[3 Comp. Grossmann, Quaest. Phil. i. p. 5 &c] and he either alludes to, or quotes frequently from, such sources as Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Solon, the great Greek tragedians, Plato, and others. But to him these men were scarcely 'heathen.' He had sat at their feet, and learned to weave a system from Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The gatherings of these philosophers were 'holy,' and Plato was 'the great.' But holier than all was the gathering of the true Israel; and incomparably greater than any, Moses. From him had all sages learned, and with him alone was all truth to be found, not, indeed, in the letter, but under
the letter, of Holy Scripture. If in Numb, xxiii. 19 we read 'God is not a man,' and in Deut. i. 31 that the Lord was 'as a man,' did it not imply, on the one hand, the revelation of absolute truth by God, and, on the other, accommodation to those who were weak? Here, then, was the principle of a twofold interpretation of the Word of God, the literal and the allegorical. The letter of the text must be held fast; and Biblical personages and histories were real. But only narrow-minded slaves of the letter would stop here; the more so, as sometimes the literal meaning alone would be tame, even absurd; while the allegorical interpretation gave the true sense, even though it might occassionally run counter to the letter. Thus, the patriarchs represented states of the soul; and, whatever the letter might bear, Joseph represented one given to the fleshly, whom his brothers rightly hated; Simeon the soul aiming after the higher; the killing of the Egyptian by Moses, the subjugation of passion, and so on. But this allegorical interpretation, by the side of the literal (the Peshat of the Palestinians), though only for the few, was not arbitrary. It had its 'laws,' and 'canons', some of which excluded the literal interpretation, while others admitted it by the side of the higher meaning. [1 In this sketch of the system of Philo I have largely availed myself of the careful analysis of Siegfried.]
To begin with the former: the literal sense must be wholly set aside, when it implied anything unworthy of the Deity, anything unmeaning, impossible, or contrary to reason. Manifestly, this canon, if strictly applied, would do away not only with all anthropomorphisms, but cut the knot wherever difficulties seemed insuperable. Again, Philo would find an allegorical, along with the literal, interpretation indicated in the reduplication of a word, and in seemingly superfluous words, particles, or expressions. [2 It should be noted that these are also Talmudical canons, not indeed for allegorical interpretation, but as pointing to some special meaning, since there was not a word or particle in Scripture without a definite meaning and object.] These could, of course, only bear such a meaning on Philo's assumption of the actual inspiration of the LXX. version. Similarly, in exact accordance with a Talmudical canon, [a Baba K 64 a.] any repetition of what had been already stated would point to something new. These were comparatively sober rules of exegesis. Not so the licence which he claimed of freely altering the punctuation [3 To illustrate what use might be made of such alterations, the Midrash (Ber. R. 65) would have us punctuate Gen. xxvii. 19, as follows: 'And Jacob said unto his father, I (viz. am he who will receive the ten commandments), (but) Esau (is) thy firstborn.' In Yalkut there is the still more curious explanation that in heaven the soul of Jacob was the firstborn! ] of sentences, and his notion that, if one from among several synonymous words was chosen in a passage, this pointed to some special meaning attaching to it. Even more extravagant was the idea, that a word which occurred in the LXX. might be interpreted according to every shade of meaning which it bore in the Greek, and that even another meaning might be given it by slightly altering the letters. However, like other of Philo's allegorical canons, these were also adopted by the Rabbis, and Haggadic interpretations were frequently prefaced by: 'Read not thus, but thus.' If such violence might be done to the text, we need not wonder at interpretations based on a play upon words, or even upon parts of a word. Of course, all seemingly strange or peculiar modes of expression, or of designation, occurring in Scripture, must have their special meaning, and so also every particle, adverb, or preposition. Again, the position of a verse, its succession by another, the apparently unaccountable presence or absence of a word, might furnish hints for some deeper meaning, and so would an unexpected singular for a plural, or vice versa, the use of a tense, even the gender of a word. Most serious of all, an allegorical interpretation might be again employed as the basis of another. [1 Each of these
positions is capable of ample proof from Philo's writings, as shown by Siegfried. But only a bare statement of these canons was here possible.]
