Philo of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
"And the heaven and the earth and all their world were completed" (Gen. 2:1). Having earlier spoken of the coming-to-be of mind and of sense-perception, he now sets forth the completion of both together. He says that neither the individual mind nor the particular instance of sense-perception has reached its limit, but rather their forms — the form of mind and the form of sense-perception. For mind he calls, in a symbolic sense, heaven, since intelligible natures exist in heaven; and sense-perception he calls earth, since sense-perception has been allotted a bodily and more earthy constitution. And the "world" of mind consists of all things bodiless and intelligible, while the "world" of sense-perception consists of things bodily and, generally, all things perceptible.
"And God completed on the sixth day his works which he had made" (Gen. 2:2). It is entirely foolish to suppose that the world came into being in six days, or in any span of time whatsoever. Why? Because every span of time is a composite of days and nights, and these are necessarily produced by the motion of the sun as it travels above the earth and beneath it; and the sun is itself a part of heaven, so that time must be acknowledged to be younger than the world. It would be correct to say, then, that the world did not come into being in time, but that time was constituted through the world; for it is the motion of heaven that first revealed the nature of time.
When, therefore, he says that God completed his works on the sixth day, we must understand that he is not referring to a quantity of days, but to six as a perfect number, since it is the first number equal to the sum of its own parts — its half, its third, and its sixth — and is also composed from an oblong number, twice three. Now the dyad and the triad have advanced beyond the unit's bodilessness, since the dyad is an image of matter, being divided and cut just as matter is, while the triad is an image of a solid body, because a solid is divisible in three dimensions.
Moreover, six is akin to the motions of jointed living creatures; for the jointed body is by nature able to move in six ways — forward and backward, up and down, right and left. He therefore wishes to show that both the mortal kinds and, in turn, the imperishable kinds have been constituted according to their proper numbers, measuring the mortal kinds, as I said, by the six, and the blessed and happy kinds by the seven.
First, then, having brought the constitution of mortal things to rest on the seventh day, he begins the shaping of other, more divine things. For God never ceases to act; rather, just as it is proper to fire to burn and to snow to chill, so it is proper to God to act — and all the more so, inasmuch as he is the source of action for all other things as well.
It is well said, too, that he "caused to rest," not that he "ceased." For he causes to rest the things that seem to act though they do not truly act on their own, but he himself never ceases to act. Hence the text adds that he caused to rest the things which he had begun. For whatever is fashioned by our human arts, once completed, stands still and remains; but whatever is wrought by God's knowledge, once brought to its limit, is set in motion again. For the ends of such things are the beginnings of others — just as the end of day is the beginning of night, and the completions of a month or a year now beginning are surely to be understood as the limits of months and years that have run their course; and again, the coming-to-be of some things that perish is brought about by the perishing of others that come to be.
So it is true, as the saying goes, that nothing that comes to be truly dies, but each thing, being separated one from another, displays a different form.
Nature delights in the seven. There have come to be seven planets, moving in a direction opposite to the motion that proceeds always in the same way and in the same manner; and the Bear is completed by seven stars, being the cause not merely of the intermingling of human beings but of their fellowship and union; and the moon's turnings occur in periods of seven, since it is the star most sympathetic to earthly things, and the changes it works in the air it accomplishes chiefly through configurations arranged by sevens.
The mortal creatures, too, having drawn a divine origin from heaven, move safely according to the seven. For who does not know that of infants, those born at seven months are viable, while those that take on more time — remaining in the womb, say, eight months — are for the most part not viable?
They say that a human being becomes rational within the first period of seven years, when he is already capable of interpreting familiar names and words, having acquired the rational condition; and that within the second period of seven years he reaches the height of maturity, maturity being the power to sow one's like — for around the age of fourteen we become able to beget our like. The third period of seven years, again, marks the limit of growth; for a human being continues to increase in stature up to the age of twenty-one, and this time of life is called by many its prime.
Indeed, the irrational part of the soul is sevenfold: the five senses, the organ of speech, and that which extends to the generative organs, which is the reproductive part.
Again, the body has seven motions — six of them the jointed motions, and the seventh the circular. The internal organs, too, are seven: the stomach, the heart, the spleen, the liver, the lung, and the two kidneys. The parts of the body are likewise equal in number: head, neck, chest, hands, belly, groin, and feet. And the face, the most governing part of the living creature, is pierced in seven places — two eyes, two ears, two nostrils alike, and a seventh, the mouth.
The discharges of the body are also seven: tears, mucus, saliva, seed, the two channels of waste, and, throughout the whole body, sweat. In illnesses, too, the seventh day is the most decisive; and in women the menstrual purifications
extend up to seven days. And the power of the seven has passed even into the most useful of the arts. In grammar, for instance, the best of the letters, those possessing the greatest power, are seven in number — the vowels. In music the seven-stringed lyre is nearly the best of all instruments, because the enharmonic genus — the most solemn of the melodic genera — is observed chiefly through it; and the pitches of sounds happen to be seven: acute, grave, circumflexed, aspirated, unaspirated, long, and short.
Further, seven is the first number after the perfect number six, and is in a certain sense identical with the unit. The numbers within the decad either beget or are begotten by other numbers within the decad, or beget the decad itself; but the seven neither begets any of the numbers within the decad nor is begotten by any of them. For this reason the Pythagoreans, in their mythic manner, liken it to the ever-virgin one who has no mother, since it was neither born from another nor will it give birth.
