- Emil Schürer writes (The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, pp. 329-331):
- [12:47 PM]While this shorter explanation in a catechetical form [Questions and Answers on Genesis] was intended for more extensive circles, Philo’s special and chief scientific work is his large allegorical commentary on Genesis, Νομων ιερων αλληγοριαι (such is the title given it in Euseb. Hist. eccl. ii. 18. 1, and Photius, Bibliotheca cod. 103. Comp. also Origen, Comment. in Matth. vol. xvii. c. 17; contra Celsum, iv. 51). These two works frequently approximate each other as to their contents. For in the Quaestiones et solutiones also, the deeper allegorical significance is given as well as the literal meaning. In the great allegorical commentary on the contrary, the allegorical interpretation exclusively prevails. The deeper allegorical sense of the sacred letter is settled in extensive and prolix discussion, which by reason of the copious adducting of parallel passages often seems to wander from the text. Thus the entire exegetic method, with its draggin in of the most heterogeneous passages in elucidation of the idea supposed to exist in the text, forcibly recalls the method of Rabbinical Midrash. This allegorical interpretation however has with all its arbitrariness, its rules and laws, the allegorical meaning as once settled for certain persons, objects and events being afterwards adhered to with tolerable consistency. Especially is it a fundamental thought, from which the exposition is everywhere deduced, that the history of mankind as related in Genesis is in reality nothing else than a system of psychology and ethic. The different individuals, who here make their appearance, denote the different states of soul (τροποι της ψυχης) which occur among men. To analyse these in their variety and their relations both to each other and to the Deity and the world of sense, and thence to deduce moral doctrines, is the special aim of this great allegorical commentary. Thus we perceive at the same time, that Philo’s chief interest is not—as might from the whole plan of his system be supposed—speculative theology for its own sake, but on the contrary psychology and ethic. To judge from his ultimate purpose he is not a speculative theologian, but a psychologist and moralist (comp. note 183). The commentary at first follows the text of Genesis verse by verse. Afterwards single sections are selected, and some of them so fully treated, as to grow into regular monographs. Thus e.g. Philo takes occasion from the history of Noah to write two books on drunkenness (περι μεθης), which he does with such thoroughness, that a collection of the opinions of other philosophers on this subject filled the first of these lost books (Mangey, i. 357).
- [12:47 PM]The work, as we have it, begins at Gen. ii. 1; Και ετελεσθησαν οι ουρανοι και η γη. The creation of the world is therefore not treated of. For the composition, De opificio mundi, which precedes it in our editions, is a work of an entirely different character, being no allegorical commentary on the history of the creation, but a statement of that history itself. Nor does the first book of the Legum allegoriae by any means join on to the work De opificio mundi; for the former begins at Gen. ii. 1, while in De opif. mundi, the creation of man also, according to Gen. ii, is already dealt with. Hence—as Gfrörer rightly asserts in answer to Dähne—the allegorical commentary cannot be combined with De opif. mundi as though the two were but parts of the same work. At most may the question be raised, whether Philo did not also write an allegorical commentary on Gen. i. This is however improbable. For the allegorical commentary proposes to treat of the history of mankind, and this does not begin till Gen. ii. 1. Nor need the abrupt commencement of Leg. alleg. i seem strange, since this manner of starting at once with the text to be expounded, quite corresponds with the method of Rabbinical Midrash. The later books too of Philo’s own commentary begin in fact in the same abrupt manner. In our manuscripts and editions only the first books bear the title belonging to the whole work, Νομων ιερων αλληγοριαι. All the later books have special titles, a circumstance which gives the appearance of their being independent works. In truth however all that is contained in Mangey’s first vol.—viz. the works which here follow—belongs to the book in question (with the sole exception of De opificio mundi).
