Philo and the Liber Mundi

(Not Philo, but maybe he looked like this!)

LAST week I felt inspired to look at Philo’s On Dreams again.  The Introduction in Colson & Whitaker’s translation didn’t turn up much of new interest, until I got to their summary of Philo’s interpretation of Jacob’s ladder dream.

Philo pays particular attention to Jacob’s statement, “this is a gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17).  Here Philo sees a reference to how the sensory world is a ‘gate’ to the Ideal world — every material thing being an image or shadow of a corresponding eternal Idea.  To me it seems Philo isn’t making so much a technical metaphysical point as a practical, psychological and experiential one: in the proper frame of mine, we can ascend from material things to catch sight of Eternal Beauty, or of objects belonging to that realm.

There are obviously Platonic overtones here — implicit references to the ascent to God from contemplation of beautiful things in Symposium 201–212, parts of the Timaeus, and the ‘pure world’ myth of Phaedo 107c–115a.  But in another sense it comes across (at least to me) as reminiscent of Neoplatonism — not just Plotinus, but of the characteristically Renaissance Neoplatonism idea that the world is a Book of God, a mirror or gateway into a corresponding universe of eternal, perfect Forms. One proceeds, say, from seeing an actual beautiful flower to somehow intuiting or contemplating a truth that the object not only instantiates, but one which the object is intended to convey to us for some didactic purpose.

IF that corresponds to Philo’s intentions it seems worth mentioning, because then it means that Philo is expressing this typically Neoplatonist idea two centuries before Plotinus.

Or perhaps I’m reading too much into the passage.  This general subject has been on my mind lately as I’ve recently collected and placed online quotations from American Transcendentalists and others about the transcendent beauty and meaning of flowers, illustrated with my photos  (Visit the new website Florigelium here).

Genesis 28

[10] And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.

[11] And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

[12] And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

[13] And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;?

[14] And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

[15] And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

[16] And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

[17] And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

Philo, On Dreams 1 (De Somniis 1)

XXXII. [184]
Rightly, therefore, was he afraid and said in an awestruck tone, “How dreadful is this place” (Gen. 28:17). For indeed most difficult of the “places” in the study of nature’s verities is that in which men inquire as to where, and whether at all in any thing the Existent Being is. Some say that everything that subsists occupies some space, and of these one allots to the Existent One this space, another that, whether inside the world or a space outside it in the interval between worlds. Others maintain that the Unoriginate resembles nothing among created things, but so completely transcends them, that even the swiftest understanding falls far short of apprehending Him and acknowledges its failure.

[185]
Wherefore he straightway cried aloud “This is not” (ibid. 17); this that I supposed, “that the Lord is in some place” (ibid. 16), is not so; for according to the true reckoning He contains, but is not contained. But this that we can point out and see, this world discerned by sense, is, as I now know, nothing but a house of “God,” that is, of one of the Potencies of the Existent, that is, the Potency which expresses His goodness.

[Note:  Yonge translates this paragraph in a somewhat less difficult way as: “wherefore (Jacob) speedily cries out, This is not what I expected, because the Lord is in the place”; for he surrounds everything, but in truth and reason he is not surrounded by anything. And this thing which is demonstrated and visible, this world perceptible by the outward senses, is nothing else but the house of God, the abode of one of the powers of the true God, in accordance with which he is good;”]

[186]
The world which he named a “house,” he also described as “gate of” the real “heaven” (ibid. 17). Now what is this? The world which only intellect can perceive, framed from the eternal forms in Him [Note: Perhaps meaning the Logos] Who was appointed in accordance with Divine bounties, cannot be apprehended otherwise than by passing on to it from this world which we see and perceive by our senses.

[187]
For neither indeed is it possible to get an idea of any other incorporeal thing among existences except by making material objects our starting-point. The conception of place was gained when they were at rest: that of time from their motion, and points and lines and superficies, in a word extremities from the robe-like exterior which covers them.