"So he caused to rest on the seventh day from all his works which he had made" (Gen. 2:2). This means the following: God ceases to fashion the mortal kinds when he begins to make the divine things proper by nature to the seven. And the application to character is this: when the holy word that belongs to the seven comes upon the soul, the six is checked, along with all the mortal things it seems to produce.
"And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy" (Gen. 2:3). The dispositions that are moved by the truly divine light belonging to the seventh, God blesses, and at once declares holy; for the well-reasoned and the holy are most closely akin to one another. This is why, of one who has made the great vow, he says that if a sudden turning falls upon him and defiles the mind, he shall no longer be holy (cf. Num. 6), but "the former days shall be without reckoning" (ib. 6:12); for the disposition that is not holy is the disposition without reckoning, so that the well-reasoned disposition is the holy one.
Rightly, then, he said that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, "because on it he caused to rest from all his works which God had begun to make" (Gen. 2:3). The reason he became well-reasoned and holy, the one who guides himself by the seventh and perfect light, is that in this nature the constitution of mortal things comes to rest. And so it is: when the most radiant and truly divine gleam of virtue rises, the coming-to-be of its opposite is checked. And we have shown that God, in causing to rest, does not cease acting, but begins the coming-to-be of other things, since he is not only a craftsman but also a father of the things that come to be.
"This is the book of the coming-to-be of heaven and earth, when it came to be" (Gen. 2:4). This perfect word, which moves according to the seven, is the origin of the coming-to-be both of mind as arranged according to the forms and — if one may put it this way — of intelligible sense-perception as arranged according to the forms. He has called the word of God a book, since it is upon this word that the constitutions of all other things come to be inscribed and engraved.
And so that you should not suppose that the divine acts within fixed periods of time, but should know that the things wrought by God are unclear, untraceable, and incomprehensible to the mortal race, he adds "when it came to be," not marking the "when" by any definite boundary. For the things brought about by the Cause come to be without such boundary. Thus the notion that the universe came to be in six days is set aside.
"In the day that God made heaven and earth and every green plant of the field before it came to be upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up; for God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth" (Gen. 2:4-5). This "day," he called above a "book," since in both cases he is describing the coming-to-be of heaven and earth; for it is by his most manifest and far-shining word that God makes both — the form of mind, which he has symbolically called heaven, and the form of sense-perception, which he has designated, through a token, earth.
By two "fields" he likens the form of mind and the form of sense-perception; for mind bears as its fruit the things involved in thinking, and sense-perception the things involved in perceiving. What he means is this: just as, prior to the particular and individual mind, there pre-exists a certain form, as it were an archetype and pattern of it, and likewise, prior to particular sense-perception, a certain form of sense-perception functioning as a seal that stamps out shapes — so, before the particular intelligible things came to be, this same generic intelligible thing existed, of which the others are named by participation; and before the particular perceptible things came to be, this same generic perceptible thing existed, of which the other perceptible things have come to be by sharing in it.
By the "green plant of the field," then, he has meant the intelligible object belonging to mind; for just as green things sprout and flower in a field, so the intelligible is the sprouting growth of mind. Before the particular intelligible thing came to be, then, this same intelligible thing constitutes the generic, which he has fittingly called "every"; for the particular intelligible thing, being incomplete, is not the whole, while the generic is the whole, since it is full.
"And all," he says, "the grass of the field before it sprang up" — that is, before the particular perceptible things sprang up, the generic perceptible thing existed by the forethought of its maker, and this again he has called "all." And fittingly he has likened the perceptible to grass; for as grass is food for the irrational creature, so the perceptible has been allotted to the irrational part of the soul. For why, having first said "green plant of the field," does he add "and all the grass," as though green grass did not come to be at all? Rather, the "green plant of the field" is the intelligible, a sprout of mind, while "the grass" is the perceptible, itself likewise a sprout of the irrational part of the soul.
"For God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth." Most naturally so; for unless God rains down upon the senses the apprehensions of their underlying objects, mind too will not work or busy itself at all with sense-perception; for mind, of itself, is powerless to act, unless, as it were by a shower and a drizzling rain, it comes to see colors by sight, sounds by hearing, flavors by taste, and, by the other senses, whatever properly belongs to each, from the Cause.
"When God had not yet made it rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth" (Gen. 2:5). This is entirely in keeping with nature: if God does not rain down upon the senses their apprehensions of the objects that underlie them, the mind will not work, nor will it transact any business through the senses; for of itself it is inactive, and unless God, as it were, rains and sprinkles it, it will not see colors by sight, nor hear sounds by hearing, nor taste flavors by taste, nor perceive through the other senses what is proper to each.
But when God begins to water sense-perception with objects of sense, then mind too is found to be a worker, as it were, of rich soil. Now the Form of sense-perception needs no nourishment; but the nourishment of sense-perception, which he has called "rain" by way of symbol, consists of the particular sensible things, which are bodies; and the Form is alien to bodies. Before, then, the particular composite things came to be, God did not rain upon the Form of sense-perception, which he has called "earth" — that is, he supplied it with no nourishment, since it had no need whatsoever of anything sensible.
As for the words "and there was no man to work the earth," the meaning is this: the Form of mind did not work the Form of sense-perception. For my mind and yours works sense-perception by means of sensible things, but the Form of mind, since there exists no particular body proper to it, does not work the Form of sense-perception; for if it did work it, it would work through sensible things, and among the Forms there is nothing sensible.
