lawgiver speaks thus, " Whosoever shall lie with a woman who is sitting apart has uncovered her fountain, and she has uncovered the issue of her blood; they shall both be destroyed."* He here calls the external sense a woman, re- presenting the mind as her husband. When therefore the woman, having forsaken her legitimate husband, settles near those objects of the external sense which allures and destroys, and embraces them all in an amorous manner; then there- fore, if the mind be turned to sleep when it is necessary that it should be awakened, it has uncovered the fountain of the external sense, that is itself, that is to say, it has rendered itself, without a covering and without a wall, and easy to be plotted against. But nevertheless the woman also has un- overed the fountain of her blood, for every external sense, when flowing towards the external object appreciable by it, is cheered and restrained by being under the dominion of the reason; and it is left in a solitary condition, being deprived of my proper governor. And as the most terrible misfortune for i city is to be without walls, so the most unfortunate state for i soul is to be without a guardian.
When, then, is it without a guardian? Is it not when the light is without any covering, being poured forth upon the )bjects of sight; and when the hearing is without a covering, >eing occupied in drinking in all kinds of sounds; and when jhe sense of smell is uncovered, and the kindred powers are eft to themselves, and so are most ready to suffer whatever he invading enemy may be disposed to inflict? And that speech is uncovered and uttered which speaks ten thousand hings in au unseasonable manner, without any thing to •estrain its impetuosity; therefore flowing on unrestrainedly, jt overturns many noble purposes and plans of life which were previously sailing on erect as though in calm weather.
This is that great deluge in which " the cataracts of heaven jvere opened "f — by heaven I here mean of the mind — and lie fountains of the bottomless pit were revealed; that is to ay, of the outward sense; for in this way alone is the soul * Leviticus xx. 18. t Genesis vii. 11.
234 PHILO JUD/EUS.
overwhelmed, iniquities being broken up and poured over i from above, as from the heaven of the mind, and the passion irrigating it from below, as from the earth of the outwari senses. For which reason Moses forbids a man to uncove the nakedness of his father or his mother,* well knowing ho\ great an evil it is not to check and to conceal the offences of th mind and of the external sense, but to bring them forward am display them as though they were good actions.
XXXV. These are the fountains of errors. We must noi examine that of prudence. To this one it is that perseverance that is to say, Rebecca, descends;f and after she has filled u] the whole vessel of her soul she goes up again, the lawgivei most strictly in accordance with natural truth, calling he return an ascent; for whoever brings his mind to descent from over-arrogant haughtiness is raised to a great height o virtue. For Moses says, " And having gone down to th fountain, she filled her ewer, and went up again." This i that divine wisdom from which all the particular sciences ar irrigated, and all the souls which love contemplation and ar filled with a love of what is most excellent; and to thi fountain the sacred scripture most appropriately assigns i name, calling it "judgment" and "holy." For says th historian, " Having turned back, they came to the fountain o judgment; this is the fountain of Caddes,,,;j; and the interpre tation of the name Caddes is holy. It all but cries out an< shouts that the wisdom of God is holy, bringing with it nothinj of the earth, and that it is the judgment of the universe b; which all contrarieties are separated from one another.
XXXVI. "We must now speak also concerning that highes and most excellent of fountains which the Father of th universe spake of by the mouths of the prophets; for he ha said somewhere, " They have left me, the fountain of life, am they have digged for themselves cisterns already worn out which will not be able to hold water;"§ therefore God is th most ancient of all fountains. And is not this very natural For he it is who has irrigated the whole of this world; and am amazed when I hear that this is the fountain of life, fo God alone is the cause of animation and life, and mos especially of rational animation and of that life which is ii £ Genesis xiv. 7. § Jeremiah ii 13.
ON FUGITIVES. 235 union with prudence; for the matter is dead. But God is something more than life; he is, as he himself has said, the everlasting fountain of living.
But the wicked having fled away, and having passed their time without ever tasting the draught of immortality, have digged, insane persons that they are, for themselves, and not tirst for God, having preferred their own actions to the heavenly and celestial things, and the things which proceed from care to those which are spontaneous and ready. Then they dig, not as the wise men Abraham and Isaac did, making wells, but cisterns, which have no good nutritious stream belonging to and proceeding from themselves, but requiring an influx from without, which must proceed from instruction. While the teachers are always pouring into the ears of their disciples all kinds of doctrines and speculations of science altogether, admonishing them to retain them in their minds, and to preserve them, when faithfully committed to memory.
But now they are but worn-out cisterns, that is to say, all the channels of the ill-educated soul are broken and leaky, not being able to hold and to preserve the influx of those streams which are able to profit.
XXXVII. We have now then said as much as the time will permit us to say on the subject of the fountains, and it is with great accuracy and propriety that the sacred scriptures represent Hagar as found at the fountain, and not as drawing water from it: for the soul has not as yet made such an advance as to be fit to use the unmixed draught of wisdom; but it is not forbidden from making its abode in its neighbour- hood. And all the road which is made by instruction is easy to travel, and most safe, and most solid, and strong, on which account the scripture tells us that she was found in the road leading to Shur; and the name Shur being interpreted means a wall or a direction. Therefore its convicter, speaking to the soul, says, "Whence comest thou, and whither goest thou?" And it says, not because it doubts, and not so much by way of asking a question, as in a downcast and reproachful spirit, for an angel cannot be ignorant of anything that concerns us, and a proof of this is, that he is well acquainted even with the things which are in the womb, and which are invisible to the creature, inasmuch as he says, " Behold thou art with child, and thou shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name 236 PHILO JUDZEUS.