We repeat, that these allegorical canons of Philo are essentially the same as those of Jewish traditionalism in the Haggadah, [2 Comp. our above outline with the 'XXV. theses de modis et formulis quibus pr. Hebr. doctores SS. interpretari etc. soliti fuerunt,' in Surenhusius, Biblos, pp. 57-88.] only the latter were not rationalising, and far more brilliant in their application. [3 For a comparison between Philo and Rabbinic theology, see Appendix II: 'Philo and Rabbinic Theology.' Freudenthal (Hellen. Studien, pp. 67 &c.) aptly designates this mixture of the two as 'Hellenistic Midrash,' it being difficult sometimes to distinguish whether it originated in Palestine or in Egypt, or else in both independently. Freudenthal gives a number of curious instances in which Hellenism and Rabbinism agree in their interpretations. For other interesting comparisons between Haggadic interpretations and those of Philo, see Joel, Blick in d. Religionsgesch. i. p. 38 &c] In another respect also the Palestinian had the advantage of the Alexandrian exegesis. Reverently and cautiously it indicated what might be omitted in public reading, and why; what expressions of the original might be modified by the Meturgeman, and how; so as to avoid alike one danger by giving a passage in its literality, and another by adding to the sacred text, or conveying a wrong impression of the Divine Being, or else giving occasion to the unlearned and unwary of becoming entangled in dangerous speculations. Jewish tradition here lays down some principles which would be of great practical use. Thus we are told, [a Ber. 31 b.] that Scripture uses the modes ofexpression common among men. This would, of course, include all anthropomorphisms. Again, sometimes with considerable ingenuity, a suggestion is taken from a word, such as that Moses knew the Serpent was to be made of brass from the similarity of the two words (nachash, a serpent, and nechosheth, brass, [b Ber. R. 31.] Similarly, it is noted that Scripture uses euphemistic language, so as to preserve the greatest delicacy, [c Ber. R. 70.] These instances might be multiplied, but the above will suffice.
In his symbolical interpretations Philo only partially took the same road as the Rabbis. The symbolism of numbers and, so far as the Sanctuary was concerned, that of colours, and even materials, may, indeed, be said to have its foundation in the Old Testament itself. The same remark applies partially to that of names. The Rabbis certainly so interpreted them. [1 Thus, to give only a few out of many examples, Ruth is derived from ravah, to satiate to give to drink, because David, her descendant, satiated God with his Psalms of praise (Ber. 7 b). Here the principle of the significance of Biblenames is deduced from Ps. xlvi. 8 (9 in the Hebrew): 'Come, behold the works of the Lord, who hath made names on earth,' the word 'desolations,' SHAMOTH, being altered to SHEMOTH, 'names.' In general, that section, from Ber. 3 b, to the end of 8 a, is full of Haggadic Scripture interpretations. On fol. 4 a there is the curious symbolical derivation of Mephibosheth, who is supposed to have set David right on halakhic questions, as Mippi bosheth: 'from my mouth shaming,' 'because he put to shame the face of David in the Halakhah.' Similarly in Siphre (Par. Behaalothekha, ed. Friedmann, p. 20 a) we have very beautiful and ingenious interpretations of the names Reuel, Hobab and Jethro.] But the application which Philo made of this symbolism was very different. Everything became symbolical in his hands, if it suited his purpose: numbers (in a very arbitrary manner), beasts, birds, fowls, creeping things, plants, stones, elements, substances, conditions, even sex, and so a term or an expression might even have several and contradictory meanings, from which the interpreter was at liberty to choose.
From the consideration of the method by which Philo derived from Scriptures his theological views, we turn to a brief analysis of these views. [2 It would be impossible here to give the references, which would occupy too much space.]
1. Theology. In reference to God, we find, side by side, the apparently contradictory views of the Platonic and the Stoic schools. Following the former, the sharpest distinction was drawn between God and the world. God existed neither in space, nor in time; He had neither human qualities nor afections; in fact, He was without any qualities ( ), and even without any name ( ) ; hence, wholly uncognisable by man ( ). Thus, changing the punctuation and the accents, the LXX. of Gen. iii. 9 was made to read: 'Adam, thou art somewhere;' but God had no somewhere, as Adam seemed to think when he hid himself from Him. In the above sense, also, Ex. iii. 14, and vi. 3, were explained, and the two names Elohim and Jehovah belonged really to the two supreme Divine 'Potencies,' while the fact of God's being uncognisable appeared from Ex. xx. 21.
But side by side with this we have, to save the Jewish, or rather Old Testament, idea of creation and providence, the Stoic notion of God as immanent in the world, in fact, as that alone which is real in it, as always working: in short, to use his own Pantheistic expression, as 'Himself one and the all' ( ). Chief in His Being is His goodness, the forthgoing of which was the ground of creation. Only the good comes from Him. With matter He can have nothing to do, hence the plural number in the account of creation. God only created the soul, and that only of the good. In the sense of being 'immanent,' God is everywhere, nay, all things are really only in Him, or rather He is the real in all. But chiefly is God the wellspring and the light of the soul, its 'Saviour' from the 'Egypt' of passion.
