על השיכרות, הקדמהOn Drunkenness, Introduction
א׳
1ON DRUNKENNESS (DE EBRIETATE) ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION
ב׳
2This treatise like its two predecessors is founded on Gen. 9:20–29, particularly the last words, “And (Noah) drank of the wine and was drunken.” Philo, however, from the first breaks away from this text and, having discussed at the end of the De Plantatione the various philosophical views on drunkenness, proceeds to consider the views of Moses on the subject. He lays down that Moses uses wine as a symbol for five things: (1) foolishness or foolish talking; (2) complete “insensibility”; (3) greediness; (4) cheerfulness and gladness; (5) nakedness (1–5). He then gives a short introductory explanation of each of these, dwelling particularly on one aspect of “nakedness” as the truth which strips off all disguises from virtue and vice, and this leads to a short digression on the mutually exclusive nature of these two (6–10), a thought evidently suggested by Socrates’ fable of Pleasure and Pain in the Phaedo. He then proceeds to a detailed consideration of these five, though as a matter of fact only the first three are treated in what has come down to us.
ג׳
3I. First, “folly” or “foolish talking.” This with its digressions occupies from § 11 to § 153. Its chief cause is ἀπαιδευσία, that is defiance of or unsusceptibility to all educating influences (11–12). How abhorrent this is to Moses is shewn by the law in Deut. 21 that the parents of a rebellious and profligate son must bring him for judgement before the elders. The development of this illustration occupies sections 13–98. This rebellious son, the type of the ἀπαίδευτος, has four charges brought against him by his parents, disobedience, contentiousness, “riotous feasting” and wine-bibbing (13–14). The two first are distinguished as being the one passive, the other active (15–19). In dealing with the third Philo ignores the derived meaning—riotous feasting—of the obscure word συμβολοκοπεῖν and confines himself to what he supposes to be the original meaning. Of the two elements of which it is compounded he takes the first συμβολαί to represent “contributions” or “combinations” for evil, while the other (κόπτειν) shews the “cutting” or destructive force of these contributions (20–24), against which we are warned in the words, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (25). The fourth charge that he is “fired with wine” (οἰνοφλυγεῖ) represents a state in which the ἀπαιδευσία is inflaming the man’s whole nature (27). That his natural protectors, his parents, should be his accusers is the just punishment of such a one (28–29). But “parents” means more than the literal father and mother. In one sense our father is God and our mother God’s Wisdom, parents whose mercies and judgements alike are greater than we can receive (30–32). In another sense the father is “right reason” or philosophy, while the mother is custom, convention and secular education (33–34). This idea Philo proceeds to develop (33–92) in what is, in spite of minor extravagances, a really fine allegory and does much to redeem the general inferiority of this treatise. These parents have four kinds of children, (1) and (2) those who obey one parent but not the other, (3) those who obey both, (4) those who obey neither (35). We first deal with those who disregard the father and love the mother, i.e. the votaries of convention. They are typified, first by Jethro here, as always in Philo, “the man of superfluity” or “unevenness” (36). The special sayings of his selected here are his advice to Moses on the conduct of his business in Exod. 18 and his refusal to follow Israel in Num. 10, and even his saying, “Now I know that the Lord is great above all gods” is turned to his discredit on the grounds that “now” should be “always” and that he still ascribes reality to non-existent gods (37–45). The second example of this class is Laban, the admirer, as always, of the material and external, but his special error is his saying “it is not our custom to give the younger (Rachel) before the elder (Leah),” for the younger daughter, the learning of the schools, should precede in time the elder, philosophy—and Jacob’s reply to Laban is perversely construed to mean that he will never leave Leah (46–53). Some other texts are enlisted to shew the inferiority of the feminine element in mankind, as exemplified in Rachel, and her words about the “manner of women” in Gen. 31 (54–64), and we pass on to the next class, the father-lovers, the despisers of convention and followers of right reason only. These are especially represented by the Levites, who ignore and even as in Exod. 32 slay their kinsfolk and thus are murderers in the eyes of the conventional world, though not in the eyes of divine reason (65–67). The kinsfolk, etc., are interpreted to mean the body, the senses and rhetorical eloquence, all of which are sacrificed by the father-lover, and the final example of this class is Phinehas who slew the Midianitish woman (Num. 25) and whose story is interpreted in the same allegorical way with a short meditation on the rewards he received of “peace and priesthood” (73–76).
ד׳
4The class of those who reject both parents receives the appropriate denunciation (77–79) and we finally come to those who reverence both. Here we may be surprised to find that Philo after all regards this as the perfect way, in spite of his high praise of the pure philosopher (80–81). This obedience to both right reason and custom is held to deserve the name of Israel which supersedes that of Jacob (82–84), and Moses has approved this twofold excellence, in his institution of an external as well as an internal altar, and the two different robes for the priest. These robes are respectively simple and ornate, and the second shews us that life has many aspects (85–87). For true wisdom shews itself in various forms not only in religion, but also in the physical sciences, in ethics and politics and in social activities (88–92). That the two parents have other children besides the disobedient one is deduced from the phrase “this our son” and Philo takes various examples of such children from the great names of the Pentateuch (73–94).
