The Works of Philo Judaeus

I. " And it came to pass when there began to be many men upon the earth, that daughters also were born to them." I think it here worth while to raise the question why, after the birth of Noah and his sons, our race increased to a degree of great populousness. But, perhaps, it is not difficult to explain the cause of this ; for it always happens if anything appears to be rare that its contrary is found exceedingly numerous. Therefore, the good disposition of one displays the evil disposition of myriads, and the fact of those things which are done in accordance with art, and science, and virtue, and beauty, being few, shows how incalculable a number of things devoid of art, and of science, and of justice, and, in short, utterly worthless, lie concealed beneath. Do you not see that in the universe, also, the sun, being one body, by his shining forth dissipates the thick and dense darkness which is shed over earth and sea? With great propriety, therefore, the generation of the just Noah and his sons is represented as bringing into existence a great number of unjust persons ; for it is by the contrary that it is especially the nature of contraries to be known. And no unjust man at any time implants a masculine generation in the soul, but such, being unmanly, and broken, and effeminate in their minds, do naturally become the parents of female children ; having planted no tree of virtue, the fruit of which must of necessity have been beautiful and salutary, but only trees of wickedness and of the passions, the shoots of which are womanlike. On account, of which fact these men are said to have become the fathers of daughters, and that no one of them is said to and sedition, if we must speak the truth, is the archetypal model Genesis vL 1. have begotten a son; for since the just Noah had male children, as being a man who followed reason, perfect, and upright, and masculine, so by this very fact the injustice of the multitude is proved to be altogether the parent of female children. For it is impossible that the same things should be born of opposite parents ; but they must necessarily have an opposite offspring.

XII. As, therefore, among men in general, that is to say, among those who propose to themselves many objects in life, the divine spirit does not remain, even though it may abide among them for a very short time, but it remains among one species of men alone, namely, among those who, having put off all the things of creation, and the inmost veil and covering Numbers xiv. ii. f Deut. y. 31. { Exodus xviii. 14. Z 2 ;U0 ruiLO jud^us. of false opinion, come to God in their unconcealed and naked minds. Thus also Moses, having fixed his tent outside of the tabernacle and outside of all the corporeal arm}', that is to say, having established his mind so that it should not move, begins to worship God, and having entered into the darkness, that invisible country, remains there, performing the most sacred mysteries ; and he becomes, not merely an initiated man, but also an hierophant of mysteries and a teacher of divine things, which he 'will explain to those whose ears are purified ; therefore the divine spirit is always standing by him, conducting him in every right way : but from other men, as I have said before, it very soon separates itself, and completes their life in the number of a hundred and twenty years. For God says, " their days shall be an hundred and twenty years ;"t but Moses, when he had arrived at that number of years, departed from mortal life to another. How, then, can it be natural for men who are guilty to live an equal length of time with the all-wise prophet? for the present, it will be sufficient to say this, that things which bear the same name are not in all cases alike, but very often they are distinct in their whole genus ; and also that which is bad may have equal numbers and times with what is good, since they are represented as twofold, but still they have their respective powers, distinct from one another, and as remote and different as possible. And we shall hereafter institute a more exact discussion of this period of a hundred and twenty years, which we will however postpone, till we come to an examination of the whole life of the prophet, when we have become fit to be initiated in it, but at present we will discuss what comes next in order.

XIII. " And there were giants on the earth in those days. "J Perhaps some one may here think, that the lawgiver is speaking enigmatically and alluding to the fables handed doAvn by the poets about giants, though he is a man as far removed as possible from any invention of fables, and one who thinks fit ouly to walk in the paths of truth itself; in consequence of which principle, he has banished from the constitution, which he has established, those celebrated and beautiful arts of statuary and painting, because they, falsely imitating the nature of the truth, contrive deceits and snares, in order, through the medium of the eyes, to beguile the souls which are liable to be easily won over. Exodus xxxiii. 7. + Deut. xxiv. 7. £ Genesis vi. 4 . Therefore be utters no fable whatever respecting the giants ; but he wishes to set this fact before your eyes, that some men are born of the earth, and some are born of heaven, and some are born of God : those are born of the earth, who are hunters after the pleasures of the body, devoting themselves to the enjoyment and fruition of them, and being eager to provide themselves with all things that tend to each of them. Those again are born of heaven who are men of skill and science and devoted to learning ; for the heavenly portion of us is our mind, and the mind of every one of those persons who are bom of heaven studies the encyclical branches of education and every other art of every description, sharpening, and exercising, and practising itself, and rendering itself acute in all those matters which are the objects of intellect. Lastly, those who are born of God are priests and prophets, who have not thought fit to mix themselves up in the constitutions of this world, and to become cosmopolites, but who having raised themselves above all the objects of the mere outward senses, have departed and fixed their views on that world which is perceptible only by the intellect, and have settled there, being inscribed in the state of incorruptible incorporeal ideas.

XXV. Reject therefore with all your might all idea of pleasing the keepers of the prison ; but on the contrary, with all your ability and all your earnestness, labour to please hira who is the cause of all things ; and if you are unable to do so, (for the greatness of his dignity is exceeding high), at all events advance, without ever turning back, towards his powers, and present yourself to them as their suppliant, until they admitting the continual assiduity and sincerity of your service, place you in the ranks of those who have pleased them, as they did Noah, of whose descendants Moses has made a most admirable and novel catalogue ; for he says, " These are the generations of Noah : Noah was a just man, being perfect in his generation, and Noah pleased God"; for the descendants of the compound being were naturally compound beings also themselves ; for horses do of necessity beget horses, and lions beget lions, bulls become the parents of bulls, and so too men beget men ; but such things are not the appropriate offspring of a good mind; the progeny of that, are the virtues before mentioned, namely the being a man, the being just, the being perfect, the pleasing God, which last particular, inasmuch as it is the crowning one, and as it were the boundary of perfect happiness, is enumerated last of all. But there is one kind of creation, which is a sort of conducting and travelling from that which does not exist to existence. This is the one which plants, and animals do of necessity use; and there is another kind, which, is a transition and change from a better genus to a worse species, which Moses mentions when he says, "These are the generations of Jacob ; Joseph when he was seventeen years of age, was keeping the sheep with his brethren, being a youth with the sons of Billah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. "f For when this reason inclined to meditation and devoted to learning, was driven down from its more divine speculations, human and mortal opinions, then Joseph, the companion of the body, and of all the things which pertain to the body was born, being still but a youth, even though in the lapse of time he may become greyheaded, as being one who never listened to any older discourse or opinions, which the companions of Moses acquired as the most useful possessions for themselves and their disciples. On this account it seems to Genesis vi. 9. t Genesis xxxvii. 2. me that Moses wishing to describe his figure and to give a more accurate idea of his appearance, so as to make it known, introduced him as tending his father's sheep, not in the company of any one of his father's legitimate sons, but with his illegitimate brethren, who, being the sons of concubines, derive their name from the inferior sex, that of the women, and not from the superior sex, that, namely of the man ; for they here are called the sons of Jacob's wives, Billah and Zilpah, and not the sons of their father Israel.