ON FLIGHT AND FINDING (DE FUGA ET INVENTIONE) ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION
This treatise, which follows at once on the preceding, continues the exposition of Genesis 16 from the middle of vs. 6 to vs. 12, omitting vs. 10. These verses are quoted in full in § 1, but the discussion is chiefly confined to a few words or phrases, namely “fled,” “found,” and “fountain.” The first point to be noted is that Hagar fled. Flight may be due to three different causes: hatred, fear, and shame (2–3). Hagar is an example of the third, and the story shows that the inward monitor or Elenchus, which is typified by the angel, taught her that this shame must be tempered by courage (4–6).
But we must first say something about the other two causes of flight. Hatred was the cause of Jacob’s flight from Laban. Here the two may stand from one point of view for the materialistic and the theistic creed respectively, and from another for the fool and the wise (7–13). On either interpretation the Jacob soul, finding itself unable to correct the Laban soul, will flee from association with it and repudiate it. Jacob’s wives, that is his powers, joined in this repudiation, and that part of their speech in which they say that God has taken from Laban his wealth and glory and given them to themselves lead to a short meditation on true wealth and glory (15–19). A further proof of the need of flight is drawn from Laban’s expostulation that he would have sent Jacob forth with mirth and music, which the Practiser knows to be mere enticement to return to the lower life (20–22).
For flight caused by fear we have the flight of Jacob to Laban and Haran before the wrath of Esau. Here Laban represents the brilliancy of secular life, and the lesson to be drawn is that the right way to answer the unjust, when they claim that the good things of the world fall to them, is to shew how these good things can be justly used (23–27). Let us not therefore shrink from wealth, from power, or from the banquet. Our liberality will convict the spendthrift and the miser, our just administration the tyrant, and our abstemiousness the glutton (28–32). Indeed those who affect the ascetic life are for the most part hypocrites, and to function in the outer world is the best preparation for the higher life of contemplation (33–37). The ministry to men must precede the ministry to God (38).
Again, Jacob’s flight to Haran will signify the proper attitude of the soul in the practising and progressive stage. It must fly the hard ignorance of Esau, but also it is not as yet fit to share the higher life of Isaac (39–43). And Laban to whom it is sent is after all called the brother of Rebecca or persistence, while Haran where he lives represents, as elsewhere, the world of sense, the knowledge of which is necessary to the progressing, and after some days he will be recalled thence to the higher life (44–47). Similarly Isaac bids him go to Mesopotamia, that is to the mid-torrent of life’s river, and to the house of Bethuel or daughter of God, wisdom, that is, who, though a daughter, is also a father (48–52).
Other thoughts on flight are suggested by the cities of refuge. The law states that the intentional murderer shall be put to death, but that the unintentional homicide may find refuge in an appointed place (53). Before, however, considering this latter point, he notes that the first clause of the law runs: “If a man strikes another and he dies, let him be put to death with death.” Philo, as so often, fails to understand that the last words of this are the Greek translation of the common Hebrew idiom for “surely be put to death,” and infers that “dying with death” indicates the real, the spiritual death (54–55). Other texts are quoted to shew that, as virtue is the true life, vice is the true death (56–59), though, in another sense, vice can never die, as shewn by the sign given to Cain (60–64). Another part of the same text, where it is said of the involuntary homicide that God delivered the victim to his hands, suggests that God employs subordinate ministers for the lower, though beneficial and necessary, work of punishment, and this he supports, as elsewhere, by the use of “we” in the first chapter of Genesis, and the entrustment of cursing to the less worthy and of blessing to the worthier tribes (65–74). Again, the words “I will give thee a place” may be understood to mean that God Himself is the place where the innocent can take refuge (75–76). When we read that the wilful murderer who takes refuge in a sanctuary shall be dragged from it and put to death, it means that the voluntary evil-doer, who takes refuge with God, that is, ascribes to Him the responsibility for his sins, blasphemes (77–82); and how deadly a sin blasphemy against the Divine Parent is, is shown by the very next words where the death penalty is assigned to those who speak ill of their earthly parents (83–84). The cities of refuge are only for those who truly understand the difference between the voluntary and involuntary (85–86).
