And then comes the explanation for the origin of the perplexing phrase אותו האיש. As noted above it cannot have originated as a negative epithet. It may have become one in the context of referencing the founder of Christianity. But in rabbinic and Midrashic Hebrew אותו is simply used a demonstrative function - i.e. to point out that 'this' or 'that' thing. In other words it was a feature of Hebrew at the time. Nothing special or even negative in itself.
If we were to go off on a tangent (which I wont to do) the natural question would be - why did rabbinic and Mishnaic Hebrew suddenly 'change' to introduce this demonstrative function of אֶת? It is worth noting that the oldest traditions of Hebrew may well suggest that the demonstrative function may well have been an original feature of Hebrew which simply disappeared for a while only to resurface in a different form later.
I was drawn to John MacDonald's discovery of אֶת being used demonstratively in Samaritan Hebrew from a later period - but apparently preserving its earlier function in Biblical Hebrew - http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jjberry/Resea ... f%20et.pdf
There is, however, one likely explanation of ms introducing a subject, and the clue may be found in many passages in the chronicle. We may quote one typical passage which demonstrates the probable reason for the usage and explanation of the origin. Bar: ‘71: Main [Hebrew words] with
‘And one man out of these twelve men was to be prince over all’.
the reference here being to the Samaritan king Baba Rabba’s reorganization of the Northern community in the early 4th century AD. Beyond doubt the quaint and entirely unexpected use of אֶת after (hebrew): can only be explained as a demonstrative one. (See the conclusion of SAYDON) The ‘twelve men’ were previously mentioned. אֶת refers to them in the same way that ‘this’, for example, in English can refer to the immediately preceding occurrence of a word. It may be as simple as that.
The demonstrative use of אֶת in Mishnaic Hebrew is seen in אותו האיש; for the Biblical האיש הַזֶּ֑ה . It may be relevant at this juncture to quote what a prominent grammarian of Mishnaic Hebrew, B. SEGAL, has written. (A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew, Oxford, 1927, p. 42) The emphatic particle אֶת:
is also used as a demonstrative, either alone or with pronominal sufixes.
He gives two examples, each demonstrating clear demonstrative force. See also his p. 202 for further examples (such as [Hebrew words] ‘those two spirits’ from Ber. 18b). He quotes examples also of 2m demonstrative introducing a clause [Hebrew words], that one on which the galal is supported’ from Ber. vi. 10). SEGAL explains this usage as having its origin in the Biblical Hebrew use of ms before the noun to emphasize the noun; he refers his readers to Ges-K; 117i; Konig, Syntax, 279 f; BDB p. 85.3. For an analogy to the Mishnaic usage of אֶת ..... אֶת he refers to Ezek. xxxv. 10. Not all our examples from the chronicle of אֶת introducing a subject (and there are a great many of them in the chronicle) can be explained in this way, but it seems probable that out of the demonstrative usage (a vestige from more ancient practice) arose the more general and unspecific one of using אֶת: so often with unstressed, new and even secondary subjects ...
Not only does MacDonald specifically reference our phrase of interest - אותו האיש - but he inadvertently draws us in the direction of its original source in the Biblical Hebrew of the Pentateuch.
For when MacDonald says that אותו האיש is the Mishnaic equivalent for the Biblical האיש הַזֶּ֑ה that's not exactly true in all the case found in the Pentateuch. Whenever הַזֶּ֑ה sits in a sentence where the noun is being 'demonstrated' אֶת is there before the noun. Take a look:
Genesis 19:13 כִּֽי־מַשְׁחִתִ֣ים אֲנַ֔חְנוּ אֶת־הַמָּקֹ֖ום הַזֶּ֑ה "for we are about to destroy this place henceforth"
Genesis 19:14 הַזֶּ֔ה כִּֽי־מַשְׁחִ֥ית יְהוָ֖ה אֶת־הָעִ֑יר "for henceforth the Lord will destroy this city"
Genesis 20:10 וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֑ם מָ֣ה רָאִ֔יתָ כִּ֥י עָשִׂ֖יתָ אֶת־הַדָּבָ֥ר הַזֶּֽה "And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing now?"
Genesis 22:16 וַיֹּ֕אמֶר בִּ֥י נִשְׁבַּ֖עְתִּי נְאֻם־יְהוָ֑ה כִּ֗י יַ֚עַן אֲשֶׁ֤ר עָשִׂ֙יתָ֙ אֶת־הַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֔ה וְלֹ֥א חָשַׂ֖כְתָּ אֶת־בִּנְךָ֥ אֶת־יְחִידֶֽךָ "and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this thing now and have not withheld your son, your only son"
Genesis 31:52 עֵ֚ד הַגַּ֣ל הַזֶּ֔ה וְעֵדָ֖ה הַמַּצֵּבָ֑ה אִם־אָ֗נִי לֹֽא־אֶֽעֱבֹ֤ר אֵלֶ֙יךָ֙ אֶת־הַגַּ֣ל הַזֶּ֔ה וְאִם־אַ֠תָּה לֹא־תַעֲבֹ֨ר אֵלַ֜י אֶת־הַגַּ֥ל הַזֶּ֛ה וְאֶת־הַמַּצֵּבָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את לְרָעָֽה "The heap is now a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap now to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me."
The list goes on and on but the important thing is that we see אֶת in front of the definite article ה in exactly same manner as אותו האיש. Could it be there is a phrase which this Mishnaic construction is remembering from the Pentateuch, something the sectarians said about their איש which was now being turned around into in ironic expression? I think so.
The implication in my mind is that an original text of Genesis known to the so-called Damascus Document (cf. Ruzer Exegetical Patterns in Qumran and NT) which used האיש in place of הָאָדָם in Genesis 1:27
וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ
In other words אותו האיש is a remembrance of Meir's Torah which read אֶת-האיש and was interpreted "this man" - i.e. the man distinct from the man of the earth also referenced as 'this man' or 'that man' later in the narrative viz. Gen 2.7:
וַיִּיצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם, עָפָר מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו, נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים; וַיְהִי הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה.
Then the LORD God formed that man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul etc.
The understanding of is of course well known to the LXX and its users such as Philo:
On which account Moses says, "And besides he made..." and that what had been previously created were genera is plain from what he says, "Let the earth bring forth living souls," not according to species but according to genus. And this is found to be the course taken by God in all cases; for before making the species he completes the genera, as he did in the case of man: for having first modelled the generic man, in whom they say that the male and female sexes are contained, he afterwards created the specific man Adam.
The compiler of Bereshit Rabba knows of the tradition too.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
I am not so sure that arguing for the presence of 'ish' in the fragments of Genesis at Qumran is the best route to go. The idea that the LXX knows a text with ish in Genesis 1:27 is much better:
There can be no doubt that an original Hebrew text is being consistently translated here when we compare the 'male' and 'female' in Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 7:2 (a famous parallel with the Samaritan text):
"And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying, Of every tree that is in the Paradise thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall not eat; but in the day on which ye eat of it ye shall die the death." A question may arise here to what kind of Adam he gave this command and who, this Adam was. For Moses has not made any mention of him before; but now is the first time that he has named him. Are we then to think that he is desirous to supply you with the name of the factitious man? "And he calls him," continues Moses, "Earth." For this is the interpretation of the name of Adam. Accordingly, when you hear the name Adam, you must think that he is an earthly and perishable being; for he is made according to an image, being not earthly but heavenly. (91) But we must inquire how it was that after he had given names to all the other animals, he did not give one also to himself. What then are we to say about this? The mind which is in each of us is able to comprehend all other things, but has not the capability of understanding itself. For as the eye sees all other things, but cannot see itself, so also the mind perceives the nature of other things but cannot understand itself. For if it does, let it tell us what it is, or what kind of thing it is, whether it is a spirit, or blood, or fire, or air, or any other substance: or even only so much whether it is a substance at all, or something incorporeal. Are not those men then simple who speculate on the essence of God? For how can they who are ignorant of the nature of the essence of their own soul, have any accurate knowledge of the soul of the universe? For the soul of the universe is according to our definition, --God.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Here is the color-coded reference to which man Philo thinks is being referenced (heavenly = blue, earthly = red)
And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth.
And God made man, according to the image of God he made him, male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the seas and flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep on the earth.
And God said, Behold I have given to you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed which is upon all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that is sown, to you it shall be for food.
And to all the wild beasts of the earth, and to all the flying creatures of heaven, and to every reptile creeping on the earth, which has in itself the breath of life, even every green plant for food; and it was so.
And God saw all the things that he had made, and, behold, they were very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
And the heavens and the earth were finished, and the whole world of them.
And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made, and he ceased on the seventh day from all his works which he made.
And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he ceased from all his works which God began to do.
This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made, in the day in which the Lord God made the heaven and the earth,
and every herb of the field before it was on the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, for God had not rained on the earth, and there was not a man to cultivate it.
But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth. And God formed the man of dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. And God planted a garden eastward in Edem, and placed there the man whom he had formed.
And God made to spring up also out of the earth every tree beautiful to the eye and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of learning the knowledge of good and evil.
And a river proceeds out of Edem to water the garden, thence it divides itself into four heads.
The name of the one, Phisom, this it is which encircles the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold.
And the gold of that land is good, there also is carbuncle and emerald.
And the name of the second river is Geon, this it is which encircles the whole land of Ethiopia.
And the third river is Tigris, this is that which flows forth over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
And the Lord God took the man whom he had formed, and placed him in the garden of Delight, to cultivate and keep it. And the Lord God gave a charge to Adam, saying, Of every tree which is in the garden thou mayest freely eat,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—of it ye shall not eat, but in whatsoever day ye eat of it, ye shall surely die.
