json/Second Temple/Philo/On Flight and Finding/English/merged.json

{
    "title": "On Flight and Finding",
    "language": "en",
    "versionTitle": "merged",
    "versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org/On_Flight_and_Finding",
    "text": {
        "Introduction": [
            "ON FLIGHT AND FINDING (DE FUGA ET INVENTIONE) ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION",
            "This treatise, which follows at once on the preceding, continues the exposition of Genesis 16 from the middle of vs. 6 to vs. 12, omitting vs. 10. These verses are quoted in full in § 1, but the discussion is chiefly confined to a few words or phrases, namely “fled,” “found,” and “fountain.” The first point to be noted is that Hagar fled. Flight may be due to three different causes: hatred, fear, and shame (2–3). Hagar is an example of the third, and the story shows that the inward monitor or Elenchus, which is typified by the angel, taught her that this shame must be tempered by courage (4–6).",
            "But we must first say something about the other two causes of flight. Hatred was the cause of Jacob’s flight from Laban. Here the two may stand from one point of view for the materialistic and the theistic creed respectively, and from another for the fool and the wise (7–13). On either interpretation the Jacob soul, finding itself unable to correct the Laban soul, will flee from association with it and repudiate it. Jacob’s wives, that is his powers, joined in this repudiation, and that part of their speech in which they say that God has taken from Laban his wealth and glory and given them to themselves lead to a short meditation on true wealth and glory (15–19). A further proof of the need of flight is drawn from Laban’s expostulation that he would have sent Jacob forth with mirth and music, which the Practiser knows to be mere enticement to return to the lower life (20–22).",
            "For flight caused by fear we have the flight of Jacob to Laban and Haran before the wrath of Esau. Here Laban represents the brilliancy of secular life, and the lesson to be drawn is that the right way to answer the unjust, when they claim that the good things of the world fall to them, is to shew how these good things can be justly used (23–27). Let us not therefore shrink from wealth, from power, or from the banquet. Our liberality will convict the spendthrift and the miser, our just administration the tyrant, and our abstemiousness the glutton (28–32). Indeed those who affect the ascetic life are for the most part hypocrites, and to function in the outer world is the best preparation for the higher life of contemplation (33–37). The ministry to men must precede the ministry to God (38).",
            "Again, Jacob’s flight to Haran will signify the proper attitude of the soul in the practising and progressive stage. It must fly the hard ignorance of Esau, but also it is not as yet fit to share the higher life of Isaac (39–43). And Laban to whom it is sent is after all called the brother of Rebecca or persistence, while Haran where he lives represents, as elsewhere, the world of sense, the knowledge of which is necessary to the progressing, and after some days he will be recalled thence to the higher life (44–47). Similarly Isaac bids him go to Mesopotamia, that is to the mid-torrent of life’s river, and to the house of Bethuel or daughter of God, wisdom, that is, who, though a daughter, is also a father (48–52).",
            "Other thoughts on flight are suggested by the cities of refuge. The law states that the intentional murderer shall be put to death, but that the unintentional homicide may find refuge in an appointed place (53). Before, however, considering this latter point, he notes that the first clause of the law runs: “If a man strikes another and he dies, let him be put to death with death.” Philo, as so often, fails to understand that the last words of this are the Greek translation of the common Hebrew idiom for “surely be put to death,” and infers that “dying with death” indicates the real, the spiritual death (54–55). Other texts are quoted to shew that, as virtue is the true life, vice is the true death (56–59), though, in another sense, vice can never die, as shewn by the sign given to Cain (60–64). Another part of the same text, where it is said of the involuntary homicide that God delivered the victim to his hands, suggests that God employs subordinate ministers for the lower, though beneficial and necessary, work of punishment, and this he supports, as elsewhere, by the use of “we” in the first chapter of Genesis, and the entrustment of cursing to the less worthy and of blessing to the worthier tribes (65–74). Again, the words “I will give thee a place” may be understood to mean that God Himself is the place where the innocent can take refuge (75–76). When we read that the wilful murderer who takes refuge in a sanctuary shall be dragged from it and put to death, it means that the voluntary evil-doer, who takes refuge with God, that is, ascribes to Him the responsibility for his sins, blasphemes (77–82); and how deadly a sin blasphemy against the Divine Parent is, is shown by the very next words where the death penalty is assigned to those who speak ill of their earthly parents (83–84). The cities of refuge are only for those who truly understand the difference between the voluntary and involuntary (85–86).",
            "As to the cities of refuge, four questions arise: (1) why they are in Levitical territory; (2) why they are six in number; (3) why three are beyond Jordan and three in Canaan; (4) why the refugee must remain till the death of the High Priest (87). The answer to the first is that the Levites themselves are fugitives from human ties, and also, as in the story of Exodus 32, the slayers of their kinsfolk, interpreted as the body, the unreasoning nature, and speech (88–93). To the second and the third questions the answer is that, of the six potencies of God where the guiltless may take refuge, three stand far above humanity, while three are closer to our nature (95–105). To answer the fourth point, which he thinks can hardly be understood literally without absurdity, Philo identifies the High Priest with the Logos and points out various analogies between the two. He thus explains the ordinance as meaning that, while this High Priest lives in the soul, the sins which have been banished cannot return (106–118).",
            "The second part of the treatise (119–175) is concerned with finding, which naturally calls up the idea of seeking. We have four variants of this: not seeking and not finding, seeking and finding, not seeking and finding, seeking and not finding (119–120). The first of these is dismissed very rapidly with one or two illustrations of which Pharaoh’s obstinacy is the chief (121–125). Seeking and finding is shewn in the case of Joseph who, prompted by a “man,” that is the inward monitor, “found” his brethren in Dothan, the place of those who have abandoned delusion (126–131); of Isaac who asked “where is the victim?” and “found” that God would provide it (132–135); of the Israelites who asked about the manna, and “found” that it was the Word of God (137–139); of Moses who, when questioning his mission, “found” the answer in “I will be with you” (140–142). For seeking and not finding we have the examples of Laban seeking the images, the Sodomites seeking the door, Korah seeking the priesthood, and Pharaoh seeking Moses to kill him (143–148). Then follows a more elaborate allegorizing of the story of Judah’s intercourse with Tamar into a picture of the earnest soul wooing piety, to which he first gives as pledges the ring of trustworthiness, the chain of consistency, and the staff of discipline, and afterwards, to test her fidelity, sends the kid which represents the good things of secular life. The connexion of this story with the subject lies in the phrase “the messenger did not ‘find’ her” (149–156). Then, after a shorter spiritualizing of the incident of the goat of the sin-offering in Leviticus 10. (157–160), the story of the Burning Bush is interpreted as the fruitless desire of the soul to know the causes of phenomena which are ever perishing and yet are ever renewed (161–165).",
            "The fourth head of finding without seeking suggests many points which have been noted elsewhere; primarily, of course, the self-taught nature, Isaac, and then the delivery of the Hebrew women before the midwives come, the speed with which Jacob found the meat which God delivered into his hand, and the automatic growth on the fallow land in the Sabbatical year (166–172). This last naturally leads to some thought on the Sabbatical gift of peace (173–174), but to Philo’s mind the best example is the promise to the Israelites in Deuteronomy of cities, houses, cisterns, vineyards, oliveyards, for which they have not laboured, all of them really types of spiritual blessings (175–176).",
            "The next phrase in the text which calls for discussion is “spring of water.” “Spring” is used as the symbol for five different things: first for the mind, which in the Creation story is described as the spring which waters the whole face of the earth, <i>i.e</i>. of the body (177–182); secondly it is used for education, and thus the twelve springs of Elim or “gateway” signify the Encyclia, the gateway to knowledge; and, since beside these springs there grew up seventy palm-trees, we have a short digression on the virtues of the two numbers (183–187). Thirdly there are the springs of folly, and this is illustrated by the phrase “uncovering the fount of the woman,” where the woman is sense and her husband mind, and uncovering the fount comes when the sleeping mind allows each of the senses to have free play (188–193). Fourthly there are the springs of wisdom, from which Rebecca drew (194–196); and fifthly God Himself, Who is called by Jeremiah the fountain of life. And since Jeremiah adds that the wicked dig for themselves broken cisterns which hold no water, we see the contrast with the wise who, like Abraham and Isaac, dig real wells (197–201).",
            "The fountain by which Hagar was found was the fountain of wisdom, but hers was not yet a soul which could draw from it (202). The treatise concludes with shorter notes on a few other phrases in the passage. When the angel asked, “Whence comest thou, and whither goest thou?” it was not because he did not know the answer, since his omniscience is shewn by his knowing that the child would be a boy. The first part of the question was a rebuke for her flight, the second an indication of the uncertainty of the future (205–206). Something is added about the description given in the angel’s words of the Ishmael or sophist nature (207–211). And finally we note that Hagar acknowledges the angel as God, for to one in her lower stage of servitude God’s servants are as God Himself (211-end)."
        ],
        "": [
            [
                "[1] “And Sarai evil-entreated her, and she fled from her face. And an angel of the Lord found her at the fountain of water in the wilderness, at the fountain in the way to Shur. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, ‘Handmaid of Sarai, whence comest thou? and whither goest thou?’ And she said, ‘From the face of Sarai my mistress I am fleeing.’ And the angel of the Lord said unto her, ‘Return to thy mistress, and humble thyself under her hands’ (Gen. 16:6–9). And the angel of the Lord said unto her, ‘Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son; and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath hearkened to thy humiliation. He shall be a dweller in the fields; his hands shall be against all men, and all men’s hands shall be against him’ ” (<i>ibid</i>. 11, 12).",
                "[2] Having in the preceding treatise said what was fitting about the courses of preliminary training and about evil-entreatment, we will next proceed to set forth the subject of fugitives. For the Lawgiver has in several places made mention of those who run away, as he does here, saying of Hagar that upon being evil-entreated “she ran away from the face of her mistress.”",
                "[3] There are, I think, three motives for flight: hatred, fear, and shame. From hatred wives leave husbands and husbands wives; from fear children leave their parents and servants their masters; from shame friends leave their fellows when something they have done displeases them. I know fathers whose effeminacy has made them unwilling to face the strict and philosophic life of their sons, and who out of shame have chosen to live in the country instead of in the city.",
                "[4] Instances of the working of these three motives are to be found in the sacred writings. Jacob, the Practiser, as we shall presently shew, flies from his father-in-law Laban out of hatred, from his brother Esau out of fear.",
                "[5] Hagar’s motive for departing is shame.",
                "A sign of this is the fact that an angel, a Divine Word, meets her to advise the right course, and to suggest return to the house of her mistress. This angel addresses her in the encouraging words, “The Lord hath hearkened to thy humiliation” (Gen. 16:11), a humiliation prompted neither by fear nor by hatred, the one the feeling of an ignoble, the other of a quarrelsome soul, but by shame, the outward expression of inward modesty.",
                "[6] Had she run away owing to fear, the angel would probably have moved her who had inspired the fear to a gentler frame of mind; for then, and not till then, would it have been safe for the fugitive to go back. But no angel first approached Sarai, seeing that she is favourably disposed of her own accord. But it is Hagar who is taught by the angel monitor,  whose goodwill to her makes him at once her friend and counsellor, not to feel only shame, but to be of good courage as well; pointing out that shame apart from confidence is but a half virtue."
