Philo allegorizes Genesis 9:20 (Noah plants a vineyard) into a treatise on God as cosmic planter, the soul's inner "trees," and whether the wise man may get drunk.
On Noah's Work as a Planter is the second half of Philo of Alexandria's two-part study of Noah as farmer, following On Agriculture. Where that earlier work treated general husbandry, this one narrows to viticulture, taking as its text "Noah began to be a man, a tiller of the soil, and he planted a vineyard" (Genesis 9:20). True to Philo's method throughout the Allegorical Commentary, he reads the verse not as agricultural history but as a figure for the soul's cultivation, while first establishing its cosmic backdrop.
The treatise opens by casting God as the archetypal planter: the cosmos itself is the "most fruit-bearing plant," rooted and held together not by any material support but by the divine Word stretching from center to circumference. Philo then moves inward, from the world-plant to the human being as a "small cosmos," whose senses and rational faculties are trees planted by God, and finally to Eden itself, which he insists cannot mean literal fruit trees -- no one is said to dwell there and eat from it -- but must be the virtues planted in the rational soul. He works through the numerology of Leviticus 19:23-25 (fruit forbidden for three years, holy in the fourth, eaten in the fifth), reading the numbers four and five as symbols of completeness and sense-perception, and ties the whole discussion to the Song at the Sea's language of God's people as his "portion and inheritance" (Exodus 15:17-18, Deuteronomy 32:9), defending the paradox that God can be called a man's possession.
The final third pivots to the actual subject of Noah's drunkenness, staging a philosophical set-piece debate -- drawn from a real Hellenistic genre of "On Drunkenness" treatises -- on whether the wise man will get drunk. Philo lays out arguments on both sides via etymology (methein derived from meta to thuein, "after sacrificing") and analogy, showing off Stoic-Peripatetic dialectical technique before the work breaks off mid-argument. It matters as a window into how a first-century Alexandrian Jewish thinker fused Platonic cosmology, Greek philosophical argumentation, and close Torah exegesis into a single continuous reading practice.
“let him say boldly that nothing among material things is so mighty as to be strong enough to carry the weight of the cosmos, but that the eternal Word of the eternal God is the most secure and steadfast support of the universe.”
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“But man was allotted an exceptional constitution: for he bent the others' faces down, which is why they incline toward the ground, but man's, on the contrary, he set upright, so that he might gaze upon heaven, being a plant not of earth but of heaven, as the ancient saying goes.”
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“For truly the mind that has been completely purified, and that renounces everything else, knows and recognizes one thing only — the unbegotten, to whom it has drawn near, and by whom in turn it has been taken up.”
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“It is therefore impossible to plant the edible trees before entering the land given by God.”
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“It is proposed in this form: whether the wise man will get drunk. Now to "get drunk" is twofold: one sense equivalent to being filled with wine, the other equivalent to talking nonsense in wine.”
— On Noah's Work as a Planter · read this chapter →
It is Philo of Alexandria's allegorical commentary on Genesis 9:20, where Noah plants a vineyard. Philo uses the verse as a springboard to discuss God as the planter of the cosmos, the human being as a garden of virtues, and finally whether a wise man can get drunk without losing his virtue.
He rejects a literal reading. Since no human is recorded eating its fruit, Philo argues Eden's trees symbolize life, immortality, knowledge, and the perception of good and evil planted within the rational soul rather than physical fruit trees.
Drawing on Exodus 15:17-18 and the Levites having no tribal land because "the Lord himself is their portion" (Deuteronomy 10:9), Philo argues this does not mean God is owned like property, but that the purified mind recognizes God alone as its highest good and benefactor.
The treatise stages a formal debate with arguments on both sides, including an etymology deriving methein ("to be drunk") from meta to thuein ("after sacrificing"). The text breaks off mid-argument before resolving the question definitively.
On Noah's Work as a Planter is explicitly the sequel to On Agriculture; Philo says the earlier book covered general farming while this one narrows specifically to viticulture, following Noah's role as a vine-dresser in Genesis 9:20.
Philo derives extended numerological readings from Leviticus 19:23-25, where fruit is forbidden for three years, holy in the fourth year, and eaten in the fifth; he connects four to justice, equality, and the four elements, and five to the five senses.
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 Mating / Preliminary Studies