never being absent from any spot, or failing to share any c his fortune, being truly the partner of his life, and of a ON ABRAHAM. 447 the circumstances of his life; judging it right equally to share all his good and evil fortune together with him. Eor she did not, as some persons do, shun any participation in fiis misfortunes, but lie in wait only for his prosperity, but with all cheerfulness took her share in both, as wa3 fitting and becoming to a wedded wife.
XLIII. And though I might have many topics for pane- gyric on this woman, still 1 will only mention one, which >!iall be the most manifest possible proof of all the others. For she, being barren and childless, and fearing lest her husband's God-loving house might be left entirely destitute >f offspring, came to her husband and spoke as follows: — ' We have now lived together a long time mutually pleasing ^ach; but we have no children, which is the cause for which A*e ourselves came together, and for which also nature de- signed the original connection between husband and wife; lor indeed can there be any hope of your having any >t]'spring by me, since I am now beyond the age of child- tearing; do not you then suffer for my barrenness, and do mt, out of your affection for me, while you are yourself ible still to become a father, be hindered from being so. For I shall not feel any jealousy towards another woman ■vhom you may marry, not for the gratification of irrational ippetite, but in order to satisfy a necessary law of nature. For which reason I will not delay to deck a new bride for ou, that she may fulfil what is wanting on my part. And f the prayers which we will offer up for the birth ot hildren be blessed with success, then the children which are )orn shall be your own legitimate children, but by adoption hey shall be by all means mine.
<k And that you may have no suspicion of any jealousy on ny part, take, if you will, my own handmaid to wife; who s a slave indeed as to her body, but free and noble as to ler mind; whose good qualities I have for a long time )roved and experienced from the day when she was first ntrodiiced into my house, being an Egyptian by blood, and i Hebrew by deliberate choice. We have great substance tnd abundant wealth, not like people who are sojourners. For even already we surpass the natives themselves in the brilliancy of our prosperity, but still we have no heir or 448 PHILO JUDJEUS.
successor, and that, too, though there might be one, if you would be guided by my advice."
But Abraham, marvelling more and more at the love of his wife for her husband thus continually being renewed and gaining fresh strength, and also at her spirit of forecast so desirous to provide for the future, takes to himself the hand- maid who had been approved by her to the extent of having a son by her; though as those who give the most clear and probable account say he cohabited with her only till she became pregnant; and when she conceived, which she did after no long interval, he then desisted from all connection with her, by reason of his natural continence, and also of the honour in which he held his wife. So then he speedily had a son by this handmaid, but at a very distant period after this he had also a legitimate son, after he and his wife had both despaired of any offspring from one another. The bounteous God having thus bestowed on them a reward for their excellence more perfect than their highest hopes.
XLIV. It is sufficient to mention this as a proof of the virtue of Abraham's wife. But the topics of praise of the wise man himself are more numerous, some of which I have lately enumerated. Moreover I will mention also one circumstance connected with the death of the wife, which ought not to be buried in silence. For when Abraham had lost such a partner of his whole life, as our account has shown her to have been, and as the scriptures testify that she w<as, he still like a wrestler prevailed over the grief which attacked him and threatened to overwhelm his soul; strengthening and encouraging with great virtue and reso- lution, reason, the natural adversary of the passions, which indeed he had always taken as a counsellor during the whole of his life; but at this time above all others, he thought fit to be guided by it, when it was giving him the best anc most expedient advice. And the advice was this; not tc afflict himself beyond all measure, as if he were stricker down with a novel and unprecedented calamity; nor, on the other hand, to give way to indifference, as if nothing hac happened calculated to give him sorrow. But rather t( choose the middle way in preference to either extreme; an( to endeavour to grieve in a moderate degree; not beic< ON ABRAHAM. 449 indignant at nature for having reclaimed what belonged to hi r as her due; and bearing what had befallen him with a mild and gentle spirit.
And there are evidences of these assertions to be seen in the,holy scriptures; which it is impossible should be con- victed of false witness, and they tell us that Abraham, liming wept a short time over his wife's body, soon rose up from the corpse; thinking, as it should seem, that to mourn any longer would be inconsistent with that wisdom by which he had been taught that he was not to look upon death as the extinction of the soul, but rather as a separation and disjunction of it from the body, returning back to the region from whence it came; and it came, as is fully shown in the history of the creation of the world, from God.
