Myths of the Fall

Polyphemus, Babel, Satan, Deluge, Eden, Pharaoh, Tyranny, Phaeton, Icarus  

M

YTHS  of the Fall of Man ought to interest us intensely, because it’s so obvious that human beings, individually and collectively, live mainly in a markedly fallen condition.  Individually this is manifest as the various forms of negative thinking that characterize much or most of our waking consciousness: anxiety, worry, greed, anger, hated, fear, confusion, distraction, delusion, folly, envy, resentment, fantasy, daydreaming, grandiosity, obsession, etc. Examples of collective chronic psychological and social dysfunction are just as many and obvious.

Yet the academic establishment has gotten virtually nowhere trying to understand what myths of the fall are trying to tell us about what the psychological fall is, why it happens and how to prevent it.

Concerning the opposite condition – the blessed or ascended state – there are also many valuable and important myths.  Indeed, we might be easily persuaded that the natural condition of the human mind is happy, blessed, active and extremely capable.

In the Western tradition we have three parallel sources of fall myths:  Greek mythology, Plato’s dialogues and the Old Testament.  Examples:

Greek: Pandora, Ages of Man, Deucalion, Phaeton, Narcissus, Odyssey (Lotus eaters, Cyclops, Circe, Scylla & Charybdis), Icarus; Judgment of Paris; cf. Choice of Hercules.

Plato: Cave allegory, Cronos myth (Statesman), Tyrant’s progress, Atlantis; cf. Chariot myth.

Old Testament: Garden of Eden, Cain & Abel, Deluge, Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Pharaoh’s army

Plato’s ethics and epistemology supply a clear framework for interpreting his myths, and, by extension, related Greek myths.  Philo of Alexandria, in turn effectively applies Platonic formulae to interpret the Old Testament myths of the fall.

The Platonic interpretation of myths of the fall has a long tradition, and is arguably more relevant than modern Jungian interpretations, which downplay the ethical and religious meanings.

To be clear, my conviction is that these myths are not mere historical recollections of ancient deluges or a cultural transition from a happy primitive hunter-gatherer society.  They are humanity’s attempt to understand that most significant fact of human psychology: that we spend the bulk of our lives in a dreadful fallen state, virtually asleep, a ‘life that is not life.’   Until we solve this problem, we won’t be able to see or think clearly enough to solve our social problems.

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References

Uebersax, John.  The monomyth of fall and salvation.  Christian Platonism website. 2014.

Uebersax, John. Plato’s Myths as Psychology.  2015.
www.john-uebersax.com/plato/myths/myths.htm

 

Philo: The Allegorical Meaning of Cain’s City and His Descendants

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Cain building the city of Enoch (1860)

DEAR PHILOTHEA, Here, as you requested, are some remarks on Philo’s allegoresis of Cain’s descendants (Genesis 4:17−24), supplied as a continuation of what I previously wrote concerning the sacrifices of Cain and Abel.  As before, I wish to supply only brief pointers, believing that the spiritual meanings of the Old Testament — which are always anagogical or upward leading — require a dedicated personal effort to ascertain: so that meanings and the means of their understanding (effort) coincide.

The basic narrative of these verses, which follows upon the death of Abel, is as follows:

Cain fled God’s presence and dwelt in Nod.
Cain married and begat Enoch.
Cain builded a city.
Enoch begat Irad.
Irad begat Mehujael.
Mehujael begat Methusael.
Methusael begat Lamech.
Lamech had two wives: by Adah he begat Jabal and Jubal.
And by Zillah, Lamech begat Tubal and Naamah.

There is, as you noted, a tendency of readers to gloss over these verses, as though the author of Genesis merely inserted stray folklore.  However that view is inconsistent with how we know we should approach Holy Scripture, which is to assume that all there is placed intentionally and for some definite purpose: sometimes the more irrelevant a detail seems, the more strongly it alerts us to the existence of spiritual meanings.

That is certainly how Philo, our guide for interpreting Genesis, approached these verses.   I like to remind myself that Philo was once believed to be the author of the Wisdom of Solomon.  That is no longer thought to be the case, but the point is that he might have been the author; that is, he is without doubt a profoundly wise, devout and learned representative of the Alexandrian Jewish culture from which Wisdom of Solomon also originated.  Since we look upon the anonymous author of that work as divinely inspired, may we not consider Philo as well one of the eminent line of Jewish prophets?  And if that’s so, we are most fortunate to have, in addition to the Old Testament itself, a spiritually inspired, providential explanation of how to approach interpreting it.

