Qany persons, after having taken long voyages, and having ailed over a great expanse of sea with a fair wind, and withut any danger, have suddenly been shipwrecked in the arbour itself, when they have been on the very point of castig anchor; and many persons too, who have successfully ome to the end of formidable wars of long duration, and ave come off unwounded so as never to have received even scratch on the surface of the skin, but to have escaped whole rid entire as if they had only been at some popular assembly r national festival, having returned home with joy and cheerilness, have been plotted against in their houses by those ho, of all the world, least ought to have done so; being, as ie proverb says, like oxen slain in their stall.
XXI. As these unexpected events, which no one could ever ave anticipated, do frequently happen in this manner and /erthrow people, so also do they often drive the powers of the •ul in a contrary direction to the proper one, and drag it in an )posite way, according to their power, and compel it to change s course: for what mau, who has ever descended into the arena life, has come off without a fall? And who is there who has VOL. II. B B 370 PHILO JUMUS.
never been tripped up in that contest? He is happy who ha3 not often been so. And for whom has not fortune laid snares, blowing upon him at intervals, and collecting its strength, that it may twine itself around him, and speedily carry him off before its adversary is ready for the contest? Do we not know, that some persons have come from infancy to old age who have never been sensible of any irregularity, whether it be from the happy condition of their nature, or from the care of those who brought them up and educated them, or owing to both circum- stances? But then, being filled with profound peace in them- selves, which is real peace, and the archetypal model of that which exists in cities, and being considered happy on that account, because they have never had a notion, not even in a dream, of the intestine war which arises from the violence of the passions, and which is the most piteous of all wars, have at last, at the very close of their lives, run on shore and made shipwreck, either through some intemperance of language or some insatiable gluttony, or some incontinent licentiousness of the parts below the belly. For some, while — " Still on the threshold of extreme old age," Have admired the youthful, unhonoured, detestable, and dis- graceful life of debauchees; and others have given in to the cunning, and wicked, and calumnious, and desperate wav of life of others, pursuing the first fruits of a quarrelsome curiosity, when they ought rather to have discarded such habits now, even if they had been familiar to them.
For winch reason one ought to propitiate God, and to suppli cate him perseveringly, that he will not pass by our miserablt race, but that he will allow his saving mercy to be everlast ingly shown towards us; for it is difficult for those who hav< tasted unalloyed peace to be prevented from glutting them selves with it.
XXII. But, come now, this hunger is a lighter evil thai thirst, inasmuch as it has love and desire for its comforters but when, through the desire of drinking, it is necessary t to satisfy one's self with that other fountain, the water ( which is dirty and unwholesome, then it is indispensable fc the drinkers, being filled with a bitter-sweet pleasure, to \i\ an unenv able life, betaking themselves to pernicious thin* as though they were advantageous, from ignorance of what ON DREAMS BEING SENT FROM GOD. 371 really desirable. But the impetuous course of these evils is most grievous when the irrational powers of the soul attack the powers of the reason and get the better of them; for as long as the herds of oxen obey their drivers, and the flocks obey their shepherds, and the goats obey the goatherds, the herds and all belonging to them go on well; but when the herds- men who are appointed to look after the cattle become weaker than the beasts committed to their care, then everything goes wrong, and instead of regularity there arises irregularity, and disorder in the place of order, and confusion instead of steadi- ness, and disturbance in the place of good arrangement, since there is no longer any lawful superintending power properly established; for if there had been such a thing, it would have been destroyed before this time.
What then? Do we not think that even in ourselves there is a herd of irrational cattle, inasmuch as the irrational multi- tude of the soul is deprived of reason, and that the shepherd is the governing mind? But as long as that is vigorous and competent to act as the manager of the herd, everything goes on in a just, and prosperous, and advantageous manner; but when any weakness or want of power supervenes to the king, then it follows of necessity that the subjects also labour with a like infirmity; and when they most completely seem to be in enjoyment of liberty, then they are a prize, lying most en- tirely ready for any one who pleases to contend for it to seize; jfor the natural course is for anarchy to be treacherous, and for government to be salutary, especially in a state where law and •ustice are honoured. And this is such a state as is consistent with reason.