But just as no man of moderation or sense would be indignant at having to repay a debt to a lender or to retura a deposit to the man who had deposited it; so, in the same manner, he did not think it becoming to show impatience when nature reclaimed what belonged to her, but preferred ;o bear what was inevitable with cheerfulness. And when ;he magistrates of that country came to sympathise with lim in his sorrow, seeing none of the customary signs of roe which were usually exhibited in their land by mourners, 10 loud wailing or howling, no beating of the breast, no oud cries of men or women, but a steady, sober depression »f spirits on the part of the whole household, they marelled exceedingly, even though they had been previously lull of astonishment and admiration at all the rest of the nan's way of life. And then, not concealing in their own unds their ideas of the greatness and beauty of his virtue, or it was all admirable, they approached him and addressed 1 im thus: — "Thou art a king from God among us." * Speakig most truly, for all other kingdoms are established by pan by means of wars, and military expeditions, and indecribable evils, which those persons who aim at power inflict lutually on one another, slaying one another, and raising [) \nst forces of infantry, and cavalry, and fleets. But the lingdom of the wise man is bestowed upon him by God; nd the virtuous man receiving it is not the cause of evil to ny one, but is rather the author to all his subjects of the 4 50 PHILO JUD^EUS.
acquisition and also of the use of good things, proclaiming to them peace and obedience to the law.
XLV. There is also another praise of him recorded in his honour and testified to in the holy scriptures, which Mosea has written, in which it is related of him that he believed in God; which is a statement brief indeed in words, but of great magnitude and importance to be confirmed in fact. For on whom else can we believe? Are we to trust in authorities, or in glory and honour, or in abundance of wealth and noble birth, or in good health and a good condition of the senses and mind, or in vigour of body and beauty of per- son? But in truth every kind of authority is unstable, as it has innumerable enemies lying in wait to attack it. And if in any instance it is firmly established, it is only so con- firmed by innumerable evils and calamities which those who are in authority both inflict and suffer. Again, honours and glory are most unstable, being tossed about among the in- discriminate inclinations and feeble language of careless am imprudent men; and even if they endure, their nature i; not such as to produce any genuine good. And as for riches and illustrious birth, those things sometimes fall to the lol o\' the most worthless of men. And even if they should be long only to the virtuous, still they are but the praises o their ancestors and of fortune, and not of those who nov possess them.
Nor, again, is it right for a man to pride himself on hi personal advantages, in which other animals are superior ti him. For what man is stronger or more vigorous than; bull among domestic animals, or than a lion among will beasts? And what man is more sharp-sighted than a falco: or an eagle? And what man is so richly endowed with th sense of hearing as that stupidest of all animals, the ass Also what man is more accurate in his sense of smell than hound, who huntsmen say can trace out by means of hi n se animals who are lying at a distance, and can run up t them with perfect correctness, and course, though he has nc seen them; for what sight is to other animals that is tl: sense of smell to hounds and to all the dogs which pursi game.
Moreover, the greater part of the irrational animals enjc excellent health, and are as far as possible entirely exem] ON ABRAHAM. 45] from disease. And also in any competition in respect of beauty, some things which are even destitute of vitality, ap- pear to me to surpass the elegance of either men or women; as, for instance, images, and statues, and pictures, and in a word all the works of either the pictorial or plastic art which arrive at excellence in either branch, and which are the ob- jects of study and desire both to Greeks and barbarians, who erect them in the most conspicuous places for the orna- ment of their cities.
XLVI. Therefore, the only real, and true, and lasting good is trust in God, the comfort of life, the fulfilment of all ^ood hopes, the absence of all evils, and the attendant source )f blessings, the repudiation of all unhappiness,the recognition )f piety, the inheritance of all happiness, the improvement )f the soul in every respect, as it thus relies for support on ;he cause of all things, who is able to do everything but who wills only to do what is best. For as men who are going long a slippery road stumble and fall, but they who proceed )y a dry, and level, and plain path, journey on without tumbling; so also those men who are conducting their soul hrough the road of bodily and external good things are >nly accustoming it to fall; for these things are full of tumbling and the most insecure of all. But they who by hose speculations which are in accordance with virtue, lasten towards God, are guiding their souls in a safe and introubled path. So that we may say with the most absoute truth, that the man who trusts in the good things of he body disbelieves in God, and that he who distrusts them •elieves in him.