But even to consider inspiration merely as a phenomenon of the human collective unconscious, we may see Philo as a gifted sage and great artist: a man of wide learning, pure intentions and immense zeal to edify others — an extraordinary creative genius, whose works reflect the supraconscious. Enough on this, then.

Philo performed a careful exegesis of these verses from Genesis 4 in his work titled On the Posterity of Cain (De posteritate Caini).  Here, as in his other allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament, Philo applies what we may call the principle of psychological correspondence: each person signifies a specific disposition of the human mind or personality, and each incident symbolizes a psychological event or process (Uebersax, 2012).

As previously described (Uebersax, 2018), for Philo, Cain and Abel symbolize the struggle (psychomachia) within each person between what, lacking better terms, we may follow St. Paul in calling carnal-mindedness and spiritual-mindedness (Romans 8:6). In brief, Cain symbolizes a certain fundamental condition of egoism and impious self-will, and stands in contrast with Abel, who represents an attitude of childlike trust in God.

For Philo, then, Cain’s descendants represent a progressive degradation and corruption of our mind when we leave an uplifted condition — where thinking is holy — to one ruled by egoistic, material concerns. We join the ‘race of Cain’ when we let worldly concerns predominate over spiritual ones.

We can observe this pattern of cognitive descent on various time-scales and with varying severity: from a major mutations in personality lasting months or years, to lesser shifts that occur throughout each day (Uebersax 2014). Hence the issue here is not only descent of the personality into major vices like obsession, gambling, addiction, etc., which ruin ones life entirely, but also daily descents into agitation, distraction, frustration, anger and despondency.  These lesser forms of descent, though perhaps brief, may still amount to a temporary death of ones soul.

Sequential ordering. Philo is describing the phenomenology of mental descent.  While each figure in Cain’s lineage corresponds to a different disposition and to associated cognitive processes, we need not assume these mental events always follow a strict order. However in some cases there does seem to be a tendency of one of these dispositions to ‘beget’ another.

In any case, Philo’s interpretations correspond to mental events that we may, with practice, learn to observe as they occur.  By attending closely to them, and to the transitions from one disposition to another, we may potentially learn how to arrest or even reverse mental descent as it happens. One may think, for example, “Ah, at this point I have become like Mehujael!” and then take appropriate corrective action.

Even if his analysis is not complete, or not correct in every detail, it nevertheless supplies considerable material for personal reflection.

Etymology. Philo applies here what may seem to us some very speculative etymologies in associating each descendant of Cain with a mental disposition. However we shouldn’t overestimate the importance of these etymologies for Philo. There’s no reason to think that they came first in his thinking, and then led him, based on a name, to derive a psychological meaning.  Another and perhaps more likely possibility is that he relied here more on his knowledge of human psychology and on self-observation. That is, he may sometimes have chosen an etymological association after the fact, as it were, to accommodate a prior psychological insight or theory. Alternatively, he may sometimes merely suggest questionable etymologies as helpful mnemonic devices for readers (or his hearers, if, as some suggest, he originally composed this material as homilies).

In any case we shouldn’t let questionable etymologies prejudice our minds against Philo or his interpretations. We should rather focus on his deep insight and remarkable powers of phenomenological analysis. This is superb philosophizing!

Finally, to avoid confusion, please note that in Genesis there are two Enochs, two Methuselahs and two Lamechs; in each case one is bad (Cain’s lineage) and one is good (Seth’s lineage).  Here Philo’s interest is with the bad line.

Now we’ll proceed to Philo’s allegoresis verse by verse.  As much as possible we’ll use his own words. Unless otherwise indicated all paragraph numbers refer to On the Posterity of Cain.

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Genesis 4 (KJV)
[16] And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Land of Nod (22, 32; Cher. 12f.)

Nod is similar to the Hebrew word for “toss.”  “Eden” symbolizes an opposite mental condition characterized by peace, joy and right reason.

