ON THE CHERUBIM, AND THE FLAMING SWORD, AND CAIN THE FIRST MAN CREATED OUT OF MAN (DE CHERUBIM)
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION
“And He cast forth Adam and set over against the Garden of Pleasure the Cherubim and the sword of flame which turns every way.”
“And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and he said ‘I have gotten a man through God.’ ”
I. In the first part we open (1–10) with a disquisition on the difference between the phrases “cast forth” and “sent forth,” which was used in Genesis 3:23: the former indicates a permanent, the latter a temporary expulsion (1–2). These different meanings are illustrated (3–9) by the earlier expulsion of Hagar, as described in Genesis 16, and the later and permanent expulsion of Genesis 21. In this, as often in Philo, Hagar stands for the lower and secular education, and Sarah for philosophy.
We then have a discussion (11–20) of the meaning of “over against.” While it is pointed out that the phrase may sometimes indicate hostility (12–13), and sometimes the position of the accused before his judge (14–17), in which the text “the priest shall set the (accused) woman before the Lord and uncover her head” leads to an interpretation of the last three words as meaning “reveal the real motives,” it is decided that the words in Genesis are used in the same sense of friendliness, as in the text “Abraham was standing before (opposite to) the Lord” (18–20).
From 21–39 we have mainly a discussion of what is intended by the two Cherubim and the Flaming Sword. Two physical explanations are suggested: (a) the planetary sphere on the one hand, with its seven zones in which each of the planets move, and that of the fixed stars on the other, the revolution of the whole heaven being the sword (21–24); (b) the two “hemispheres” of the heaven, with the sun as sword (25–26). But Philo’s personal preference is for a more profound interpretation (27–30), which finds in the Cherubim the two chief ‘Potencies’ of God, His ‘goodness’ or lovingkindness, and His majesty or sovereignty, while the sword is the reason or Logos which unites the two. This last leads to the reflection that Balaam, the foolish one, was rightly made swordless, as is shown in his words to the ass, “if I had a sword, I would have pierced thee” (32). And these particular words in their turn suggest a short meditation on those who, when disappointed in worldly affairs lay the blame on the affairs themselves (33–38). The whole homily concludes with a section emphasizing reason as the source of human happiness (39).
II. The main idea that runs through the second part is that Adam signifies mind, Eve sense (i.e. sense-perception), and Cain (whose name means ‘possession’) the impious idea engendered by Mind and Sense, that what we have is our own and not God’s. But we must first consider the words “Adam knew his wife.” The absence of any such phrase in connexion with the great saints of the Pentateuch indicates that their wives (unlike Adam’s) are Virtues which receive seed from God Himself, though they bear offspring to the persons who possess them, a lesson which is declared to be one for higher understandings, and too spiritual for profane ears (40–52). Next we have to ask why “Cain” is not more fully described as ‘first-born son’ (53–55), and the explanation of this point merges into an exposition of the way in which Mind, helpless in itself, by mating with Sense, comes to comprehend phenomena and supposes that this comprehension is its own doing (56–64). The folly of this supposition is emphasized (65–66), and illustrated first from the words of Laban, “The daughters are my daughters, the sons my sons, and the cattle my cattle, and all that thou seest are mine.” The allegorizing of daughters, sons, and cattle as arts or sciences, reasonings, and sense-perceptions respectively, leads to an impassioned outburst on human fallibility and its slavery to delusions (67–71), a slavery which resembles that of the slave of Ex. 21 who “loved his master” and rejected freedom (72–74). A second illustration is drawn from the vain boasting of Pharaoh, as described in Moses’ song in Ex. 15. (74–76). The failure of the Pharaoh mind to realize that God alone acts, while it is for man to be passive (77), leads to a remarkable digression on the right form of human passiveness—not, that is, a helpless passiveness, but one which braces itself to accept and co-operate with the Actor (78–83).
In contrast with the idle claims of the Mind, we have the Divine claim that “all things are Mine … in My feasts.” The last few words suggest a meditation on the sense in which God keeps feast, how His resting is an eternal activity, which unlike the activity of the world knows no weariness (84–90). Man indeed can in no true sense feast, and there follows a powerful denunciation of the vanity, licence, and sinfulness of the popular festivals (91–97). The last few words of this denunciation deplore the pagan blindness to the truth that God sees into the recesses of the soul, and thus we pass, by a somewhat forced transition, to the thought of the soul as God’s house, and the nature of the preparations needed to fit it for His reception is described in a fine passage, in the course of which Philo gives a signal example of the high value he sets on the secular education and culture of his day (98–105).
The soul thus fitted for God’s reception will inevitably find its chief joy in acknowledging God’s sovereignty and ownership (106–107). Thus we return to the main theme, which is once more illustrated by the text “The land shall not be sold … for all the land is Mine, because ye are sojourners and aliens before Me.” Spiritually the “land” is the world of creation, every part of which is a loan from Him to every other part, and here Philo dwells eloquently on the interdependence of created things (108–113). It is also ourselves, for, inconstant creatures that we are (113–114), ignorant of our whence and whither (114–115), our minds ever subject to delusion and seduction (116–117), we cannot be said to own ourselves, a thought which may well teach us resignation (118–119). The last words of the text, “ye are sojourners,” suggest the thought of God as the true ‘citizen,’ in contrast to ourselves who are at best immigrants (120–121), and once more the phrase “shall not be sold” reminds us that the benefits men exchange are at bottom a matter of sale and purchase, and that God alone is the real giver (121–123).
Finally we have a disquisition on the error involved in the words “I have gotten a man through God.” Philo, on the lines of Aristotle, names four causes of things, and shows that the “by whom,” or agent, and not the “through whom,” or instrument, is applicable to God (124–127); and this he illustrates by comparing the erroneous use by Joseph of the latter with the right use of the former by Moses (128–130).