            ],
            [
                "[7] The ensuing argument will bring to light the more subtle traits of shame. I must now go back to the heads suggested, and must begin with those who run away because of hatred. We are told that “Jacob kept Laban the Syrian in the dark, so as not to tell him that he is fleeing, and he fled, himself and all that belonged to him” (Gen. 31:20 f.).",
                "[8] What, then, was the cause of the hatred? You would like perhaps to be told this. There are people who fashion their God out of substance devoid of quality or form or shape ; but the moving Cause they neither know, nor have taken any trouble to learn from those who do know Him. They have neither mastered nor do they study the fairest subject of all, the first, nay the only one, whose knowledge it was a vital matter for them to acquire.",
                "[9] Laban is of this class; for the sacred oracles assign to him the flock that is without mark (Gen. 30:42); and in the universe it is the matter devoid of quality and in men the ignorant and untutored soul that is without mark.",
                "[10] Others there are of the better part, who said that Mind came and ordered all things,  bringing the disorder that prevailed in existing things as the result of mob-rule into the order of regular government under a king. Of this company Jacob is a votary, who is in charge of the variegated flock, marked and distinguished; and in the universe it is form that has variety and distinction, while among men it is the understanding, well-trained and loving to learn.",
                "[11] The man of mark, associate of true monarchy, has imbibed in full measure the inbred spirit of fellowship, and comes to the man of no mark, when he fashions, as I said before, material sovereignties as Divine, and holds no sovereignty outside of these to be efficient,—comes to him to teach him that he is mistaken.",
                "[12] For the world has come into being, and assuredly it has done so under the hand of some Cause; and the Word of Him who makes it is Himself the seal, by which each thing that exists has received its shape. Accordingly from the outset form in perfection accompanies the things that come into being, for it is an impress and image of the perfect Word.",
                "[13] For the living creature that has come into being is imperfect in quantity, as is shewn by its constant growth as its age advances, but perfect in quality; for the same quality continues, inasmuch as it is the impress of a Divine Word ever continuing and free from every kind of change. "
            ],
            [
                "[14] Jacob, seeing that Laban has grown deaf to instruction or lawful authority, naturally plans to run away, fearing lest, besides being unable to help, he should suffer harm at his hands. For association with men devoid of sense is hurtful, and the soul often involuntarily takes the impressions of their mad folly; and in the nature of things culture feels a repugnance towards lack of culture, and painstaking towards carelessness.",
                "[15] And so the faculties of the Practiser lift their voice aloud, proclaiming  their grounds for hatred: “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house? Are we not counted of him strangers? For he hath sold us, and hath also quite devoured our money. All the riches and the glory, which God took away from our father, shall be for us and for our children” (Gen. 31:14–16).",
                "[16] For being free both in names  and in sentiments, they deem no senseless man to be rich or glorious, but all such, speaking broadly, to be poor and inglorious, even if they surpass in fortune wealthy kings. For they do not say that they will have their father’s wealth, but that which was taken away from their father, nor his glory, but the glory that was taken away from him.",
                "[17] The worthless man is destitute of the real riches and the true gloriousness; for these good things are won by sound sense and self-mastery and the dispositions akin to these, which are the inheritance of virtue-loving souls.",
                "[18] Accordingly it is not the things that pertain to the good-for-nothing man, but those of which he has been stripped, that are affluence and renown to the worthy. Virtues are what has been stripped from him, and has become the property of the worthy, thus bringing into harmony what is said elsewhere: “we will sacrifice the abominations of Egypt to the Lord our God” (Exod. 8:26); for victims perfect and free from blemish are the virtues and virtuous conduct, and these the Egyptian body, in its devotion to the passions, abominates.",
                "[19] For even as in this passage, understood in accordance with reality, things which Egyptians reckon profane are called sacred in the estimation of the keen-sighted, and are all offered in sacrifice; exactly in the same way, the things of which every foolish man has been deprived and stripped, these the comrade of nobility of character will inherit. And these are real glory, indistinguishable from knowledge, and wealth, not the blind wealth, but that which has the keenest sight for the things that actually are, which accepts no counterfeit coinage, nay nothing whatever that is soulless, even though it be approved coin. ",
                "[20] Right fitly, therefore, will Jacob run away from the man who has no part in the good things of God, the man who, even in finding fault with another, impugns himself without knowing it when he says, “If thou hadst told me, I would have sent thee forth” (Gen. 31:27). For this alone would have been a sufficient ground for flight, if, when you were the slave of ten thousand masters, you assumed the style of dominion and lordship and proclaimed liberty to others.",
                "[21] I however, says Jacob, took no man to help me to find the way that leads to virtue, but paid heed to Divine oracles bidding me depart hence, and to this moment they guide my steps.",
                "[22] And how wouldst thou have sent me forth? Would it have been, as thou didst grandiloquently recount, “with merriment” that caused me pain, and “music” all unmusical, and “drums” noises inarticulate and meaningless, inflicting blows on the soul through the ears, “and with cithara” (<i>ibid</i>.), not instruments but modes of conduct void of melody or harmony? Nay, these are the very things that made me plan flight; but you, it seems, devised them as means of diverting me back from flight, to induce me to retrace my steps for the sake of the power to cheat and mislead inbred in those senses which I had with difficulty gained strength to tread underfoot."
            ],
            [
                "[23] Hatred, then, was the cause of the flight that has been spoken of, but fear of that of which I am about to speak. For we read as follows: “Rebecca said to Jacob, ‘Lo, Esau thy brother threatens to kill thee. Now therefore, child, listen to my voice and arise and flee to Laban my brother to Haran, and live with him for some days, until the wrath and anger of thy brother turn away, and he forget the things which thou hast done to him: and I will send and fetch thee thence’ ” (Gen. 27:42–45).",
                "[24] For there is reason to fear lest the worse part of the soul set an ambush and lie in wait, or even openly arm, and then overthrow and cast down the better part. And this is excellent advice given by Rebecca, that is, by judicious Patience. ",
                "[25] Whenever, she says, you see the base one flowing in full current against virtue, and taking much account of things which it ought to disregard, of wealth, fame, pleasure, when he extols injustice as the author of each of these, and points out that it is mostly wrongdoers who attain to fame and to abundance of gold and silver, do not take at once the opposite direction, and practise penury and humility and a strict and unsocial mode of life; for in this way you will rouse your adversary’s spirit and stimulate  a more dangerous foe to the contest against you.",
                "[26] Consider, then, by what course of action you are to escape his machinations. Adapt yourself, not to his pursuits and practices, but to the objects which serve to create them —honours, offices, silver, gold, possessions, different forms and colours, beautiful objects. And whenever you meet with these, do as a good artist does, and engrave upon the material substances a form as good as possible, and thus accomplish a work which may win men’s praise.",
                "[27] You know well how, when an unskilled man takes charge of a vessel that is quite capable of making a safe voyage, he upsets it, whereas a skilled helmsman often saves one which is sinking; and how sick folk, under the care of inexperienced attendants, fall into a dangerous condition of body, while those who meet with experienced attendants recover even from dangerous diseases. I need not labour the point. It is invariably the case that what is done with skill shews up and convicts what is done without it, and true praise accorded to the one is sure condemnation of the other."
            ],
            [
                "[28] If, then, you desire thoroughly to expose the worthless man of wealth, do not refuse abundance of wealth. He, miserable creature, will be seen in his true colours, either with the instincts of a slave rather than a gentleman, a skinflint and a splitpenny; or on the other hand as living in a whirl of prodigality, ever ready to fling away money and to guzzle—an ever-active patron of courtesans, pimps, panders, and every licentious crew.",
                "[29] You will contribute freely to needy friends, will make bountiful gifts to serve your country’s wants, you will help parents without means to marry their daughters, and provide them with an ample dowry; you will all but throw your private property into the common stock and invite all deserving of kindness to take a share.",
                "[30] In exactly the same way, when someone is crazy after fame and full of boastfulness, if you wish to cast reproach on the sorry fellow, do not turn your back upon popular applause if you have an opportunity of winning honour, and then, while the poor braggart strides conceitedly along, you will send him tumbling. While he will misuse his distinguished position to insult and disgrace others better than himself, and will exalt worse men above them, you on the other hand will make all worthy men sharers in the advantages of your good name, securing the position of the better kind, and improving the worse by your counsel.",
                "[31] Again, if you go to a luxurious repast where the wine flows freely, go without hesitation; for you will put the intemperate man to shame by having yourself well in hand.  He will fall upon his belly and open his insatiable appetites before he opens his mouth, cram himself in unseemly fashion, grab at his next neighbour’s food, and gobble up everything without a blush; and when he is thoroughly sated with eating, he will as the poets say “drink with a yawning maw,”  and incur the mocking and ridicule of all who see him.",
                "[32] But you, when there is no compulsion, will drink in moderation; and should you be forced in any case to indulge more freely, you will place the compulsion under the charge of reason, and never debase pleasure to the displeasure of others, but, if we may so speak, get soberly drunken. "
            ],
            [
                "[33] Truth would therefore rightly find fault with those who without full consideration give up the business and financial side of a citizen’s life, and say that they have conceived a contempt for fame and pleasure. For they do not despise these things, they are practising an imposture. Their dirty bodies and gloomy faces, the rigour and squalour of their pinched life, are so many baits to lead others to regard them as lovers of orderliness and temperance and endurance.",
                "[34] But they are unable to deceive the more sharp-sighted, who peer inside and refuse to be taken in by what meets the eye. For they thrust this back as mere screening of quite different things, and get a view of the true nature of the things concealed within, which, if they are beautiful, they admire, but if ugly, ridicule and loathe them for their hypocrisy.",
                "[35] To such men, then, let us say: Do you affect the life that eschews social intercourse with others, and courts solitary loneliness? Well, what proof did you ever give before this of noble social qualities? Do you renounce money-making? When engaged in business, were you determined to be just in your dealings? Would you make a show of paying no regard to the pleasures of the belly and the parts below it—say, when you had abundant material for indulging in these, did you exercise moderation? Do you despise popular esteem? Well, when you held posts of honour, did you practise simplicity? State business is an object of ridicule to you people. Perhaps you have never discovered how serviceable a thing it is.",
                "[36] Begin, then, by getting some exercise and practice in the business of life both private and public; and when by means of the sister virtues, household-management and statesmanship, you have become masters in each domain, enter now, as more than qualified to do so, on your migration to a different and more excellent way of life. For the practical comes before the contemplative life; it is a sort of prelude to a more advanced contest; and it is well to have fought it out first. By taking this course you will avoid the imputation of shrinking from it through sheer laziness.",
                "[37] It was on this principle too that the Levites were charged to perform their active service until the age of fifty (Numb. 4:3 ff.), but, when released from their practical ministry, to make everything an object of observation and contemplation; receiving as a prize for duty well done in the active life a quite different way of life whose delight is in knowledge and study of principles alone.",
                "[38] And apart from this, it is a vital matter that those who venture to make the claims of God their aim and study should first have fully met those of men; for it is sheer folly to suppose that you will reach the greater while you are incapable of mastering the lesser. Therefore first make yourselves familiar with virtue as exercised in our dealings with men, to the end that you may be introduced to that also which has to do with our relation to God."
            ],
            [
                "[39] Such is the substance of the advice which Patience gives to the Man of Practice, but the actual words need detailed treatment. “Behold,” she says, “Esau thy brother is threatening thee.” Is it not the case that the character which is hard and wooden, whose ignorance makes it disobedient, the character called “Esau,” nurses a grudge, and, offering the baits of this mortal life to destroy thee, money, fame, pleasures, and the like, is bent on killing thee? “But do thou, my child, flee from the present contest: for not yet has thy strength reached its full development, but, as is natural in a boy, the sinews of thy soul lack firmness.”",
                "[40] This is why she addressed him as “child,” a title at the same time expressive of kindly feeling and suited to a tender age; for we regard the character of the Practiser both as young compared with the fully developed and as lovable. Such a one is quite capable of winning the prizes that are offered to boys, but is not as yet able to carry off those offered to men; and the best prize that men can obtain, is to minister to the only God.",
                "[41] So, when we present ourselves at the courts in which we are to minister not yet thoroughly purified, but having just washed off, as we think, the spots which smirch our life, we hurry away from that ministry more quickly than we came to it, not brooking its severe way of living, and the unsleeping observance and the continuous and unflagging toil which it demands.",
                "[42] Flee, then, at present both that which is worst, and that which is best. Worst is the fabulous fiction,  the poem without metre or melody, the conception and persuasion  which ignorance has rendered hard and wooden in very deed. From this Esau derives his name. Best is the dedicated offering; for the ministering kind is a sacred offering to God, consecrated for the great high priesthood to Him alone.",
                "[43] To spend one’s days with evil is most hurtful: to do so with perfect goodness most dangerous. So Jacob both flees from Esau and moves away from his parents; for being bent on practice and still engaged in a contest, he flies from evil, but is incapable of sharing the life of perfect virtue that learns untaught."