IT IS worth while to notice the country also into which he betakes himself when he has left the presence of God: it is the country called ‘Tossing’ In this way the lawgiver indicates that the foolish man, being a creature of wavering and unsettled impulses, is subject to tossing and tumult, like the sea lashed by contrary winds when a storm is raging, and  has never even in fancy had experience of quietness and calm. And as at a time when a ship is tossing at the mercy of the sea, it is capable neither of sailing nor of riding at anchor, but pitched about this way and that it rolls in turn to either side and moves uncertainly swaying to and fro; even so the worthless man, with a mind reeling and storm-driven, powerless to direct his course with any steadiness, is always tossing, ready to make shipwreck of his life. (22; cf. DeCherubim. 12f.)

Having now shown each side of the picture, calm in a good man, restlessness in a foolish one, let us devote our attention to the sequel. The lawgiver says that Naid, ‘Tumult,’ to which the soul migrated, is over against Eden. ‘Eden’ is a symbolic name for right and divine reason, and so it is literally rendered ‘luxuriance.’ For right reason above all others finds its delight and luxury in the enjoyment of good things pure and undiluted, yea complete and full, while God the Giver of wealth rains down His virgin and deathless boons. And evil is by nature in conflict with good, unjust with just, wise with foolish, and all forms of virtue with all forms of vice. That is the meaning of Naid being over against Eden. (32)

[17] And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Cain’s wife (33−39)

‘WIFE’ … [means] the opinion which the impious man (habitually) assumes touching (all) matters. … Of what sort then is an impious man’s opinion? That the human mind is the measure of all things. (34f.)

For if man is the measure of all things, all things are [incorrectly seen as] a present and gift of [ones own] mind … including … thought, resolves, counsels, forethought, comprehension, acquisition of knowledge, skill in arts and in organizing, other faculties too many to recount. Why … deliver … discourses about holiness and honouring God … seeing that you have with you the mind [that presumes] to take the place of God? (36f.)

Enoch (41−43; cf. 35f.)

Philo interprets “Enoch” to mean “thy gift,” here understood as “my gift to myself.”  He connects this with the preceding discussion of Cain’s wife, viz. the opinion that ones sensations and thoughts belong to ones ego.

THOSE who assert that everything that is involved in thought or perception or speech is a free gift of their own soul, seeing that they introduce an impious and atheistic opinion, must be assigned to the race of Cain, who, while incapable even of ruling himself, made bold to say that he had full possession of all other things as well. (42)

Builded a city (49−62)

A characteristic of egoistic thinking is that one builds a veritable city of false beliefs, wrong opinions and supporting rationalizations, populated by inauthentic dispositions.

NOW, every city needs for its existence buildings, and inhabitants, and laws. Cain’s buildings are demonstrative arguments. With these, as though fighting from a city-wall, he repels the assaults of his adversaries, by forging plausible inventions contrary to the truth.  His inhabitants are the wise in their own conceit, devotees of impiety, self-love, arrogance, false opinion: men ignorant of real wisdom, who have reduced to an organized system ignorance, lack of learning and of culture, and other pestilential things akin to these. His laws are various forms of lawlessness and injustice, unfairness, licentiousness, audacity, senselessness, self-will, immoderate indulgence in pleasures … Of such a city every impious man is found to be an architect in his own miserable soul, until such time as God takes counsel (Gen. 11:6), and brings upon their sophistic devices a great and complete confusion. (52f.)

[18] And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

Irad (66−68)

THE SON of Enoch is named Gaidad [Irad], which means ‘a flock.’ Such a name follows naturally upon his father’s name. For it was fitting that the man who deems himself beholden to mind, which is incapable of comprehending its own nature, should beget irrational faculties [dunameis], collected into a flock. (66)

Now every flock that has no shepherd over it necessarily meets with great disasters, owing to its inability by itself to keep hurtful things away and to choose things that will be good for it. (67)

For when the protector, or governor, or father, or whatever we like to call him, of our complex being, namely right reason (orthos logos), has gone off leaving to itself the flock within us, the flock itself being left unheeded perishes, and great loss is entailed upon its owner, while the irrational and unprotected creature, bereft of a guardian of the herd to admonish and discipline it, finds itself banished to a great distance from rational and immortal life. (68)

Mehujael (Mahujael, Maiel; 69−72)

THIS IS why Gaidad is said to have a son Maiel, whose name translated is ‘away from the life of God.’ For since the flock is without reason, and God is the Fountain of reason, it follows that he that lives an irrational life has been cut off from the life of God. (69)

Methusael (Methuselah; 73, 44f., cf. 41)

This descendant of Cain is not to be confused with the long-lived Methuselah of Seth’s lineage in Genesis 5.

