ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION TO BOOK II
This long treatise, the conclusion of which has been lost, seems to me to have a poverty of thought which makes it the weakest of the whole series. And though it may be merely a coincidence, it is a curious fact that it is hardly ever quoted or referred to by later writers. Further, it has less manuscript authority than any other, except De Posteritate Caini. Only one MS. used by Wendland contains it, and even this, as the many footnotes to the text will shew, has a quite unusual number of corruptions and lacunas.
The treatise follows at once on the preceding and deals with the third kind of dreams, the characteristic of which is that they contain no direct divine message, but something is seen by the dreamer, obscure in itself but explained by the art of dream interpretation. There are three pairs of dreams, one those of Joseph himself as a boy (1–154), another of the chief baker and chief butler in prison (155–214), another of Pharaoh (215 to the end), the two last pairs being interpreted by Joseph himself.
After the distinction between the three kinds of dreams has been noted (1–4), the subject of Joseph’s two dreams is introduced (5–7); but, before they are discussed, we must remember what Joseph represents. Here he is not so much the politician as the representative of the ordinary mixed character in whom the claims of the soul are constantly disputed by those of the body and external things; and in such a character vainglory (κένη δόξα) or vanity (τῦφος) is sure to appear (8–16).
The first dream begins, “I thought we were binding sheaves.” After noting that “thought” indicates the vagueness of the Joseph-mind (17–20), Philo points out that the dreamer only supposes himself and his brothers to be engaged in the inferior task of binding, not of reaping, which needs, he thinks, the skill to distinguish the good corn from the worthless (21–22). This leads to a further thought on spiritual reaping. We find the phrase, “When you reap your reaping,” which he takes to mean that when the harvest of virtue is reaped there is a further stage where this very reaping is reaped away in the consciousness that it is of God and not of ourselves (23–24). Some similar duplicates are adduced, and the double cave of Machpelah and the two kinds of music are taken to indicate a similar sort of distinction between our acceptance of the good in creation and our acknowledgement of its dependence on the divine, and so “Ye shall not consummate the rest of the reaping” implies that the consummation does not belong to man (25–30).
But what are the sheaves? Evidently in some degree drawn by the similarity of sound in δράγματα and πράγματα, Philo interprets them as “doings” used in the sense of chief characteristics. He describes in much the same terms as elsewhere the leading attributes of the eleven brothers (31–41). The leading attribute of Joseph is vainglory, and this is illustrated by a few incidents in Joseph’s life and by the interpretation of his name as “addition,” for vainglory adds luxuries to the simple life (41–47). This leads to a long commonplace against luxury as shewn in food and drink (48–51), clothing (52–53), houses (54–55), beds (56–57), unguents (58–59), drinking-cups (60–61), and golden crowns instead of flower garlands (64). Luxury, in fact, is the beast which was supposed to have devoured Joseph and thus made Jacob mourn for him, a contrast to Nahab and Abihu in whose case Moses forbade all mourning (64–67). At this point the connexion of thought gets difficult. Cutting off the hand of the immodest woman is treated as the duty of cutting ourselves off from absorption in lower aims and contrasted with the full handful which the priest takes and offers (68–74), and we then recur to the thought of 23 ff., though stated in a different way, that the spiritual reaping of virtues must be dedicated to God (75–77).
“My sheaf rose up and stood upright and your sheaves turned round and did homage to mine.” This example of the arrogance of vainglory suggests to Philo the ascendancy of the tyrant in ordinary life and the need of caution in dealing with him. In such cases frank speaking is no virtue, any more than sailing in the teeth of a storm or than facing wild beasts when unarmed (78–89). Abraham did homage to the children of Heth for the cave of Machpelah, and so must the weak propitiate the mighty (90–92). The brethren, however, do not take this line, for they reply, “Shalt thou indeed be king and lord over us?” This shews us that their opposition to Joseph represents the resistance of right reason to vainglory in the soul. We may dismiss, therefore, any thoughts of the unbrotherliness of the ten, and see merely the refusal of the better part within us to acknowledge any king but God (93–100). And Philo himself, while confessing his weakness, feels that even when he is most helpless he desires to follow this better judgement (101–104). And perhaps too the Joseph in us will be converted. What else indeed is suggested by the story of Joseph, with its various signs of something higher, crowned by his final acceptance by Moses, when his bones are carried by the liberated people out of Egypt? (105–109).