XXI II. We have now, then, spoken with sufficient accuracy ibout the dreams of vain opinion. Now, the different species rf gluttony are conversant about drinking and eating. But the me has no need of any great variety, while the other requires a countless number of seasonings and sauces. These things, hen, are referred to two managers. The matters relating to excessive drinking are referred to the chief butler, and those vhich belong to luxurious eating to the chief baker. Now hese men are, with excessive propriety, recorded to have seen isions of dreams in one night; for they, each of them, ttbour to gratify the same need of their master, providing not imple food, but such as is accompanied with pleasure and B B 2 372 PHILO JUD.EUS.
extraordinary gratification; and each of them, separately, labours about half the food, but the two together are employed about the whole, and the one part draws on the other; for men when, they have eaten, immediately desire drink; and men who have drunk immediately wish to eat; so that it is in no slight degree on this account that a vision is ascribed to them both at the same time. Therefore the chief butler has the office of ministering to the appetite for wine, and the chief baker to the voracity.
And each of them sees in his vision what relates to his own business: the one sees wine and the plant which engenders wine, namely the vine; the other sees white bread lying on dishes, and himself serving up the dishes.* Now perhaps it may be proper first of all to examine the first dream. And it is as follows: — " In my sleep there was a vine before me; and on the vine were three branches, and it flourished and brought forth shoots, and there were on it ripe bunches of grapes. And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the bunch of grapes and pressed it into the cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand."f He speaks here in an admirable manner, and the expression, " in my sleep," is quite correct. For, in real truth, he who follows not so much the inebriety which arises from wine as that which proceeds from folly, being indignant at an upright and wakeful position, like people asleep, is thrown down and relaxed, and shuts the eyes of his soul, not being able either to see or to hear anything which is worthy of being seen or of being heard. And being overthrown, he goes on a blind and guideless (I will not say path, but pathless) way through life, being pricked with thorns and briars; and sometimes too he falls down steep places, and tumbles down upon other people, so as to hurt both them and himself in a pitiable manner. But the deep and long-enduriD£ sleep in which every wicked man is held, removes all true con ceptions, and fills the mind with all kinds of false images, anc unsubstantial visions, persuading it to embrace what is sharaefu as praiseworthy. For at one time it dreams of grief as joy, am does not perceive that it is looking at the vine, the plant o folly and error. "For," says the chief butler, "the vine wa before me," the desired object was before him who desired i' wickedness was before the wicked man: which we, foolish me * Genesis xl. 16. f Genesis xl. 9.
I ON DREAMS BEING SENT FROM GOD. 373 that we are, cultivate, without being aware that we are doing so to our own injury, the fruit of which we eat and drink, classing it under both species of food, which, as it would seem, we appropriate, not for one half the evils that affect us for the whole of our complete and entire misfortunes.
XXIV. But it is desirable not to be ignorant that the intoxi- cation which proceeds from the vine does not affect all who indulge in it in a similar manner, but very often affects different people in contrary ways, so that it makes some better and others worse than they are naturally. For in the case of some men, it relaxes the sternness and moroseness of their character, and relieves them of their cares, and assuages their anger and their sorrow, and brings their dispositions into a milder mood, and makes their souls placable. But of others again, it cherishes the angry passions, and binds their pains firmly, and excites their feelings of love, and stimulates their rudeness; rendering their mouth talkative, their tongue unbridled, emancipating their external senses from all restraint, rendering their passions furious, and their whole mind violent and excited towards every object.
So that the condition of the men first-mentioned appears to resemble an untroubled calm in fine weather, or a waveless tranquillity at sea, or a most peaceful and steady state of affairs in a city. But the condition of those whom I have last described, is more like a violent and unremitting gale, or a sea tossed by a storm into vast billows, or a sedition, an evil more fearful than even interminable and irreconcileable war.
Therefore of these two banquet parties, the one is filled with laughter, with men promising amusement, and hoping for good fortune, and enjoying cheerfulness, and pleasant language, and mirth, and joy, and freedom from anxiety; but the other is full of melancholy, and seriousness, and downcast looks, and offences, and reproaches, and wounds; of men gnashing their teeth, looking fiercely at one another, barking, strangling one 1 another, contending with one another in every conceivable way, mutilating one another's ears and noses, and whatever parts of the body they can reach, displaying the intoxication of their whole life and their drunkenness in this unholy contest, with every kind of unseemly behaviour.