"And a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth" (Gen. 2:6). He has called the mind the spring of the earth, and the senses its face, because nature, which provides for all things, has assigned to them, out of the whole body, the place best suited for their own activities; and the mind waters the senses after the manner of a spring, sending forth to each the streams appropriate to it. Observe, then, how the faculties of the living creature hold together like a chain: of the three — mind, sense-perception, and the sensible object — sense-perception is the middle term, while mind and the sensible object are the two extremes.
But the mind is not able to work, that is, to act by way of sense-perception, unless God rains and sends moisture upon the sensible object; nor, again, once the sensible object has been moistened, is there any benefit unless the mind, stretching itself out after the manner of a spring as far as sense-perception, sets it in motion while it lies at rest and leads it to apprehend the object underlying it. So mind and the sensible object are always engaged in a kind of exchange: the one lying ready beforehand for sense-perception as matter, the other, moving sense-perception toward the external object, as craftsman — so that an impulse may come to be.
For a living creature has the advantage over a non-living thing in two respects: representation and impulse. Representation comes about when the external object approaches and imprints the mind through sense-perception, while impulse, the sibling of representation, comes about through the tensile power of the mind, which, having stretched itself through sense-perception, takes hold of the underlying object and moves toward it, longing to reach and grasp it.
"And God formed man, taking dust from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). There are two kinds of men: the one is the heavenly man, the other the earthly. The heavenly man, since he has come into being after the image of God, has no share in corruptible and altogether earthlike substance; but the earthly man was compacted from scattered matter, which he has called dust. For this reason he says that the heavenly man was not molded, but stamped after the image of God, whereas the earthly man is a molded work, but not offspring, of the craftsman.
The man formed from the earth must be understood as the mind that is being introduced into the body, though not yet fully introduced into it. This mind is in truth earthlike and corruptible, unless God should breathe into it a power of true life; for then it comes to be — no longer being molded — a soul, not an idle and unformed one, but one intelligent and truly alive. For he says, "and man became a living soul."
One might ask why God at all thought the earth-born and body-loving mind worthy of the divine breath, rather than the mind that had come into being according to his own idea and image; second, what "he breathed in" means; third, why he breathes it into the face; and fourth, why, though he knew the word "spirit" — as when he says "and the spirit of God was borne above the water" (Gen. 1:2) — he now speaks not of spirit but of breath.
To the first point, then, one thing must be said: that God, being generous, bestows good things on all, even on the imperfect, calling them to a share in and zeal for virtue, and at the same time displaying his own abundant wealth, in that it suffices even for those who will not be greatly benefited by it. This he makes plain most vividly also in other things. For when he rains upon the sea, and pours forth springs in the most desolate places, and waters the thin, rocky, and barren soil by sending rivers overflowing in flood, what else does he thereby show but the superabundance of his own wealth and goodness? This is the reason he has made no soul barren of good, even though some are unable to make use of it.
Another point must also be made: he wishes to introduce what is just by convention. The man who has not been breathed with true life, but is inexperienced in virtue, when punished for his wrongdoing might say that he is being punished unjustly, since it is through inexperience of the good that he goes astray concerning it, and the one responsible is he who breathed into him no notion of it at all; indeed he might say that he does not sin at all, if — as some maintain — involuntary acts done in ignorance do not even count as wrongdoing.
As for "he breathed in," it is equivalent to "he inspired" or "he ensouled things without soul"; let us not be filled with such absurdity as to suppose that God makes use of instruments of mouth or nostrils for the act of breathing in; for God is without quality, and not merely without human form. But the expression indicates something more in keeping with nature.
For there must be three things: that which breathes in, that which receives, and that which is breathed in. That which breathes in is God; that which receives is the mind; that which is breathed in is the spirit. What, then, is gathered from this? A union comes about of the three, as God extends his own power from himself, through the intermediary spirit, as far as the underlying subject — and for what purpose, if not that we might gain a notion of him?
For how could the soul have conceived of God, had he not breathed into it and touched it according to his power? For the human mind would never have dared to ascend so high as to lay hold of the nature of God, had not God himself drawn it up to himself, so far as it was possible for a human mind to be drawn up, and stamped it according to the powers it was capable of comprehending.
He breathes into the face both in accordance with nature and in accordance with moral significance. In accordance with nature, because it was in the face that he fashioned the senses; for this is the part of the body most especially ensouled and inbreathed. In accordance with moral significance, in this way: as the face is the ruling part of the body, so mind is the ruling part of the soul; into this alone does God breathe, whereas he does not think the other parts worthy of it — neither the senses, nor speech, nor the generative faculty; for these are secondary in power.
By whom, then, were these also breathed into? By the mind, evidently; for whatever the mind has received a share of from God, of this it imparts a portion to the irrational part of the soul, so that the mind is ensouled by God, and the irrational part by the mind; for the mind is, as it were, a god to the irrational part, which is why even Moses did not hesitate to say, "a god to Pharaoh" (Exod. 7:1).
Of the things that come to be, some come to be both by God and through him, while others come to be by God, but not through him. The best things, then, have come to be both by God and through him; further on, indeed, he will say that "God planted a paradise" (Gen. 2:8); and the mind belongs among such things. But the irrational part came to be by God, yet not through God, but through the rational part, which rules and reigns in the soul. He has said "breath," not "spirit," as though there were a distinction: spirit is conceived in terms of strength, vigor, and power, whereas breath is like a light breeze, a calm and gentle exhalation.