The second dream was that of the sun, moon and stars bowing down to Joseph. It chiefly differs from the first in being concerned with heavenly instead of earthly phenomena (110–112). Philo, after noting apparently without actual disapprobation the theory that the divine natures of the heavenly bodies do actually contend for pre-eminence (113–114), explains the dream from one point of view as describing the arrogance of those who regard themselves as superior not only to men but to nature (115–116). Thus Xerxes turned land into sea by cutting through Mount Athos and shot his arrows at the sun (117–120). The foolish Germans try to repel the tide with armed forces (121–122), and a little before in Alexandria a tyrannous ruler, when trying to coerce the Jews into Sabbath-breaking, had argued with them that, in the event of a deluge or earthquake or thunderstorm, they would not hesitate to forgo their regular customs, and that he himself was as powerful as any of these natural forces (123–129). Such a person, Philo thinks, will consider himself aggrieved if the seasons do not conform to his expectations (130–132). But a more general interpretation is possible. We may regard the sun as right reason, the moon as discipline or education, and the stars as the thoughts engendered by these two in the soul, which the lower Joseph-like thoughts would fain bring into subjection (133–135). Thus while Jacob’s answer, “What is this dream which thou hast dreamt?” implies that Joseph is describing a spiritual conflict of this nature (135–138), the words that follow, “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren bow down before thee?” are the refusal of right reason to submit to vanity (139–140). At the same time, we are told that his father kept the saying in his heart; and from this Philo diverges to the need for caution and self-distrust. How constantly do we find examples of long success ended by disaster, of good life followed by moral decay in old age (141–149)! And this thought suggests the image of the fountain of peace which we sometimes taste and then find denied to us—a sad condition, yet better than to drink our fill of the fountain of unreason, when the unreasoning powers master the governing element in the soul and produce that anarchy which the experience both of men and animals shews to be fatal to happiness (149–154).
In the dreams of the chief butler and baker the two men represent drunkenness and gluttony (155–158). The dream of the butler is then quoted in full (159). We note that its opening words, “In my sleep,” are appropriate to that deep drunken sleep in which all the wicked are plunged (160–162), and also “the vine was before me” shews the love which the wicked feel for the sources of their spiritual drunkenness (162–163). But before going further we must observe that the vine may be also a symbol of gladness of the true kind. Philo describes at some length how convivial meetings shew sometimes good feeling and at other times quarrelsomeness and hatred (164–168). We find this favourable meaning of “vine” in the story of the scouting party of Numbers 13. Those seekers for virtue who are unable to carry the main stalk of wisdom and joy cut off and carry away at least one great cluster (169–171). And how good a thing is this gladness is shewn by the application of the word to God Who is glad when men do well (172–178), and from which we may deduce that our duty is to make Him glad (179–180). But the vine of the cup-bearer is not of this sort. He will indeed plead that it cannot be, seeing that he is cup-bearer to Pharaoh, not to God Whose cup-bearer is the Logos himself (181–183). How different are these two! Pharaoh’s cup-bearer is called an eunuch: the Logos on the other hand is represented by the High Priest: and what is signified spiritually by eunuch and high priest is described at some length in Philo’s usual way (184–190). If we need a further description of the vine of folly we shall find it in the text which speaks of the vine of Sodom and the branch of Gomorrah, for Sodom is blindness and Gomorrah (the measure) typifies the human mind which holds itself and not God to be the measure of all things (191–194). A few more phrases in the dream are then dealt with. As πυθμήν may mean not only stalk but root or extremity, Philo finds a figure of the way in which folly brings the soul down to extreme misery (195–199). Again, “Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand” indicates that our own hands or actions are needed to give passion full scope (199–201); and “I squeezed the grapes into the cup” represents how the fool glories in using every drop of the drink of folly (202–204).