- [12:47 PM]Emil Schürer comments:
- [12:47 PM]“Περι των Χερουβιμ και της φλογινης ρομφαιας και του κτισθεντος πρωτου εξ ανθρωπου Καιν. De Cherubim et flammeo gladio (Mangey, i. 138-162). On Gen. iii. 24 and iv. 1. From this point onwards the several books have been handed down no longer under the general title νομων ιερων αλληγοριαι, but under special titles. According to our conjecture as above, this book would be the fifth, unless it formed the fourth together with the commentary on Gen. iii 20-23.” (The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, p. 332)
- [12:47 PM]F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker write (Philo, vol. 2, pp. 3-7):
- [12:47 PM]This fine treatise divides itself into two parts, the first (1-39) a homily on Genesis iii. 24— “And He cast forth Adam and set over against the Garden of Pleasure the Cherubim and the sword of flame which turns every way.” The second (40—end) on Genesis iv. 1— “And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and he said ‘I have gotten a man through God.’ ” I. In the first part we open (1-10) with a disquisition on the difference between the phrases “cast forth” and “sent forth,” which was used in Genesis iii. 23: the former indicates a permanent, the latter a temporary expulsion (1-2). These different meanings are illustrated (3-9) by the earlier expulsion of Hagar, as described in Genesis xvi., and the later and permanent expulsion of Genesis xxi. In this, as often in Philo, Hagar stands for the lower and secular education, and Sarah for philosophy. We then have a discussion (11-20) of the meaning of “over against.” While it is pointed out that the phrase may sometimes indicate hostility (12-13), and sometimes the position of the accused before his judge (14-17), in which the text “the priest shall set the (accused) woman before the Lord and uncover her head” leads to an interpretation of the last three words as meaning “reveal the real motives,” it is decided that the words in Genesis are used in the same sense of friendliness, as in the text “Abraham was standing before (opposite to) the Lord” (18-20). From 21-39 we have mainly a discussion of what is intended by the two Cherubim and the Flaming Sword. Two physical explanations are suggested: (a) the planetary sphere on the one hand, with its seven zones in which each of the planets move, and that of the fixed stars on the other, the revolution of the whole heaven being the sword (21-24); (b) the two “hemispheres” of the heaven, with the sun as sword (25-26). But Philo’s personal preference is for a more profound interpretation (27-30), which finds in the Cherubim the two chief ‘Potencies’ of God. His ‘goodness’ or lovingkindness, and His majesty or sovereignty, while the sword is the reason or Logos which unites the two. This last leads to the reflection that Balaam, the foolish one, was rightly made swordless, as is shown in his words to the ass, “if I had a sword, I would have pierced thee” (32). And these particular words in their turn suggest a short meditation on those who, when disappointed in worldly affairs lay the blame on the affairs themselves (33-38). The whole homily concludes with a section emphasizing reason as the source of human happiness (39).
- [12:48 PM]II. The main idea that runs through the second part is that Adam signifies mind, Eve sense (i.e. sense-perception), and Cain (whose name means ‘possession’) the impious idea engendered by Mind and Sense, that what we have is our own and not God’s. But we must first consider the words “Adam knew his wife.” The absence of any such phrase in connexion with the great saints of the Pentateuch indicates that their wives (unlike Adam’s) are Virtues which receive seed from God Himself, though they bear offspring to the persons who possess them, a lesson which is declared to be one for higher understandings, and too spiritual for profane ears (40-52). Next we have to ask why “Cain” is not more fully described as ‘first-born son’ (53-55), and the explanation of this point merges into an exposition of the way in which Mind, helpless in itself, by mating with Sense, comes to comprehend phenomena and supposes that this comprehension is its own doing (56-64). The folly of this supposition is emphasized (65-66), and illustrated first from the words of Laban, “The daughters are my daughters, the sons my sons, and the cattle my cattle, and all that thou seest are mine.” The allegorizing of daughters, sons, and cattle as arts or sciences, reasonings, and sense-perceptions respectively, leads to an impassioned outburst on human fallibility and its slavery to delusions (67-71), a slavery which resembles that of the slave of Ex. xxi. who “loved his master” and rejected freedom (72-74). A second illustration is drawn from the vain boasting of Pharaoh, as described in Moses’ song in Ex. xv. (74-76). The failure of the Pharaoh mind to realize that God alone acts, while it is for man to be passive (77), leads to a remarkable digression on the right form of human passiveness—not, that is, a helpless passiveness, but one which braces itself to accept and co-operate with the Actor (78-83). In contrast with the idle claims of the Mind, we have the Divine claim that “all things are Mine . . . in My feasts.” The last few words suggest a meditation on the sense in which God keeps feast, how His resting is an eternal activity, which unlike the activity of the world knows no weariness (84-90). Man indeed can in no true sense feast, and there follows a powerful denunciation of the vanity, licence, and sinfulness of the popular festivals (91-97). The last few words of this denunciation deplore the pagan blindness to the truth that God sees into the recesses of the soul, and thus we pass, by a somewhat forced transition, to the thought of the soul as God’s house, and the nature of the preparations needed to fit it for His reception is described in a fine passage, in the course of which Philo gives a signal example of the high value he sets on the secular education and culture of his day (98-105).
- [12:48 PM]The soul thus fitted for God’s reception will inevitably find its chief joy in acknowledging God’s sovereignty and ownership (106-107). Thus we return to the main theme, which is once more illustrated by the text “The land shall not be sold . . . for all the land is Mine, because ye are sojourners and aliens before Me.” Spiritually the “land” is the world of creation, every part of which is a loan from Him to every other part, and here Philo dwells eloquently on the interdependence of created things (108-113). It is also ourselves, for, inconstant creatures that we are (113-114), ignorant of our whence and whither (114-115), our minds ever subject to delusion and seduction (116-117), we cannot be said to own ourselves, a thought which may well teach us resignation (118-119). The last words of the text, “ye are sojourners,” suggest the thought of God as the true ‘citizen,’ in contrast to ourselves who are at best immigrants (120-121), and once more the phrase “shall not be sold” reminds us that the benefits men exchange are at bottom a matter of sale and purchase, and that God alone is the real giver (121-123). Finally we have a disquisition on the error involved in the words “I have gotten a man through God.” Philo, on the lines of Aristotle, names four causes of things, and shows that the “by whom,” or agent, and not the “through whom,” or instrument, is applicable to God (124-127); and this he illustrates by comparing the erroneous use by Joseph of the latter with the right use of the former by Moses (128-130).
On The Cherubim
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