The mind, then, that has come into being after the image and idea might be said to have partaken of spirit — for its reasoning has strength — while the mind that comes from light and still lighter matter partakes of breath, as of a kind of exhalation, such as arises from spices; for even when these are kept and not burned, a certain fragrance nonetheless arises from them.
"And God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the east, and there he placed the man whom he had formed" (Gen. 2:8). He has here made plain the exalted and heavenly wisdom, which goes by many names; for indeed he has called it beginning, and image, and vision of God. Of this wisdom, as of an archetype, he now presents the earthly wisdom as an imitation, through the planting of the paradise. May such impiety never take hold of human reasoning as to suppose that God tills the ground and plants paradises, since we would immediately be at a loss as to the purpose — for it is certainly not in order to procure for himself pleasant retreats and pleasures; may such mythmaking never even enter our minds.
For not even the whole cosmos would be a fitting place and dwelling for God, since God is his own place, and is full of himself, and is sufficient unto himself, filling and encompassing all other things, which are deficient, desolate, and empty, while he himself is encompassed by nothing else, being one and being himself the all.
God, then, sows and plants earthly virtue for the mortal race, an imitation and likeness of the heavenly virtue; for having pity on our race and seeing that it is made up of evils abundant and rich, he rooted earthly virtue as a helper and ally against the diseases of the soul, an imitation, as I said, of the heavenly and archetypal virtue, which he calls by many names. Paradise, then, is virtue, spoken of figuratively; and the place proper to paradise is Eden, which means delight; and fitting to virtue are peace, well-being, and joy, in which true delight consists.
Moreover, the planting of the paradise is toward the east; for the right reason never sets nor is extinguished, but is ever rising by nature; and just as, I think, the sun when it rises fills the gloom of the air with light, so too virtue, rising in the soul, illumines its mist and scatters its dense darkness.
"And there," he says, "he placed the man whom he had formed." For God, being good and cultivating our race toward virtue as its most fitting work, sets the mind in virtue, so that, evidently, it should tend and care for nothing else than this, as a good farmer tends his field.
One might ask why, though it is a holy thing to imitate the works of God, I am forbidden to plant a grove beside the altar, while God plants the paradise. For he says: "You shall not plant for yourself a grove; you shall not make for yourself any tree beside the altar of the Lord your God" (Deut. 16:21). What, then, must be said? That it is fitting for God to plant and build up the virtues in the soul.
But the mind that is self-loving and godless, thinking itself equal to God and imagining that it acts when in fact, on examination, it is only acted upon, while it is God who sows and plants the good things in the soul — such a mind, when it says "I plant," commits impiety. You shall not plant, then, when God is doing the planting; but if you do cast plants into the soul, O understanding, plant only fruit-bearing ones, and not a grove; for in a grove there are trees both of wild and of cultivated timber. To plant barren evil in the soul together with cultivated, fruit-bearing virtue belongs to the leprosy that is of two natures, mixed and hybrid.
If, then, you transgress any of these commands, O soul, you injure yourself, not God. That is why he says, "You shall not plant for yourself": for no one labors for God, least of all in base things. And he adds again, "You shall not make for yourself." And he says elsewhere too, "You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, and gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves" (Exodus 20:23). For whoever supposes either that he possesses God, or that God is not one, or not ungenerated and imperishable, or not unchangeable, wrongs himself, not God. "For yourselves," he says, "you shall not make": for one must think of him as without quality, as one, as imperishable, and as unchangeable. But whoever does not think this way fills his own soul with false and godless opinion.
Do you not see that even when he leads us into virtue, and once led in we plant nothing unfruitful, since "every tree edible for food" is planted, he still commands us to "circumcise its impurity" (Leviticus 19:23)? This is what it means merely to seem to plant: it means to cut away self-conceit,
for self-conceit promises fruit but is by nature impure. Now the man he says he formed, he places in paradise only at this point — so who then is the man of whom he says later that "the Lord God took the man he had made and placed him in paradise, to work it and guard it" (Genesis 2:15)? Surely this must be a different man, the one made according to the image and the idea, so that two men are introduced into paradise: the one molded, and the one made according to the image.
The one made according to the idea, then, is found not only engaged in the planting of the virtues, but is also their worker and their guardian — that is, one mindful of what he has heard and practiced — whereas the molded man neither works the virtues nor guards them, but is merely introduced into their doctrines by God's generosity, being destined soon to become a fugitive from virtue.
For this reason the one whom he merely places in paradise he calls molded, while the one whom he shows to be both worker and guardian he calls not molded but "whom he made" — and this one he takes, while the other he casts out. The one he takes he judges worthy on three counts, out of which good natural endowment is composed: quickness of apprehension, perseverance, and memory. Quickness of apprehension is the placing in paradise; perseverance is the doing of noble deeds [the working of noble things]; and memory is the guarding and preserving of the sacred doctrines. But the molded mind neither remembers noble things nor works them, but is only quick of apprehension — which is why, though placed in paradise, it runs off shortly afterward and is cast out.
"And God made to spring up out of the earth every tree beautiful to look at and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:9). He is now describing the trees of virtue that God plants in the soul. These are the particular virtues, the activities that accord with them, right actions, and what the philosophers call the appropriate duties — these are the plants of paradise.
