"What is the meaning of the expression, 'And Noah opened the roof of the ark'? (Gen. viii. 13.)
"The text appears to need no interpretation; but in its symbolical meaning the ark is our body, and that which covers the body and for a long time preserves its strength is spoken of as its roof. And this is appetite. Hence when the mind is attracted by a desire for heavenly things, it springs upwards and makes away with all material desires. It removes that which threw a shade over it so as to reach the eternal Ideas."
The "Questions and Answers" are essentially Hebraic in form, designed for Jews who knew and studied their Bible; and we can feel in them the influences of a training in traditional Mishnah and Midrash; but Philo passed from them to a more artistic expression and a more thoroughly Hellenized presentation of the philosophy of the Bible. This work is the largest extant expression of his thought and mission; it embraces the treatises which we know [pg.83] as "On the Creation of the World," "The Lives of Abraham and Joseph," "On the Decalogue," and finally those "On the Specific Laws," which are partly thus entitled and partly have separate ethical names, as "On Honoring Parents," "On Rewards and Punishments," "On Justice," etc. Large portions of it have disappeared, notably the "Lives of Isaac and Jacob"; and also the "Life of Moses," which was introductory to his laws. For the book which we have under that name does not belong to the series, but is separate. The purpose of the work broadly is to deepen the value of the Bible for the Jews by revealing its constant spiritual message, and to assert its value for the whole of humanity by showing in it a philosophical conception of the universe and its creation, the most lofty ethical and moral types, the most admirable laws, and, above all, the purest ideas of God and His relation to man. All that seems tribal and particularist is explained away, and the spiritual aspect of every chapter—of every word almost—of the Torah is emphasized. Philo expounds the sacred book, not of one particular nation, but of mankind. The Roman and Greek peoples were waiting for a religious message which should at once harmonize with rational ideas and satisfy their longing for God. All the philosophical schools were converting the scientific systems of the classical age into
, "plans of life," and Philo challenges them all with a new faith which has as its basis a God who not only was the sole Creator and Ruler of [pg.84] the world, but who had revealed to man the way of happiness, and the good life, social as well as individual. To-day, when the world about us has accepted—or has professed to accept—the ethical law of the Bible, we are apt to regard the essentials of Judaism as the belief in One God and the observance of ceremonies. But to Philo Judaism was something more comprehensive. It was the spiritual life, and the Mosaic law is the complete code of the Divine Republic, of which all are or can be citizens. In the introduction to the "Life of Abraham," Philo explains the scheme of his work:[91]
"'The Sacred Laws' [as he regularly calls the Bible] were written in five books, of which the first is entitled Genesis. It derives its title from the account of the creation which it contains, though it deals also with endless other subjects, peace and war, hunger and plenty, great cataclysms, and the histories of good and evil men. We have examined with great care the accounts of the creation in our former treatise ['On the Making of the Universe'], and we now go on naturally to inquire into the laws; and postponing the particular laws, which are as it were copies, we will first of all examine the more universal, which are their models. Now men who have lived irreproachable lives are these laws, and their virtues are recorded in the Holy Scriptures not only by way of eulogy, but in order to lead on those who read about them to emulate their life. They are become living standards of right reason, whom the lawgiver has glorified for two reasons: (1) To show that the laws laid down are consistent with nature [the conception of a [pg.85] natural law binding upon all peoples was one of the fixed ideas of the age]. (2) To show that it is not a matter of terrible labor to live according to our positive laws if a man has the will to do so; seeing that the patriarchs spontaneously followed the unwritten principles before any of the particular laws were written. So that a man may properly say that the code of law is only a memorial of the lives of the patriarchs. For the patriarchs, of their own accord and impulse, chose to follow nature, and, regarding her course with truth as the most ancient ordinance, they lived a life according to the law."
Philo dwells affectionately on the patriarchs, because, as he held, they proved the Jewish life to be truest to man's nature and to the highest ideal of humanity, and served therefore as examples to the Gentile world of the universal truth of the religion. The rabbis also took the patriarchs as the perfect type of our life, saying, "Everything that happens to them is a sign to future generations,"[92] and again: "The patriarchs are the true
, manifestation of God." But while he emphasized the broad moral teachings of Judaism exemplified by the patriarchs, Philo nevertheless upheld in its integrity the Mosaic law, and found in every one of the six hundred and thirteen precepts a spiritual meaning. Even the details of the tabernacle offerings have their universal lesson when he expounds them as symbols. Voltaire speaks cynically of Judaism as a religion of sacrifices: Philo shows that the ritual of sacrifice [pg.86] suggests moral lessons. The command of the red heifer, a part of the law which was particularly subject to attack, emphasizes the law of moral as well as of physical cleanliness. The prohibition to add honey or leaven to the sacrifice[93] (Lev. ii. 13) points the lesson that all superfluous pleasure is unrighteous; and so on with each prescription.
The Mosaic code in his exposition is commensurate with life in all its aspects. It deals not only with the duties of the individual but also with the good government of the state. The life of Joseph is made the text of a political treatise, and throughout the books "On the Specific Laws," the socialism of the Bible is emphasized,[94] and held up as the ideal order of the future. The Jewish State is enlarged in Philo's vision from a national theocracy into a world-city inspired by the two ideas of love of God and love of humanity. In this conception, no doubt, the influence of Greek philosophy is to be seen; the Jewish interpreter keeps before him the "Republic" of Plato, and the "Polity" of Aristotle. With him, however, the ideal state is not a vision "laid up in heaven";[95] its foundation is already laid upon earth, its capital is Jerusalem, and it is the mission of his people to extend its borders till it embraces all nations[96]—an idea which permeates the Jewish litany.