[188]
Correspondingly, then, the conception of the intelligible world was gained from the one which our senses perceive: it is therefore a kind of gate into the former. For as those who desire to see our cities go in through gates, so all who wish to apprehend the unseen world are introduced to it by receiving the impression of the visible world. The world whose substance is discernible only by intellect apart from any sight whatever of shapes or figures, but only by means of the archetypal eternal form present in the world which was fashioned in accordance with the image beheld by him with no intervening shadow, — that world shall change its title, when all its walls and every gate has been removed and men may not catch sight of it from some outside point, but behold the unchanging beauty, as it actually is, and that sight no words can tell or express.

p.s. This passage connects with an earlier one in On Dreams about which I wrote previously.

Reference

Colson, F.H.; Whitaker, G. H.  On Dreams.  In: Philo in Ten Volumes, Vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, 1938.

~ * ~

Philo, On Greater and Lesser Vision of God

PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA, in On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis), distinguishes two modes by which the devout soul may see God.  One is by the familiar ‘ladder’ of ascending from contemplation of God’s goodness, wisdom and providence as manifest in Creation (cf. Plato, Symposium 201–212).  The second, more exalted kind, is associated with a direct union of God granted by grace.  This contrast is prominent in the history of Christian mysticism, and it’s interesting to see how earlier it appears in Philo (who, of course, is also writing two centuries before Plotinus). Leading up to this passage Philo has reiterated his often-made distinction between three types of holy souls:  the Taught (symbolized by Abraham, one who seeks to learn wisdom from created things, science, and human culture); the Self-taught (symbolized by Isaac, one who acquires wisdom and virtue by following the adage, know thyself); and greatest of all, the Practicer (symbolized by Jacob, the ascetic who uses all available means and discipline in a dedicated quest for holiness).  To Jacob alone is granted the highest ‘vision’ of God — and for this reason he is also called Israel, which, according to Philo, means ‘seeing God.’

[36]
VI. After the self-taught, the man enriched by his natural gifts, the third to reach perfection is the Man of Practice who receives for his special reward the vision of God. …

[37]
In his former years the eyes of his soul had been closed, but by means of continuous striving he began though slowly to open them and to break up and throw off the mist which overshadowed him. For a beam purer than ether and incorporeal suddenly shone upon him and revealed the conceptual world ruled by its charioteer. [see Plato, Phaedrus 246a− 257b]

[38]
That charioteer, ringed as he was with beams of undiluted light, was beyond his sight or conjecture, for the eye was darkened by the dazzling beams. Yet in spite of the fiery stream which flooded it, his sight held its own in its unutterable longing to behold the vision.

[39]
The Father and Saviour perceiving the sincerity of his yearning in pity gave power to the penetration of his eyesight and did not grudge to grant him the vision of Himself in so far as it was possible for mortal and created nature to contain it. Yet the vision only showed that He is, not what He is.

[40]
For this … cannot be discerned by anyone else; to God alone is it permitted to apprehend God.

VII. Now the fact that He is, which can be apprehended under the name of His subsistence, is not apprehended by all or at any rate not in the best way. Some distinctly deny that there is such a thing as the Godhead. Others hesitate and fluctuate as though unable to state whether there is or not. Others whose notions about the subsistence of God are derived through habit rather than thinking from those who brought them up, believe themselves to have successfully attained to religion yet have left on it the imprint of superstition.

[41]
Others again who have had the strength through knowledge to envisage the Maker and Ruler of all have in the common phrase advanced from down to up. Entering the world as into a well-ordered city they have beheld the earth standing fast, highland and lowland full of sown crops and trees and fruits and all kinds of living creatures to boot; also spread over its surface, seas and lakes and rivers both spring fed and winter torrents. They have seen too the air and breezes so happily tempered, the yearly seasons changing in harmonious order, and over all the sun and moon, planets and fixed stars, the whole heaven and heaven’s host, line upon line, a true universe in itself revolving within the universe.

[42]
Struck with admiration and astonishment they arrived at a conception according with what they beheld, that surely all these beauties and this transcendent order has not come into being automatically but by the handiwork of an architect and world maker; also that there must be a providence, for it is a law of nature that a maker should take care of what has been made.