He characterizes them, moreover, by showing that the good is most beautiful both to look upon and to enjoy. For some of the arts are contemplative but not practical — geometry, astronomy — while others are practical but not contemplative — carpentry, metalworking, and all those called the mechanical crafts. But virtue is both contemplative and practical: it has contemplation, insofar as the path toward it is philosophy through its three parts — the logical, the ethical, and the natural — and it also has actions, for virtue is the art of the whole of life, in which all actions together are comprised.
But although it has both contemplation and action, it again surpasses in each according to what is best: for the contemplation of virtue is altogether beautiful, and its practice and use are things worth fighting for. This is why he says that it is both "beautiful to look at," which was the symbol of the contemplative, and "good for food," which is the sign of the useful and the practical.
The tree of life is the most generic virtue, which some call goodness, from which the particular virtues are constituted. For this reason it is set in the very middle of paradise, holding the most commanding position, so that it may be attended, like a king, by the virtues on either side. Some say the heart is called the tree of life, since it is the cause of life and has been allotted the middle place of the body, being, as they hold, the ruling part. But let these people be aware that they are setting forth a medical opinion rather than a natural-philosophical one, whereas we, as was said before, say that it is the most generic virtue that is called the tree of life.
This tree, then, he expressly says is in the middle of paradise; but the other tree, that of knowing good and evil, he has not made clear whether it is within or outside paradise. Rather, having said only "and the tree of knowing the knowledge of good and evil," he fell silent at once without indicating where it happens to be, so that one uninitiated in the study of nature might not marvel at the tree of knowledge as though it actually existed somewhere. What then must we say? That this tree is both in paradise and outside it — in essence within it, but in potentiality outside it. How so?
Our ruling faculty is all-receptive and resembles wax, receiving all impressions, both beautiful and shameful; whence even Jacob the supplanter confesses, saying, "All these things have come upon me" (Genesis 42:36). For upon the soul, though it is one, are brought to bear the countless impressions of everything in the universe. Whenever, then, it receives the character of perfect virtue, it has become the tree of life; whenever it receives that of vice, it has become the tree of knowing good and evil. But vice has been banished from the divine chorus; therefore the ruling faculty that has received vice is in paradise as regards its essence — for the character of virtue too is within it, being proper to paradise — but again, in potentiality, it is not within it, because the imprint of vice is alien to the divine risings of light.
What I mean, one may also grasp in this way. Right now my ruling faculty is in my body as regards its essence, but in potentiality it is in Italy or Sicily, whenever it reasons about those regions, and in heaven, whenever it contemplates heaven. That is why people often, while in profane places, are as regards essence in the most sacred of places, forming images of virtue, and conversely others, while present in the innermost sanctuaries, are in their thinking profane, because their mind takes on turns for the worse and base impressions. So vice is neither in paradise nor not in it: for it can be there as regards essence, but it cannot be there in potentiality.
"And a river goes out from Eden to water paradise; and from there it is divided into four sources. The name of the one is Pishon: this is the river that encircles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; and there is carbuncle there, and the green stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: it encircles the whole land of Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris: this is the one that flows opposite the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates" (Genesis 2:10–14). Through these he means to describe the particular virtues, which are four in number: practical wisdom, self-control, courage, and justice. The greatest river, from which the four streams arise, is the generic virtue, which we have named goodness; the four streams are the virtues equal to it in number.
The generic virtue, then, takes its origins from Eden, which is God's wisdom, who rejoices and delights and takes her pleasure, exulting and glorying in her father God alone; while the four particular virtues take theirs from the generic virtue, which, like a river, waters the right actions of each with a great flood of noble deeds.
Let us examine the words themselves. "A river," he says, "goes out from Eden to water paradise." The river is the generic virtue, goodness; it goes out from Eden, God's wisdom, which is the Word of God — for it is according to this that the generic virtue has been made. And the generic virtue waters paradise, that is, it irrigates the particular virtues. "Sources" he takes not in a topographical sense, but in the sense of ruling principles; for each of the virtues is truly a ruler and a queen. And "is divided" is equivalent to "is bounded by limits": practical wisdom setting limits concerning what is to be done, courage concerning what is to be endured, self-control concerning what is to be chosen,
and justice concerning what is to be apportioned. "The name of the one is Pishon: this is the river that encircles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; and there is carbuncle there, and the green stone." Of the four virtues, one kind is practical wisdom, which he has named Pishon from "sparing" (pheidesthai) — because it spares and guards the soul from wrongdoing. It dances in a circle and goes around the land of Havilah, that is, it tends the gracious, gentle, and propitious condition of the soul. And just as, of molten substances, gold is the finest and most approved, so too, of the soul, the most approved virtue has proved to be practical wisdom.
"Where there is gold" does not designate a place in the sense of "the place where gold is," but rather "the place of which the possession is" gold-gleaming, refined, and precious practical wisdom; for this has been acknowledged to be the most beautiful possession of God. And with respect to the domain of practical wisdom there are two kinds of persons: the one who is prudent, and the one who merely aims at being prudent,
which he has compared to carbuncle and the green stone. "And the name of the second river is Gihon: this encircles the whole land" of Ethiopia — symbolically this river is courage; for Gihon, when interpreted, means "breast" or "one who butts with horns," and each of these signifies courage. For courage dwells about the breast, where the heart also is, and stands ready for defense; for it is the knowledge of what is to be endured, what is not to be endured, and what is neither. And it encircles and besieges, waging war against Ethiopia, whose name, interpreted, means "humiliation"; and cowardice is a humbling thing, while courage is the enemy of humiliation and cowardice.