            ],
            [
                "[44] Consequently he will go abroad to Laban, not the Syrian, but his mother’s brother. This means that he will arrive amid the splendours of life, for “Laban” signifies “bright.” And when he has arrived, he will not be elated by his good fortune and have a lofty mien; for, though “aloft” is the translation of “Syrian,” there is no mention here of the Syrian Laban, but only of the brother of Rebecca.",
                "[45] For the ways and means of life placed at the disposal of a worthless man carry his mind up into the height, empty as it is of sound sense, and such a mind is called “Syrian,” but for the man enamoured of discipline, steadfastly and firmly persisting in the principles of nobility of character … this is the brother of Rebecca, or “Persistence”; and he dwells in “Haran,” which in our language is “cavities,” a symbol of the senses; for the man who is still moving upon the stage of this mortal life cannot dispense with the organs of sense.",
                "[46] This mother therefore says, “child, make thine abode with him,” not for ever, but “for a few days” (Gen. 27:44). This means “Learn well the country of the senses; know thyself, and the parts of which thou dost consist, what each is, and for what it was made, and how it is meant to work, and who it is that, all invisible, invisibly sets the puppets  in motion and pulls their strings, whether it be the Mind that is in thee or the Mind of the Universe.",
                "[47] And when thou hast examined thyself, make too a precise scrutiny of all that is peculiar to Laban, even the triumphs of vainglory which are accounted so brilliant. Be not caught by any of these, but, like a good craftsman, skilfully adapt them all to thine own requirements. For if, when placed in this turbid scene of state and city life, thou shalt have displayed a steadfast and well-disciplined character, I will fetch thee thence (Gen. 27:45), that thou mayest obtain the very prize obtained by thy parents: and the prize is the unfaltering and untiring ministry to the only wise Being.”"
            ],
            [
                "[48] Similar instructions are given him by his father, with slight additions; for he says, “Rise up and flee away into Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father, and take to thee thence a wife from the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother” (Gen. 28:2).",
                "[49] Notice here again how he too, when speaking of Laban as intended to become a connexion by marriage with the Practiser, called him not “Syrian” but “brother of Rebecca.” “Flee away,” he says, “into Mesopotamia,” into the midst, that is, of the torrent of life’s river, and take care that thou be not overwhelmed by it and drowned, but set thyself firmly, and beat back with vigour the current of affairs as it comes dashing upon thee with utmost violence, from above and from either side and from all directions.",
                "[50] For thou shalt find the house of wisdom a calm and fair haven, which will welcome thee kindly as thou comest to thy moorings in it; and it is wisdom’s name that the holy oracles proclaim by “Bethuel,” a name meaning in our speech “Daughter of God”; yea, a true-born and ever-virgin daughter, who, by reason alike of her own modesty and of the glory of Him that begot her, hath obtained a nature free from every defiling touch.",
                "[51] He called Bethuel Rebecca’s father. How, pray, can Wisdom, the daughter of God, be rightly spoken of as a father? Is it because, while Wisdom’s name is feminine, her nature is manly? As indeed all the virtues have women’s titles, but powers and activities of consummate men. For that which comes after God, even though it were chiefest of all other things, occupies a second place, and therefore was termed feminine to express its contrast with the Maker of the Universe who is masculine, and its affinity to everything else. For pre-eminence always pertains to the masculine, and the feminine always comes short of and is lesser than it.",
                "[52] Let us, then, pay no heed to the discrepancy in the gender of the words, and say that the daughter of God, even Wisdom, is not only masculine but father, sowing and begetting in souls aptness to learn, discipline, knowledge, sound sense, good and laudable actions. It is from this household that Jacob the Practiser seeks to win a bride. To what other place than to the house of wisdom shall he go to find a partner, a faultless judgement, with whom to spend his days for ever?"
            ],
            [
                "[53] The lawgiver has spoken in greater detail on the subject of flight when laying down the law respecting manslayers, in which he goes into all the different forms, that of intentional slaying, that of unintentional, that of deliberate assault. Read the Law: “If a man smite another and he die, let him die the death. But he that did not intend it, but God delivered him into his hands, I will give thee a place to which the slayer shall flee. And if a man attack his neighbour to slay him by guile and he take refuge, from the altar shalt thou take him to put him to death” (Exod. 21:12–14).",
                "[54] Well knowing that he never puts in a superfluous word, so vast is his  desire to speak plainly and clearly, I began debating with myself why he said that the intentional slayer is not to be put to death only but “by death to be put to death.”",
                "[55] “In what other way,” I asked myself, “does a man who dies come to his end save by death?” So I attended the lectures of a wise woman, whose name is “Consideration,” and was rid of my questioning; for she taught me that some people are dead while living, and some alive while dead. She told me that bad people, prolonging their days to extreme old age, are dead men, deprived of the life in association with virtue, while good people, even if cut off from their partnership with the body, live for ever, and are granted immortality."
            ],
            [
                "[56] She confirmed what she said by holy oracles also, one of them to this effect: “Ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive all of you at this day” (Deut. 4:4). For only those who have taken refuge in God and become His supplicants does Moses recognize as living, accounting the rest to be dead men. Indeed he evidently ascribes immortality to the former by adding “ye are alive ‘to-day.’ ”",
                "[57] Now “to-day” is the limitless age that never comes to an end; for periods of months and years, and of lengths of time generally, are notions of men arising from the high importance which they have attached to number. But the absolutely correct name for “endless age”  is “to-day.” For the sun never changes, but is always the same, going now above, now below, the earth; and through it day and night, the measures of endless age, are distinguished. ",
                "[58] Another oracle by which she verified her statement was this: “Behold, I have given before thy face life and death, good and evil” (Deut. 30:15). Accordingly, thou wisest of teachers, goodness and virtue is life, evil and wickedness is death. Again, elsewhere: “This is thy life and length of days, to love the Lord thy God” (Deut. 30:20). This is a most noble definition of deathless life, to be possessed by a love of God and a friendship for God with which flesh and body have no concern.",
                "[59] It is thus that the priests Nadab and Abihu  die in order that they may live, receiving an incorruptible life in exchange for mortal existence, and being translated from the created to the uncreate. Over them a proclamation is uttered betokening immortality, “They died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:2), that is “They came to life,” for a corpse may not come into God’s presence. And again, “This is that which the Lord hath said, ‘I will be sanctified in them that draw nigh unto me’ ” (Lev. 10:3), “But dead men,” as we hear in the Psalms, “shall not praise the Lord” (Psalm 115:17): for that is the work of living men.",
                "[60] On the other hand, of Cain the accursed fratricide’s death no mention is found anywhere in the Books of the Law—nay, there is an oracle uttered concerning him which says, “The Lord God set a sign on Cain, even this, that no man that found him should kill him” (Gen. 4:15). ",
                "[61] Why so? Because, I suppose, impiety is an evil that cannot come to an end, being ever set alight and never able to be quenched, so that we may fitly apply to wickedness the poet’s words:",
                "No mortal is she, but a deathless ill. ",
                "It is in life as we know it that it is “deathless,” for in relation to the LIFE in God it is a lifeless corpse, “more utter refuse than dung,” as one has said. "
            ],
            [
                "[62] Now, it was quite fitting that different regions should be allotted to different things, heaven to a good thing, the earthly parts to an evil thing. That which is good is a thing upward-soaring; and should it ever come to us, in the bounty of its Father, it hastens, as is meet and right, to retrace its steps; but that which is evil stays here, removed as far as possible from the Divine Company,  making our mortal life its haunt, and incapable of quitting the human race by dying.",
                "[63] This truth found noble utterance in the <i>Theaetetus</i>, where a man highly esteemed, one of those admired for their wisdom, says: “Evils can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy, just, and wise.” ",
                "[64] Naturally, therefore, Cain will not die, being the symbol of wickedness, which must of necessity ever live among men in the race that is mortal. There is, then, for the reasons that have been pointed out, definite point in the direction that the manslayer “be put by death to death.”"
            ],
            [
                "[65] The words, “not intentionally, but God delivered him into his hands,” are admirably employed of those who commit an unintentional homicide. The writer feels that intentional acts are acts of our own determination, and that unintentional acts are God’s acts: I mean not the sins, but, on the contrary, all acts that are a punishment for sins. ",
                "[66] For it is unbecoming to God to punish, seeing that He is the original and perfect Lawgiver: He punishes not by His own hands but by those of others who act as His ministers. Boons, gifts, benefits it is fitting that He should extend, since He is by nature good and bountiful, but punishments by the agency of others who are ready to perform such services, though not without his command given in virtue of his sovereignty.",
                "[67] The Practiser testifies to what I say in the words, “God who nourishes me from youth, the Angel who delivers me out of all my evils” (Gen. 48:15 f.). He ascribes to God the more important good things, by which the soul is nourished, and the less important, which come about by escape from sins, to God’s minister. ",
                "[68] 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. 1:26), “let us make” indicating more than one. ",
                "[69] 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.",
                "[70] 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."
            ],
            [
                "[71] 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. 1:27). 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.",
                "[72] 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.",
                "[73] In adherence to the same principle he ascribes the blessing of the good and the cursing of the guilty to different persons. Both, it is true, receive praise, but blessing those worthy of blessing enjoys the prerogative which belongs to eulogies, while the laying of curses on the evil occupies but a second place. Therefore of those appointed for this purpose, the chiefs of the race, twelve in number, whom we are accustomed to call tribe-leaders, he set the six best over the blessing, Symeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin; and the other six over the cursing, the first and the last of the sons of Leah, Reuben and Zabulon, and the four bastard-born of the handmaids (Deut. 27:12 f.).",
                "[74] For the leaders of the royal and of the priestly tribe hold a position in the former list, Judah and Levi.  Quite naturally, then, does He give up for punishment into the hands of others those who commit acts deserving death. He wishes to teach us that the nature of evil is far removed from the Divine Company, inasmuch as even the good thing which imitates evil, punishment, is ratified by means of others.",
                "[75] The terms in which the announcement “I will give thee a place where the” unintentional “slayer shall take refuge” is made, seem to me to be excellently chosen. For here He uses the word “place,” not of a space entirely filled by a body,  but symbolically of God Himself, since He contains and is not contained, and because He is the Refuge for the whole universe.",
                "[76] It is lawful, therefore, for one who feels that he has fallen into an unintentional offence, to say that the offence came about as God ordained, a statement which the deliberate wrongdoer may not make. Further He says that He “will give” not to the slayer but to him whom He is addressing,  which shews that the dweller in the place is a different person from him who escapes thither. For to His Word, as to one indigenous, God has given His knowledge as a fatherland to dwell in, but to one who has fallen into unintentional offences He has given it as a place of refuge, as a strange land to an alien, not as a fatherland to one with a citizen’s rights."