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, let us make for him a help suitable to him. And God formed yet farther out of the earth all the wild beasts of the field, and all the birds of the sky, and he brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living creature, that was the name of it.
And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to all the birds of the sky, and to all the wild beasts of the field, but for Adam there was not found a help like to himself.
And God brought a trance upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh instead thereof.
And God formed the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam.
And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her husband.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.
The reason why the one line is not colored is that Philo is unclear (or unwilling to say) which man is being spoken of here. Apparently 'the woman' is the help meet of the heavenly man. This textual tradition would explain a lot including:
1. the belief that Eve was Nura (= fire) a heavenly hypostasis
2. the belief that a divine race of human beings was established (whether through Cain or Seth is debatable) from Eve having intercourse with divinities
3. the reason why the angels have sex with females in chapter 6
4. the tradition that Nura becomes Noah's wife and survives the flood
For the image of God is the antitype of all other things, and every imitation aims at this of which it is the imitation, and is placed in the same class with it. And it is not good for either the man, who was made according to the image of God, to be alone: nor is it any more desirable for the factitious man to be alone, and indeed it is impossible.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
I should also include this list for accuracy - differences between Philo's LXX and the surviving text with respect to the ascription of activities of which name of God did what (i.e. 'Lord God,' 'Lord' or 'God').
And the Lord God (1) said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth. And God made man (2), according to the image of God he made him, male and female he made them.(3) And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the seas and flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep on the earth.
And God said, Behold I have given to you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed which is upon all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that is sown, to you it shall be for food.
And to all the wild beasts of the earth, and to all the flying creatures of heaven, and to every reptile creeping on the earth, which has in itself the breath of life, even every green plant for food; and it was so. And God saw all the things that he had made (4) and, behold, they were very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. And the heaven and the earth and all their world were completed (5). And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made (6) and He rested therefore on the seventh day from all His works which He had made " (7) And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, (8)because in it He ceased from all His works which God began to make (9) This is the book of the genesis of heaven and earth, when they came into being, (10) in the day in which God made the heaven and the earth and every herb of the field before it appeared upon the earth, and all grass of the field before it sprang up for God had not rained on the earth, and there was not a man to cultivate it. (11) But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth. (12) And God formed the man of dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life and the man became a living soul. (13) And God planted a garden eastward in Edem and placed there the man whom he had formed.(14) And God made to spring up also out of the earth every tree beautiful to the eye and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of learning the knowledge of good and evil.(15) And a river proceeds out of Edem to water the garden, thence it divides itself into four heads.
The name of the one, Phisom, this it is which encircles the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold.
And the gold of that land is good, there also is carbuncle and emerald.
And the name of the second river is Geon, this it is which encircles the whole land of Ethiopia.
And the third river is Tigris, this is that which flows forth over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (16) And the Lord God took the man whom he had formed, and placed him in the garden of Delight, to cultivate and keep it. (17) And the Lord God gave a charge to Adam, saying, Of every tree which is in the garden thou mayest freely eat,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—of it ye shall not eat, but in whatsoever day ye eat of it, ye shall surely die.(18) And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, let us make for him a help suitable to him. (19) And God formed yet farther out of the earth all the wild beasts of the field, and all the birds of the sky, and he brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living creature, that was the name of it. (20)
And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to all the birds of the sky, and to all the wild beasts of the field, but for Adam there was not found a help like to himself.
And God brought a deep trance upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh instead thereof. (21)[/b]
And God formed the rib which he took from Adam into a woman (22)and brought her to Adam.
And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh (23); this one shall be called woman (24) because she was taken out of her husband. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. (25) And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Now the serpent was the most crafty of all the brutes on the earth, which the Lord God made (26) and the serpent said to the woman, Wherefore has God said, Eat not of every tree of the garden? (27)
And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden,
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it (28), lest ye die.
And the serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not surely die.
For God knew that in whatever day ye should eat of it your eyes would be opened, and ye would be as gods, knowing good and evil.(29)
And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes to look upon and beautiful to contemplate, and having taken of its fruit she ate, and she gave to her husband also with her (30) and they ate.
And the eyes of both were opened, and they perceived that they were naked (31)and they sewed fig leaves together (32), and made themselves aprons to go round them. And they heard the sound of God walking (33) in the garden in the afternoon; and both Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the God in the midst of the trees of the garden.(34) And the God called Adam and said to him, Adam, where art thou? (35) And he said to him, I heard thy voice as thou walkedst in the garden, and I feared because I was naked and I hid myself. (36)
And God said to him, Who told thee that thou wast naked, unless thou hast eaten of the tree concerning which I charged thee of it alone not to eat? And Adam said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me—she gave me of the tree and I ate. (37) And God said to the woman, Why hast thou done this? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. (38) And the God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattle and all the brutes of the earth, on thy breast and belly thou shalt go, and thou shalt eat earth all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, he shall watch against thy head, and thou shalt watch against his heel.(39)
And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pains and thy groanings (40); in pain thou shalt bring forth children (41) and thy submission shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee (42). And to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and eaten of the tree concerning which I charged thee of it only not to eat—of that thou hast eaten, cursed is the ground in thy labours,(43) in pain shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee (44) and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread until thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken (45), for earth thou art and to earth thou shalt return. (46) And Adam called the name of his wife Life, because she was the mother of all living (47). And God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin, and clothed them.(48) And God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil (49)and now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of life and eat, and so he shall live forever (50)— So God sent him forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the ground out of which he was taken. (51)
And he cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the tree of life.(52)
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and brought forth Cain and said, I have gained a man through God (53).
Last edited by Secret Alias on Mon Dec 28, 2015 9:12 am, edited 5 times in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
1. Confusion of Tongues 168 " Moses records that "the Lord God said, Come, let us now make man in our image; man in our Similitude. (ge 1:26) The expression, "Let us make," implying a number of creators." It might be worth citing what follows because it is difficult to reconcile with all the other statements. The implication is that "let us make" here tells us that the man of the earth was also made with two lieutenants "Man is practically the only being who having knowledge of good and evil often chooses the worst, and shuns what should be the object of his efforts, and thus he stands apart as convicted of sin deliberate and aforethought. Thus it was meet and right that when man was prepared (κατασκευήν), God should assign a share in the work to His lieutenants, as He does with the words " let us make men," that so man's right actions might be attributable to God, but his sins to others. For it seemed to be unfitting to God the All-ruler that the road to wickedness within the reasonable soul should be of His making, and therefore He delegated the forming of this part to His inferiors. For the work of forming the voluntary element to balance the involuntary had to be accomplished to render the whole complete." But see Flight and Finding "It is for this reason, I imagine, that Moses, when treating in his lessons of wisdom of the Creation of the world, after having said of all other things that they were made by God, described man alone as having been fashioned with the co-operation of others. His words are : " God said, let us make man after our image " (Gen. i. 26), " let us make " indicating more than one. So the Father of all things is holding parley with His powers, whom He allowed to fashion the mortal portion of our soul by imitating the skill shewn by Him when He was forming that in us which is rational, since He deemed it right that by the Sovereign should be wrought the sovereign faculty in the soul, the subject part being wrought by subjects. And He employed the powers that are associated with Him not only for the reason mentioned, but because, alone among created beings, the soul of man was to be susceptible of conceptions of evil things and good things, and to use one sort or the other, since it is impossible for him to use both. Therefore God deemed it necessary to assign the creation of evil things to other makers, reserving that of good things to Himself alone.Wherefore also, while in the former case the expression used was " let us make man," as though more than one were to do it, there is used afterwards an expression pointing to One, " God made the man " (Gen. i. 27). For of the real man, who is absolutely pure Mind, One, even the only God, is the Maker ; but a plurality of makers produce man so-called, one that has an admixture of sense-perception. That is why he who is man in the special sense is mentioned with the article. The words run " God made the man," that invisible reasoning faculty free from admixture. The other has no article added ; for the words " let us make man " point to him in whom an irrational and rational nature are woven together ... Accordingly it is not right to say that any wrongs committed with secret hostility and with guile and as the result of premeditation are done as God ordains ; they are done as we ordain. For as I have said, the