"And the third river is the Tigris: this is the one that flows opposite the Assyrians." The third virtue is self-control, standing opposed to pleasure, which seems to guide human weakness aright — for the Assyrians are called, when their name is straightened into the Greek tongue, "those who direct." And he has likened desire to the tiger, the most untamable of animals, the very thing with which self-control concerns itself.
It is worth pausing, however, to ask why courage is named second, self-control third, and practical wisdom first, without indicating any other order of the virtues. One must understand, then, that our soul is threefold, having one part rational, one part spirited, and one part appetitive. And it happens that the seat and dwelling place of the rational part is the head, of the spirited part the chest, and of the appetitive part the belly; and a virtue proper to each of these parts has been fitted to it: to the rational part, practical wisdom, for it belongs to reason to have knowledge of what one must do and what one must not; to the spirited part, courage; and to the appetitive part, self-control, for by self-control we heal and cure the desires.
Just as, then, the head is the first and uppermost part of the living creature, the chest second, and the belly third, and again of the soul the rational is first, the spirited second, and the appetitive third, so too, of the virtues, first is the one concerned with the first part of the soul, which is the rational, and which dwells in the head of the body — practical wisdom; second is courage, because it lodges about the second part of the soul, the spirited, and of the body, the chest; and third is self-control, because it is occupied about the belly, which is the third part of the body, and about the appetitive part, which has been allotted the third place in the soul,
with which it concerns itself. "And the fourth river," he says, "is the Euphrates." Euphrates is called "fruitfulness"; and symbolically it is the fourth virtue, justice, which is truly fruit-bearing and gladdens the mind. When, then, does it come about? Whenever the three parts of the soul are in harmony; and their harmony is the rule of the better part — as when the two, the spirited and the appetitive, are reined in like horses by the rational, then justice comes about. For it is just that the better should always and everywhere rule, and the worse be ruled; and the better is the rational, the worse the appetitive and the spirited.
But whenever, on the contrary, spirit and desire grow unruly and rear up, and drag off and yoke by force of impulse even the charioteer — I mean the reasoning faculty — and each passion seizes the reins, then injustice prevails; for of necessity, through the charioteer's inexperience and vice, the team is carried over cliffs and chasms, just as,
through his experience and virtue, it is brought to safety. Let us also consider the matter before us in this further way. Pishon is interpreted as "a change of mouth," and Havilah as "one in travail"; and through these practical wisdom is signified. For most people think the man clever at inventing sophistic arguments and skilled at expressing his thought is prudent, but Moses knows him only as a lover of words, and not at all as prudent. For it is in the change of the mouth — that is, of interpretive speech — that practical wisdom is contemplated; but this meant that to be prudent lies not in speech but is to be observed in deed and in earnest actions.
And practical wisdom sets a circle, and as it were a wall, around Havilah who is in travail with folly, for the sake of besieging and destroying her; for "one in travail" is folly's proper name, because the foolish mind, ever loving what is unattainable, is always in the pangs of travail — when it desires wealth, it is in travail; when it desires glory, when it desires pleasure, when it desires anything else.
But though it is always in labor, it never gives birth; for nothing in the soul of the base person is naturally able to bring anything to full term. Whatever it does seem to produce turns out to be a miscarriage or an abortion, consuming half its own flesh — the equivalent of death for the soul. This is why the sacred word asks Aaron, the brother of the God-loving Moses, to heal the affliction of Miriam, so that the soul may not remain in the birth-pangs of evils; hence it says, ‘Let her not become like one dead, like a stillborn child that comes out of its mother’s womb with half its flesh consumed’ (Num. 12:12).
‘There,’ then, it says, ‘is the gold’ (Gen. 2:11). It does not say that the gold merely exists there, but that it exists there where it is. For prudence, which he compared to gold — a nature unadulterated, pure, refined by fire, tested, and precious — is there, in the wisdom of God; and being there, it is not a possession of wisdom, but rather wisdom itself is there, where God, the maker and possessor, also is.
‘And the gold of that land is good’ (Gen. 2:12). Is there, then, another gold that is not good? Certainly. For prudence is of two kinds, one universal, the other particular. The prudence in me, being particular, is not good, since when I perish it perishes along with me; but the universal prudence, which dwells in the wisdom of God and in his house, is good, for it remains incorruptible in an incorruptible house.
‘And there is the carbuncle and the emerald’ (ibid.) — the two qualities, the prudent man and the one who exercises prudence: the one constituted according to prudence, the other exercising prudence according to the act of being prudent. For it was for the sake of these qualities that God sowed prudence and virtue in the earth-born man; for what would it amount to, if there did not exist reasoning faculties to receive it and to have its forms impressed upon them? So it is fitting that there, where prudence is, are also the prudent man and the one who exercises prudence — the two stones.
Perhaps, too, this is Judah and Issachar. For the one who trains himself in the prudence of God confesses with thanksgiving to him who has generously bestowed the good, while the other performs what is fine and earnest. Judah, then, is the symbol of the one who confesses — at whose birth Leah stood still (Gen. 29:35) — while Issachar is the symbol of the one who performs what is fine, ‘for he bowed his shoulder to labor and became a farmer’ (Gen. 49:15), concerning whom Moses says, once he has been sown and planted in the soul, ‘there is a reward’ (Gen. 30:18) — meaning that his toil was not left incomplete but was crowned by God and rewarded.