ה׳
5Philo now once more denounces the wickedness of the disobedient son and compares him to the degenerate Israelites who worshipped the golden calf, and thus he is led to quote the words of Joshua on that occasion, “There is a voice of war in the camp …” And Moses’ reply, “that the sounds are not those of victory or defeat, but those of the wine-feast of men who shout over the wine that I hear” (95–96). This quotation carries Philo away at once to a disquisition on its various phrases. “There is a voice in the camp” signifies the tumult of passion in the camp of human life (97–104), and some illustrations of this thought are given (97–104). “It is not the voice of might (or “victory”)” suggests a comparison with the words of Abraham after his victory over the nine kings (i.e. the four passions and the five senses), and this involves an explanation of Abraham’s refusal to accept reward from the King of Sodom, as the wise soul’s refusal to accept from any but God and a rebuke to idolaters (105–110). Another song of victory is that of Moses over Pharaoh’s host (111) and the “Song of the Well” in Num. 21 (112–113) which in its turn leads to a discussion of the allegorical meaning of various phrases in the speech of the victorious captains in Num. 31, particularly of “each one gave what he had found” (114–120). The “voice of the defeated” is passed over rapidly as indicating weakness rather than wickedness, and contrasted with the voice of those who shout over (or “lead”) the wine, which voice indicates the deliberate madness of evil (121–123). Thus we are brought back for a moment to the main thought of drunkenness as moral folly, and reminded that freedom from this is true priesthood (124–126). This was the inner meaning of the command to Aaron to abstain from wine when he approached the tabernacle or the altar (127–129). In the literal sense this is sound enough, for what can be worse than a drunken worshipper (130–131), but in the deeper sense the tabernacle is the “idea” of incorporeal virtue, and the altar that of the particular virtues, and to him who approaches either of these folly is not so much forbidden as impossible (132–139). Similar morals are drawn from the concluding words of the same passages (140–143), and also from Samuel’s lifelong abstinence (143–144), and the mention of Samuel leads to some thoughts on the words of Hannah (i.e. Grace) to those who thought her drunk, “I have drunk no wine and I will pour out my soul before the Lord,” in which we have a parable of the truth that the “joy” of grace is as the Bacchant’s inspiration and that freedom from folly makes the soul a fitting libation to God (145–152). This concludes the discussion of drunkenness as spiritual folly produced by ἀπαιδευσία (153).
ו׳
6II. The second thing for which wine stood as a symbol was, we saw, “stupor” or “insensibility,” and in the mental or moral sphere this is ignorance, which stands to the mind as blindness or deafness to the body, while knowledge is the eye and ear of the soul (154–161). But we must distinguish two kinds of ignorance, one mere non-knowledge, the other the belief that we know, when we do not (162–163). This last is represented by Lot with his wife, who is “Custom” ever looking back upon the past, and his two daughters who are “Deliberation” and “Assent.” The statement that their daughters “gave their father wine to drink” means that the mind is hypnotized with the belief that it can by deliberation find out the truth and give a right judgement or assent, whereas in reality nothing of the sort is possible even to the educated (164–168). The fact that the same objects produce at different times different impressions on the mind shews that we cannot base certain judgements on these impressions (162–170). Philo then proceeds to enumerate the causes or rather “modes” of these uncertainties. The first is the difference in the habits and constitution of animals, which argues that they too receive different impressions from the same things, and with this he joins the changes which some of them, e.g. the chameleon and the elk, are supposed to exhibit in different environments (171–175). The second mode is the various feelings, likes and dislikes shewn by mankind, in which not only does one man differ from another, but even the individual from himself (175–180). The third mode is the optical illusions produced by the distances or situations of objects, such as “the straight staff bent in a pool” (181–183). The fourth is the observation that any two or more things, while remaining the same in substance, produce totally different results according to the proportions in which they are combined (184–185). The fifth is relativity, for since we only know one thing with reference to another, we cannot be said to know them at all (186–189). This is illustrated by the fact that colour, smell and the like are really the effect of the combination of something in the object with something in ourselves (190–191). Further, we are warned against forming moral judgements by the fact that on all such questions there is an infinite difference of opinion among various nations, states and individuals which forbids us to assert with certainty that any particular act is virtuous or not (192–197). Philo goes on to say that while he is not surprised that the vulgar should form positive judgements, he is surprised to find that philosophers can still be dogmatists and yet come to totally different opinions on vital questions, and he enumerates some of these, such as whether the universe is infinite or not, created or uncreated, ruled by providence or not, and whether morality is the only good or whether there are numerous goods (198–202). True indeed are the words of the text “he knew not when they (the daughters) slept and rose up,” for both the counsels and the assents of the mind are utterly untrustworthy (203–205).
ז׳
7III. The third idea suggested by wine or drunkenness, viz. greediness or gluttony, is treated by Philo in a comparatively literal manner. Such allegory as there is is chiefly drawn from the story of Pharaoh in Genesis (Egypt as usual representing the body), who on his birthday was reconciled with his chief butler, thereby representing the tendency of the sated sensualist to return to his excesses as soon as possible (206–209). From the statement (in the LXX) that all the three officers of Pharaoh’s table—the chief butler, the chief baker and the chief cook—were eunuchs, he draws the lesson that the ministers of pleasure are incapable of begetting wisdom, and this is also implied in the banishment by Moses of eunuchs from the congregation (210–213). Further the prefix of “chief” applied in Genesis to these three indicates the gourmand’s excessive indulgence as compared with simple living, and Philo takes the opportunity to give a rhetorical description of these refinements of luxury (214–220). Also it was the chief cupbearer (not the other two) with whom Pharaoh was reconciled, and this shews that the passion for wine is the most persistent form which bodily indulgence takes (220–221). A text which he quotes in connexion with this from the Song of Moses, in which the phrase “the vine of Sodom” occurs, brings him back to the allegorical view of drunkenness as the symbol of folly in general. For the fool’s “vine” or his foolish desires do not produce the gladness of true wine, but its roots are as ashes, and the treatise concludes with the prayer that our “vine” may be rather that of true and fruit-bearing instruction (222-end).