treasuries of evil things are in ourselves ; with God are those of good things only. Whosoever, therefore, takes refuge, that is, whosoever blames not himself but God for his sins, let him be punished, by being deprived of the refuge which is a place of deliverance and safety for suppliants only, namely the altar." On the Change of Names 31 "" I am thy God " are used by licence of language and not in their proper sense, for the Existent considered as existent is not relative. He is full of himself and is sufficient for Himself. It was so before the creation of the world, and is equally so after the creation of all that is. He cannot change nor alter and needs nothing else at all, so that all things are His but He Himself in the proper sense belongs to none. But the Potencies which He has projected into creation to benefit what He has framed are in some cases spoken of as in a sense relative, such as the kingly and the beneficial, for a king is a king of someone and a benefactor the benefactor of someone, while the subject of the kingship and the recipient of the benefit is necessarily something different. Akin to these two is the creative Potency called God, because through this the Father who is its begetter and contriver made the universe, so that " I am thy God " is equivalent to " I am the Maker and Artificer." And the greatest gift we can have is to have Him for our Architect, Who was also the Architect of the whole world, for He did not form the soul of the bad, since wickedness is at enmity with Him, and in framing the soul which is in the intermediate stage He "was not the sole agent according to the holiest of men, Moses, since such a soul would surely admit like wax the different qualities of noble and base. And therefore we read, " Let us make man after our image " (Gen. i. 26), so that according as the wax received the bad or the noble impress it should appear to be the handiwork of others or of Him Who is the framer of the noble and the good alone. Surely then he is a man of virtue to whom God says " I am thy God," for he has God alone for his maker without the co-operation of others On the Change of Names 223 "Vast is the number of such gifts, birth, life, nurture, soul, sense-perception, mental picturing, impulse, reasoning. Now " reasoning " as a name is but a little word, but as a fact it is something most perfect and most divine, a piece torn off from the soul of the universe, or, as it might be put more reverently following the philosophy of Moses, a faithful impress of the divine image." 2.Allegorical Interpretation 3.96 And God made the man after the Image of God " (Gen. i. 27), implying that the Image had been made such as representing God, but that the man was made after the Image when it had acquired the force of a pattern." On Flight and Finding Wherefore also, while in the former case the expression used was " let us make man," as though more than one were to do it, there is used afterwards an expression pointing to One, " God made the man " (Gen. i. 27). Who is the Heir 57 For the Maker of all, he says, " blew into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7) ; just as we are also told that he was fashioned after the image of his Maker (Gen. i. 27). XII. So we have two kinds of men, one that of those who live by reason, the divine inbreathing, the other of those who live by blood and the pleasure of the flesh. This last is a^noulded clod of earth, the other is the faithful impress of the divine image. Who is the Heir 164 "Equality too divided the human being into man and woman, two sections unequal indeed in strength, but quite equal as regards what was nature's urgent purpose, the reproduction of themselves in a third person. " God made man," he says, " made him after the image of God. Male and female He made "—not now " him " but " them " (Gen. i. 27). He concludes with the plural, thus connecting with the genus mankind the species which had been divided, as I said, by equality. Who is the Heir 231 He gives the name of birds to the two words or forms of reason, both of which arewinged and of a soaring nature. One is the archetypal reason above us, the other the copy of it which we possess. Moses calls the first the " image of God," the second the cast of that image. For God, he says, made man not " the image of God " but " after the image " (Gen. i. 27). And thus the mind in each of us, which in the true and full sense is the " man," is an expression at third hand from the Maker, while between them is the Reason which serves as model for our reason, but itself is the effigies or presentment of God 3. On the Creator 75 - 78 "And when Moses had called the genus " man," quite admirably did he distinguish its species, adding that it had been created " male and female," and this though its individual members had not yet taken shape. For the primary species are in the genus to begin with, and reveal themselves as in a mirror to those who have the faculty of keen vision." The idea is clearly that 'the man' here is not immediately made into male and female but Philo understands it to be the template for the future creation of Adam. The Special Laws IV 123 For the essence or substance of that other soul is divine spirit, a truth vouched for by Moses especially, who in his story of the creation says that God breathed a breath of life upon the first man, the founder of our race, into the lordliest part of his body, the face,^ where the senses are stationed like bodyguards to the great king, the mind. And clearly what was then thus breathed was ethereal spirit, or something if such there be better than ethereal spirit, even an effulgence of the blessed, thrice blessed nature of the Godhead 4. Migration of Abraham 42 For we read " God saw all things that He had made " (Gen. i. 31). This does not just mean that He set His eyes on each of them, but that He had insight and knowledge and apprehension of the things which He had made. Migration of Abraham 135 Accordingly Moses does right well in representing Him as both the Father of the universe and Overseer of the things created, where he says : " God saw all things which He had made, and lo ! they were fair exceedingly " (Gen. i. 31) : for it was not possible for anyone perfectly to see the things which had been
formed save their Maker. Who is the Heir 150 And so in the holy Scriptures we read, " God saw all things which He had made and behold, they were very good " (Gen. i. 31) 5.Allegorical Interpretation 1.1 "" And the heaven and the earth and all their world were completed" (Gen. ii. 1). Who is the Heir 122 Still more clearly indeed does Moses acknowledge that beginnings and ends are willed by God, when he says in the creation-story, " In the beginning He made " (Gen. i. 1), and afterwards, " God finished the heavens and the earth " (Gen. ii. 1, 2) 6 Allegorical Interpretation 1.2 "And God finished on the sixth day His works which He had made " (Gen. ii. 2). 7.Allegorical Interpretation 1.15 ""He rested (literally, "caused to rest." ) therefore on the seventh day from all His works which He had made " (Gen. ii. 2). This is as much as to say that God ceases moulding the masses that are mortal, whenever He begins to make those that are divine and in keeping with the nature of seven." 8.Allegorical Interpretation 1.16 "And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it " (Gen. ii. 3). God both blesses and forthwith makes holy the dispositions set in motion in harmony with the seventh and truly Divine light, for closely akin are the character that is charged with benediction and the character that is holy. That is why, when treating of him who has vowed the great vow, he says that, if a change suddenly befall him and defile his mind, he shall no longer be holy, but "the preceding days are not reckoned. " 9. Allegorical Interpretation 18 " because in it He ceased from all His works which God began to make " (Gen. ii. 3). But the reason why the
man that guides himself in accordance with the seventh and perfect light is both of good understanding * and holy, is that the formation of things mortal ceases with this day's advent. For, indeed, the matter stands thus ; when that most brilliant and truly divine light of virtue has dawned, the creation of that whose nature is of the contrary kind comes to a stop. But we pointed out that God when ceasing or rather causing to cease, does not cease making, but begins the creating of other things, since He is not a mere artificer, but also Father of the things that are coming into being." 10.Allegorical Interpretation 1.20 " This book is that of the origin of heaven and earth, when it came into being " (Gen. ii. 4) (That is to say) : " This perfect Reason, moving in accord with the number 7, is the primal origin both of mind ordering itself after the original patterns, and of sense-perception in the domain of mind (if the expression is permissible) ordering itself after those originals." " Book " is Moses* name for the Reason of God, in which have been inscribed and engraved the formation of all else. But that you may not suppose that the Deity makes anything in definite periods of time, but may know that to mortal kind the process of creation is unobserved, undescried, incomprehensible, he adds, " When it came into being," not defining " when " by a determining limit, for the things that come into being under the hand of the First Cause come into being with no determining limit. There is an end, then, of the notion that the universe came into being in six days. Questions and Answers 1.1 Why, when he (Moses) considers and
reflects on the creation of the world, does he say, " This is the book of the coming into being of heaven and earth when they came into being " 11.Allegorical Interpretation 1. " In the day in which God made the heaven and the earth and every green thing of the field before it appeared upon the earth and all grass of the field before it sprang up; for God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth " Questions and Answers 1.2 What is the meaning of the words, " And God made every green thing of the field before it came into being on the earth, and every grass before it grew " ?
(Gen. ii. 4, 5). Above he has called this day a book, for he delineates the creation of heaven and earth as wrought in both : for by His own supremely manifest and far-shining Reason God makes both of them, both the original of the mind, which in symbolic language he calls " heaven," and the original of sense-perception, to which by a figure he gave the name of " earth." See also On the Creation 129 "In his concluding summary of the story of creation he says : " This is the book of the genesis of heaven and earth, when they came into being, in the day in which God made the heaven and the earth and every herb of the field before it appeared upon the earth, and all grass of the field before it sprang up " (Gen. ii. 4,5) . Is he not manifestly describing the incorporeal ideas present only to the mind, by which, as by seals, the finished objects that meet our senses were moulded ? 12.Allegorical Interpretation 1.27 " And a spring went up out of the earth and watered all the face of the earth " (Gen. ii. 6). On the Posterity of Cain 127 On which account it is said in Genesis, "And a fountain went up from the earth, and watered all the face of the Earth." On Flight and Finding 177 "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 imitating and equal to that of heaven; for what the heaven during winter bestows on the 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. On Noah as a Planter 18 - 21 Accordingly we also read that man has been made after the Image of God (Gen. i, 27), not however after the image of anything created. It followed then, as a natural consequence of man's soul having been made after the image of the Archetype, the Word of the First Cause, that his body also was made erect, and could lift up its eyes to heaven, the purest portion of our universe, that by means of that which he could see man might clearly apprehend that which he could not see. Since, then, it was impossible for any to discern how the understanding tends towards the Existent One, save those only who had been drawn by Him—for each one of us knows what he has himself experienced as no other can know it— He endows the bodily eyes with the power of taking the direction of the upper air, and so makes them a distinct representation of the invisible eye. Questions and Answers 1.3 What is the meaning of the words, " a spring went up from the earth and watered all the face of the earth " ? 13.Allegorical Interpretation 1.30 " And God formed the man by taking clay from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath
