ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION TO BOOK II
This treatise deals with Genesis 2:18–3:1. Let us mark its mode of dealing with the Sacred Text in salient instances.
The story of the creation of Eve, we are told, is not meant to be taken literally. It is a Myth,” showing forth the origin of Sense-perception, which becomes active when Mind is asleep (Gen. 2:21). The bringing of Woman to Man is the introduction of Sense-perception to Mind, which hails it as its own (2:22 f.). (19 ff., 40 ff.)
That Adam and Eve were both naked (2:25) means that they were without either good or evil; for nakedness of soul can show itself as (a) freedom from passions; (b) loss of virtue; (c) neutrality. Adam and Eve were inactive both in mind and sense-perception, and were “unashamed,” i.e. without either the shamelessness of the worthless man, or the shamefastness of the man of worth. (53 ff.)
The entry of the Serpent (Gen. 3:1) is due to the need of some means of uniting Mind and Sense-perception for their joint apprehension of objects, and of eliciting their activities. (71 ff.)
Let us notice next the extent to which Philo dwells on single words.
The word “alone” in Gen. 2:18 draws out the reminder that God only is alone, self-contained, needing naught, not composite; while the heavenly Man ever yearns to be with God, and the earthy man always is with his passions. (1–4.)
The word “help” or “helper” suggests to him the created, later-born helpers given to the earthy man. These “wild beasts” are the senses and passions, such as desire, fear, anger, given to Mind (Gen. 2:19)—our helpers, but often our foes. (5 ff.)
The word “moreover” (in the Greek version of Gen. 2:19) is taken by Philo to mean a second creation of senses and passions; and this further creation is accounted for by the observation that evils are numerous, and by the suggestion that Gen. 1:24 refers to genera, and Gen. 2:19 to species, a suggestion in support of which evidence is adduced. (11 f.)
In the account of the giving of names to the creatures, the words “what he would call” are taken as meaning “why he would invite.” (14 f.)
In the story of the creation of Eve, “ribs” or “sides” are understood as “strength”; “took” as meaning “entered on the roll,” “registered,” i.e. brought into active service (this on the strength of Numb. 31:26, “take the sum”); “filled up flesh in its stead” means “fulfilled” sense-perception, and “filled” the body “with it”; and woman is “builded” (Gen. 2:22, R.V. margin) because she is moved to activity from without. (19 f., 35, 38 f.)
A striking example of single words pressed into the service of allegory is Adam’s welcome to Eve, “This is now bone of my bones.” “This” is Sense-perception no longer passive but become active; and “now” is indicative of Sense-perception being affected only by the present. (42 f.)
We pass on to observe the examples afforded by this treatise of Philo’s fondness for drawing illustrations and adducing parallels from the story of the patriarchs and the early history of Israel.
In 46 f. Philo maintains that, though active Sense-perception, being an extension of the potential Sense-perception inherent in Mind, may be said to come from Mind, yet to suppose that anything whatever is, in the strict sense of the word, derived from Mind is to be guilty of shallow thinking, and illustrates the truth of what he says by the contrast between Rachel addressing to Jacob the appeal “Give me children,” and “the Lord opening Leah’s womb” (Gen. 29:31 and 30:1 f.).
In 51 f. the danger of the drawing down of Mind from the love of God by its cleaving to Sense-perception is brought out by a reference to Levi’s noble choice (Deut. 33:9) making the Lord his portion (10:9), and to the two goats of Lev. 16:8.
Freedom from passions (one of the meanings of “nakedness”) is illustrated by Moses setting up the Tent of Witness outside the Camp (Exod. 33:7); by Aaron entering unrobed (!) into the Holy of Holies (cf. Lev. 16:1 ff.); by Nadab and Abihu leaving their coats (or irrational parts) for Mishael and Elzaphan (Lev. 10:5); by Abraham leaving his country (Gen. 12:1); by Isaac being forbidden to go down into Egypt (i.e. the body, Gen. 26:2); and by Jacob’s smoothness (Gen. 27:11). (54 ff.)
Loss of virtue (another meaning given to “nakedness”) is illustrated by Noah’s lapse (Gen. 9:21). And the indications which Philo finds in the narrative that the lapse was not irretrievable are illustrated by the provision in the Law that vows made only in intent may be rescinded (Numb. 30:10). (60 ff.)
The assaults of pleasure and the healing virtue of Self-mastery are illustrated by the deadly serpents and the brazen serpent of the wilderness journey (Numb. 21). Distraction, Pleasure’s agent, is like the scorpion (= “scattering”) of the desert. The soul-thirst of “Egypt” is quenched by the Wisdom (“Water”) as is hunger by the Word (“Manna”) of God. A sign of the great daring of Pleasure, in attacking even Moses, is found in the story of his rod. Like Jacob’s, it is “discipline.” Shrinking from this, Moses casts it away, and is then bidden to grasp it by its tail (Exod. 4:1 ff.). (78 ff., 87 ff.)
Pleasure is again pointed at in the Prayer of Jacob (Gen. 49:16–18), where Dan (= “distinguishing”) is the principle of self-mastery, who is to become a serpent biting the horse (sc. passions), and saving from them Mind (the “horseman”), who “waits for” God’s “salvation”; and in the Song of Moses (Exod. 15:1), where horse and rider, i.e. the four passions with Mind mounted on them, are cast into the sea.