The dream of the chief baker is dismissed very shortly. The three baskets which he carries are the pleasures of the past, the present and the future, while the birds which descend and devour the baked meats are the divine retributions which overtake the pleasure-seeker and leave him headless and crucified (205–214).
We now pass on to the two parallel dreams of Pharaoh in which the seven lean devour the seven fat kine, and the seven bad the seven good ears. But in what has been preserved at any rate no notice is taken of the substance of these dreams, and the discussion is confined with digressions to the opening phrases of the first dream: “I thought I stood upon the edge of the river.” After quoting the two dreams (215–218), Philo takes the words “I thought I stood.” Here we have the Pharaoh-mind profanely claiming the standing which belongs only to God, and this thought is supported by some familiar texts (219–222). Yet God imparts this stability primarily to the Logos which under the name of Covenant is said to be made to stand upon the just Noah, thus shewing that the just man becomes as it were the pedestal (223–225); secondly to the wise man, for Abraham stands before God and Moses stood “between God and you,” thus shewing the sage as something intermediate between God and man (226–233); and thirdly to the progresser who stands midway between the full life of virtue and the death of vice (234–236). How vain then is the claim of the Pharaoh-mind to stand (237)!
The river is speech, which may be either good or bad (238–240). In its good sense, which includes reason, we find it in the river of Eden which divides into four heads (ἀρχαί) or virtues; and as ἀρχαί means also rules or sovereignties, we have a hint of the thought of the sage as king (241–244). Also we find in the Psalms the phrase “the river of God,” clearly indicating the divine Logos (245), and as we hear also of the river “making glad the city of God,” Philo digresses to consider what the city of God is. In one sense it is the world; in another the righteous soul; and its name of Jerusalem, vision of peace, fits this meaning well, for God is peace and dwells in the peace-loving soul (246–258). Also Abraham is given all the land from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates where the latter is soul and what soul loves, and the former does not mean that the river of Egypt or body is included in the gift; rather that river is bad and soulless speaking and thinking, and its nature is typified by its producing frogs and bringing death to the fish which represent true thoughts (259–260).
The edge or lip (χεῖλος) reminds us that the closing of the lips gives silence, and their opening speech, and we must remember that each has its proper season (261–263). Various texts enjoining silence are quoted (264–267), but there are also occasions which call for song, like the song of triumph of Exodus 15 or that of the well in Numbers 21, or for oratory like that enjoined in Deut. 22 on the bringing of firstfruits, and a short meditation on the details of this passage follows (268–273). With the wicked wrong speaking is more frequent than wrong silence, and three kinds of such speaking are distinguished (274–275). There are the pleasure-lovers represented by Pharaoh who was met by Moses at the “lip” of the river (276–278); the sophists represented by the people of Egypt, who were seen dead at the “lip” of the sea (279–282); the deniers of divine providence represented by the builders of Babel of whom it is said “the whole earth was of one lip” (283–284). The confusion which overtakes this third class, who are the advocates of anarchy, is enlarged on, and while repentance will bring forgiveness, persistence can only bring the divine punishment (285–295). This point is supported by a text from Leviticus on the soul which “distinguishes with its lips to do ill or well,” which Philo understands as a presumptuous claim to knowledge of the nature of good and ill. Yet this too, by proclaiming its sin, may win forgiveness (296–299).
The fragment which follows begins a discussion, why the phrase “lip of the river” is only found in connexion with the river of Egypt. Philo censures the critics who regard such points as hair-splitting, and reiterates his conviction that the Scripture does not mean to teach us geography but the realities of life. The continuation is lost (302-end).