of life, and the man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7). There are two types of men ; the one a heavenly man, the other an earthly. The heavenly man,
being made after the image of God, is altogether without part or lot in corruptible and terrestrial substance ; but the earthly one was compacted out of
the matter scattered here and there, which Moses calls " clay." For this reason he says that the heavenly man was not moulded, but was stamped
with the image of God ; while the earthly is a moulded work of the Artificer, but not His offspring. We must account the man made out of the
earth to be mind mingling with, but not yet blended with, body. But this earthlike mind is in reality also corruptible, were not God to breathe into it
a power of real life. See also On Dreams 34 "for among created things, that which is holy is, in the universe, the heavens, in which natures imperishable and enduring through long ages have their orbits ; in man it is mind, a fragment of the Deity, as the words of Moses in particular bear witness, " He breathed into his face a breath of life, and man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7). On the Creation 137 "After this he says that " God formed man by taking clay from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life " (Gen. ii. 7). By this also he shows very clearly that there is a vast difference between the man thus formed and the man that came into existence earlier after the image of God : for the man so formed is an object of sense-perception, partaking already of such or such quality, consisting of body and soul, man or woman, by nature mortal; while he that was after the (Divine) image was an idea or type or seal, an object of thought (only), incorporeal, neither male nor female, by nature incorruptible. It says, however, that the formation of the individual man, the object of sense, is a composite one made up of earthly substance and of Divine breath: for it says that the body was made through the Artificer taking clay and moulding out of it a human form, but that the soul was originated from nothing created whatever, but from the Father and Ruler of all: for that which He breathed in was nothing else than a Divine breath that migrated hither from that blissful and happy existence for the benefit of our race, to the end that, even if it is mortal in respect of its visible part, it may in respect of the part that is invisible be rendered immortal. Hence it may with propriety be said that man is the borderland between mortal and immortal nature, partaking of each so far as is needful, and that he was created at once mortal and immortal, mortal in respect of the body, but in respect of the mind immortal. That first man, earth-born, ancestor of our whole race, was made, as it appears to me, most excellent in each part of his being, in both soul and body, and greatly excelling those who came after him in the transcendent qualities of both alike : for this man really was the one truly " beautiful and good." The fair form of his body may be gathered from three proofs. The first is this. When, at the severing of the great mass of water, which received the name of " sea," the newly formed earth appeared, the material of the things to come into existence was, as a result, pure and free from mixture or alloy, and also supple and easy to work, and the things wrought out of it naturally flawless. Secondly, God is not likely to have taken the clay from any part of the earth that might offer, or to have chosen as rapidly as possible to mould this figure in the shape of a man, but selecting the best from it all, out of pure material taking the purest and most subtly refined, such as was best suited for his structure ; for a sacred dwelling-place or shrine was being fashioned for the reasonable soul, which man was to carry as a holy image, of all images the most Godlike. The third proof, incomparably stronger than the two that have been given, is this, that the Creator excelled, as well as in all else, in skill to bring it about that each of the bodily parts should have in itself individually its due proportions, and should also be fitted with the most perfect accuracy for the part it was to take in the whole. And together with this symmetry (of the parts) He bestowed on the body goodly flesh, and adorned it with a rich complexion, desiring the first man to be as fair as could be to behold. That in soul also he was most excellent is manifest; for the Creator, we know, employed for its making no pattern taken from among created things, but solely, as I have said, His own Word (or Reason). It is on this account that he says that man was made a likeness and imitation of the Word, when the Divine Breath was breathed into his face. The face is the seat of the senses. By the senses the Creator endowed the body with soul. To the senses, when He had installed the sovereign Reason in the princely part of man's being, He delivered it to be by them escorted to the apprehension of colours and sounds, as well as of flavours and scents and the like. The Reason, apart from perception by the senses, was unable by itself alone to apprehend these. Now the copy of a perfectly beautiful pattern must needs be of perfect beauty. But the Word of God surpasses beauty itself, beauty, that is, as it exists in Nature. He is not only adorned with beauty, but is Himself in very truth beauty's fairest adornment. Such was the first man created, as I think, in body and soul, surpassing all the men that now are, and all that have been before us. For our beginning is from men, whereas God created him, and the more eminent the maker is, so much the better is the work. For as that which is in bloom is always better than that whose bloom is past, be it animal or plant or fruit or aught else in nature, so the man first fashioned was clearly the bloom of our entire race, and never have his descendants attained the like bloom, forms and faculties ever feebler having been bestowed on each succeeding generation. I have observed the same thing happening in the case of sculpture and painting : the copies are inferior to the originals, and what is painted or moulded from the copies still more so, owing to their long distance from the original. Much the same appears in the case of the magnet: for the iron ring which touches it is held most forcibly, but that which touches this one less so. A third hangs on to the second, and a fourth on to the third, and a fifth on to the fourth, and so on in a long series, all held together by one attracting force, only not all alike, for those removed from the starting-point get looser all the time, owing to the attraction being relaxed and losing its power to grip as it did before. Mankind has evidently undergone something of the same kind. As generation follows generation the powers and qualities of body and soul which men receive are feebler." Allegorical Interpretation 3.162 "The body, then, has been formed out of earth, but the soul is of the upper air, a particle detached from the Deity : "for God breathed into his face a breath of life, and man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7)." Noah's Work as a Planter 18 - 21 our great Moses likened the fashion of the reasonable soul to no created thing, but averred it to be a genuine coinage of that dread Spirit, the Divine and Invisible One, signed and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of which is the Eternal Word. His words are " God in-breathed into his face a breath of Life " (Gen. ii. 7) ; so that it cannot but be that he that receives is made in the likeness of Him Who sends forth the breath. Accordingly we also read that man has been made after the Image of God (Gen. i, 27), not however after the image of anything created. It followed then, as a natural consequence of man's soul having been made after the image of the Archetype, the Word of the First Cause, that his body also was made erect, and could lift up its eyes to heaven, the purest portion of our universe, that by means of that which he could see man might clearly apprehend that which he could not see. Since, then, it was impossible for any to discern how the understanding tends towards the Existent One, save those only who had been drawn by Him—for each one of us knows what he has himself experienced as no other can know it— He endows the bodily eyes with the power of taking the direction of the upper air, and so makes them a distinct representation of the invisible eye. On the Migration of Abraham 3 Moses is a witness to this, when he says, " Earth thou art and into earth shalt thou return " (Gen. iii. 19) ; indeed he also says that the body was clay formed into human shape by God's moulding hand, and what suffers solution must needs be resolved into the elements which were united to form it. Who is the Heir 57 For the Maker of all, he says, " blew into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7) ; just as we are also told that he was fashioned after the image of his Maker (Gen. i. 27). XII. So we have two kinds of men, one that of those who live by reason, the divine inbreathing, the other of those who live by blood and the pleasure of the flesh. This last is a^noulded clod of earth, the other is the faithful impress of the divine image. Questions and Answers 1.5 Who is the " moulded " * man ? And how does he diiFer from him who is (made) " in accordance with the image (of God) " ? The moulded man is the sense-perceptible ". man and a likeness of the intelligible type. But the man made in accordance with (God's) form is intelligible and incor- poreal and a likeness of the archetype, so far as this is visible. And he is a copy of the original seal.^ And this is the Logos of God, the first principle, the archetypal idea," the pre-measurer ^ of all things. For this reason the man who was moulded as by a potter was formed out of dust and earth, in respect of the body. And he obtained a spirit when God breathed life into his face. And the mixture of his nature was a mixture of the corruptible and incorruptible. For that which is in accordance with form is incorruptible, coming from an invisible nature, from that which is simple and pure. Questions and Answers 1.5. (Gen. ii. 7) Why is He said to have breathed life into his face ^ First of all, because the face is the principal part of the body. For the rest (of the body) was made like a pedestal, while the face, like a bust, is firmly placed above it. And
sense-perception is the principal part of the animal species, and sense-perception is in the face. In the second place, man is admitted to be part not only of the animal order but also of that of rational animals, and the head is the temple of the mind, as some have said. 14.Allegorical Interpretation 1.40 " God planted a pleasaunce " (Gen. ii. 8) Allegorical Interpetation 1.41 " " And God planted a pleasaunce in Eden toward the sun-rising, and placed there the man whom He had formed " (Gen. ii. 8). By using many words for it Moses has already made it manifest that the sublime and heavenly wisdom is of many names ; for he calls it " beginning " and " image " and " vision of God *'; and now by the planting of the pleasaunce he brings out the fact that earthly wisdom is a copy of this as of an archetype." Eden is in heaven as per the Samaritan understanding (i.e. at the top of mount Gerizim) Confusion of Tongues 61 Now, the following is an example of the former kind: "And God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the East," (ge 2:8.) 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. On the Creation 151 "While the man was still leading a life of solitude, the woman not having been yet formed, a park or pleasaunce, we are told, was planted by God, quite unlike the pleasaunces with which we are familiar (Gen. ii. 8 f.) Noah's Work as a Planter 31 In agreement with what I have said is the planting of the garden ; for we read, " God planted a garden in Eden facing the sun-rising, and placed there the man whom He had moulded " (Gen. ii. 8). To imagine that he planted vines and olive and apple and pomegranate trees or the like, would be serious folly, difficult to eradicate. Noah's Work as a Planter 40 A proof of what I have said is the nearness of the garden to the sunrising
(Gen. ii. 8) ; for, while folly is a thing sinking, dark, night-bringing, wisdom is verily a thing of sunrise, all radiancy and brightness. And even as the sun, when it comes up, fills all the circle of heaven with light, even so do the rays of virtue, when they have shone out, cause the whole region of the