XXV. It would therefore be naturally consistent to consider lext that the vine is the symbol of two things: of folly, and of 374 PHILO JUD.EUS.
mirth. And each of these two, though it is indicated by many circumstances, we will explain in a few words, to avoid pro- lixity. When any one leading us along the road, deserted by the passions and by acts of wickedness, the road, that is, of philosophy, has led right reason to a height, and placed it like a scout upon a watch-tower,* and has commanded it to look around, and to survey the whole country of virtue, and to see whether it be blessed with a deep soil, and rich, and productive of herbage and of fruit, since deep soil is good to cause the learning which has been sown in it to increase, and to make the doctrines which have been planted in it, and which have grown to trees, to form solid trunks, or whether it be of a contrary character; and also to examine into actions, as one might into cities, and see whether they are strongly fortified, or whether they are defenceless and deprived of all the security which might be afforded by walls around them.
Also to inquire into the condition of the inhabitants, whether they are considerable in numbers and in valour, or whether their courage is weak and their numbers scanty, the two causes acting reciprocally on one another. Then because we were not able to bear the weight of the whole trunk of wisdom, we cut off one branch and one bunch of grapes, and carried it with us as a most undeniable proof of our joy, and a burden very easy to be borne, wishing to display at the same time the branch and the fruit of excellence to those who are gifted with acuteness of mental sight, to show them, that is, the strongly- shooting and grape-bearing vine.
XXVI. They then very fairly compare this vine of which we were only able to take a part, to happiness. And one of the ancient prophets bears his testimony in favour of my view of the matter, who speaking under divine inspiration has said, " The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel."^ * Now Israel is the mind inclined to the contemplation of God and of the world; for the name Israel is interpreted, " seeing God," and the abode of the mind is the whole soul; and this is the most sacred vineyard, bearing as its fruit the divine shoot, virtue: thus thinking well (rb s-3 <pgovs?v) is the deriva- tion of the word joy (svpcotsvvrj), being a great and brilliant thing so that, says Moses, even God himself does not disdain to exhibit it; and most especially at that time when the * Numbers xiii. 18. *r Isaiah v. 7.
ON DREAMS BEING SENT FROM GOD. 578 human race is departing from its sins, and inclining and bend- ing its steps towards justice, following of its own accord the laws and institutions of nature.
" For," says Moses, " the Lord thy God will return, that he may rejoice in thee for thy good as he rejoiced in thy fathers, if thou wilt hear his voice to keep all his commandments and his ordinances and his judgments which are written in the book of this law."* Who could implant in man a desire for virtue and excellence, more strongly than is here done? Dost thou wish, says the scripture, 0 mind, that God should rejoice? Do thou rejoice in virtue thyself, and bring no costly offering, (for what need has God of anything of thine?) But, on the other hand, receive with joy all the good things which he bestows upon thee; for he rejoices in giving, when they who receive are worthy of his grace; unless you think that those men who live blameably may be justly said to make God indignant and to excite his anger, but that those who live in a prr'se worthy manner do not make him rejoice.
But there is nothing which gives so much pleasure to fathers and mothers, our mortal parents, as the virtues of their children, even though they may be in want of numbers of necessary things; And does not the excellence of these aforesaid persons in like manner rejoice the Creator of the universe, who is in no want of anything whatever? Do thou therefore, 0 mind, having learnt how mighty a thing the anger of God is, and how great a good the joy of God is, do not do anything worthy to excite his anger to thy own de- struction, but study only such things as may be the means oi your pleasing God. And you will find these actions to be not the making of long and unusual journeys, nor the passing over unnavigable seas, or wandering without stopping to take breath to the furthest boundaries of earth and sea: for good actions do not dwell at a distance and have not been banished beyond the confines of the habitable world, but, as Moses says, good is situated near you, and is planted along with you, being united to you in three necessary parts, in the heart, in the mouth, and in the hands: that is to say, in the mind, in the speech, and in the actions; since it is necessary to think and to say, and to do good things, which are made perfect by a union of good design, good execution, and good language. * Deuteronomy xxx. 9.
376 PHILO JUD^US.
XXVII. I say therefore to him whose occupation is to gratify one description of gluttony, the fondness for drinking, namely to the chief butler, " Why are you labouring hard, 0 unhappy man? For you think that you are preparing plea- sant things to give delight, but in reality you are kindling a flame of folly and intemperance, and contributing great and abundant quantities of fuel to it." But perhaps he may reply, do not blame me precipitately before you have considered my case; I was appointed to pour out wine, not indeed for a man who was endowed with temperance, and piety, and all the other virtues, but for a violent, and intemperate, and unjust master, one who was very proud in his impiety, and who dared once to say, " I do not know the Lord;"* so that I very naturally studied what would afford him gratification: and do not wonder that God is delighted with one thing, and the mind which is hostile to God, namely Pharaoh, with the contrary.