[43]
These no doubt are truly admirable persons and superior to the other classes. They have as I said advanced from down to up by a sort of heavenly ladder and by reason and reflection happily inferred the Creator from His works. But those, if such there be, who have had the power to apprehend Him through Himself without the co-operation of any reasoning process to lead them to the sight, must be recorded as holy and genuine worshippers and friends of God in very truth.

[44]
In their company is he [Jacob] who in the Hebrew is called Israel but in our tongue the God-seer who sees not His real nature, for that, as I said, is impossible— but that He is. And this knowledge he has gained not from any other source, not from things on earth or things in Heaven, not from the elements or combinations of elements mortal or immortal, but at the summons a of Him alone who has willed to reveal His existence as a person to the suppliant.

[45]
How this access has been obtained may be well seen through an illustration. Do we behold the sun which sense perceives by any other thing than the sun, or the stars by any others than the stars, and in general is not light seen by light? In the same way God too is His own brightness and is discerned through Himself alone, without anything co-operating or being able to co-operate in giving a perfect apprehension of His existence.

[46]
They then do but make a happy guess, who are at pains to discern the Uncreated, and Creator of all from His creation …. The seekers for truth are those who envisage God through God, light through light.

Source: Philo, On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis) VI.36−VII.46 (tr. Colson)

Bibliography

Colson, F. H. Philo in Ten Volumes, Vol. 8. Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, 1939.

Louth, Andrew. The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. Oxford, 1983 (repr. 2003); Chapter 2, Philo.

Ryu, Bobby Jang Sun. Knowledge of God in Philo of Alexandria. Mohr Siebeck, 2015. (Dissertation).

Winston, David. Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, The Giants and Selections. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1981. (pp. 124−153 collects Philonic excerpts on knowledge of God.)

Philo, On Jacob’s Dream

Jacob’s Dream (detail), St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh

WHETHER they exist as metaphysical entities or not, angels are certainly psychologically real — that is, as certain inspirations, communications, subtle insights and promptings and high contemplative experiences that we consider ‘angelic.’ Angels, therefore, are, in terms of Jungian psychology, archetypally real; this is also evident from the proliferation of the angel motif in art, folklore, myth, etc.

The classic treatment of angels in the Bible is the story of Jacob’s Ladder in Genesis, which Philo addressed in his work, On Dreams.. Philo — the great allegorical exegete of the Pentateuch — didn’t write a great many words about this, but what he did write great words!

Note a certain asymmetry with regard to ascending and descending angels in Philo’s discussion. The ascending ones involve the drawing up of our minds to thoughts and ‘spectacles,’ whereas the descending angels heal and quicken the soul. Philo associates angels with the logoi of God, which we may understand as God’s ‘words’, i.e., discrete units of God’s will which direct the world (or, in this case, our mind.)

[146]
XXIII. Such then is that which in the universe is figuratively called stairway. If we consider that which is so called in human beings we shall find it to be soul. Its foot is sense-perception, which is as it were the earthly element in it, and its head, the mind which is wholly unalloyed, the heavenly element, as it may be called.

[147]
Up and down throughout its whole extent are moving incessantly the “words” [λόγοι] of God, drawing it up with them when they ascend and disconnecting it with what is mortal, and exhibiting to it the spectacle of the only objects worthy of our gaze; and when they descend not casting it down, for neither does God nor does a divine Word cause harm, but condescending out of love for man and compassion for our race, to be helpers and comrades, that with the healing of their breath they may quicken into new life the soul which is still borne along in the body as in a river.

[148]
In the understandings of those who have been purified to the utmost the Ruler of the universe walks noiselessly, alone, invisibly, for verily there is an oracle once vouchsafed to the Sage, in which it is said: “I will walk in you, and will be your God” (Lev. 26:12): but in the understandings of those who are still undergoing cleansing and have not yet fully washed their life defiled and stained by the body’s weight there walk angels, divine words, making them bright and clean with the doctrines* of all that is good and beautiful.  Source: Philo, On Dreams (De somniis) 1.146ff, tr. Colson & Whitaker, p. 375.

* this word is uncertain in manuscripts.

Bibliography

Colson, F.H.; Whitaker, G. H.  On Dreams.  In: Philo in Ten Volumes, Vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, 1938.