            ],
            [
                "[77] After treating in this way of unintentional acts he goes on to legislate concerning assault and premeditation, saying, “If a man set upon his neighbour to slay him by guile and flee for refuge” (Exod. 21:14) to God, even to Him Who has been already symbolically called a place, Who is the occasion of life to all; for in another place likewise it says, “Whosoever shall flee there shall live” (Deut. 19:5).",
                "[78] And is it not life eternal to take refuge with Him that IS, and death to flee away from Him? But if a man sets upon another he certainly deliberately commits a wrong, and that which is done intentionally with guile incurs guilt, even as, on the other hand, no blame attaches to the act in which there is no guile.",
                "[79] 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.",
                "[80] 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. Is not this meet and right? For the place of sacrifice is wholly occupied by victims free from blemish, that is by innocent and purified souls; and it is a blemish that can hardly, if at all, be remedied, to assert that the Deity is the cause of evil things as of all others.",
                "[81] All such characters have made self-love their aim rather than love of God. Let them go forth outside the hallowed precincts, that in their foulness and uncleanness they may not behold even from afar the sacred flame of the soul ascending in unquenchable fire, and with power entire and unimpaired being sacrificed to God.",
                "[82] In daring and noble language one of the wise men of old has brought out the truth which I am enforcing. “In no case and in no way,” he says, “is God unrighteous: He is absolute righteousness; and nothing exists more like Him than whoso of us in his turn attains to the greatest possible righteousness. It is by his relation to Him that a man’s real attainment is determined, as well as his worthlessness and failure to attain real manhood. For to know Him is true wisdom and virtue, and ignorance of Him is manifest stupidity and wickedness. All other seeming attainments and proofs of wisdom so called, if displayed in gaining political power, are merely vulgar; if in practising handicrafts, merely mechanical.” "
            ],
            [
                "[83] After directing, then, that the man who is profane and reviles things sacred be led away from the most holy spots and given up to punishment, he goes on to say, “He that smiteth father or mother, let him die,” and likewise “he that revileth father or mother, let him die” (Exod. 21:15 f.).",
                "[84] He as good as proclaims in a loud voice that no pardon must be granted to a blasphemer against God. For if those who have reviled mortal parents are led away for execution, what penalty must we consider that those have merited who take upon them to blaspheme the Father and Maker of the universe? And what more foul reviling could be uttered than the statement, that the origination of evil lies not at our door but at God’s? Drive off,",
                "[85] then, ye initiates and hierophants of holy mysteries, drive off the motley crowd, flotsam and jetsam, souls hardly capable of cleansing and purifying, carrying about wherever they go ears ever unclosed, and tongue ever unconfined, ready instruments of their miserable condition in their longing to hear all that heaven forbids us to hear, and to tell out such things as should never find utterance.",
                "[86] But all who have been trained to discriminate between intentional and unintentional actions, and have been given lips that can keep a holy silence in place of a reviling tongue, are praiseworthy when they go aright,  and are not much to blame when they fail without meaning it: that is why cities of refuge were set apart for them (Num. 35.). "
            ],
            [
                "[87] It is worth while to treat with particular detail those aspects of the subject which are of vital importance.  They are four in number: first, why cities set apart for fugitives were chosen, not from the cities allotted to the other tribes, but from those assigned to the tribe of Levi only; secondly, for what reason they were six in number, and neither more nor less; thirdly, why three were beyond the Jordan, and the others in the land of Canaan; fourthly, why the time appointed beforehand for the return of the fugitives was the death of the High Priest.",
                "[88] On each of these points we must say what is pertinent, beginning with the first. The direction to fly to the cities allotted to Levites only is wholly appropriate, for the Levites too are in a certain sense fugitives, having, for the sake of being well-pleasing to God, forsaken parents and children and brothers and all their mortal kindred.",
                "[89] So the original founder of this company is represented as saying to his father and mother, “I have not seen you, my brethren I know not, and my sons I know no more” (Deut. 33:9), that I may without distraction minister to Him that is. And a flight that is real exile is loss of our nearest and dearest. It is on the ground, then, of a similarity in their doings that the Lawgiver commits fugitives to the keeping of fugitives, that they may obtain an amnesty for what they had done.",
                "[90] Was this, then, the only reason, or was it also because the Tribe of Levi, consisting of those who had the care of the Tabernacle, rushed upon and slew from the young upwards  those who fashioned into a god the golden calf, the Egyptian folly? They did this under the impulse of righteous anger accompanied by an inspiration from above and a God-sent possession: “And each man slays brother and neighbour and his nearest” (Exod. 32:27), for the body is “brother” of the soul, the irrational part of us neighbour of the rational, and the word of utterance “next of kin” to mind.",
                "[91] For in this way only could that which is best in ourselves become capable of ministering before Him Who is Best of all Existences, if in the first place the man were resolved into soul, his brother body and its interminable cravings being broken off and cut in twain; if in the next place the soul rid itself, as I have said, of that neighbor of our rational element, the irrational,  which like a torrent in five divisions pours through the channels of all the senses and rouses the violence of the passions;",
                "[92] if in the next place the reasoning faculty sever and banish from itself that which has the appearance of being closest to it, the word of utterance. All this is to the end that the word or thought  within the mind may be left behind by itself alone, destitute of body, destitute of sense-perception, destitute of utterance in audible speech; for when it has been thus left, it will live a life in harmony with such solitude, and will render, with nothing to mar or to disturb it, its glad homage to the Sole Existence.",
                "[93] Another point to be called to mind, in addition to those which have been mentioned, is that the Tribe of Levi is that of ministers of the Tabernacle and priests, on whom rests the service of the Sanctuary, and those who commit unintentional homicide are also engaged in a service, since, as Moses tells us, “God delivers into their hands” (Exod. 21:13) for destruction those that have done deeds worthy of death. But, while the Levites were appointed for the exaltation of the good, these others were appointed for the chastisement of the guilty."
            ],
            [
                "[94] Such are the reasons for the perpetrators of unintentional homicide taking refuge only in the cities of the Tabernacle attendants. We must next say what those cities are, and why they are six in number. It would seem, then, that the chiefest and surest and best mother-city something more than just a city, is the Divine Word, and that to take refuge first in it is supremely advantageous.",
                "[95] The other five, colonies as it were, are powers of Him who speaks that Word,  their leader being creative power, in the exercise of which the Creator produced the universe by a word ; second in order is the royal power, in virtue of which He that has made it governs that which has come into being; third stands the gracious power, in the exercise of which the Great Artificer takes pity and compassion on his own work; fourth 〈is the legislative power, by which He prescribes duties incumbent on us; and fifth〉 that division of legislation, by which He prohibits those things which should not be done.",
                "[96] Right goodly cities are they, and exceeding strong in their ramparts, noblest refuges for souls meet to be in safety for ever: kind and beneficent is the ordinance, with power to stimulate and brace to hopefulness. What ordinance could better shew the rich abundance of these beneficial powers adapted to the differences in the victims of involuntary lapses, so various both in their strength and in their weakness?",
                "[97] The man who is capable of running swiftly it bids stay not to draw breath but pass forward to the supreme Divine Word, Who is the fountain of Wisdom, in order that he may draw from the stream and, released from death, gain life eternal as his prize. One less swift-footed it directs to the power to which Moses gives the name “God,” since by it the Universe was established and ordered.  It urges him to flee for refuge to the creative power, knowing that to one who has grasped the fact that the whole world was brought into being a vast good accrues, even the knowledge of its Maker, which straightway wins the thing created to love Him to whom it owes its being.",
                "[98] One who is less ready it urges to betake himself to the kingly power, for fear of the sovereign has a force of correction to admonish the subject, where a father’s kindness has none such for the child. For him who fails to reach the posts just mentioned, because he thinks them too far distant, another set of goals have been set up nearer the starting-point—the gracious power, the power which enjoins duties, and that which forbids offences; those in fact which are indispensable.",
                "[99] For he that has made sure that the Godhead is not inexorable, but kindly, owing to gentleness of nature, even if he have first sinned, afterwards repents in hope of forgiveness; and he that has taken in the thought that God is Lawgiver, will by obeying all His injunctions attain happiness; while the last of the three will gain a third and last refuge, the averting of ills, even if he fail to obtain a share of God’s principal good gifts."
            ],
            [
                "[100] Such are the six cities, which Moses calls “places of refuge” (Num. 35:12), five of which were represented by symbolic figures which are in the sanctuary, the Laws laid up in the ark being symbols of injunction and prohibition; the lid of the ark, which he calls the Mercy-seat, representing the gracious power; while the creative and kingly powers are represented by the winged Cherubim that rest upon it.",
                "[101] The Divine Word, Who is high above all these, has not been visibly portrayed, being like to no one of the objects of sense. Nay, He is Himself the Image of God, chiefest of all Beings intellectually perceived, placed nearest, with no intervening distance, to the Alone truly existent One.  For we read: “I will talk with thee  from above the Mercy-seat, between the two Cherubim” (Ex. 25:21), words which shew that while the Word is the charioteer of the Powers, He Who talks is seated in the chariot, giving directions to the charioteer for the right wielding of the reins of the Universe.",
                "[102] He, then, that has shewn himself free from even unintentional offence—intentional is not to be thought of—having God Himself as his portion (Deut. 10:9), will have his abode in Him alone; while those who have fallen, not of set purpose but against their will, will have the refuges which have been mentioned, so freely and richly provided.",
                "[103] Now of the cities of refuge three are beyond the River, far removed from our race. Which are these? The Word of the Sovereign Ruler, and His creative and His kingly power: for in fellowship with these are heaven and all the universe.",
                "[104] But those which are close to us and in actual contact with perishable mankind, the only race which sin has befallen, are the three within—the gracious power, the power which enjoins things that are to be done, and that which prohibits those which are not to be done; for these touch us closely.",
                "[105] For what need is there of prohibition in the case of those who are sure to do no wrong? What need of injunction for those whose nature exempts them from failure? And what need of recourse to the Gracious Power for those who will commit no sin at all? But our race stands in need of these powers by reason of its natural proneness both to intentional and unintentional sins."
            ],
            [
                "[106] The fourth and only remaining point of those proposed for consideration was the time prescribed for the return of the fugitives, namely, that of the death of the High Priest. If taken literally, this point presents, I feel, great difficulty. The penalty inflicted by law on those whose offences are identical is unequal, if some are to be fugitives for a longer, some for a shorter, period; for of the High Priests some are very long-lived,",
                "[107] some the reverse; some are appointed in youth, some in old age; and of those guilty of unintentional homicide some went into exile at the outset of the High Priest’s priesthood, some when the holder of the sacred office was nearing his end. Thus some have been cut off from their native place for a very long time indeed, others merely for a day, it may be, after which they will arrive with their heads in the air, insolently laughing at the nearest relatives of those whom they have slain.",
                "[108] Let us, then, have recourse to the scientific mode of interpretation which looks for the hidden meaning of the literal words, and we shall escape from the difficulty and be able to give a reasonable account of the matter. We say, then, that the High Priest is not a man, but a Divine Word and immune from all unrighteousness whether intentional or unintentional.",
                "[109] For Moses says that he cannot defile himself either 109 for  the father, the mind, nor for the mother, sense-perception (Lev. 21:11), because, methinks, he is the child of parents incorruptible and wholly free from stain, his father being God, who is likewise Father of all, and his mother Wisdom, through whom the universe came into existence;",
                "[110] because, moreover, his head has been anointed with oil, and by this I mean that his ruling faculty is illumined with a brilliant light, in such wise that he is deemed worthy “to put on the garments.” Now the garments which the supreme Word of Him that is puts on as raiment are the world, for He arrays Himself in earth and air and water and fire and all that comes forth from these; while the body is the clothing of the soul considered as the principle of physical life,  and the virtues of the wise man’s understanding.",
                "[111] Moses also says that “he shall never remove the mitre” from his head; he shall not, that is to say, lay aside the kingly diadem, the symbol not of absolute sovereignty, but of an admirable viceroyalty; “nor” again “shall he rend his clothes” (Lev. 21:10);",
                "[112] for the Word of Him that IS is, as has been stated, the bond of all existence, and holds and knits together all the parts, preventing them from being dissolved and separated; just as the principle of physical life, in so far as it has been endowed with power, suffers none of the parts of the body to be split or cut off contrary to nature, but, so far as in it lies, all the parts are complete, and maintain unbroken a mutual harmony and oneness; and, in like manner, the purified mind of the wise man preserves the virtues free from breach or hurt, linking in a yet firmer concord the affinity and fellowship which is theirs by nature."