WHAT issue awaits him who does not live according to the will of God, save death of the soul? And to this is given the name Methuselah, which means (as we saw) ‘a dispatch of death.’ Wherefore he is son of Mahujael, of the man who relinquished his own life, to whom dying is sent, yea soul-death, which is the change of soul under the impetus of irrational passion. (73f.)

He who receives [this] death is an intimate of Cain, who is ever dying to the way of life directed by virtue. (45)

Lamech (74−79; 46−48; cf. 41)

WHEN the soul has conceived this passion, it brings forth with sore travail-pangs incurable sicknesses and debilities, and by the contortion brought on by these it is bowed down and brought low; for each one of them lays on it an intolerable burden, so that it is unable even to look up. To all this the name ‘Lamech’ has been given, which means ‘humiliation,’ [or ‘brought low’] … a low and cringing passion being [an] offspring of the soul’s death, [and] a sore debility child of irrational impulse. (74)

[19] And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.
[20] And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.
[21] And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

Adah (79−83)

For Philo, Ada means “witness” — in the sense of self-witness and attention directed to ones thoughts and acts.

THE LOW and grovelling Lamech marries as his first wife Ada, which means ‘Witness.’ He has arranged the marriage for himself, for he fancies that the prime good for a man is the smooth movement and passage of the mind along the line of well-aimed projects, with nothing to hinder its working towards easy attainment. ‘For what,’ says he, ‘could be better than that one’s ideas, purposes, conjectures, aims, in a word one’s plans, should go, as the saying is, without a limp, so as to reach their goal without stumbling, understanding being evidenced in all the particulars mentioned?’ (79)

If a man has used a natural aptness and readiness not only for good and worthy ends, but also for their opposites … let him be deemed unhappy. … for verily it is a desperate misfortune for the soul to succeed in all things which it attempts, although they be utterly base. (81)

Therefore, Ο mind, have nothing to do with Ada, who bears witness to (the success of) worthless things, and is borne witness to (as helping) in the attempts to accomplish each of them. (83)

Jabal (Jobel; 83−99)

IF you shall think well to have her [Ada] for a partner, she will bear to you a very great mischief, even Jobel (Gen. iv. 20), which signifies ‘one altering.’ For if you delight in the witness borne to (the goodness of) everything that may present itself, you will desire to twist everything and turn it round, shifting the boundaries fixed for things by nature. (83)

The man who removes the boundaries of the good and beautiful both is accursed and is pronounced to be so with justice. These boundaries were fixed … on principles which are divine and are older than we and all that belongs to earth. This has been made clear by the Law, where it solemnly enjoins upon each one of us not to adulterate the coinage of virtue, using these words: ‘thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s boundaries, which thy fathers set up.’ (Deut. 19:14) (88f.)

How, then, should Jobel escape rebuke, whose name when turned into Greek is ‘altering’ the natures of things or making them other than they are? For he changed the forms of wisdom and endurance and justice and virtue in general, forms of Godlike beauty, substituting contrary shapes of folly, intemperance, injustice, and all wickedness, obliterating the shapes that had been impressed before. (93)

Jubal (100−111)

‘JUBAL’ is akin in meaning to ‘Jobel,’ for it means ‘inclining now this way now that,’ and it is a figure for the uttered word, which is in its nature brother to mind. It is a most appropriate name for the utterance of a mind that alters the make of things, for its way is to halt between two courses, swaying up and down as if on a pair of scales, or like a boat at sea, struck by huge waves and rolling towards either side. For the foolish man has never learned to say anything sure or well-grounded. (100)

[He swerves aside from the] royal road, which we have just said to be true and genuine philosophy, is called in the Law the utterance and word of God. (102)

Jubal is the father of musical instruments because music, like foolish thought and speech, has infinitely many variations:

RIGHT well then is Jubal, the man who alters the tone and trend of speech, spoken of as the father of psaltery and harp, that is of music. (111)

