Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
6 De Prasm. et Pan., § 18 ; M. ii. 425, P. 927 (Ri. v. 241).
6 Leg. Alleg., iii. § 63 ; M. i. 122, 123, P. 94 (Ri. i. 175). Of.
Gen. xxx. 2 : "Am I in God's stead ?"
made me Laughter; for whosoever heareth, rejoiceth with me"1 — Philo bursts forth:
" Open, then, wide your ears, ye mystse, and receive the most holy mysteries. 'Laughter' is Joy, and ' hath made ' is the same as ' hath begotten ' ; so that what is said hath the following meaning : ' The Lord hath begotten Isaac ' — for He is Father of the perfect nature, sowing in the soul and generating blessedness." 2
That all of this was a matter of vital moment for Philo himself, may be seen from what we must regard as an intensely interesting autobiographical passage, in which our philosopher, speaking of the happy childbirth of Wisdom, writes :
" For some she judges entirely worthy of living with her, while others seem as yet too young to support such admirable and wise house-sharing; these latter she hath permitted to solemnise the preliminary initiatory rites of marriage, holding out hopes of its [future] consummation.
" ' Sarah/ then, the Virtue who is mistress of my soul, hath brought forth, but hath not brought forth for me — for that I could not, because I was too young, receive [into my soul] her offspring — wisdom, and righteousness, and piety — because of the brood of bastard brats which empty opinions had borne me.
" For the feeding of these last, the constant care and incessant anxiety concerning them, have forced me to take no thought for the legitimate children who are the true citizens.
" It is well, therefore, to pray Virtue not only to bear children, who even without praying brings her fair
1 Gen. xxi. 6. A.V. : " God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me."
3 Leg. Alleg., iii. § 77 ; M. i. 131, P. 101 (Ri. i. 187). Cf. also
De Cherub,, § 13 ; M. i. 147, P. 115 (Ri. i. 209).
progeny to birth, but also to bear sons for us, so that we may be blessed with a share in her seed and offspring.
" For she is wont to bear to God alone, with thankfulness repaying unto Him the first-fruits of the things she hath received, [to Him] who, Moses says, 'hath opened ' her ever-virgin ' womb.' " l
But, indeed, Philo is never wearied of reiterating this sublime doctrine, which for him was the consummation of the mysteries of the holy life. Thus, then, again he sets it forth as follows :
" We should, accordingly, understand that the True Keason (Logos) of nature has the potency of both father and husband for different purposes — of a husband, when he casts the seed of virtues into the soul as into a good field ; of a father, in that it is his nature to beget good counsels, and fair and virtuous deeds, and when he hath begotten them, he nourisheth them with those refreshing doctrines which discipline and wisdom furnish.
"And the intelligence is likened at one time to a virgin, at another to a wife, or a widow, or one who has not yet a husband.
" [It is likened] to a virgin, when the intelligence keeps itself chaste and uncorrupted from pleasures and appetites, and griefs and fears, the passions which assault it ; and then the father who begot it, assumes the leadership thereof.
" And when she (intelligence) lives as a comely wife with comely Eeason (Logos), that is with virtuous Eeason, this self-same Keason himself undertakes the care of her, sowing, like a husband, the most excellent concepts in her.
" But whenever the soul is bereft of her children of
1 Gen. xxix. 31. Cong. Erud. Grat., § 2 ; M. i. 520, P. 425
(Ri. iii. 72).
prudence, and of her marriage with Eight Eeason, widowed of her most fair possessions, and left desolate of Wisdom, through choosing a blameworthy life — then, let her suffer the pains she hath decreed against herself, with no wise Reason to play physician to her transgressions, either as husband and consort, or as father and begetter."1
Eeferring to Jacob's dream of the white, and spotted, and ring-straked, and speckled kine, Philo tells us that this, too, must be taken as an allegory of souls. The first class of souls, he says, are " white."
"The meaning is that when the soul receives the Divine Seed, the first-born births are spotlessly white, like unto light of utmost purity, to radiance of the greatest brilliance, as though it were the shadowless ray of the sun's beams from a cloudless sky at noon." 2