            ],
            [
                "[113] The High Priest, so Moses says, “shall not go in to any dead soul” (Lev. 21:11). Death of soul is a life in the company of vice, so that what is meant is that he is never to come in contact with any polluting object, and of these folly always stinks. ",
                "[114] To him there is betrothed moreover a maiden of the hallowed people, pure and undefiled and of ever inviolate intention; for never is he wedded to a widow or one divorced or to a profane woman or to a harlot (<i>ibid</i>. 13 f.), but against them he ever wages a truceless and unrelenting warfare. For hateful to him is widowhood from virtue, and the plight of one cast out and driven from her doors, and any conviction that is profane and unholy. But the promiscuous, polyandrous cause of polytheism, or rather atheism, the harlot, he deigns not even to look at, having learned to love her who had adopted, as her one Husband and Father, God the All-sovereign.",
                "[115] In this character we see perfection in something like its highest form. On the other hand, as to the man who has vowed the Great Vow, the lawgiver seems to recognize that he does stumble unintentionally, even if not with deliberate intent; for he says, “If one die by him suddenly, he shall at once be defiled” (Num. 6:9): for that which suddenly swoops down upon us from without, apart from any wish of our own, defiles the soul at once, though not for an interminable period, owing to its being unintentional.  But with such involuntary defilements, even as with those that are voluntary, the High Priest has no concern, but stands far up beyond their reach.",
                "[116] The observations which I have been making are lie not beside the mark, but are meant to shew that the fixing of the High Priest’s death as the term for the return of the exiles is in perfect accordance with the natural fitness of things (Num. 35:25).",
                "[117] For so long as this holiest Word is alive and is still present in the soul, it is out of the question that an unintentional offence should come back into it; for this holy Word is by nature incapable of taking part in and of admitting to itself any sin whatever. But if the Word die, not by being itself destroyed, but by being withdrawn out of our soul, the way is at once open for the return of unintentional errors; for if it was abiding within us alive and well when they were removed, assuredly when it departs and goes elsewhere they will be reinstated.",
                "[118] For the Monitor, the undefiled High Priest, enjoys as the fruit of his nature the special prerogative of never admitting into himself any uncertainty of judgement. Wherefore it is meet that we should pray that He who is at once High Priest and King may live in our soul as Monitor on the seat of justice, seeing that he has received for his proper sphere the entire court of our understanding, and faces unabashed all who are brought up for judgement there. "
            ],
            [
                "[119] Having now said all that was called for on the subject of fugitives, we will go on to treat of what comes next in natural sequence. The next words are “An angel of the Lord found her” (Gen. 16:7)—the angel who decreed a return home to a soul whose shame was like to lead into wandering, and well-nigh was its escort back to the frame of mind which wanders not.",
                "[120] It will be an advantage that the lawgiver’s reflections about finding and seeking should not be passed over. He represents some as neither seeking nor finding anything, others as succeeding in both, some as having mastered one but not the other, either seeking and not finding, or finding without having sought.",
                "[121] Those with no desire either to find or to seek grievously impair their faculty of reason, by refusing to train and exercise it, and, though capable of being keen-sighted, become blind. This is his meaning when he says that “Lot’s wife turned backwards and became a pillar” (Gen. 19:26), and here he is not inventing a fable but indicating precisely a real fact.",
                "[122] For a man who is led by innate and habitual laziness to pay no attention to his teacher neglects what lies in front of him, which would enable him to see and hear and use his other faculties for the observation of nature’s facts. Instead he twists  his neck and turns his face backwards, and his thoughts are all for the dark and hidden side—of life, that is, not of the body and its parts, and so he turns into a pillar and becomes like a deaf and lifeless stone.",
                "[123] Speaking of such characters as these Moses says that they did not get “a heart to understand, and eyes to see, and ears to hear” (Deut. 29:4), but wrought out for themselves a life that was no life, blind and deaf and unintelligent and in every way maimed, setting themselves to nothing that demands their thoughts."
            ],
            [
                "[124] As leader of this company we see the king of the country which symbolizes the body; for we read that “Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and did not set his heart even to this” (Ex. 7:23, R.V. mg.), as much as to say that he set it to nothing at all, but allowed it like an untilled plant to wither away and become barren and bear nothing.",
                "[125] It is whetted and made keen by those who consider and observe and examine all things carefully; and when it is in exercise it bears its proper fruits, shrewdness and insight, which save it from being duped; but the unobservant man blunts and crushes the edges of intelligence.",
                "[126] We must, then, let alone the irrational and truly lifeless company of such men as these, and scan well that of those who practise looking and finding. Our first example shall be the man who takes part indeed in public life, but is very far from having a mad thirst for fame: his ambition is for that better family, which the virtues have taken as their heritage, and he is represented as both seeking and finding it.",
                "[127] For we are told that “a man found Joseph wandering in the plain, and asked him, ‘What art thou seeking?’ and he said ‘I am seeking my brethren; tell me, where are they feeding their flocks?’ And the man said to him, ‘They have departed hence, for I heard them saying, Let us go to Dothan.’ And Joseph went his way after his brethren, and found them in Dothan” (Gen. 37:15–17).",
                "[128] Dothan means “a thorough for-saking,” and is the symbol of a soul that has in no half measure but completely run away from those empty notions which resemble the practices of women rather than those of men. Accordingly it is finely said that Sarah, who is Virtue, “forsakes the ways of women” (Gen. 18:11), those ways on which we toil who follow after the unmanly and really feminine life. But the wise man too “forsaking is added” (Gen. 25:8),  as Moses says in perfect accord with the nature of things: for the subtraction of vainglory is the addition of reality.",
                "[129] If a man, while spending his days in this mortal life full of such diverse elements and assuming so many phases, and while he has at his disposal abundant material for a life of luxury, makes that better family, which has an eye only for what is morally excellent, his study and quest, he is worthy of approbation, if the dreams and phantoms of things that have the name and appearance of good things do not rise to the surface again and get the better of him.",
                "[130] For if he continues in that soul  inquiry and keeps it free from alloy, he will not give up walking in the track of the objects of his quest, and following them up until he has reached those for whom he yearns.",
                "[131] But none of them will he find among the worthless. Why so? Because “they have departed hence,” forsaking all that we care about, and have removed into the abode of the pious where no evil men are found. The speaker is the true “man,”  the Monitor, set over the soul, who, seeing its perplexity, its inquiring, its searching, is afraid lest it go astray and miss the right road."
            ],
            [
                "[132] Another instance is that of those well-known two whom I hold in great admiration. One is full of curiosity about the middle term between two others, and says, “Lo, the fire and the wood; where is the sheep for a whole burnt-offering?” The other replies, “God will see for Himself a sheep for a whole burnt-offering, Child”; and afterwards finds the substitute provided, for “behold a single ram held by the horns in a Sabek shrub”  (Gen. 22:7, 8, 13).",
                "[133] Let us see, then, what the inquirer’s difficulty is, and what the answerer declares; and in the third place what the thing found was. Well, the inquiry he makes is of this kind: “Behold, the efficient cause, the fire; behold also, the passive object, the material, the wood; where is the third term, the finished result ?” As though he should say,",
                "[134] “Behold the mind, breath  all warm and on fire; behold also the objects which the mind perceives, materials, as it were; where is the third term, the mind’s perception?” Or once more, “Here is sight; here is colour; where is the seeing?” and, quite generally, “Lo, here is sense-perception, the instrument for forming judgements; yes, and the objects of sense-perception, the material for it to work upon; where, then, is the act of perceiving?”",
                "[135] To these inquiries the other gives the only right answer, “God will see for Himself”; for the third term is God’s special work. For it is by His taking thought for them that the mind apprehends, and sight sees, and every sense perceives.",
                "As for the words “A ram is found held fast,” this is reason keeping quiet and in suspense.",
                "[136] For the best offering is quietness and suspense of judgement, in matters that absolutely lack proofs. The only word we may say is this, “God will see.” To Him all things are known; He sees all things distinctly, by clearest light, even by Himself. No other word can be spoken by created beings on whom the darkness has been shed in full measure; and in darkness, safety lies in keeping still."
            ],
            [
                "[137] Another instance. When they sought what it is that nourished the soul (for, as Moses says, “they knew not what it was”) (Exod. 16:15), they became learners and found it to be a saying of God, that is the Divine Word, from which all kinds of instruction and wisdom flow in perpetual stream. This is the heavenly nourishment, and it is indicated as such in the sacred records, when the First Cause in his own person says, “Lo, it is I that am raining upon you bread out of the heaven” (<i>ibid</i>. 4);",
                "[138] for in very deed God drops from above the ethereal wisdom upon minds which are by nature apt and take delight in Contemplation; and they see it and taste it and are filled with pleasure, being fully aware of what they feel, but wholly ignorant of the cause which produced the feeling. So they inquire “What is this” (<i>ibid</i>. 15) which has a nature making it sweeter than honey and whiter than snow? And they will be taught by the seer that “This is the bread, which the Lord hath given them to eat” (<i>ibid</i>. 15).",
                "[139] Tell me, then, of what kind the bread is. “This saying,” he says, “which the Lord ordained”  (<i>ibid</i>. 16). This Divine ordinance fills the soul that has vision alike with light and sweetness, flashing forth the radiancy of truth, and with the honied grace of persuasion imparting sweetness to those who hunger and thirst after nobility of character.",
                "[140] A seeker also was the prophet himself, to know the cause of successful achievement, and he found that it was the presence with him of the only God. For when he asked in doubt, “Who am I, and what is there in me that I should deliver the race of vision from the character which fancies itself king and sets itself up against God?” he is instructed by a message from God, “I will be with thee” (Exod. 3:11 f.).",
                "[141] It is true, of course, that the seeking of partial and subordinate objects calls out in us the exercise of delicate and profound thought; but the seeking of God, best of all existences, incomparable Cause of all things, gladdens us the moment we begin our search, and never turns out fruitless, since by reason of His gracious nature He comes to meet us with His pure and virgin graces, and shews Himself to those who yearn to see Him, not as He is, which is a thing impossible, since even Moses “turned away his face, for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exod. 3:6), but so far as it was allowable that created nature should direct its gaze towards the Power that is beyond conception.",
                "[142] This promise also is included in the Exhortations,  where it is said “Ye shall turn back to the Lord your God, and shall find Him, when ye shall seek after Him, with all your heart, and with all your soul” (Deut. 4:29 f.)."
            ],
            [
                "[143] Having said enough about those who seek and find, let us turn next to our third head, in which there is, we said, seeking, but no finding follows. Laban falls under this head. He searched the whole of the soul-dwelling of the Practiser, and as Moses says “found not the idols” (Gen. 31:33); for it was full of real things, not of dreams and empty phantoms.",
                "[144] The men of Sodom, too, blind in understanding, when madly bent on bringing shame upon the sacred and undefiled Words, did not find the way that leads to this, but, as the sacred passage says, “wearied themselves in seeking the door” (Gen. 19:11), although they ran all round the house and left no stone unturned to carry out their unnatural and unholy lust.",
                "[145] It has happened before now, that men having conceived the desire to become kings instead of gate-keepers and to overthrow order, the most beautiful thing in human life, have not only failed of the success which they had unjustly hoped for, but have been compelled to part with the advantage which they held in their hands. For the Law tells us that the men of Korah’s company, when they aimed at 〈priesthood and were not satisfied with the post of Tabernacle attendants〉, failed of both (Num. 16.).",
                "[146] For just as boys and men do not learn the same things, but either age has its appropriate teachings, so  it is the nature of some souls to be always childish even in bodies that have grown old, and, on the other hand, to be full grown in bodies just reaching the prime of youth. All such as are enamoured of things too great for their nature will be convicted of foolishness, since every effort beyond our strength breaks down through over-violent straining.",
                "[147] Pharaoh, again, seeking to destroy Moses (Exod. 2:15), that is, the prophetic nature, will never find him, albeit he has heard a grievous charge against him, namely, that he has attempted to overthrow the entire dominion of the body in two attacks. ",
                "[148] The first of these he made against the Egyptian character, which was assailing the soul from the vantage-ground of pleasure; for “after smiting him he covered him with sand” (Exod. 2:12), a drifting, disconnected substance. He evidently regarded both doctrines as having the same author, the doctrine that pleasure is the prime and greatest good, and the doctrine that atoms are the elementary principles of the universe. Another attack (<i>ibid</i>. 13) was directed against him who splits up the nature of good into subdivisions, and assigns one to soul, one to body, one to things outside us. For he would have the good to be a complete whole, apportioned to the best element in us, to understanding alone, and in agreement with nothing lifeless."