That he does keep these in mind, he shows elsewhere, when he speaks of the breastplate: ‘and you shall weave into it a four-rowed stone; there shall be a row of stones, sardius, topaz, emerald — this is the first row’ — Reuben, Simeon, Levi — ‘and the second row,’ he says, ‘is carbuncle and sapphire’ (Exod. 28:17–18) — the sapphire is an emerald-green stone. Engraved on the carbuncle is Judah, since he is fourth, and on the sapphire, Issachar.
Why, then, has he not called it a carbuncle-stone in the same way that he called the other an emerald stone? Because the way of Judah, the way of confession, is immaterial and incorporeal; indeed the very name ‘confession’ points to an acknowledgment made outside oneself. For whenever the mind goes out of itself and refers itself to God — as the laughter of Isaac did — then it makes its confession to the One who truly is; but so long as it supposes itself to be the cause of anything, it stands far off from yielding place to God and confessing to him. For this very act of confessing must be understood to be a work not of the soul, but of the one who shines upon it —
of God — his graciousness. Judah, then, who confesses, is immaterial. But Issachar, who has advanced by way of toil, needs bodily matter as well; for how will the one in training read without eyes? How will he hear the words of exhortation without hearing? How will he reach for food and drink apart from a stomach and its marvelous workings? For this reason he was likened to a stone.
Their colors, moreover, differ: proper to the one who confesses is the hue of the carbuncle, for he has been set aflame in gratitude to God and is intoxicated with a sober intoxication; but proper to the one still toiling is the hue of the emerald-green stone, for those in training are pale, both from the toil that wears them down and from fear that they may perhaps not attain the end they pray for.
It is worth pausing to ask why the two rivers, the Pheison and the Gehon, encircle regions — the one Havilah, the other Ethiopia — while neither of the remaining two does so, but the Tigris is said to lie opposite the Assyrians and the Euphrates opposite no one; and yet in point of fact the Euphrates too flows around certain regions and lies opposite many. But the discourse is not about the river, but about the correction of character.
We must say, then, that prudence and courage are able to throw a circle and a wall around the opposing vices, folly and cowardice, and to capture them; for both are weak and easily taken, since the fool is easily caught by the prudent man and the coward falls beneath the courageous man. But self-control is unable to encircle desire and pleasure, for these are difficult adversaries, hard to overthrow. Do you not see that even the most self-controlled are compelled by mortal necessity to come to food and drink, from which the pleasures of the stomach are constituted? It is enough, then, to stand against and do battle with the class of desire. This is why the river Tigris lies opposite the Assyrians — self-control opposite pleasure.
But justice, in accordance with which the river Euphrates is constituted, neither besieges nor walls anyone in, nor takes up a stand against anyone. Why? Because justice is the distributor of what is due to each according to merit, and is arrayed neither on the side of the accuser nor of the defendant, but on the side of the judge. Just as the judge does not choose beforehand to defeat some or to make war and stand opposed to others, but by pronouncing his judgment awards what is just, so justice, being no one’s adversary, distributes to each thing what is due according to its worth.
‘And the Lord God took the man he had made and placed him in paradise, to work it and to guard it’ (Gen. 2:15). The man whom God made differs, as I have said, from the man who was molded; for the molded mind is more earthly, while the made mind is more immaterial, having no share in perishable matter, having obtained a purer and more unmixed constitution.
This pure mind, then, God takes, not allowing it to walk outside itself, and having taken it he places it among the virtues that are rooted and sprouting, so that it may work them and guard them. For many who became practitioners of virtue changed their course at the very end; but to the one to whom God grants firm knowledge, he gives both things: to work the virtues and never to depart from them, but always to store up and guard each one. ‘To work,’ then, stands for practicing them, and ‘to guard’ for remembering them.
‘And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: You may eat for food from every tree in paradise, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; on the day you eat from it, you shall die by death’ (Gen. 2:16–17). We must ask which Adam he commands, and who this is; for he has not mentioned him before, and only now names him for the first time. Perhaps, then, he wishes to set before you the name of the molded man. ‘Call him earth,’ he says, for this is what Adam means — so that whenever you hear ‘Adam,’ you should understand an earthly and perishable mind is meant; for the one made after the image is not earthly but heavenly.
We must also ask why, though he assigns names to all other things, he has not assigned one to himself. What, then, must we say? The mind within each of us is able to grasp other things, but is unable to know itself; for just as the eye sees other things but does not see itself, so too the mind understands other things but does not grasp itself. Let it say, then, what it is and of what sort — spirit, blood, fire, air, or some other body — or even simply whether it is a body or, again, incorporeal. Are those, then, not foolish who inquire into the essence of God, when they do not even know the essence of their own soul? How could they attain accuracy about the soul of the universe? For the soul of the universe is, by the very notion of it, God.
Fittingly, then, Adam — that is, the mind — while naming and grasping other things, assigns no name to himself, because he does not know himself or his own nature. And it is to this mind that the command is given, not to the one who came to be after the image and pattern; for that one possesses virtue by self-taught nature even without exhortation, whereas this one would not attain prudence without teaching.
These three differ: command, prohibition, and injunction together with exhortation. For prohibition concerns sins and is directed at the base person; command concerns right actions; and exhortation is directed at the person in between, who is neither base nor virtuous — for he neither sins, so as to require prohibition, nor acts rightly according to the command of right reason, but has need of exhortation, which teaches him to hold back from base things and turns him instead toward desiring what is noble.