understanding to be flooded with pure brilliancy. Questions and Answers 1.6 (Gen. ii. 8) Why is God said to have " planted Paradise " and for whom ? And what is Paradise ? Of Paradise, so far as the literal meaning is concerned, there is no need to give an explicit interpretation. For it is a dense place full of all kinds of trees. Symbolically, however, it is wisdom or knowledge '' of the divine and human and of their causes. For it was fitting, after the coming into being of the world, to establish the contemplative life in order that through a vision of the world and the things in it praise of the Father might also be attained. For it is not possible for nature to see nor is it possible without wisdom to praise the creator of all things. And His ideas the Creator planted like trees in the most sovereign thing, the rational soul. But as for the tree of life in the midst (of the garden), it is the knowledge, not only of things on the earth, but also of the eldest and highest cause of all things. For if anyone is able to obtain a clear impression * of this, he will be fortunate and blessed and truly immortal. But after the world wisdom came into being, since after the creation of the world Paradise was made in the same manner as the poets say the chorus of Muses (was formed), in order to praise the Creator and His work. For just as Plato said," the Creator is the greatest and best of causes, while the world is the most beautiful of created things. Questions and Answers 1.7. (Gen. ii. 8) Why is He said to have planted Paradise
in Eden toward the East ? In the first place, because the movement of the world is from East to West ; and that from which movement starts is first. Second, that which is in the region of the East is said to be the right side of the world, while that in the region of the West is the left. And so the poet testifies,* calling the birds in the region of the East " right," and those which are in the region of the West " on the left side." If they go to the right side, it is to the day and the sun ; but if to the left, toward evening and darkness. But the name Eden when translated is certainly a symbol of delicacies, joy and mirth. For all good things and benefits have their origin in this sacred place. In the third place, because it " is wisdom and radiance and light. Questions and Answers 1.8. (Gen. ii. 8) Why does He place the moulded man in Paradise, but not the man who was made in His image ? Some, believing Paradise to be a garden, have said that since the moulded man is sense-perceptible, he therefore rightly goes to a sense-perceptible place. But the man made in His image is intelligible and invisible, and is in the class of incorporeal species. But I would say that Paradise should be thought a symbol of wisdom. For the earth-formed man is a mixture, and consists of soul and body, and is in need of teaching and instruction, desiring, in accordance with the laws of philosophy, that he may be happy. But he who was made in His image is in need of nothing, but is self-hearing and self-taught and self- instructed by nature. Questions and Answers 1.14 Why does He place the man in Paradise for two things, to work and guard it, when Paradise was not in need of work, for it was complete in all things as having been planted by God, and was not in need of a guardian, for who was there to be harmed ? 15. Allegorical Interpretation 1.56 " And God caused to spring out of the ground every tree fair to behold and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil " (Gen. ii. 9). On Noah's Work as a Planter 44 It is with deliberate care that the law- giver says not of the man made after God's image, but of the man fashioned out of earth, that he was introduced into the garden. For the man stamped with the spirit which is after the image of God differs not a whit, as it appears to me, from the tree that bears the fruit of immortal life : for both are imperishable and have been accounted worthy of the most central and most princely portion : for we are told that the tree of Life is in the midst of the Garden (Gen. ii. 9)· On the Migration of Abraham 37 This tree offers not nourishment only but immortality also, for we are told that the Tree of Life has been planted in the midst of the Garden (Gen. ii. 9)> even Goodness with the particular virtues and the doings which accord with them to be its bodyguard. Questions and Answers 1.11 (Gen. ii. 9) What is " the tree of knowing the science ** of good and evil ". ? This very clear statement, which in its literal meaning is elusive, it presents to us as an allegory 16.Allegorical Interpretation 1.63 "" A river goes forth from Eden to water the garden : thence it is separated into four heads ; the name of the one is Pheison ; this is that which encircles all the land of Evilat, there where the gold is ; and the gold of that land is good; and there is the ruby and the emerald. And the name of the second river is Geon ; this encompasses all the land of Aethiopia. And the third river is Tigris ; this is that whose course is in front of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates " (Gen. ii. 10-14). On the Posterity of Cain 128 "And a river went out of Eden to water the Paradise; and from thence it is divided into four Heads." 17Allegorical Interpretation 1.51 "Speaking here of the man whom God moulded, it merely says that He " placed him in the garden." Who then is it of whom it says later on " The Lord God took the man whom He had made, and placed him in the garden to till it and to guard it " (Gen. ii. 15) ? It would seem then that this is a different man, the one that was made after the image and archetype, so that two men are introduced into the garden, the one a moulded being, the other " after the image." The one then that was made according to the original has his sphere not only in the planting of virtues but is also their tiller and guardian, and that means that he is mindful of all that he heard and practised in his training; but the " moulded " man neither tills the virtues nor guards them, but is only introduced to the truths by the rich bounty of God, presently to be an exile from virtue. For this reason in describing the man whom God only places in the garden, Moses uses the word " moulded," but of the man whom He appoints both tiller and guardian he speaks not as " moulded," but he says " whom He had made " ; and the one He receives, and the other He casts out. And He confers on him whom He receives three gifts, which constitute natural ability, facility in apprehending, persistence in doing, tenacity in keeping. Facility in apprehending is the placing in the garden, persistence in doing is the practice of noble deeds, tenacity in keeping the guarding and retaining in the memory of the holy precepts." Allegorical Interpretation 1.88 "" And the Lord God took the man whom He had made, and placed him in the garden to till and to guard it " (Gen. ii. 15). " The man whom God made " differs, as I have said before, from the one that " was moulded " : for the one that was moulded is the more earthly mind, the one that was made the less material, having no part in perishable matter, endowed with a constitution of a purer and clearer kind. This pure mind, then, God takes, not suffering it to go outside of Himself, and, having taken it, sets it among the virtues that have roots and put forth shoots, that he may till them and guard them. For many, after beginning to practise virtue, have changed at the last: but on the man to whom God affords secure knowledge, He bestows both advantages, both that of tilling the virtues, and also that of never desisting from them, but of evermore husbanding and guarding each one of them. So tilling " represents practising, while " guarding " represents remembering. 18. " And the Lord God commanded Adam saying : From every tree that is in the garden thou shalt feedingly a eat, but of the tree of knowing good
and evil ye shall not eat of it: and in the day that ye eat of it ye shall surely die " (Gen. ii. 16 , 17). We must raise the question what Adam He commands
and who this is ; for the writer has not mentioned him before, but has named him now for the first time. Perchance, then, he means to give us the name of the man that was moulded. " Call him earth " he says, for that is the meaning of " Adam," so that when you hear the word "Adam," you must make up your mind that it is the earthly and perishable mind ; for the mind that was made after the image is not earthly but heavenly. And we must inquire why when assigning their names to all the other creatures Adam did not assign one to himself. What, then, are we to say ? The mind that is in each one of us can apprehend other objects, but is incapable of knowing itself. For just as the eye sees other objects but does not see itself, so the mind too perceives other objects, but does not apprehend itself. Can it say what it is and of what kind, breath or blood or fire or air or anything else ? Can it even say that it is a body or else that it is incorporeal ? Are not they simpletons, then, who inquire about God's substance ? For how should those, who know not the substance of their own soul, have accurate ideas about the soul of the universe ? For we may conceive of God as the soul of the universe. Quite naturally, therefore, Adam, that is the Mind, though he names and apprehends other things, gives no name to himself, since he is ignorant of himself and his own nature. Now it is to this being, and not to the being created after His image and after the original idea, that God gives the command. For the latter, even without urging, possesses virtue instinctively ; but the former, independently of instruction, could have no part in wisdom. There is a difference between these three —injunction, prohibition, command accompanied by exhortation. For prohibition deals with wrongdoings and is addressed to the bad man, injunction concerns duties rightly done, and exhortation is addressed to the neutral man, the man who is neither bad nor good : for he is neither sinning, to lead anyone to forbid him, nor is he so doing right as right reason enjoins, but has need of exhortation, which teaches him to refrain from evil things, and incites him to aim at things noble. There is no need, then, to give injunctions or prohibitions or exhortations to the perfect man formed after the (Divine) image, for none of these does the perfect man require. The bad man has need of injunction and prohibition, and the child of exhortation and teaching. Just so the perfect master of music or letters requires none of the directions that apply to those arts, whereas the man who stumbles over the subjects of his study does require what we may call laws or rules with their injunctions and prohibitions, while one who is now beginning to learn requires teaching. Quite naturally, then, does God give the commandments and exhortations before us to the earthly man who is neither bad nor good but midway between these. To enforce the exhortation, both Divine titles are employed, both " Lord" and " God," for it says " God the Lord commanded him." This is in order that, should he obey the exhortations, he may be deemed worthy by God of His benefactions ; but that, should he rebel, he may be driven from the presence of the Lord who has a Master's authority over him. For this reason again, when he is being cast out of the garden, the sacred writer has introduced the same titles, for he says, " And the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of delight, to till the ground, out of which he was taken " (Gen. iii. 23). This is to show that, since " the Lord " as Master and " God " as Benefactor had issued the commands, so in both capacities does He inflict punishment on him who had disobeyed them. For he dismisses the disobedient by the exercise of the very powers which He had exercised in urging him to obedience." Questions and Answers 1.15 Why does (God) say, when He com- mands (Adam) to eat of every tree which is in Paradise, " Eat " in the singular number ; but, when He forbids eating of the tree which gives knowledge of good and evil, says, in the plural number, " Do not eat, for on the day when ye shall eat, ye shall die " Questions and Answers 1.16 (Gen. ii. 17) What is the meaning of the words," Ye shall die by the death » (editors note - reflection of the Hebrew syntax) 19.Allegorical Interpretation 2.1 "" And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, let us make for him a helper corresponding