            ],
            [
                "[149] Again, it is in perfect keeping with the nature of things that invincible Virtue, bitterly vexed at men’s absurd aims—Tamar is her name—is not found by the messenger dispatched to seek her; for it is said, “And Judah sent the kid of the goats by the hand of his shepherd the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the woman’s hand: and he found her not. And he asked the men of the place, ‘Where is the harlot that was at Enaim by the wayside?’ And they said, ‘There was no harlot here.’ And he returned to Judah and said, ‘I have not found her, and the men of the place say that there is no harlot here.’ And Judah said ‘Let her have them, but let us never be laughed to scorn; I have sent this kid, and thou hast not found her’ ” (Gen. 38:20–23).",
                "[150] O admirable assay! O sacred test! A mind, bent on purchasing that fairest possession, piety, gave a pledge in the form of three securities or symbols, a signet ring, a cord, a staff (<i>ibid</i>. 18): the first, steadfastness and fidelity; the second, sequence and correspondence of word with life and life with word; the third, straight and unbending discipline, on which it is an advantage to lean. ",
                "[151] The mind is putting to the test whether it did well to give this pledge. What, then, is the test? To drop some bait possessed of attractive power, fame or riches or health of body, or something of this kind, and to ascertain towards which side it sinks as on a pair of scales; for should there be an inclination towards any of these, the pledge is not safe. So he sent the kid thus to recover the pledge from the woman, not with the purpose of getting it back in any case, but only if she should ever prove unworthy to retain it.",
                "[152] When will she be proved such? Whenever she exchanges things that matter for things that do not, preferring counterfeits to genuine goods. Now genuine goods are fidelity, sequence and correspondence of words with acts, a standard of right discipline (as on the other hand evils are faithlessness, inconsistency, lack of discipline); while the counterfeits are all things that depend upon irrational impulse.",
                "[153] He sought there and “did not find her”; for that which is morally excellent is hard or even impossible to find in a life of turmoil. And if he make careful inquiries whether there be in all the region of that which is morally excellent a soul that has played the harlot, he will be told definitely that there neither is nor was aforetime, for that there is not there any licentious one, or a wanton, or a street-walker, or one prostituting for gain the flower of her youth, or making bright what is outside by baths and cleansings while she is foul within, or in default of natural beauty painting her face as pictures are coloured, or what is called the “many-husband” pest, following after evil as though it were good, or a lover of polygamy, or dispersing herself upon a thousand different objects material and immaterial alike, or mocked and outraged by that multitude.",
                "[154] He who had sent the messenger, on hearing this, being one who had put envy far from him and was of a gracious disposition, rejoices greatly and says: “Is it not my heart-felt prayer that my understanding should be a true and high-born lady,  eminent for chastity and modesty and all other virtues, devoted to one husband and keeping watch with delight over the home of one, and exulting in a sole ruler? If in truth she is such an one, let her keep the things which have been given her, both discipline and the correspondence of word with life and of life with word, and the most vital of all, steadfastness and fidelity.",
                "[155] But let us never be laughed to scorn in the belief that we thought our gifts unmerited;  we did indeed suppose that they were presents perfectly adapted to the soul. But while I, on my part, did what one who wished to test and try a character would naturally do, when I offered a bait, and sent a messenger, that character on its part made it evident that it was by its nature no easy prey.",
                "[156] But I could not tell what it is which makes one an easy prey and another not; for I have seen great numbers of the exceedingly wicked sometimes acting exactly like the very good, but not for the same reason, since one set is putting truth into practice, the other set hypocrisy: and it is hard to distinguish these two; for many a time being is outdone by seeming.”"
            ],
            [
                "[157] Again, the goat of the sin-offering is sought for by the lover of virtue, but he does not find it; for, as the passage of Holy Writ shews, it had already been burnt (Lev. 10:16). We must consider what he means by this figure. To do no sin is peculiar to God; to repent, to the wise man; and this latter is a very difficult thing, and hard to find.",
                "[158] So the oracle says that “Moses diligently sought” in this mortal life the secret of repentance for sins; for he was intent on discovering a soul divesting itself of unrighteousness, and going forth without shame, naked of misdeeds. But nevertheless he did not find one, for the flame, in other words the irrational impulse exceeding swift in its movements, had overrun and devoured the whole soul.",
                "[159] For the fewer are overpowered by the more numerous, and the slower by the more fleet, and things that tarry by things that are present; and repentance is a restricted and slow and tarrying thing, whereas wrongdoing is copious and swift and constantly present in this mortal life. Naturally, then, one who has come into a state of lapse from virtue says that he is “unable to eat of the sin-offering,” since his inward feeling does not permit him to be fed by repentance, wherefore it is said “Moses heard it, and it pleased him” (Lev. 10:19 f.).",
                "[160] For our relation to other created beings is a very different thing from our relation to God; for to creation only things manifest are known, but to God hidden things also. The man who, lying against the truth, maintains while still doing wrong that he has repented, is a madman. It is just as if the sick man were to act the part of the healthy man: he will clearly get worse through declining to have recourse to any means conducive to health. "
            ],
            [
                "[161] Again, on one occasion the prophet, led on by his love of acquiring knowledge, was seeking after the causes by which the most essential occurrences in the universe are brought about; for observing all created things wasting away and coming to the birth, perishing and yet remaining, he is smitten with amazement and cries out saying, “Why is it that the bush is burning and not being consumed?” (Exod. 3:2 f.), for his thoughts are busy over the untrodden place,",
                "[162] familiar only to Divine natures. But when now on the point of engaging in an endless and futile labour, he is relieved of it by the kindness and providence of God the Saviour of all men, who from out of the hallowed spot warned him “Draw not nigh hither” (<i>ibid</i>. 5), as much as to say “Enter not on such an inquiry”; for the task argues a busy, restless curiosity too great for human ability: marvel at all that has come into being, but as for the reasons for which they have either come into being or are decaying, cease to busy thyself with them.",
                "[163] For “the place on which thou standest is holy ground,” it says (<i>ibid</i>. 5). What kind of place or topic is meant? Evidently that of causation, a subject which He has assigned to Divine natures only, deeming no human being capable of dealing with the study of causation.",
                "[164] But the prophet owing to desire of knowledge lifts his eyes above the whole universe and becomes a seeker regarding its Creator, asking of what sort this Being is so difficult to see, so difficult to conjecture. Is He a body or incorporeal, or something exalted above these? Is He a single Nature, a Monad as it were? Or a composite Being? What among all that exists? And seeing that this is a problem hard to pursue, hard to take in by thought, he prays that he may learn from God Himself what God is: for he had no hope of being able to ascertain this from another, from one of those that are inferior to Him.",
                "[165] Nevertheless he did not succeed in finding anything by search respecting the essence of Him that IS. For he is told “What is behind Me thou shalt see, but My face thou shalt by no means see” (Exod. 33:23). For it amply suffices the wise man to come to a knowledge of all that follows on after God and in His wake, but the man that wishes to set his gaze upon the Supreme Essence, before he sees Him will be blinded by the rays that beam forth all around Him."
            ],
            [
                "[166] Having said thus much about the third head also, we will go on to the fourth and last of those proposed for consideration, in which there has been no “seeking,” and yet “finding” meets us unbidden. Under this head is ranged every wise man who learns directly from no teacher but himself; for he does not by searchings and practisings and toilings gain improvement, but as soon as he comes into existence he finds wisdom placed ready to his hand, shed from heaven above, and of this he drinks undiluted draughts, and sits feasting, and ceases not to be drunken with the sober drunkenness which right reason brings.",
                "[167] This is he whom Holy Writ calls “Isaac,” whom the soul did not conceive at one time and give birth to at another, for it says “she conceived and gave birth” (Gen. 21:2) as though timelessly. For he that was thus born was not a man, but a most pure thought, beautiful not by practice but by nature. And for this reason she that gave birth to it is said “to have forsaken the ways of women” (Gen. 18:11), those human ways of custom and mere reasoning.",
                "[168] For the nature of the self-taught is new and higher than our reasoning, and in very deed Divine, arising by no human will or purpose but by a God-inspired ecstasy. Do you not know that Hebrew mothers need no midwives for their delivery, but as Moses says “before the midwives” (Exod. 1:19), that is before systems, arts, sciences, come in, they give birth with the co-operation of nature alone?",
                "Admirable and most suitable are the marks which the Lawgiver sets forth to define the direct learner: one, “that which is quickly found,” another, “that which God delivered.”",
                "[169] While that which is taught needs a long time, that which comes by nature is rapid, and, we may say, timeless; and, while the one has man as teacher, the other has God. The former mark he sets down in a question: “What is this which thou didst find quickly, Child?” the other in a reply, in the words “that which God the Lord delivered” (Gen. 27:20)."
            ],
            [
                "[170] There is besides a third mark of the direct learner, namely that which comes up of itself. For it is said in the Exhortations : “Ye shall not sow, nor shall ye reap its growths that come up of themselves” (Lev. 25:11): for natural growths require no artificial treatment, since God sows them and by His art of husbandry brings to perfection, as though they were self-grown, plants which are not self-grown, save only so far as they had no need whatever of human attention.",
                "[171] His words are not those of exhortation, but of statement : for, in commanding, he would have said “do not sow,” “do not reap”; instead he says in the form of a statement, “Ye shall not sow, nor assuredly shall ye reap that which is self-grown.” For when we observe such growths as spring up spontaneously by nature, we find that we are not responsible either for their beginning or their end. Now the seed is the beginning and the reaping the end;",
                "[172] and the text is better understood in this way: every beginning and every end is “automatic,” in the sense that it is not our doing but that of nature.  For instance, what is the beginning of the act of learning? Evidently it is the nature residing in the pupil with its receptivity towards the several subjects of study. What again is the beginning of the completion of learning? Undoubtedly it is nature. It is within the power of the teacher to lead us from one stage of progress to another; God only, Nature at its best, can produce in us the full completion.",
                "[173] The man that is nurtured on these doctrines enjoys the peace that never ends, released from unabating toils. Peace and Seven are identical according to the Legislator: for on the seventh day  creation puts away its seeming activity and takes rest.",
                "[174] So, taken in a symbolic sense, the words “And the sabbath of the land shall be food for you” (Lev. 25:6) are to the point; for nothing is nourishing and enjoyable food, save rest in God, securing as it does for us the greatest boon, the peace which is unbroken by war. For the peace which is made by one city with another is mixed with and marred by intestine war; but the peace of the soul has no admixture of discord whatever.",
                "[175] But it is by the following that the Lawgiver seems to me most clearly to supply an example of finding without seeking: “When the Lord thy God shall have led thee into the land which He sware unto thy fathers to give thee, cities great and fair, which thou buildedst not, houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, cisterns cut out, which thou cuttedst not, vineyards and olive-yards, which thou plantedst not” (Deut. 6:10 f.).",
                "[176] Seest thou the lavish abundance of the good things showered upon them, great and ready for possession and enjoyment? The generic virtues are likened to cities, because they have the greatest expanse; the special virtues to houses, for these are restricted to a narrower compass; souls endowed with good native ability are likened to cisterns, being ready to receive wisdom as these do water; vineyards and olive-yards represent progress and growth and yield of fruits; and the fruit of knowledge is the life of contemplation, winning for us unmixed gladness as from wine, and intellectual light as from a flame which oil feeds. "
            ],
            [
                "[177] In what preceded we have spoken about finding, having previously dealt with flight. We will now pass on in turn to the points which follow next in our plan of treatment. We read, then, “An angel of the Lord found her at the water-spring” (Gen. 16:7). “Spring” is a word used in many senses. In the first place, our mind is so called; secondly, the reasoning habit  and education; thirdly, the bad disposition; fourthly, its opposite, the good disposition; fifthly, the Maker and Father of the Universe Himself.",
                "[178] The proofs of this statement are supplied by the Oracles of Scripture: let us see what they are. There is one such declaration in the beginning of the Book of the Law, immediately after the record of the Creation of the World, running as follows: “A spring went up out of the earth and watered all the face of the earth” (Gen. 2:6).",
                "[179] Those who are unversed in allegory and the nature-truth which loves to conceal its meaning compare the spring mentioned with the River of Egypt, which rises in flood yearly and turns the plain into a lake, seeming to exhibit a power well-nigh rivalling the sky.",
                "[180] For what the sky is in winter to other countries, this the Nile is to Egypt in the height of summer: the one sends the rain from above upon the earth, the other, strange to say, rains up from below and waters the fields. This afforded Moses ground  for branding the Egyptian character as atheistical in its preference for earth above heaven, for the things that live on the ground above those that dwell on high, and the body above the soul.",
                "[181] However, it will be possible to speak of this hereafter, when opportunity permits. At present the need for aiming at brevity compels me to take up the interpretation of the passage allegorically, and to say that “a spring going up and watering all the face of the earth” has the meaning I am about to give.",
                "[182] Our dominant faculty resembles a spring: and from it like the spring water through the veins of the earth well up many powers which it sends forth till they reach the senses, eyes, ears, nostrils, and so on. Every animal has those in its head and face. Thus the dominant faculty in the soul waters, as from a spring, the face, which is the dominant part of the body, extending to the eyes the spirit  of vision, that of hearing to the ears, to the nostrils that of smelling, that of tasting to the mouth, and that of touch to the whole surface."