But not only do the holy scriptures bear witness to the aith of Abraham in the living God, which faith is the queen •f all the virtues, but moreover he is the first man whom hey speak of as an elder; though there were men who had (receded him who had lived three times as many years (or yen more still) as he had, not one of whom is handed down o us as worthy of the appellation. And may we not say hat this is in strict accordance with natural truth? For he rho is really an elder is looked upon as such, not with re- erence to his length of time, but to the praiseworthiness of da life. Those men, therefore, who have spent a long life u that existence which is in accordance with the body, apart G G 2 452 PHILO JUD.EUS.
from all virtue, we must call only long-lived children, having never been instructed in those branches of education which befit grey hairs. But the man who has been a lover of pru- dence, and wisdom, and faith in God, one may justly denomi- nate an elder, forming his name by a slight change from the first. For in real truth the wise man is the first man in the human race, being what a pilot is in a ship, a governor in a city, a general in war, the soul in the body, or the mind in the soul; or again, what the heaven is in the world, and what God is in heaven. And God, admiring this man for his faith (<zj<rng) in him, gives him a pledge (mVr/:) in re- turn, namely, a confirmation by an oath of the gifts which he had promised him; no longer conversing with him as God might with man, but as one friend with another.
For he says, " By myself have I sworn,"* by him that is whose word is an oath, in order that Abraham's mind may be established still more firmly and immoveably than before. Let the virtuous man both be and be called the elder and the first, and let every fool be called the younger and the last, since he only pursues such objects as may product revolution and as are placed in the lowest rank.
Thus much is sufficient to say on this subject. But God. adding to the multitude and magnitude of the praises of the wise man one single thing as a crowning point, says that " this man fulfilled the divine law, and all the command ments of God,"t not having been taught to do so by writter books, but in accordance with the unwritten law of hi: nature, being anxious to obey all healthful and salutary im pulses. And what is the duty of man except most firmly t< believe those things which God asserts?
Such is the life of the first author and founder of ou nation; a man according to the law, as some persons think but, as my argument has shown, one who is himself the ud written law and justice of God.
* Genesis xv. 6. t Genesis xxvi. 5.
ON JOSEPH. 453 A TEEATISE LIFE OF A MAN OCCUPIED WITH AFFAIRS OF STATE, OR ON JOSEPH.
I. There are three different modes by which we proceed owards the most excellent end, namely, instruction, nature, md practice. There are also three persons, the oldest of lie wise men who in the account given to us by Moses lerive three names from these modes, whose lives I have iow discussed, having examined the man who arrived at ex- el lence in consequence of instruction, and him who was ..elf-taught, and him who attained to the proposed end by )ractice. Accordingly, proceeding in regular order, I will iow describe the life of the man occupied in civil affairs. Ind again, Moses has given us one of the patriachs as de- lving his name from this kind ©f life, in which he had been mmersed from his earliest youth.
TsTo\v, this man began from the time he was seventeen (ears of age to be occupied with the consideration of the business of a shepherd, which corresponds to political busi- ness. On which account I think it is that the race of poets a3 been accustomed to call kings the shepherds of the leople; for he who is skilful in the business of a shepherd ill probably be also a most excellent king, having derived istruction in those matters which are deserving of inferior ttention here to superintend a nock of those most excellent f all animals, namely, of men. And just as attention to natters of hunting is indispensable to the man who is about p conduct a war or to govern an army, so in the same banner those who hope to have the government of a city ill find the business of a shepherd very closely connected ith them, since that is as it were a sort of prelude to any ind of government. Therefore, as this man's father per- ived in his son a very noble ability, and too great to be •ft in the obscurity of a private station, he admired him, and Htivated his talent, and loved him more than his other )ns; because, too, he was the son of his old age, which last uise is one of the strongest incentives to affection possible.
454 rniLO jud^us.
454 rniLO jud^us.
And like a man fond of virtue, he cherished and kindled the natural good disposition of his son by excessive and most diligent care and attention, in order that it might not only not be smothered, but might shine forth more brilliantly.
II. But envy is at all times an adversary to great good fortune, and at this time it attacked a house which was pros- pering in all its parts, and divided it, setting all the brothers in enmity against one, who displayed an ill feeling on their own parts, sufficient to counterbalance the affection of his father, hating their brother as much as their father loved him; but they did not divulge their hatred by words, but kept it in their own bosoms, on which account it very na- turally became more grievous and bitter; for passions which are repressed, and which are not allowed to evaporate in language, are more difficult to bear. This man, therefore, indulging a disposition free from all guile and malice, and having no suspicion of the ill will which was secretly che- rished against him by his brethren, having seen a dream of favourable import, related it to them, as if they were well affected towards him.