to him " (Gen. ii. 18). Why, Ο prophet, is it not good that the man should be alone ? Because, he says, it is good that the Alone should be alone : but God, being One, is alone and unique, and like God there is nothing. Hence, since it is good that He Who is should be alone—for indeed with regard to Him alone can the statement " it is good " be made—it follows that it would not be good that the man should be alone. There is another way in which we may understand the statement that God is alone. It may mean that neither before creation was there anything with God, nor, when the universe had come into being, does anything take its place with Him ; for there is absolutely nothing which He needs. A yet better interpretation is the following. God is alone, a Unity, in the sense that His nature is simple not composite, whereas each one of us and of all other created beings is made up of many things. I, for example, am many things in one. I am soul and body. To soul belong rational and irrational parts, and to body, again, different properties, warm and cold, heavy and light, dry and moist. But God is not a composite Being, consisting of many parts, nor is He mixed with aught else. For whatever is added to God, is either superior or inferior or equal to Him. But there is nothing equal or superior to God. And no lesser thing is resolved into Him. If He do so assimilate any lesser thing, He also will be lessened. And if He can be made less, He will also be capable of corruption ; and even to imagine this were blasphemous. The " one " and the " monad " are, therefore, the only standard for determining the category to which God belongs. Rather should we say, the One God is the sole standard for the " monad." For, like time, all number is subsequent to the universe ; and God is prior to the universe, and is its Maker. It is not good that any man should be alone. For there are two races of men, the one made after the (Divine) Image, and the one moulded out of the earth. For the man made after the Image it is not good to be alone, because he yearns after the Image. For the image of God is a pattern of which copies are made, and every copy longs for that of which it is a copy, and its station is at its side. Far less is it good for the man moulded of the earth to be alone. Nay, it is impossible. For with the mind so formed, linked to it in closest fellowship, are senses, passions, vices, ten thousand other presences. With the second man a helper is associated. To begin with, the helper is a created one, for it says, " Let us make a helper for him " ; and, in the next place, is subsequent to him who is to be helped, for He had formed the mind before and is about to form its helper. In these particulars again, while using terms of outward nature he is conveying a deeper meaning. For sense and the passions are helpers of the soul and come after the soul. In what way they help we shall see 20.Allegorical Interpretation 2.9 "And God moulded moreover out of the earth all the wild beasts of the field, and all the birds of the heaven, and led them to Adam, to see what he would call them : and whatever Adam called a living soul, this was its a name " (Gen. ii. 19). You see who are our helpers, the wild beasts, the soul's passions : for after saying, " Let us make a helper corresponding to him," he adds the words, "He moulded the wild beasts," implying that the wild beasts are our helpers. These are not properly called our helpers, but by a straining of language ; in reality they are found to be our actual foes, just as the allies of states sometimes turn out to be traitors and deserters, and in private friendships flatterers prove enemies instead of comrades. He uses the terms 'heaven " and field " as synonyms, meaning the mind. For the mind is like the field in having countless sproutings and upgrowths, and like heaven again in having natures brilliant and godlike and blessed. The passions he likens to wild beasts and birds,
Last edited by Secret Alias on Sun Dec 27, 2015 10:10 am, edited 3 times in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
21.Allegorical Interpretation 3.31 After this preface we must now proceed to explain the words: "The Lord God," says Moses, "cast a deep trance upon Adam, and sent him to sleep." - Confusion of Tongues 167f -But compareWho is the Heir 256 We have the third sort of ecstasy when Moses finds a lesson of wisdom in the story of the creation of woman. God " cast," he says, " an ecstasy on Adam and he slept " (Gen. ii. 21). Here by ecstasy he means passivity and tranquillity of mind. For sleep of mind is waking of sense, since waking of the understanding is inaction of sense. But compare Allegorical Interpretation 2. " And God brought a trance upon Adam, and he fell asleep ; and He took one of his sides " and what follows (Gen. ii. 21). These words in their literal sense are of the nature of a myth. For how could anyone admit that a woman, or a human being at all, came into existence out of a man's side ? And what was there to hinder the First Cause from creating woman, as He created man, out of the earth ? For not only was the Maker the same Being, but the material too, out of which every particular kind was fashioned, was practically unlimited. And why, when there were so many parts to choose from, did He form the woman not from some other part but from the side ? And which side did he take ? For we may assume that only two are indicated, as there is in fact nothing to suggest a large number of them. Did he take the left or the right side ? If He filled up with flesh (the place of) the one which He took, are we to suppose that the one which He left was not made of flesh ? α Truly our sides are twin in all their parts and are made of flesh. What then are we to say ? " Sides " is a term of ordinary life for ** strength." To say that a man has " sides " is equivalent to saying that he is strong, we say of a powerful athlete " he has stout sides," and to say that a singer has " sides " is as much as to say that he has great lung power in singing. Having said this, we must go on to remark that the mind when as yet unclothed and unconfined by the body (and it is of the mind when not so confined that he is speaking) has many powers. It has the power of holding together, of growing, of conscious life, of thought, and countless other powers, varying both in species and genus. Lifeless things, like stones and blocks of wood, share with all others the power of holding together, of which the bones in us, which are not unlike stones" Allegorical Interpretation 2.32 "Having said this, we must show how the terms employed accord with it. " God cast," he says, " a trance upon Adam, and he went to sleep " (Gen. ii. 21). Quite correctly does he use this language. For the mind's trance and change is its sleep, and it falls into a trance when it ceases to be engaged with the objects appropriate to it ; and when it is not at work at these, it is sleeping. Rightly also does he say that this change or turning which he undergoes is not of his own motion but of God's ; that it is God who " casts it on him," that is, brings and sends it on him. 22Allegorical Interpretation 2.38 And. so he adds the words, " He built it to be a woman " (Gen. ii. 22), proving by this that the most proper and exact name for sense-perception is " woman." For just as the man shows himself in activity and the woman in passivity, so the province of the mind is activity, and that of the perceptive sense passivity, as in woman. 23 Allegorical Interpretation 2. " And he led her to Adam ; and Adam said, This is now bone out of my bones and flesh out of niy flesh " (Gen. ii. 22 , 23). God leads active perception to the mind, knowing that its movement and apprehensive power must revert to the mind as their starting-point. 24.Allegorical Interpretation 2.44 "T o this one shall be given the title a ' woman ' " (Gen. ii. 23), as much as to say, for this cause shall perception be called " woman " because out of man that sets it in motion " this one is taken." Why, then is " this one " put in ? 25.Allegorical Interpretation 2.47 " For this cause shalj a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and the twain shall be one flesh " (Gen. ii. 24). On the Giants 65 "for they two became one Flesh," as the lawgiver says, 26.Allegorical Interpretation 2.53 " And the two were naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed." "Now the serpent was the most subtil of all the beasts that were upon the earth, which the Lord God had made " (Gen. ii.10, iii. 1). Allegorical Interpretation 2.70 " " Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts on the earth, which the Lord God had made " (Gen. iii. 1). Allegorical Interpretation 2.107 "Do thou also contend, Ο my mind, against all passion and above all against pleasure, for indeed " the serpent is the most subtle of all beasts upon the earth, which the Lord God made " (Gen. iii. 1) 27.Questions and Answers 1.34 Why does the serpent lie, saying, " God said. Do not eat of any tree of Paradise " ? For on the contrary. He said, " From every tree which is in Paradise you may eat except from one." 28.Questions and Answers 1.35 Why, when the command was given not to eat of one particular tree, did the woman include even approaching it closely, saying, " He said, You shall not eat of that one and not come near it " ? 29.Questions and Answers 1.36 What is the meaning of the words, " You will be as gods, knowing good and evil " ? 30.Questions and Answers 1.37 What is the meaning of the words, " And she gave to her husband with her " ? 31.Questions and Answers 1.40 What is the meaning of the words, " For they knew that they were naked " ? 32.Questions and Answers 1.41 Why do they sew the leaves of the fig tree as loin-cloths ?" 33.Questions and Answers 1.42 What is the meaning of the words, " The sound was heard of God's walking " .'' Can there be
a noise of words or feet, or does God walk ? 34.Allegorical Interpretation 3.1 "" And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God in the midst of the forest of the garden " (Gen. iii. 8). He introduces a doctrine showing that the bad man is an exile. For if virtue is a city peculiar to the wise, the man who has no capacity to partake of virtue has been driven away from the city, in which the bad man is incapable of taking part. It is accordingly the bad man only who has been driven away and sent into exile. But the exile from virtue has by incurring such exile hidden himself from God. Questions and Answers 1.44 Why did they hide themselves, not in any other place, but in the midst of the trees of Paradise .'' Questions and Answers 1.43 Why, when they hid themselves from the face of God, was not the woman, who first ate of the for- bidden fruit, first mentioned, but the man ; for (Scripture) says, " Adam and his wife hid themselves " ? 35.Allegorical Interpretation 3.49 " And the Lord God called Adam and said to him, ' Where art thou ? ' " (Gen. iii. 9). Why is Adam alone called, his wife having hid herself with him ? " Well, first of all we must say, that the mind is called even there where it was, when it receives reproof and a check is given to its defection. But not only is the mind itself called, but all its faculties as well, for without its faculties the mind by itself is found naked and not even existent; and one of the faculties is sense-perception, the which is woman. Included then in the call of Adam,
the mind, is that of sense-perception, the woman; but God does not call her with a special call; why ? because, being irrational, she has no capacity