            ],
            [
                "[183] There are also a variety of springs of education, by the side of which there grow up, like stems of palm-trees, upright forms of reason rich in nourishing food. For we read that “they came to Elim, and in Elim there were twelve springs of water, and seventy stems of palm-trees; and they encamped there by the waters” (Exod. 15:27). “Elim” means “gateways,” a figure of the entrance to virtue; for just as gateways are the beginnings of a house, so are the preliminary exercises of the schools the beginning of virtue.",
                "[184] And twelve is a perfect number. The zodiac circle in the sky is a witness to this, being adorned with that number of luminous constellations: a further instance is the sun’s circuit, for it completes its round in twelve months, and men keep the hours of day and night equal in number to the months of the year.",
                "[185] And Moses celebrates this number in several places, telling us of twelve tribes in the nation, directing twelve loaves to be set forth on the Table, bidding them weave twelve inscribed stones on the “oracle” in the holy vestment of the high priest’s full-length robe (Ex. 28:17 ff.).",
                "[186] He also proclaims the ten-fold seven, telling in this passage of seventy palm-trees by the springs, and in another of the Divine Spirit of prophecy bestowed on only seventy elders (Num. 11:16), and again of seventy calves offered as victims at the Feast of Tabernacles arranged in divisions following a regular series: for they are not all sacrificed at once, but on different days, beginning with thirteen bull-calves (Num. 29:13 ff.); for in this way, the number being diminished by one every day up to the seventh, the aggregate of seventy would be made up.",
                "[187] When they have arrived at the vestibules of virtue, the subjects of preliminary instruction, and have beheld springs and palms growing by them, they are said to encamp, not by the trees but by the waters. Why is this? Because palm and fillets are the adornment of those who carry off the prizes of consummate virtue, but those whose sphere is still that of the preliminary studies, athirst as they are for learning, settle down beside the springs of knowledge which are able to water their souls and give them drink."
            ],
            [
                "[188] Such are the springs of the lower education. Let us now consider the spring of folly, respecting which the Lawgiver has spoken in these terms: “Whosoever shall have slept with a woman in her separation hath unclosed her spring, and she hath unclosed the flow of her blood; let them both be put to death” (Lev. 20:18): he gives to sense-perception the name woman, suggesting Mind as her husband.",
                "[189] Sense-perception is “in separation,” which is “sitting a long way off,” when, having forsaken Mind, her lawful husband, she plants herself on the objects of sense that ensnare and corrupt, and passionately embraces them one after another. At such a time, then, if Mind go to sleep, when he ought to be awake, “he has unclosed the spring” of sense-perception, himself to wit—for, as I have already said, he himself is the spring of sense-perception—that is, he has exposed himself, without covering or wall of defence, to the plots of his enemies.",
                "[190] Moreover she too “unclosed the flow of her blood”; for every sense, in its flow towards the external object of sense, is covered over and drawn in when controlled by reason, but is left destitute when widowed of an upright ruler, and as it is the most grievous evil for a city to be without walls, so is it for a soul to be without a protector.",
                "[191] When, then, is it without a protector? Is it not when sight, spread abroad amid objects of sight, is left uncovered; uncovered too the hearing, flooded by every kind of sound; uncovered the powers of smell and others of like kin, full ready for any experience to which marauding foes may wish to subject them; uncovered again the faculty of speech, giving ill-timed utterance to a thousand things that should have been kept quiet, since there is no one to force back the current? In its unhindered flow it has wrecked great life-projects, which were like ships in fair weather sailing on even keel.",
                "[192] This is the great deluge in which “the cataracts of heaven,” that is of the mind, “were opened,” “and the fountains of the abyss,” that is of sense-perception, “were unclosed” (Gen. 7:11).  For only in this way is a deluge brought upon the soul, when as though from heaven, that is the mind, wrongdoings burst upon it as in a cataract; and from sense-perception below, as it were from the earth, passions come welling up.",
                "[193] That is why Moses prohibits the “disclosing of the shame of father and mother” (Lev. 18:7), well knowing how great an evil it is not to keep back and conceal the sins of the mind and of sense-perception, but to make them public as though they were achievements of righteousness."
            ],
            [
                "[194] Such are the springs of sinful deeds: let us investigate that of sound sense. To this Patience, called Rebecca, goes down, and, when she has filled the whole vessel of the soul, goes up; for the lawgiver speaks of the descent as an ascent with perfect truth to the nature of things, for a soul that resolves to come down from over-weening imposture is exalted thereby to virtue’s height. ",
                "[195] For it says: “And having gone down to the spring she filled the water-pot, and came up” (Gen. 24:16). This spring is the Divine Wisdom, from which both the several fields of knowledge are watered, and all contemplation-loving souls which are possessed by a love of that which is best.",
                "[196] To this spring the sacred message applies most appropriate names, calling it “judgement”  and “holy.” For it says: “They returned and came to the Spring of Judgement; this is Kadesh” (Gen. 14:7); and “Kadesh” means “holy.” One might think that it cries aloud that the wisdom of God is both holy, containing no earthy ingredient, and a sifting of all the universe, whereby all opposites are separated from each other. "
            ],
            [
                "[197] And now we have to speak of the supreme and most excellent Spring, which the All-Father declared by the mouth of prophets. For He said in a certain place: “Me they forsook, a spring of Life, and dug for themselves broken cisterns, which shall fail to hold water” (Jer. 2:13).",
                "[198] God, therefore, is the chiefest spring, and well may He be so called, for this whole universe is a rain that fell from Him. But I bow in awe when I hear that this spring is one of Life: for God alone is the Cause of soul and life, and preeminently of the rational soul, and of the Life that is united with wisdom. For matter is a dead thing, but God is something more than Life, an ever-flowing Spring of living, as He Himself says.",
                "[199] But the impious flee from Him, persist in leaving untasted the water of immortality, and dig in their madness for themselves but not for God, putting their own works above the celestial gifts of heaven, and the results of forethought above those which come spontaneously and ready for their use.",
                "[200] That is their first folly. In the next place they dig, not as did the wise, Abraham and Isaac, wells (Gen. 21:30, 26:18), deep sources of knowledge from which draughts of reason are drawn, but cisterns, having no excellent thing of their own to afford nourishment, but needing the inflow from without, that must come from teaching, as the instructors keep on pumping in unbroken stream into the ears of their pupils the principles and conclusions which constitute knowledge, that they may both grasp what is imparted to them with their intelligence and treasure it in their memory.",
                "[201] As it is the “cisterns” are “broken,” that is to say, all the receptacles of the ill-conditioned soul are crushed and leaking, unable to hold in and keep the inflow of what might do them good."
            ],
            [
                "[202] On the subject of springs all that the occasion required has now been said. But it is with a most carefully considered meaning that Hagar is represented by the sacred oracles as found by the spring but not drawing water from it (Gen. 16:7). For a soul, while making gradual progress, is not yet capable of availing itself of Wisdom’s untempered draught, but such a soul is not prevented from staying hard by her.",
                "[203] Now the road of discipline is all a highway, thoroughly safe and well guarded. Wherefore it says that she was found in the way to Shur  (<i>ibid</i>.), and “Shur” means “wall” or “straightening.” The inward monitor, then, speaking within the soul, says to it, “Whence comest thou, and whither art thou going?” (<i>ibid</i>. 8). In thus addressing her he does not express doubt or inquiry; rather he is reproaching and putting her to shame; for we may not think that an angel is ignorant of anything affecting us.",
                "[204] Here is a proof of it: even the secrets of the womb, which are hidden from created beings, the angel knows with certainty, as his words shew: “Lo, thou art with child, and shalt give birth to a boy, and shalt call his name Ishmael” (<i>ibid</i>. 11). For it is not in the power of man to know that the embryo is a male, nor to know the principle that is to govern the life of one who is not yet born, that it will be the way of the rude country-side, not the refined one of civic life.",
                "[205] So the words “Whence comest thou?” are spoken to rebuke the soul that is running away from the better judgement, “the mistress,” a mistress whom to serve as handmaiden could not but win her high renown, if the service be one of deeds rather than of name. And the words “Whither goest thou?” mean “Thou hast cast away acknowledged gains, and art running after uncertainties.”",
                "[206] We may well praise her for receiving reproof with gladness.  Of her gladness she has given plain evidence by not accusing her mistress, and by laying the blame of her flight upon herself, and by making no answer to the second question “Whither art thou going?” for it was uncertain, and regarding uncertainties suspension of judgement is not only safe but requisite."
            ],
            [
                "[207] Her monitor, then, pleased with her for her compliance, bids her “Go back to thy mistress”; for the teacher’s authority is an advantage to the learner, and bond-service under Good Sense a gain to her that is imperfect. “And when thou hast returned humble thyself under her hands” (<i>ibid</i>. 9), with a noble humiliation which carries with it the overthrow of irrational highmindedness.",
                "[208] For so doing thou shalt give birth with easy travail to a male offspring, Ishmael by name (<i>ibid</i>. 11), since thou shalt have been chastened by hearkening to words of God; for “Ishmael” means “hearkening to God.” Hearing takes the second place, yielding the first to sight, and sight is the portion of Israel, the son free-born and first-born; for “seeing God” is the translation of “Israel.” It is possible to hear the false and take it for true, because hearing is deceptive, but sight, by which we discern what really is, is devoid of falseness.",
                "[209] The character thus given birth to is described first by the statement that it will be rude, of rude “mother wit” as it were, not yet admitted to the privilege of the refined and truly civilized lot, virtue, that is, the natural refiner and tamer of character; next by the words “his hands shall be against all men, and all men’s hands against him” (<i>ibid</i>. 12); for this is just the Sophist’s way, with his pretence of excessive open-mindedness, and his love of arguing for arguing’s sake.",
                "[210] This character aims its shafts at all representatives of the sciences, opposing each individually and all in common, and is the target of them all since they naturally shew fight, as in defence of offspring of their own, that is of the doctrines to which their soul has given birth.",
                "[211] And he adds a third characteristic in the words “he shall dwell face to face with all his brethren” (<i>ibid</i>.), words which are almost a distinct picture of combat face to face and perpetual opposition.",
                "The soul, then, which is pregnant with the sophist-principle says to the monitor who is talking to her: “Thou art God that didst look upon me,” which is equivalent to saying “Thou art the Maker of my wishes and offspring”; and well may she say this,",
                "[212] for of free and really high-born souls He who is free and sets free is the Creator, while slaves are makers of slaves: and angels are God’s household-servants, and are deemed gods by those whose existence is still one of toil and bondage. ",
                "“For this reason,” it says, “she called the well ‘Well where I saw Him before me’ ”  (<i>ibid</i>. 14).",
                "[213] Nay, how couldst thou fail, thou soul, who in thy progress art dipping deep into the school-lore knowledge, to see reflected in thy training as in a mirror the Author of that knowledge?",
                "Most appropriate too is the situation of such a well “between Kadesh and Bered” (<i>ibid</i>. 14): “Bered” means “in evils,” and Kadesh “holy,” for he that is in gradual progress is on the borderland between the holy and the profane, fleeing from bad things, but not yet competent to share the life of perfect goodness."