Who then is the chief butler of God? The priest who offers libations to him, the truly great high priest, who, having received a draught of everlasting graces, offers himself in return, pouring in an entire libation full of unmixed wine.
You see that there are differences between butlers in pro- portion to the differences existing between those whom they are waiting on; on this account I, the butler of Pharaoh, who exerts his stiff-necked, and in all respects intemperate reason, in the direction of indulgences of his passions, am a eunuch, having had all the generative parts of my soul removed, and being compelled to migrate from the apartments of the men, and am a fugitive also from the women's chambers, inasmuch as I am neither male nor female; nor am I able to disseminate seed nor to receive it, being of an ambiguous nature, neither one thing nor the other; a mere false coin o. human money, destitute of immortality, which is from time to time kept alive by the constant succession of children and offspring: being also excluded from the assembly and sacred meeting of the people, for it is expressly forbidden that any one who has suffered any injury or mutilation such as I have should enter in thereto. + XXVIII. But the high priest of whom we are speaking is a perfect man, the husband of a virgin (a most extraordinary * Exodus v. 2. t Deuteronomy xxiii. 1.
ON DREAMS BEING SENT FROM GOD. 377 statement), who has never been made a woman; but who on the contrary, has ceased to be influenced by the customs of women in regard to her connection with her husband.* And not only is this man competent to sow the seeds of unpolluted and virgin opinious, but he is also the father of sacred reasonings, some of which are overseers and superintendents of the affairs of nature, such as Eleazar and Ithamar; others are ministers of the worship of God, earnestly occupied in kindling and burning up the flame of heaven; for, as they are always uttering discourses relating to holiness, they cause it to shine, bringing forth the most divine kind of piety like fire from a flint; and the being who is at the same time the guide and father of those men is no insignificant part of the sacred assembly, but he is rather the person without whom the duly convened assembly of the parts of the soul could never be collected together at all; he is the president, the chairman, the creator of it, who, without the aid of any other being, is able by himself alone to consider and to do everything.
He, when taken in conjunction with others, is insignificant in point of number, but when he is looked at by himself he be- comes numerous; he is a tribunal, an entire council, the whole Ipeople, a complete multitude, the entire race of mankind, or rather, if one is to speak the real truth, he is a sort of nature bordering on God, inferior indeed to him, but superior to man; " for when," the scripture says, " the high priest goes jinto the Holy of Holies he will not be a man."t What then jwill he be if he is not a man? Will he be God? I would lot venture to say that (for the chief prophet, Moses, did •eceive the inheritance of this name while he was still in Egypt, being called "the god of Pharaoh;")J nor again is he nan, but he touches both these extremities as if he touched >oth the feet and the head. XXIX. So now one kind of vine, which has been assigned .s the portion of cheerfulness, and the intoxication which Irises from it, namely unmingled goodness of counsel, and the 'up-bearer too who drew the wine from the divine goblet, Vhich God himself has filled with virtues up to the lip, has sen explained; but the other kind, that of folly, and grief, nd drunkenness, is also already depicted in a fashion but in bother character, by other expressions which are used in the Genesis xviii. 11. f Leviticus xvi. 17. ^ Exodus vii. 1.
378 PHILO JUD^US.
greater canticle; " for," says the scripture, " their vine is of the vine of Sodom and their tendrils are of the vine of Gomor- rah; their grapes are the grapes of gall; their bunches are full of bitterness itself. Their wine is the madness of dragons and the incurable fury of asps."* You see here what great effects are produced by the drunk- enness of folly: bitterness, an evil disposition, exceeding gall, excessive anger, implacability, a biting and treacherous disposition. The lawgiver most emphatically asserts the branch of the vine of folly to be in Sodom; and the name Sodom, being interpreted, means "blindness," or "barrenness;" since folly is a thing which is blind, and also barren of all good things; though, nevertheless, some people have been so greatly influenced by it as to measure, and weigh, and count everything with reference to themselves alone.