derived from herself to receive reproof. For neither sight nor hearing nor any of the senses is susceptible of instruction, so that it cannot perform the act of apprehending subjects. But He who made senseperception made it capable of distinguishing between material forms only : but the mind it is that receives instruction, and that is why He challenged it but not sense-perception. The words πο ν el, " Where art thou ? " can be accounted for in many different ways, first as not being interrogative but declarative, as equivalent to " thou art in a place," πο ν receiving the grave accent. For whereas thou thoughtest that God walked in the garden and was contained by it, learn that there was something amiss with thee in thinking this, and listen to a most true utterance from the mouth of God who knoweth, to the effect that God is not somewhere (for He is not contained but contains the universe), but that which came into being is in a place, for it must of necessity be contained but not contain. A second account is this : What is said is equivalent to " Where hast thou arrived, Ο soul ? " In the place of how great goods, what evils hast thou chosen for thyself ? When God had invited thee to participate in virtue, art thou going after wickedness, and when He had provided for thy enjoyment the tree of life, that is of wisdom, whereby thou shouldst have power to live, didst thou gorge thyself with ignorance and corruption, preferring misery the soul's death to happiness the real life ? Thirdly, there is the interrogative sense, to which two answers might be made. One answer to the question, " Where art thou ? " is " Nowhere," for the soul of the bad man has no place where to find footing or upon which to settle. Owing to this the bad man is said to be " placeless "—" placeless " is used of an evil that defies placing (in any known category). Such is the man that is not good, always restless and unstable, drifting this way and that like a chopping wind, attaching himself absolutely to no fixed principle whatever. A second answer might be given to this effect. Adam in fact gave it. " Hear where I am ; where those are who are incapable of seeing God ; where those are who do not listen to God ; where those are who hide themselves from the Author of all things ; where are those that shun virtue, where are the destitute of wisdom, where those are who owing to unmanliness and cowardice of soul live in fear and trembling. For when Adam says, " I heard Thy voice in the garden and was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself " (Gen. iii. 10), he discovers all the traits just enumerated, as I have fully shown in former sections. (even though the cited text says 'Lord God' the commentary assumes as with Questions and Answers that 'God' appeared in the original text) Questions and Answers 1.45 Why does He, who knows all things, ask Adam, " Where art thou ? ", and why does He not also ask the woman. 36.Allegorical Interpretation 3.54 For when Adam says, " I heard Thy voice in the garden and was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself " (Gen. iii. 10), he discovers all the traits just enumerated, as I have fully shown in former sections. 37. Allegorical Interpretation 3.56 "" The woman," he says, " whom Thou gavest with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate " (Gen. iii. 12). Questions and Answers 1.46 Why does the man say, " The woman gave me of the tree and I ate," while the woman says, " The serpent did not give it, but deceived me, and I ate " ^ . 38.Allegorical Interpretation 3.59 " And God said to the woman, ' What is this thou hast done ? ' a ' And she said, * The serpent beguiled me and I ate ' " (Gen. iii. 13). God puts a question to sense-perception touching one point,' she gives an answer touching another point: for God asks something about the man ; she speaks not about him, but says something about herself, for her words are " I ate," not " I gave. " Questions and Answers 1.47 Why does the man say, " The woman gave me of the tree and I ate," while the woman says, " The serpent did not give it, but deceived me, and I ate " 39. despite what the citation of text says the original reading was 'God' see commentaryAllegorical Interpretation 3.65 " And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle and from among all the beasts of the earth. Upon thy breast and thy belly shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall watch for thy head, and thou shalt watch for his heel " (Gen. iii. 14· f.). " For what reason does He curse the serpent without giving it the opportunity to defend itself, though elsewhere, as seems reasonable, He commands that " the two parties between whom the dispute is should stand forth " (Deut. xix. 17) and that credit be not given to the one till the other be heard ? Ye t you see, no doubt, that He did not thus give credit to Adam, and prejudge the case against the woman, but gives her opportunity to. defend herself, when He inquires " What is this that thou hast done ? " (Gen. iii. 13), and she acknowledges that she failed owing to the deception practised on her by subtle serpent-like pleasure. When, then, the woman said " the serpent beguiled me, " what was there to prevent His inquiring here too from the serpent, whether he beguiled her, instead of prejudging the case and pronouncing the curse without listening to any defence ? We have to say, then, that sense-perception comes under the head neither of bad nor of good things, but is an intermediate thing common to a wise man and a fool, and when it finds itself in a fool it proves bad, when in a sensible man, good. Reasonably then, since it has no evil nature on its own account, but halts between good and evil, inclining to either side, it is not pronounced guilty till it has owned that it followed evil. But the serpent, pleasure, is bad of itself; and therefore it is not found at all in a good man, the bad man getting all the harm of it by himself. Quite appropriately therefore does God
pronounce the curse without giving pleasure an opportunity of defending herself, since she has in her no seed from which virtue might spring, but
is always and everywhere guilty and foul. For this reason in the case of Er also God knows him to be wicked and puts him to death without bringing an open charge against him (Gen. xxxviii. 7). For He is well aware that the body, our " leathern " bulk (" leathern " is the meaning of " Er "), is wicked and a plotter against the soul, and is even a corpse and a dead thing. For you must make up your mind that we are each of us. nothing but corpse-bearers, the soul raising up and carrying without toil the body which of itself is a corpse. And note, if you will, how strong the soul is. The most muscular athlete would not have strength to carry his own statue for a short time, but the soul, sometimes for as long as a hundred years, easily carries the statue of the human being without getting tired ; for it is not now (at the last) that God slays Er ; nay, but the body which He made and which Er represents was a corpse to begin with. By nature, as I have said, it is wicked and a plotter against the soul, but it is not evident to all that it is so, but to God alone and to anyone who is dear to God ; for we read " Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord." For when the mind soars aloft and is being initiated in the mysteries of the Lord, it judges the body to be wicked and hostile ; but when it has abandoned the investigation of things divine, it deems it friendly to itself, its kinsman and brother. The proof of this is that it takes refuge in what is dear to the body. On this account there is a difference between the soul of an athlete and the soul of a philosopher. For the athlete refers everything to the well-being of the body, and, lover of the body that he is, would sacrifice the soul itself on its behalf; but the philosopher being enamoured of the noble thing that lives in himself, cares for the soul, and pays no regard to that which is really a
corpse, the body, concerned only that the best part of him, his soul, may not be hurt by an evil thing, a very corpse, tied to it. XXIII. Yo u see that Er is
slain not by the Lord, but by God. For it is not as Ruler and Governor employing the absolute power of sovereignty that He destroys the body, but in
the exercise of goodness and kindness. For " God " is the name of the goodness pertaining to the First Cause, and is so used that thou mayest know
that He hath made the inanimate things also not by exercising authority but goodness, even as by goodness He hath made the living creatures. For it was
necessary with a view to the clear manifestation of the superior beings that there should be in existence an inferior creation also, due to the same power, even the goodness of the First Cause. And that goodness is God. When, then, Ο soul, wilt thou in fullest measure realize thyself to be a corpse-bearer? Will it not be when thou art perfected, and accounted worthy of prizes and crowns ? For then shalt thou be no lover of the body, but a lover of God. And thou shalt win the rewards if Judah's daughter-in-law become thy wife, even Tamar, which means a palm-tree, the sign of victory. Here is a proof of it. When Er has married her, he is immediately found to be wicked and slain. For we read, " And Judah took for Er his firstborn a wife whose name was Tamar " (Gen. xxxviii. 6), and the next words are, " And Er was wicked before the Lord, and God slew him " (ibid. 7). For when the mind has carried off the rewards of victory, it condemns the corpse-body to death. Thou seest that God both curses the serpent without allowing him to defend himself—for he is pleasure—and slays Er without bringing an open charge against him ; for he is the body. And if thou wilt consider, my friend, thou wilt find that God has made in the soul some natures faulty and blameworthy of themselves, and others in all respects excellent and praiseworthy, just
as is the case with plants and animals. Seest thou not that among the plants the Creator has made some repaying cultivation and useful and wholesome,
and others wild and injurious and productive of disease and destruction, and the same with animals ? A s, doubtless, He has made the serpent, our present subject, for the creature is of itself destructive of health and life. What a serpent does to a man, that pleasure does to the soul, and therefore the serpent was taken to represent pleasure. Exactly, then, as God has conceived a hatred for pleasure and the body without giving reasons, so too has he promoted goodly natures apart from any manifest reason, pronouncing no action of theirs acceptable before bestowing his praises upon them. For should anyone ask why the prophet says that Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God (Gen. vi. 8) when as ye t he had, so far as our knowledge
goes, done no fair deed, we shall give a suitable answer to the effect that he is shown to be of an excellent nature from his birth, for Noah means
" rest " or " righteous." But it cannot but be that he who rests from sinful and unrighteous acts and rests upon what is noble and lives in fellowship
with righteousness, should find favour with God. Nowfinding favour is not as some suppose equivalent only to being well-pleasing, but something of this
kind besides. The righteous man exploring the nature of existences makes a surprising find, in this one discovery, that all things are a grace of God, and
that creation has no gift of grace to bestow, for neither has it any possession, since all things are God's possession, and for this reason grace too belongs
to Him alone as a thing that is His very own. Thus to those who ask what the origin of creation is the right answer would be, that it is the goodness and
grace of God, which He bestowed on the race that stands next after Him. For all things in the world and the world itself is a free gift and act of kindness
and grace on God's part. Melchizedek, too, has God made both king of peace, for that is the meaning of " Salem," and His own priest (Gen. xiv. 18). He has not fashioned beforehand any deed of his, but produces him to begin with as such a king, peaceable and worthy of This own priesthood. For he is entitled " the righteous king," and a " king is a thing at enmity with a despot, the one being the author of laws, the other of lawlessness. So mind, the despot, decrees for both soul and body harsh and hurtful decrees working grievous woes, conduct, I mean, such as wickedness prompts, and free indulgence of the passions. But the king in the first place resorts to persuasion rather than decrees, and in the next place issues directions such as to enable a vessel, the living being I mean, to make life's voyage successfully, piloted by the good pilot, who is right principle. Le t the despot's title therefore be ruler of war, the king's prince, of peace, of Salem, and let him offer to the soul food full of joy and gladness ; for he brings bread and wine, things which Ammonites and Moabites refused to supply to the seeing one, on which account they are excluded from the olivine congregation and assembly. These characters, Ammonites deriving their nature from sense-perception their mother, and Moabites deriving theirs from mind their father, who hold that all things owe their coherence to these two things, mind and sense-perception, and take no thought of God, " shall not enter," saith Moses, " into the congregation of the Lord, because they did not meet us with bread and water " (Deut. xxiii. 3 f.) when we came out from the passions of Egypt.