" For," said he, " I thought that the time of harvest was arrived, and that we had all gone down to the plain to gather the crops, and had taken sickles in our hands to reap the harvest, and on a sudden my sheaf appeared to stand up, right, and to be raised up, and to erect itself; and I thought that your sheaves, as if at an appointed signal, ran up and fell down before it, and worshipped it with great earnest- ness."* But they being men of acute intelligence, and shrewd in divining the nature of a matter thus intimated tc them by means of a figure, with very felicitous conjectures replied, " Dost thou think that thou shalt be king and lord over us? for this is what you are now intimating by tal- lying vision of yours." So their hatred was kindled against him more exceedingly than before, as it was continuall} receiving some fresh pretext for its increase. And he, sus pecting nothing, a few days afterwards saw another dream still more astonishing than the former one, and again hi related it to his brethren; for he thought that the sun, anc the moon, and the eleven stars, all came and worshippei him, so that his father marvelling at what had thus hap * Genesis xxxvii. 7.
ON JOSEPH. 455 pened, laid these events up in his mind, cherishing them, and considering within himself what was to happen. But he reproved his son gravely, from a fear that he might be doing wrong in some respect, and said to him, " Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren, be able to fall down and worship thee? for by the sun you appear to indicate your father, and by the moon your mother, and by the eleven stars your eleven brethren? Let not such an idea ever come into your mind, 0 my son. But rather let all recollec- tion of these visions which have appeared to you be for- gotten, and let them pass from your mind; for to hope and expect a superiority over those of your family and kindred, is a detestable thing in my opinion, and I think, indeed, in that of every one else, who has any regard, for equality and the principles of justice that subsist among kinsmen."
But his father, being afraid lest from his meeting with his brothers there might arise some quarrel and disturbance with them, inasmuch as they bore ill will against him on account of the dreams which he had seen, sent them away to keep their flocks at a distance, but retained him at home till a fitting season, knowing that time is said to be a power- ful physician for all the passions and diseases of the soul, and a remover of grief, and an extinguisher of anger, and a healer of fear; for it softens and mitigates everything, even such things as are, according to their own nature, hard to be cured. But when he conjectured that no hatred was any longer abiding in their hearts he sent this his son forth to salute his brethren, and also to bring him word how they and their flocks of sheep were.
III. This expedition of his was the origin both of great evils and also of great good, each of them being excessive beyond all expectation; for he, obeying the commands of his parents, went to visit hisbrethren; but they, seeing him coming towards them while at a great distance, conversed one with another, saying nothing of good omen, inasmuch as they did not choose even to call him by his name, but called him a dreamer, and a seer of visions, and such appellations as these. And to such a height did they carry their rage that (1 will not say all of them, but) the greater portion of them plotted his death; and designed, after having slain him, for the sake of not being detected, to throw him 456 PHILO JUDiEUS.
456 PHILO JUDiEUS.
into a deep pit dug in the earth, for there are a great many such places in that district dug as receptacles for the rain water. And they were very near incurring that most ex- cessive pollution of fratricide, as they would have done if they had not been, though with difficulty, persuaded by the advice of their eldest brother, who counselled them not to meddle with such a pollution but merely to cast him into one of these pits, thinking then to contrive some means of saving him, so that when they had all departed he might send him back again to his father without having suffered any harm. And after they agreed to this he came forward and saluted them; and they took him as though he had been an enemy, and. stripped him of all his garments, and let him down into a vast pit, and then, having stained his cloak with the blood of a kid, they sent it to their father on the pretence that he had been slain by a wild beast.
IV. But on that day it happened by some chance that certain merchants who were accustomed to convey their merchandise from Arabia to Egypt were travelling that way, and so the eleven brethren drew Joseph up out of the pit and sold him to them; the one of them who was the fourth m respect of age instigating this contrivance; for in my opinion, he was afraid lest his brother might be treacherously slain by the others, who had conceived an irreconcilable hatred against him, and therefore he pro- posed that he should be sold, substituting slavery for death, the lighter evil for the greater. But the eldest, for he was not present when he was sold, looking down into the pit, and not seeing him whom he had left there a short time before, cried out and lamented loudly, and rent his clothes, and tossed his hands up and down like a madman, and beat his breast and tore his hair, saying, " What has become of him? Tell me, is he alive, or is he dead? If he is dead, show me his corpse that I may weep over his body, and so al- leviate my grief. When I see him lying dead I shall be com- forted; for why should we bear ill will to the dead? There is no envy excited against those who are out of sight.
And if he is alive, to what country has he departed? Where is he kept? for I am not, as he was, an object of suspicion, so as to be distrusted by you." And when they replied that he had been sold, and when they showed ON JOSEPH. 457