236 PHILO JUDZEUS.
Tshmael;" for to know that that which is conceived is a male child does not belong to human power, any more than it does to foretell the description of life which the child who is not yet born will adopt, namely, that it will be rude life, and not that of a citizen or of a polished man.
The expression, " Whence comest thou?" is said by way of reproving the soul, which is fleeing from the better and domi- nant opinion, of which she is the handmaiden, not in name more than in fact, and by remaining in subjection to which she would gain great glory. And the expression, " And whither goest thou?" means, you are running after uncertain things, having discarded and thrown away confessed good. It is well, therefore, to praise her for rejoicing at this admo- nition. And she shows a proof of her delighting in it, by not bringing any accusation against her mistress, and by attribut- ing the cause of her running away to her own self, and by her making no reply to the second question, " Whither goest thou?" for it is a matter of uncertainty; and it is both safe and necessary to restrain one's self from speaking of what is uncer- tain.
XXXVIII. Therefore the convicter of the soul approving of her in respect of her obedience says, Return unto thy mistress; for the government of the teacher is profitable to the disciple, and servitude in subjection to wisdom is advantageous to her who is imperfect; and when thou returnest, " be thou humbled under her hands: " — a very beautiful humiliation, compre- hending the destruction of irrational pride. For thus, after a gentle travail, thou wilt bring forth a male child, by name Ishmael, corrected by divine admonitions; for Ishmael, being interpreted, means " the hearing of God; " and hearing is considered as entitled to only the second prize after seeing; but seeing is the inheritance of the legitimate and first-born son, Israel; for the name Israel, being interpreted, means "seeing God."
For it is possible for a man to hear false statements as though they were true, because hearing is a deceitful thing; but seeing is a sense which cannot be deceived, by which a man perceives existing things as they really are. But the angel describes the characteristics of the disposition which is born of Hagar, by saying that he will be a rude man; as if he had said that he would be a man wise about rude matters, ON FUGITIVES. 237 ON FUGITIVES. 237 and not as yet thought worthy of that which is the truly divine and political portion of life: and this is virtue, by means of which it is the nature of the moral character to be humanised. And by his saying, " His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him," he means to describe the design and plan of life of a sophist, who professes an over-curious scepticism, and who rejoices in disputatious arguments.
Such a man shoots at all the followers of learning, and in his own person opposes all men, both publicly and privately, and is shot at by all who very naturally repel him as if they were acting in defence of their own offspring, that is to say, of the doctrines which their soul has brought forth.
He also adds a third characteristic of him, saying, " He shall dwell before the face of all his brethren." In these words ail but expressly declaring that he will wage an everlasting battle and war against them, face to face, for ever. Therefore the soul, which is pregnant with sophistical reasoning, says to the convicter who is addressing her, " Thou art God, who hast be- held me:" an expression equivalent to, Thou art the creator of my plans and of my offspring. And may we not look upon this as a very natural reply on her part? For of these souls which are free, and, as it were truly citizens, the Creator is free, and a deliverer; but of slavish minds, slaves are the creators.
And the angels are the servants of God, and are considered actual gods by those who are in toil and slavery; on this ac- count, says Moses, she called the well, " The well where I saw in front of me." But 0, thou soul! advancing in wisdom and plunging deep into the knowledge of the elementary parts of encyclical instruction, thou wast not able to see the cause of thy knowledge in instruction as in a mirror. But the most appropriate place for such a well is in the midst, between Caddes and Barad; and the name Barad, being interpreted, "aeans "in common," and Caddes means "holy;" for the person who is in a state of imprisonment is on the confines between what is holy and what is profane, fleeing from what is wicked, and being not yet able to live in the comnany of what is perfectly good.
238 PHILO JUD^US.
A TREATISE ON THE QUESTION WHY CERTAIN NAMES IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ARE CHANGED.
I. " Abraham was ninety and nine years old; and the Lord appeared unto Abraham, and said unto him, I am thy God."* The number of nine, when added to the number ninety, is very near to a hundred; in which number the self-taught race shone forth, namely Isaac, the most excellent joy of all enjoy- ments; for he was born when his father was a hundred years old. Moreover the first fruits of the tribe of Levi are given up to the priests;f for they having taken tithes, offer up other tenths from them as from their own fruits, which thus com- prise the number of a hundred; for the number ten is the symbol of improvement, and the number a hundred is the symbol of perfection; and he that is in the middle is always striving to reach the extremity, exerting the inborn goodness of his nature, by which he says, that the Lord of the universe has appeared to him.
But do not thou think that this appearance presented itself to the eyes of the body, for they see no things but such as are perceptible to the outward senses; but those objects of the outward senses are compound ones, full of destruction; but the Deity is not a compound object, and is indestructible: but the eye which receives the impression of the divine appear- ance is the eye of the soul; for besides this, those things which it is only the eyes of the body that see, are only seen by them because they take light as a coadjutor, and light is different, both from the object seen and from the things winch see it.
But all these things which the soul sees of itself, and through its own power, it sees without the co-operation of any thing or any one else; for the things which the soul does thus comprehend are a light to themselves, and in the same way also we learn the sciences; for the mind, applying its never- closing and never-slumbering eye to their doctrines and specu- lations, sees them by no spurious light, but by that genuine * Geneuis xvii. 1. t Numbers xviii. 26.
ON THE CHANGE OF SCRIPTURE NAMES. 239