XXVI. But let Melchizedek instead of water offer wine, and give to souls strong drink, that they may be seized by a divine intoxication, more sober than
sobriety itself. For he is a priest . even Reason, having as his portion Him that is, and all his thoughts of God are high and vast and sublime : for he is
priest of the Most High (Gen. xiv. 18), not that there is any other not Most High—for God being One " is in heaven above and on earth beneath,
and there is none beside Him " (Deut. iv. 39)—but to conceive of God not in low earthbound ways but in lofty terms, such as transcend all other greatness
and all else that is free from matter, calls up in us a picture of the Most High. And again in what follows Allegorical Interpretation 3.140 "" And the Lord God said to the serpent, Cursed art thou from among all cattle and from among all the beasts of the earth " (Gen. iii. 14) 3.140 "" On thy breast and belly shalt thou go " (Gen. iii. 14)." 3.160 There is an excellent point in the next words too : " Thou shalt go upon thy breast and thy belly " (Gen. iii. 14). 3.161 "The sentence " Earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life " (Gen. iii. 14) is an apt one. Allegorical Interpretation 3.182 "" And I will put enmity between thee and the woman " (Gen. iii. 15). 3.187 "The sentence " he shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel " (Gen. iii. 15) is a barbarism, but has a perfectly correct meaning. It is addressed to the serpent concerning the woman, but the woman is not " he " but " she." On Husbandry 107 Eve's serpent is represented by the lawgiver as thirsting for man's blood, for he says in the curses pronounced on it, " He shall lie in wait for thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel " (Gen. iii. 15) On the Migration of Abraham 66 For that which was said, " Upon thy breast and thy belly shalt thou go " (Gen. iii. 14), in the literal sense applies to the serpent, but is really a truly Divine oracle applying to every irrational and passion-loving man 40.Allegorical Interpretation 3,200 "And to the woman He said, " I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy groaning " (Gen. iii. 16). Woman, who is, as we have seen, Sense, is the subject of an experience peculiarly her own, namely grief, which is called " sorrow " 41.Allegorical Interpretation 3.216 For if a thought of God come into the mind, He forthwith blesses it and heals all its sicknesses. Sense, however, is always sorrowing and groaning, and with pangs and incurable pain bringing forth perception, as God Himself says, " In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children" (Gen. iii. 16) 42.Allegorical Interpretation 3. " And to thy husband," He says, " shall
be thy resort " (Gen. iii. 16). 43. " Allegorical Interpretation 3. To Adam God said, * Because thou hast listened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee not to eat [of it thou hast eaten], cursed is the ground in respect of thy labours α ' " (Gen. iii. 17). Allegorical Interpretation Allegorical Interpretation 3.246 "The words " and thou didst eat of the tree of which alone I commanded thee not to eat " are equivalent to " thou didst consent to wickedness, which it is thy duty to keep off with all thy might " : because of this " cursed "—not " art thou " but " is the earth in thy works " (Gen. iii. 17). 44. Allegorical Interpretation 3.249 " Thorns therefore and burrs shall it cause to spring up for thee " (Gen. iii. 18). 45.Allegorical Interpretation 3.250 " And thou shalt eat the grass of the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread " (Gen. iii. 18 f.). 46.Allegorical Interpretation 3.251 "" Until," He says, " thou shalt turn back into the earth, from which thou wert taken " (Gen. iii.18) On the Migration of Abraham 3 Moses is a witness to this, when he says, " Earth thou art and into earth shalt thou return " (Gen. iii. 19) ; indeed he also says that the body was clay formed into human shape by God's moulding hand, and what suffers solution must needs be resolved into the elements which were united to form it. 47.Migration of Abraham 53 " For Adam," it says, " called the name of his wife ' Life/ because she is the mother of all things living " (Gen. iii. 20), 48 Questions and Answers 1.53 Why does God make tunics of skin for Adam and his wife and clothe them ? Some may ridicule the text when they consider the cheapness " of the apparel of tunics, as being unworthy of the touch '^ of such a Creator. 49.On the Confusion of Tongues 168 We should give careful consideration to the question of what is implied by the words which. are put into the mouth of God. " Come and let us go down and confuse their tongue there " (Gen. xi. 7). For it is clear that He is conversing with some persons whom He treats as His fellow-workers, and we find the same in an earlier passage of the formation of man. Here we have " The Lord God said * let us make man in our own image and likeness'" (Gen. i. 26); where the words " let us make " imply plurality. And once more, " God said,' behold Adam has become as one of us by knowing good and evil (Gen. iii. 22) ; here the " us " in " as one of us " is said not of one, but of more than one. Questions and Answers 1.54 To whom does He say, " Behold, Adam is as one of us, to know good and evil " ? " One of us " indicates plurality." But it must not be thought that He spoke with His powers,* which He used as instruments " in making the whole universe."* 50. Questions and Answers 1.55 What is the meaning of the words, " Lest perchance he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat and live forever " ? For there is neither doubt ** nor envy " in God. 51.On the Cherubim 1 "And God cast out Adam, and placed him opposite the paradise of happiness; and he placed there the cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of Life. (Gen 3:24) Questions and Answers 1.56 Why did He place" over against Paradise the cherubim and the fiery * sword, which was turning, to guard the way to the tree of life ? The cherubim are symbols of the two primary attributes" of God, namely the creative '^ and the kingly,* of which one is called God,^ and the other, the kingly one, is called Lord." And the form of the creative attribute is a benevolent and friendly and beneficent '* power. But that of the kingly attribute is legislative and punitive.* Moreover " fiery sword " is a symbolical name for heaven, for the ether ^ is flamelike and turns round the world.*' And as all these have undertaken the guarding of Paradise, it is evident that they are overseers of wisdom,^ like a mirror. For in a certain sense"* the wisdom of the world was a mirror of the powers of God, in accordance with which it became perfect" and this universe is governed and managed." But the road to wisdom is called philosophy, for the creative power is a lover of wisdom ^ ; so also the kingly power is a lover of wisdom, and the world too is a lover of wisdom. But there are some who say that the fiery sword is the sun, since by its revolution and turning it reveals the yearly seasons,' as if it were the guardian of life and of whatever leads to the life of all things. ButAllegorical Interpretation 1.96 " And the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of delight, to till the ground, out of which he was taken " (Gen. iii. 23). This is to show that, since " the Lord " as Master and " God " as Benefactor had issued the commands, so in both capacities does He inflict punishment on him who had disobeyed them. For he dismisses the disobedient by the exercise of the very powers which He had exercised
in urging him to obedience 52.The Cherubim "And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and brought forth Cain; and she said I have gotten a man by means of the Lord; and he caused her also to bring forth Abel his Brother." (Gen 4.1) Questions and Answers 1.57 Was it correctly said about Cain, " I have acquired " a man through God " ? ^ (Concerning acquisition) a distinction is made between " by someone " " or " from someone " •* and " through something "^ or " from something," that is, from matter.^ " Through someone " means through a cause," and " through something " means through an instrument.* But the father and creator of the universe^ is not an instrument but a cause. Accordingly he errs against correct thinking ^ who says that things * come into being not by the agency of God * but through God."*
On Abraham 12 "If then any one were to reckon the generations, from the first man, who was made out of the earth, he will find him who, by the Chaldaeans is called Enos, and in the Greek language anthroµpos (the man), to be the fourth in succession, (13) and in numbers the number four is honoured among other philosophers, who have studied and admired the incorporeal essences, appreciable only by the intellect, and especially by the all-wise Moses, who magnifies the number four, and says that it is "holy and Praiseworthy;"
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
The chief implications of this 'rediscovery' of the original LXX (i.e. that the existing LXX is a later Christian creation) is as follows:
1. that Genesis 1.26 makes explicit that 'Lord God' = us or a plurality of beings rather than a literary habit assigned to a Yahwehist and Elohimist writer. Yahweh appeared earliest in the narrative (= chapter 1) than in later recensions of the text (i.e. MT, Samaritan)
2. that Elohim was identified as an anthropomorphic being despite Philo's protests
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
While Philo's biblical text is relatively close to the modern critical text of the LXX, there are enough diferences that we can not ignore them. There have been three major explanations of the variations. First, early in the history of Philonic most believed that Philo used the LXX and that the aberrations were relatively minor. Thomas Mangey, who compiled the first critical edition of Philo wrote, Philo ubique sequitur LXX. Those who attempted to explain the differences thought that they were a result of a wide variety of factors, including substantial textual diferences as well as deliberate and accidental transmission factors. An anonymous reviewer of Mangey challenged his conclusion and suggested an alternative explanation. The reviewer thought that the frequency of the variants suggested that Philo followed a diferent text than the LXX or that someone redacted his biblical text in light of Aquila's verison. This suggestion gained momentum during the preparations during the preparations of the editio major of Philo. Paul Wendland thought that Philo's citations were most similar to those of the Lucianic recension. An allusion to Eberhard Nestle in his article set of a debate between the learned text critic and the two editors of Philo. Nestle preferred the text closer to the Hebrew represented by manuscripts U and F, while Wendland and Leopold Cohn that this text—like the later translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion—was a later correction of the text that Philo read. The view of Mangey's reviewer and Nestle reached an apex in the dissertation of Augustus Schröder who argued that the variant readings in Philo were closer to the Hebrew than the LXX and constituted the oldest known form of the Greek version. He was capably seconded by Paul Kahle whose inuence gave the view significant weight. Ironically, it was Kahle who set in motion the work that led to the third view, a view anticipated by Cohn and Wendland. At a patristic conference held at Oxford in 1940, Kahle suggested to Peter Katz, later known as Peter Walters, that the aberrant quotations should be studied carefully. Katz took Kahle up on his suggestion but reversed Kahle's hypothesis by arguing that Philo used the LXX and that a fourth to sixth century copyist revised Philo's biblical citations. The aberrant text was thus a secondary text, not Philo's text. https://books.google.com/books?id=JK4k- ... 22&f=false
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
I think the idea that Philo used our LXX is unworkable for several reasons - most notably his arguments about Genesis 1.27 having 'Lord God' rather than 'God' are quite explicit. So Kahle's hypothesis is more likely to be true.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote