THAT THE WORSE IS WONT TO ATTACK THE BETTER (QUOD DETERIUS POTIORI INSIDIARI SOLEAT)
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION
Cain and Abel signify to Philo opposing principles, love of self and love of God (32). The call to Abel to go out into the “plain” is a challenge to a disputation. The opening of the Treatise is mainly occupied in showing that in Genesis “plain” suggests a contest of opposing principles. Why does Jacob call Leah and Rachel to the plain? Because it is there that he “tends his flocks,” i.e. disciplines his lower impulses. The plain is the obvious place for Joseph, the wearer of a many-coloured patchwork of inconsistent tenets, to be sent to by his father that he may be taught better by his brethren, who are there becoming proficients in the work of disciplining their lower nature (their flocks). Even Isaac, going out into the plain to meditate is, in Philo’s eyes, the peerless champion, who finds the field emptied by the retirement of all his adversaries. “The plain,” says Philo in 32, “has now been shown to be a figure of a contest,” and so he passes on to his next point.
Abel was ill-advised to accept Cain’s challenge. Self-love can plead for itself (33 f.) with an eloquence which can be met only by one versed in dialectic, and Abel lacked such training. Moses was wiser in shrinking from meeting the sophists of Egypt, acknowledging himself to be without eloquence, nay, devoid of speech itself, and waiting for “Aaron,” who commonly represents for Philo the uttered word. Thought should ever be wedded to speech. Glib fools are contemptible, but dumb wise men are ineffective (44 ff.). This is a theme to which Philo returns later on (126 ff.), where he enlarges on the joy of speech in interpreting thought.
Yet the seeming victory of the false view is really a defeat (47), as is evident when we consider well what is implied in the words, “the voice of thy brother’s blood.” Here is the great truth, which is plainly stated in Lev. 17:11, that “the Life is in the Blood.” The Life which is Life indeed emerges from seeming death no longer “speechless.” It has now a “voice,” which God hears (47 ff. and 92 f.). This theme is taken up again in 70 ff., where the question put to Cain, “What hast thou done?” is treated as equivalent to “Thou hast effected nothing,” and as signifying the futility of sophism, ‘clothing itself with’ Balaam or anyone else, in contrast with the undying life of virtue.
The seeming victor, moreover, brings on himself a curse which comes to him “from the earth,” i.e. the senses which are his chosen field (98 ff.). He may toil at it, but can never till it (104 ff.). It will never second his efforts (112 f.). He must go “groaning and trembling” (119, 129 f.), never finding rest with ‘Noah,’ or laughter with ‘Isaac,’ or joy in himself with ‘Aaron,’ or hope with ‘Enos’ (120 ff.). He will taste abandonment (141 ff.) and the shame of exposure to the eyes of God (158 ff.).
A few points may be noticed—
(а) Suggestions illustrated by the New Testament.
(α) God asks questions to convict men out of their own mouths, and to elicit an utterance of the heart’s desire (58–60). We are reminded of our Lord’s way with men.
(β) Blood is distinguished, as the essence of our animal vitality, from the inbreathed breath of our reason (79–91). Our thoughts go to the Epistle to the Hebrews and 1 St. John.
(b) Philo’s habit of going off at a word.
(α) The word “keeper” in Cain’s insolent question leads to ‘guardianship’: this to Levites, guardians of the oracles of God. Their active service from the age of twenty-five to that of fifty, when they become guardians, leads to Memory, guarding what it has learned, and assisted in the high task of teaching by Utterance (“His brother shall minister,” Numb. 8:26) (62–68).
(β) The words “God hath made me to laugh” (literally “hath made laughter for me”) leads to the thought of God as “Poet” (“Maker”) whose Poetry produces gladness (123 ff.).
(γ) Joseph is sent from “Hebron,” the place of “hollows,” which at once suggests the differences of level and colour which are a symptom of leprosy, and are therefore suited to mark the unhealthy state which Joseph must be rid of (15 f.).
(δ) Joseph, having lightly started in the right direction, is presently found “wandering.” We may, with a right but superficial intention, go wrong, mistaking forced asceticism for healthy self-control, and outward piety for true religion (17–21).
(ε) The two stages of education are reached by way of the two cakes made of Manna, which is a synonym for the Rock, from which flows the spring of Divine wisdom (117 f.).