As to the cities of refuge, four questions arise: (1) why they are in Levitical territory; (2) why they are six in number; (3) why three are beyond Jordan and three in Canaan; (4) why the refugee must remain till the death of the High Priest (87). The answer to the first is that the Levites themselves are fugitives from human ties, and also, as in the story of Exodus 32, the slayers of their kinsfolk, interpreted as the body, the unreasoning nature, and speech (88–93). To the second and the third questions the answer is that, of the six potencies of God where the guiltless may take refuge, three stand far above humanity, while three are closer to our nature (95–105). To answer the fourth point, which he thinks can hardly be understood literally without absurdity, Philo identifies the High Priest with the Logos and points out various analogies between the two. He thus explains the ordinance as meaning that, while this High Priest lives in the soul, the sins which have been banished cannot return (106–118).
The second part of the treatise (119–175) is concerned with finding, which naturally calls up the idea of seeking. We have four variants of this: not seeking and not finding, seeking and finding, not seeking and finding, seeking and not finding (119–120). The first of these is dismissed very rapidly with one or two illustrations of which Pharaoh’s obstinacy is the chief (121–125). Seeking and finding is shewn in the case of Joseph who, prompted by a “man,” that is the inward monitor, “found” his brethren in Dothan, the place of those who have abandoned delusion (126–131); of Isaac who asked “where is the victim?” and “found” that God would provide it (132–135); of the Israelites who asked about the manna, and “found” that it was the Word of God (137–139); of Moses who, when questioning his mission, “found” the answer in “I will be with you” (140–142). For seeking and not finding we have the examples of Laban seeking the images, the Sodomites seeking the door, Korah seeking the priesthood, and Pharaoh seeking Moses to kill him (143–148). Then follows a more elaborate allegorizing of the story of Judah’s intercourse with Tamar into a picture of the earnest soul wooing piety, to which he first gives as pledges the ring of trustworthiness, the chain of consistency, and the staff of discipline, and afterwards, to test her fidelity, sends the kid which represents the good things of secular life. The connexion of this story with the subject lies in the phrase “the messenger did not ‘find’ her” (149–156). Then, after a shorter spiritualizing of the incident of the goat of the sin-offering in Leviticus 10. (157–160), the story of the Burning Bush is interpreted as the fruitless desire of the soul to know the causes of phenomena which are ever perishing and yet are ever renewed (161–165).
The fourth head of finding without seeking suggests many points which have been noted elsewhere; primarily, of course, the self-taught nature, Isaac, and then the delivery of the Hebrew women before the midwives come, the speed with which Jacob found the meat which God delivered into his hand, and the automatic growth on the fallow land in the Sabbatical year (166–172). This last naturally leads to some thought on the Sabbatical gift of peace (173–174), but to Philo’s mind the best example is the promise to the Israelites in Deuteronomy of cities, houses, cisterns, vineyards, oliveyards, for which they have not laboured, all of them really types of spiritual blessings (175–176).
The next phrase in the text which calls for discussion is “spring of water.” “Spring” is used as the symbol for five different things: first for the mind, which in the Creation story is described as the spring which waters the whole face of the earth, i.e. of the body (177–182); secondly it is used for education, and thus the twelve springs of Elim or “gateway” signify the Encyclia, the gateway to knowledge; and, since beside these springs there grew up seventy palm-trees, we have a short digression on the virtues of the two numbers (183–187). Thirdly there are the springs of folly, and this is illustrated by the phrase “uncovering the fount of the woman,” where the woman is sense and her husband mind, and uncovering the fount comes when the sleeping mind allows each of the senses to have free play (188–193). Fourthly there are the springs of wisdom, from which Rebecca drew (194–196); and fifthly God Himself, Who is called by Jeremiah the fountain of life. And since Jeremiah adds that the wicked dig for themselves broken cisterns which hold no water, we see the contrast with the wise who, like Abraham and Isaac, dig real wells (197–201).
The fountain by which Hagar was found was the fountain of wisdom, but hers was not yet a soul which could draw from it (202). The treatise concludes with shorter notes on a few other phrases in the passage. When the angel asked, “Whence comest thou, and whither goest thou?” it was not because he did not know the answer, since his omniscience is shewn by his knowing that the child would be a boy. The first part of the question was a rebuke for her flight, the second an indication of the uncertainty of the future (205–206). Something is added about the description given in the angel’s words of the Ishmael or sophist nature (207–211). And finally we note that Hagar acknowledges the angel as God, for to one in her lower stage of servitude God’s servants are as God Himself (211-end).