To the perfect person, then, the one made after the image, there is no need to command, prohibit, or exhort, for the perfect person needs none of these things; but the earth-born person has need of command and prohibition, and the infant has need of exhortation and teaching — just as the perfect grammarian or musician needs no instruction in matters of the art, while the one who errs in its principles needs commands and prohibitions, as it were, of certain laws, and the one who is just beginning to learn needs teaching.
Fittingly, then, to the earthly mind, which is neither base nor virtuous but in between, he now gives both command and exhortation. And he exhorts. The exhortation comes through both titles, both ‘Lord’ and ‘God’; for ‘the Lord God commanded’ — so that if the mind obeys the exhortations, it may be deemed worthy of benefits from God, but if it rebels, it will be cast off by the Lord, as by a master who has authority.
This is why, when the mind is also cast out of paradise, it receives the same titles; for it says: ‘And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of delight, to work the earth from which he was taken’ (Gen. 3:23) — so that, since it was as master that the Lord commanded and as benefactor that God commanded, it might likewise, being both, punish the one who disobeyed; for by the very powers through which he had exhorted, through these he sends away the one who would not obey.
What he exhorts is this: ‘You may eat for food from every tree in paradise’ (Gen. 2:16). He urges the human soul to derive benefit not from one tree, nor from a single virtue, but from all the virtues; for eating is a symbol of the soul’s nourishment, and the soul is nourished by taking in what is noble and by the practice of right actions.
He says not merely ‘eat,’ ‘you shall eat,’ but also ‘for food,’ having ground it fine in the manner not of an amateur but of an athlete, so as to secure strength and power; for trainers instruct athletes not to gulp their food but to chew it at leisure, so that they may grow in strength — for I and the athlete are nourished differently: I eat merely in order to live, but the athlete eats also in order to be fattened and strengthened, and grinding one’s food fine is one of the practices of training. Such is the meaning of ‘eating for food.’ Let us set this out yet more precisely.
Honoring one’s parents is edible and nourishing; but the good and the base honor them differently — the base out of habit, and these do not eat ‘for food’ but merely eat. When, then, do they also eat ‘for food’? When, having unfolded the matter and searched out the reasons, they judge willingly that this is good; and the reasons are these: they gave us birth, nourished us, educated us, and have become the cause of every good thing for us. Again, honoring the One who truly is is edible; but it becomes ‘for food’ when it is accompanied by the unfolding of the main point and the rendering of reasons.
‘But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’ (Gen. 2:17). This tree, then, does not exist in paradise; for if he commands eating from everything in paradise, but not eating from this one, it is clear that it is not in paradise — and rightly so by nature. For it exists, as I said, in substance, but does not exist potentially. For just as in wax all the seal-impressions exist potentially, but only the one actually stamped exists in actuality, so too in the soul, which is wax-like, all the impressions are contained potentially, not in actuality, but the one stamped upon it prevails, until it is erased by another that has stamped upon it more clearly and distinctly.
Next we must raise this problem too: when he exhorts eating from every tree of paradise, he is urging one person, but when he forbids the use of the tree that is cause of evil and good, he is addressing several. For there he says "you shall eat from every tree" — singular — but here "you shall not eat" and "on whatever day you eat" — plural, not singular — and "you shall die" — plural, not singular.
So this must be said: first, the good is scarce, but evil is abundant. Because of this, it is possible to find only a single wise man at work, but the multitude of the base is countless. It is fitting, then, that he directs one person to be nourished in the virtues, but forbids many from the practice of villainy, since countless people engage in it.
Second, for the taking up and use of virtue, reason alone is needed; the body does not cooperate toward this but actually hinders it, for it is nearly wisdom's task to become estranged from the body and its desires. But for the enjoyment of vice, the mind alone need not be disposed in a certain way — sensation and speech and the body must be as well.
For the base person needs all of these for the fulfillment of his own vice. How will he divulge secrets without an organ of speech? And how will he enjoy the pleasures of the belly if deprived of his senses? Fittingly, then, he converses with reason alone about the acquisition of virtue, since only reason, as I said, is needed for its acquisition — but about vice he speaks to several: soul, speech, senses, and body, for it is displayed through all of these.
Yet he says: "On whatever day you eat of it, you shall die by death" (Gen. 2:17). And when they eat, not only do they not die, but they even beget children and become causes of life for others. What, then, must we say? That death is twofold: one belonging to the human being, the other belonging properly to the soul. The death of the human being is the separation of the soul from the body; but the death of the soul is the destruction of virtue and the taking up of vice.
And that is why he says it does not simply die, but "dies by death," signifying not the common death but the particular and preeminent one, which is the death of a soul entombed in passions and every vice. And this death is, in a sense, the opposite of the other; for that one is the separation of the two things joined together, body and soul, whereas this one is, on the contrary, a union of both, with the worse thing, the body, gaining mastery, and the better thing, the soul, being overpowered.
Wherever he says "die by death," observe that he means the death inflicted as punishment, not the one that comes by nature. The one that comes by nature is that by which the soul is separated from the body; but the one inflicted as punishment occurs whenever the soul dies to the life of virtue but lives the life of vice
alone. And Heraclitus spoke well on this point, following the doctrine of Moses, for he says: "We live their death, and we have died their life," meaning that now, while we live, the soul is dead and, as it were, entombed in the body as in a tomb, but if we should die, the soul would live its own life, freed from the evil and corpse-like bond that is the body.