            ]
        ],
        "Appendix": [
            "APPENDIX TO DE FUGA ET INVENTIONE",
            "§ 8. <i>There are people who fashion</i>, etc. Has Philo in mind <i>Phaedo</i> 96 B ff., where Socrates contrasts, or seems to contrast, the views of earlier philosophers, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heracleitus, etc., with the higher thought suggested to him by Anaxagoras’s dictum? Certainly there is no close resemblance between these theories, as noted there, and the views mentioned by Philo here, but he might perhaps without much difficulty have regarded the negation of a final cause implied in the former as the deification of some original ὕλη.",
            "§§ 11–13. Jacob’s expostulation with Laban is interpreted as an argument against the earlier philosophers who assumed an evolution in creation. On the contrary, he asserts, everything was made as it was to be, and had its ποιόν from the first. The counterpart of this in the story is the protest of Jacob in Gen. 30:25-end, which results in his claiming the marked (ἐπίσημα) animals for himself, and leaving the ἄσημα to Laban. (In E.V. these are respectively the stronger and the feebler.)",
            "For the Stoic equation of ποιόν with εἶδος and the maintenance of its identity throughout <i>cf.</i> <i>S. V.F.</i> ii. 395.",
            "§ 16. <i>Names.</i> Mangey, who suggested, not very helpfully, γένεσι, pointed out that there is nothing in the actual names of Leah and Rachel which suggests freedom. Possibly the thought may be that ἀσκητικαὶ δυνάμεις, with stress on ἀσκ., are essentially free, but this seems strained. Mr. Whitaker had put “their standing,” probably supposing that the allusion is to the freedom they have gained from Laban’s control, as expressed in their speech. Possibly again “in the terms they use,” or “their language,” ὀνόματα being sometimes used for “words” in general as well as for “names,” and this would at least give a good antithesis to ἐνθυμήμασι. But both these postulate an unnatural meaning for the word. If we suppose a corruption ταῖς ὀρμαῖς would be a possible correction.",
            "§§ 25 ff. Fleeing from Esau.—Philo’s views on this are perplexing. We shall perhaps best understand them by remembering that he keeps passing from the internal to the external danger, from the Esau within us to the Esau without. In §24 Esau is definitely the inward enemy. In §§25 ff. he may be either or both, but the temptation to make this topic an occasion for one of those “diatribes” or “commonplaces” which he enjoys so much, though to us they may seem to be unworthy interruptions of the argument, carries him away till by § 28 it is clearly the outward φαῦλος. This enemy is to be met by a judicious and benevolent use of the good things of life, and after exhausting this subject Philo returns quite clearly in § 39 to the inward conflict. The advice of Patience for this, though given in a very different style, is practically the same. He who is not yet fitted for the highest life must accommodate himself to the lower conditions and make the best possible use of them.",
            "In <i>De Mig.</i> 210–212 the danger is at the start said to be “either in thyself or in another person.” We then pass on to language which if literally taken seems to leave “thyself” out of the question and to inculcate a degrading subservience to another. But as stated in the footnote to that passage, I believe that the thought is really the same as here, and that the principle of accommodation to the facts of life is parabolically compared to the insincere subservience of the worldly-wise. The long diatribe in <i>De Som.</i> ii. 80–92 must no doubt be reckoned with. But here Philo is dealing with a very different subject, εὐλάβεια, and his advice can hardly be said to contain anything degrading, unless it is the description of Abraham’s dealings with the children of Heth, §§ 89–90. But is not this also a parable of the same kind as I have supposed in <i>De Mig.</i>? Both parables may in a sense be compared to that of the Unjust Judge.",
            "§ 26. τῶν εἰρημένων. The translation suggested in the footnote seems preferable, not only because τῶν εἰρ. more naturally refers to something further back, though it is perhaps sometimes used of something in the immediate neighbourhood, but because Philo frequently uses τὰ ποιητικὰ ἧς ἡδονῆς. See <i>e.g.</i> <i>Leg. All.</i> ii. 107 τὰ ποιητικὰ αὐτῆς (<i>i.e.</i> ἡδονῆς), χρυσὸς ἄργυρος δόξα τιμαί ἀρχαὶ, where, however, δόξα and τιμαί are ranked as ποιητικά, not as here as products. See also index to <i>S. V. F.</i> on ποιητικά and τελικά.",
            "§ 31. δεξιότης. L. &amp; S. 1927 have added “kindliness, courtesy,” to their earlier “cleverness,” etc., and refer to Philo ii. 30, <i>i.e.</i> <i>De Abr.</i> 208. There and in the other two of the four passages where I have noted the word this is suitable. But here the usage is somewhat wider. Philo’s use of the word seems to extend to gentlemanly behaviour of any kind.",
            "§ 42. πεῖσμα. Wendland suspects this word. But its use in this sense, though perhaps not common, is well supported. Here Philo is evidently led to it by the desire to accumulate names in -μα in antithesis to ἀνάθημα, and having once used it here was perhaps encouraged to use it again in § 114, where it seems to have the same meaning. Elsewhere it has the commoner sense of “cable.”",
            "§ 45. δόγμασιν * * * οὗτος. Wendland, after giving Mangey’s note in which, reading ἐπιμένοντα. For -τι, he suggested the insertion of προτρέπουσι or some similar word to complete the sense, adds “sed plura desunt”; <i>i.e.</i> he considered that not only was something needed to shew what happens to the Lover of Discipline, but also an explanation of the Brother of Rebecca to lead up to οὗτος. This is perhaps the most probable view, but I do not think it is certain that there is any lacuna, or indeed any correction needed at all. If οὗτος is referred to βίος, the statement that while the resources of ordinary life are a danger to the fool, this ordinary life is to the man of discipline the testing-ground and therefore the brother of persistence, makes good enough sense. We have to set against it the distance of βίον from οὗτος, and that we should rather have expected ταῦτα.",
            "Mangey’s suggestion implies that the Lover of Discipline, who presumably is the person sent to the Brother of Persistence, is here identified with that Brother. This also, though confusing, is perhaps not impossible. But if so, the simplest emendation would be οὔχ, ὅς for οὗτος, <i>i.e.</i> the resources of life are a danger to the fool, but <i>not so</i> to the Man of Persistence, who is the Brother of Rebecca. Or perhaps οὔ, τῷ οὗ νοῦς, <i>i.e.</i> while the mind of the fool is the Syrian, the mind of the Lover of Discipline is the other Laban, which is not unduly elated.",
            "§ 62. <i>Removed … from the Divine Company.</i> Wendland notes this and the similar phrase in § 74 as alluding to <i>Phaedrus</i> 247 A φθόνος γὰρ ἔξω θείου χοροῦ ἵσταται. The same thought has already appeared in <i>Leg. All.</i> i. 61, iii. 7. Philo, however, does not use it here in the sense of the original, which means that the Divine Company cannot feel envy. In <i>Spec. Leg.</i> ii. 249 he definitely quotes it and with the proper meaning. So also <i>Quod Omnis Prob.</i> 13.",
            "§ 75. <i>Space entirely filled by a body.</i> This is in accordance with the Stoic definition. A τόπος must be completely filled by σῶμα; if partially filled it remains a χώρα. See <i>S. V. F.</i> ii. 504 f.",
            "§ 82. This quotation from the <i>Theaetetus</i> follows almost immediately on the passage cited in § 68. Each of them is, I think, considerably longer than any citation from Plato to be found elsewhere, and the former is the only passage in this series of treatises in which he gives a reference to the dialogue quoted. The curious way in which in this second passage he disguises the fact that he is practically continuing an earlier quotation might suggest that he took both passages from some collection and did not know the reference for the latter, but probably it may be regarded as merely one of his mannerisms.",
            "§ 101. <i>Placed nearest</i>, etc. Or “set up,” ἀφιδρυμένος, in accordance with the common use of ἀφίδρυμα for an image, carrying on the thought of εἰκών. Drummond translates ἐγγ. ἀφ. by “the nearest model to,” but if by this is meant the “closest reproduction of,” the phraseology of μηδενὸς ὄντος μεθορίου διαστήματος seems strange. Wendland’s ἐφιδρυμένος seems to me pointless.",
            "§ 114. ἄθεον. To expunge this word as inappropriate seems to me rather hypercritical; that polytheism is essentially atheism is a natural remark. In fact Philo has made a very similar if not identical observation in <i>De Ebr.</i> 110, where the MSS. have τὸ γὰρ πολύθεον ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἀφρόνων ψυχαῖς ἀθεότητα, after which Wendland supplies κατασκευάζει, but Mangey’s ἀθεότης is quite possible.",
            "§ 134. “<i>Breath</i>” or “<i>spirit</i>.” It seems impossible to get any satisfactory equivalent for the Stoic πνεῦμα, “a stuff or body akin to the element of air, but associated with warmth and elasticity” (Arnold); see note on <i>Quis Rerum</i> 242. For the term as applied to νοῦς <i>cf.</i> <i>De Som.</i> i. 30. I have not seen other examples in Philo or elsewhere, but it is very commonly applied to ψυχή, <i>e.g.</i> Diog. Laert. vii. 157, where Zeno is said to define ψυχή as πνεῦμα ἔνθερμον. For the idea that πνεῦμα is ὑγρότερον καὶ ψυχρότερον in plants, ξηρότερον καὶ θερμότερον in animals, see <i>S. V. F.</i> ii. 787 ff.",
            "§ 150. In the shorter form of the allegory in <i>De Mut.</i> 134 f. the pledges are given a different meaning. This is natural because there Judah is no longer the human soul wooing virtue, but God Himself impregnating the soul. Consequently the pledges are not the attributes which constitute human virtue, but those which belong to God’s working in the universe.",
            "§ 177. <i>The reasoning habit.</i> Or “the acquisition of the reasoning faculty.” Since in the section where Philo deals with πηγή in the sense of παιδεία this phrase does not recur, it would seem that he regards the two as more or less synonymous. This agrees with his use of λογικὴ ἕξις in <i>Leg. All.</i> i. 10 where it is applied to the mental condition of children when they first begin to reason. The use of it in <i>Leg. All.</i> iii. 210 is somewhat similar.",
            "§ 191. ῥύσις or ῥυείς. The chief objection to ῥυείς is that it involves referring οὗτος in the next sentence to προφορικὸς λόγος, whereas it is clear that the “great deluge” is the ῥύσις of all the senses (and the mind). If ῥύσις is read, γοῦν would be taken, as not unfrequently, as transitional to the development of the ῥύσις is of the text, which up to now has only been treated incidentally. It would be better perhaps in this case, though not necessary, to read ἀκώλυτος.",
            "§ 200. This defective sentence seems to need something which will give a forcible contrast to the actual unretentiveness described in the next sentence. I suggest κεί φρενὶ … ταμιεύεσθαι ἔστι, <i>i.e.</i> they require the inpouring even if they can hold it (which they can’t). Variants of this might be κἂν … ᾗ or εἰ εἴη, in the latter case the εἰ clause being the protasis to ἣ γένοιτʼ ἂν … in the sense of “which would (rather than “must”) be the result, if only …” Dr. Rouse suggests ἃ δεῖ for καί, which will give much the same sense, but would, I think, require the omission of τά before παραδοθέντα."
        ]
    },
    "versions": [
        [
            "Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1934",
            "https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI"
        ]
    ],
    "heTitle": "על הבריחה והמציאה",
    "categories": [
        "Second Temple",
        "Philo"
    ],
    "schema": {
        "heTitle": "על הבריחה והמציאה",
        "enTitle": "On Flight and Finding",
        "key": "On Flight and Finding",
        "nodes": [
            {
                "heTitle": "הקדמה",
                "enTitle": "Introduction"
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "",
                "enTitle": ""
            },
            {
                "heTitle": "הערות",
                "enTitle": "Appendix"
            }
        ]
    }
}