[22] And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

Zillah (Sella; 112−113)

LET us contemplate Lamech’s other wife Sella (Zillah) and her offspring. Well, ‘Sella’ means ‘a shadow,’ and is a figure of bodily and external goods, which in reality differ not a whit from a shadow. (112)

Tubal (Thobel; 114−119)

OF this shadow and its fleeting dreams a son is born, to whom was given the name of Thobel, meaning ‘all together.’ For it is a fact that those who have obtained health and wealth … think that they have secured absolutely all things. (115)

He goes on to say: This man was a wielder of the hammer, a smith in brass and iron work. For the soul that is vehemently concerned about bodily pleasures or the materials of outward things, is being ever hammered on an anvil, beaten out by the blows of his desires with their long swoop and reach. Always and everywhere you may see those who care for their bodies more than anything else setting lines and snares to catch the things they long for. You may see lovers of money and fame dispatching on expeditions to the ends of the earth and beyond the sea the frenzied craving for these things. They draw to them the produce of every region of the globe, using their unlimited lusts as nets for the purpose, until at last the violence of their excessive effort makes them give way, and the counter pull throws down headlong those who are tugging. All these people are war-makers, and that is why they are said to be workers in iron and bronze, and these are the instruments with which wars are waged. (116f.)

It is an invariable rule that broils and factions arise among men scarcely ever about anything else than what is in reality a shadow. For the lawgiver [Moses] named the manufacturer of weapons of war, of brass and iron, Thobel, son of Sella the shadow… . For he was aware that every naval or land force chooses the greatest dangers for the sake of bodily pleasures or to gain a superabundance of things outward, no one of which is proved sure and stable by all-testing time; for those things resemble pictures that are mere superficial delineations of solid objects, and fade away of themselves. (119)

Tubal, who signifies a state of complete inner strife and self-tyranny, is the culmination of the entire line of Cain: hence his full name, Tubal-cain.  His association with bronze and iron is reminiscent of the Bronze and Iron races in Hesiod’s Ages of Man myth (Works and Days 109–201), another allegory of the soul’s progressive descent.

Naamah (Noeman; 120−123)

WE are told that the sister of Thobel was Noeman, meaning ‘fatness’; for when those, who make bodily comfort and the material things of which I have spoken their object, succeed in getting something which they crave after, the consequence is that they grow fat. Such fatness I for my part set down not as strength but as weakness, or it teaches us to neglect to pay honour to God, which is the chiefest and best power of the soul. (120)

From this we see that the Divine word dwells and walks among those for whom the soul’s life is an object of honour, while those who value the life given to its pleasures, experience good times that are transient and fictitious. These, suffering from the effects of fatness and enjoyment spreading increasingly, swell out and become distended till they burst; but those who are fattened by wisdom which feeds souls that are lovers of virtue, acquire a firm and settled vigour, of which the fat taken from every sacrifice to be offered with the whole burnt offering is a sign. For Moses says all the fat is a due for ever to the Lord (Lev. 3:16f.), showing that richness of mind is recognized as God’s gift and appropriated to Him. (122f.)

Final Remarks

In verses 23 and 24, the slain young man whom Lamech refers to is Abel, the disposition of piety, innocence and childlike trust in God, whose death is brought to completion by the line of Cain.

So much for Philo’s exegesis of Cain’s progeny and how they relate to the moral/cognitive descent of the psyche.  Philo continues his analysis of descent in his interpretations of the giants mentioned in Genesis 6 (On the Giants) and the Tower of Babel (On the Confusion of Tongues). In addition to considering the descending lineage of Cain, Philo also allegorically interprets the improving race of Seth, Adam and Eve’s third son (Genesis 5). Future articles will discuss these.

References

Colson, F. H. & Whitaker, G. H. Philo: On the Posterity of Cain.  In: Philo, Volume 2. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: 1929.

Uebersax, John. Psychological Allegorical Interpretation of the Bible. Paso Robles, CA: El Camino Real, 2012.

Uebersax, John. The monomyth of fall and salvation. Christian Platonism. 2014. Accessed 22 April 2018.

Uebersax, John. Philo’s psychological exegesis of Cain and Abel. Christian Platonism. 2018. Accessed 22 April 2018.

John Uebersax
First draft: 27 April 2018 (please excuse typos)