Gomorrah, being interpreted, means " measure;" but Moses conceived that God was the standard of weight, and measure, and number, in the universe, but he had not the same opinion of the human mind. And he shows this in the followino c passage, where he says, " There shall not be in thy sack one weight, and another weight, a great and a small; there shall not be in thy house one measure, and another measure, a great and a small; thy weight shall be a true and just one." But a true and just measure is, to conceive that it is the only just God alone who measures and weighs everything, and who has circumscribed the nature of the universe with numbers, and limitations, and boundaries. But it is unjust and false to ima- gine that these things are regulated in accordance with the human mind. But the eunuch and chief butler of Pharaoh having beheld the plant generative of folly, namely, the vine adds besides to his delineation there stocks, that he may signify the three extremities of error according to the three differed times; for a root is equivalent to extremity.
XXX. When, therefore, folly has overshadowed and occu pied the whole soul, and when it has left no portion of i unoccupied or free, it not only compels it to commit sucl errors as are remediable, but such also as are irremediable Now those which admit of a remed}r are set down as th< easiest and the first; but those which are irremediable ar< altogether terrible, and are the last of all, being so far analo * Deuteronomy xxxii. 32. + Deuteronomy xxv. 13.
ON DREAMS BEING SENT FROM GOD. 379 -foils to roots. And as, in my notions, wisdom begins to benefit i roan in small matters, and ends at last in the absolute )arfection of all well-doing, so, in the same manner folly, con- training the soul from above and leading it away from instruc- ion by small degrees, establishes it at last at a long distance rom right reason, and finally leads it to the extreme point, i.nd utterly overthrows it.
1 And the dream showed that after the roots appeared the ine flourished and put forth shoots and bore fruit; for, says jhe chief butler, " It was flourishing and bearing shoots, round which were bunches of grapes."* The foolish man is iccustomed to display barrenness, and never to put forth even ^aves, and, in fact, to be withered all his life; for what could le a greater evil than folly flourishing and bearing fruit? But, .ryshe, " the cup of Pharaoh," the vessel which is the receptacle if folly and drunkenness, and of the ceaseless intoxication of Ife, "is in my hand;" an expression equivalent to saying, iepends upon my administration, and endeavours, and powers; •r without my contrivances, the passion will not proceed Ightly by its own efforts; for as it is proper that the reins iiould be in the hands of the charioteer, and the rudder in ie hands of the pilot — for this is the only way in which the nirse of the chariot and the voyage of the vessel can pro- sed successfully — so, also, the filling of the goblet with ine is in the hands and depends upon the power of him who his art brings to perfection one of the two kinds of gluttony, raely, satiety of wine.
But why has he endured to boast in respect of a matter lich deserved rather to be denied than to be confessed? ould it not have been better not to have confessed at all at he was a teacher of intemperance, and not to admit that increased the excitement of the passions by wine in the se of the intemperate man, as being an inventor and pro- cer of a luxurious, and debauched, and most disgraceful way life. Such, however, is the case. Folly boasts of those tags which ought to be concealed; and in this present case 1 prides itself, not only on holding in its hands the receptacle : the intemperate soul, that is to say, the cup of wine, and showing it to all men, but also in pressing out the grapes * Genesis xl. 10.
380 PHILO JUD.EUS.
into it; tha,t is to say, in making that which satisfies tl passion, and bringing what is concealed to light.
For as children which require food, when they are about 1 receive the milk, squeeze and press out the breast of tl nurse that feeds them, so likewise does the workman ar cause of intemperance vigorously press the fountain from whk the evil of abundance of wine pours forth, that he may derh food in a most agreeable manner from the drops which ai squeezed out.
XXXI. Such a description then as I have here given van be applied to the man who is made frantic by the influence unmixed wines, that he is a drunken, and foolish, and irremec able evil. We must now, in turn, investigate the character the glutton, who is akin to the drunkard, and who is a swoi companion of all kinds of voracity and greediness, labourin without any restraint, at the artificial gratification of his app tite. And yet it does not require a great deal of care arrive at his true character; for the dream which was seen a representation of his likeness very closely resembling hin and when we have accurately examined him, let us look up< him as we would upon a representation in a mirror; for " thought," said the chief cook, " that I had three baskets fine wheaten loaves upon my head." Now, using the wo " head " in an allegorical manner, we mean by it the domina part of the soul, that is, the mind, and we say that everythii rests or depends upon that; for he once exclaimed concernii it, M All these things were in my charge." Therefore wh he had completed the preparation of these things which he h devised against the miserable belly, he displayed himself ah and, like a foolish man as he was, he was not ashamed to weighed down with so great a burden, namely, the weight three baskets; that is to say, with three portions of time.