Philo allegorizes Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar (Gen. 16) to argue that liberal education (grammar, rhetoric, music, geometry, dialectic) is a necessary preliminary stage before the soul can attain virtue and wisdom.
On Mating (De Congressu), part of Philo of Alexandria's Allegorical Commentary on Genesis, opens from Genesis 16:1-6: barren Sarah gives her Egyptian slave girl Hagar to Abraham so he can have children through her. Philo reads this literally odd episode as a sustained allegory of education. Sarah is virtue/wisdom itself, too exalted for the beginner to approach directly; Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid, stands for the encyclical or "preliminary" studies -- grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, music, geometry, and the other liberal arts -- which must be mastered first, as a kind of intellectual apprenticeship, before the soul is ready to receive wisdom's own offspring.
Philo works out the allegory in detail: the two "citizen wives" of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, represent the rational and irrational parts of the soul, while their handmaids Zilpah and Bilhah represent the powers of speech and nourishment that serve each. He contrasts Abraham, who needs the effort of teaching and many wives/concubines (many disciplines), with Isaac, the self-taught type who receives wisdom directly without any preliminary curriculum -- a distinction between learned virtue and virtue as an unearned, joy-given nature. A long excursus in the second half treats the number ten (the decad) as a symbol of perfection, working through examples from tithing law, the Passover, the tabernacle's ten curtains, and the Ten Commandments, to justify why Hagar is given to Abraham only after ten years in Canaan -- ten years being the time needed to mature from raw perception into rational readiness for basic instruction.
The treatise closes by defending Sarah's harsh treatment of Hagar (Genesis 16:6) as a needed discipline: education/Hagar must never be allowed to eclipse or replace wisdom/Sarah, and a certain amount of affliction and toil is beneficial for the soul, illustrated by the "bread of affliction," manna in the wilderness, and the bitterness at Marah. Philo also gives a brief autobiographical aside about his own youthful infatuations with grammar, geometry, and music before philosophy properly claimed him. The work matters as one of the clearest ancient statements that the classical liberal-arts curriculum (the future trivium and quadrivium) is instrumental, not final -- a ladder to be climbed and then, implicitly, left behind for philosophy and wisdom.
“It is good, then, to pray not only that virtue may bear children”
— On Mating / Preliminary Studies · read this chapter →
“so too the general studies stand before virtue; for these are the road that leads to her”
— On Mating / Preliminary Studies · read this chapter →
“One must know that great undertakings have great preludes as well. And virtue is the greatest of undertakings”
— On Mating / Preliminary Studies · read this chapter →
“Philosophy teaches self-mastery of the belly, self-mastery of what comes after the belly, and self-mastery also of the tongue”
— On Mating / Preliminary Studies · read this chapter →
“For most and greatest of goods are wont to arise from disciplined exercises and vigorous toils”
— On Mating / Preliminary Studies · read this chapter →
It is Philo of Alexandria's allegorical commentary on Genesis 16:1-6, where Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham. Philo reads Sarah as virtue/wisdom and Hagar as the 'preliminary' liberal-arts education (grammar, rhetoric, music, geometry, dialectic) that a soul must pass through before it can receive wisdom directly.
Sarah represents virtue and wisdom itself, the ultimate goal; Hagar, her Egyptian slave, represents the encyclical or preparatory studies -- the liberal arts -- that serve as a necessary but subordinate stepping-stone toward wisdom.
Philo argues the ten years Abraham spent in Canaan before taking Hagar symbolize the decad as a number of perfection and completion. He supports this with tithing laws, the Passover date, the tabernacle's ten curtains, and the Ten Commandments, all read as instances of the same symbolic pattern.
Philo defends the affliction (Gen. 16:6) not as domestic jealousy but as a deliberate, beneficial discipline, comparable to the 'bread of affliction' and the bitter waters at Marah: useful hardship that corrects the soul and keeps education from displacing wisdom.
Abraham needs teaching, many disciplines, and multiple 'wives' (a plurality of studies) to attain virtue, whereas Isaac represents the self-taught soul who receives wisdom directly and effortlessly, symbolized by joy rather than laborious learning.
Yes -- Philo includes an autobiographical aside describing how, as a young man, he was drawn in turn to grammar, geometry, and music before philosophy claimed his full devotion, illustrating the very progression he describes allegorically.
Allegorical Interpretation I · Allegorical Interpretation II · Allegorical Interpretation III · Every Good Man is Free · Flaccus · On Abraham · On Dreams · On Drunkenness · On Flight and Finding · On Husbandry · On Joseph · On Noah's Work as a Planter