was concerning the government of the universe by the gods, which is affirmed by the former sect, but denied by the latter. Now the contention had endured for the space of a whole day already, and yesterday the Stoic had delivered his arguments: but to-day the dispute was to be continued by the other, and so it was that, when I entered the chamber, the Epicurean was at the point to speak.
He began with reckoning up how many unjust acts, how many oppressions and sins, how many diseases and miseries, had been let loose by the gods (if gods there were) to prey upon the children of men. He set forth the diverse gods and goddesses worshipped by diverse nations; the gods of the Grecians and Romans, wrought of marble or ivory; the sword worshipped by the Scythians; the cat and ibis by the Egyptians. What, he asked, had they all done for their servants? Then he said that in a certain region of Syria there lived a nation which professed to reject the gods of other nations and to believe in one only god: but to what end? Their god had allowed their enemies to destroy his own temple with fire, and had given up his chosen people to be the servants of the Romans. He added a story of one of our learned men, whose life had been blameless and whose teaching had been of the One True God. “Yet,” said the Epicurean, “what befell this teacher of truth in his old age? His god delivered him into the hands of persecutors, who placed his tongue between the teeth of a dog which had been made exceeding fierce with hunger; and so the dog bit off the tongue of the pious teacher, even that tongue which had ever spoken words of truth. What say we then? If there be a god, then he suffered this wickedness (for without him is naught); and therefore he is wicked. But if there be no god, then at least we are delivered from the constraint to believe that the Supreme Governor of the world is worse than the worst of men.”
The people, who had been on the side of the Epicurean from the first, in despite of the interruptions of the Stoic, now loudly applauded; and when it fell to the Stoic to speak, he had little to say. If he discoursed of oracles as proofs of the divine foreknowledge, then the Epicurean asked who had ever been profited by oracles, bringing forward many dark sayings of the gods, which had led men to destruction; and other sayings that savoured of manifest folly; adding thereto jests and flouts of oracles drawn from the plays of the comedians. When the Stoic spake of a life after death, and alleged apparitions of the dead, then his adversary answered that the said apparitions were mere unsubstantial phantasms, such as appear to madmen and drunkards when they see all things twofold. Lastly, when the Stoic spake of judgment after death, and a final consumption of the world by fire, then the Epicurean demanded proof hereof; and he laughed at the stories of Minos and Rhadamanthus as nursery fables and bugbears to frighten babes withal. He also compared the Supreme Being of the Stoics burning up the world, to an unskilful cook that burneth the cake that he is baking.
Again the people laughed loudly, and shouted applause; but the Stoic, touched with choler, left reasoning with his adversary and began to revile him, calling him atheist and sacrilegious wretch, and other names; which only made the people laugh the more. But I came forth from the theatre sick at heart and saddened, not more by the arguments of the Epicurean than by the faithlessness of the multitude. Then said I, “How know I that there is a life after death? or who hath returned from the grave to bring back word thereof? For it is written, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’ But wherefore? ‘Even because,’ saith the Scripture, ‘there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest.’ ” Then again I lamented that I had wasted my years in labour, and much study had been to me a weariness in the flesh, and I said, “It would have been wiser to have preferred mirth, for it is written, ‘A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat and drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.’ ”
From henceforth my days and nights were busied with such questions as these, which crept into my soul against my will, and would not be driven out: After death shall I live no more, and will no one even once think of me, since infinite time burieth all things in forgetfulness? Will it be even as though I had never been born? When was the world created, and what was in the beginning before the world? If the world was from all eternity, then it will always be; but if it had a beginning, then must it likewise have an end. And, after the end of the world, what will be then? What perhaps but the silence of death?
Being constantly given up to such thoughts, I resorted yet more diligently to the schools of the philosophers, hoping to obtain some deliverance from my doubts: but I saw nothing but the contentions of orators, and the foyning and thrusting of rhetoricians, fighting not for the truth, but each desiring to prove himself more skilful than his adversaries. So it came to pass that I inclined, now to one, now to another. As, for example, at one time they that taught the immortality of the soul seemed to prevail; then again they that would have the soul to be mortal. When the former doctrine had the upper hand, I rejoiced: when the latter, I was downcast. Thus was I driven to and fro by differing opinions, and was forced to conclude that things appear not as they are in themselves, but as they happen to be presented on this side, or on that. My brain was in a greater whirl than ever, and I sighed from the bottom of my heart.
At the last I went to my uncle in my distress, and poured forth my troubles in his ear. But when he had hearkened to my complaints, he said, “It will be well that thou shouldst have speech with Philo; for he is our principal teacher here, and he will answer thy doubts.” But I said in my haste and impatience, “Behold, I have resorted unto the wisest teachers in Galilee, and now, at thy word, I have frequented the lectures of these Gentile philosophers; but they have added nothing to me, for they are as dried-up springs.” At this my uncle laughed, and said, “Suppose not, O son of my sister, that our Philo is like unto the Scribes of Galilee: for as well might a dog hope to lap up the Nile as that thou shouldst drain dry the wisdom of Philo the Alexandrine.” So without more ado I accompanied him to the house of Philo.
When we entered the house of Philo, I admired first of all the homely plainness of his household. For though he were one of the foremost Jews in Alexandria (and there were nigh unto a hundred myriads of our countrymen in the city and the country round about) and kinsman also to Alexander the Alabarch, whose wealth was known to all, yet were there no signs of luxury, nor of pride in his house, nor in his furniture nor in his clothing: and his wife also wore a plain and simple garment without plaiting of the hair, or painting, or adornment with gold and precious stones; and in all the house there was naught whereat the strictest Pharisee could have been offended.
Philo received us courteously; and when I had opened to him at large all my doubts, he replied fully to them. I cannot at this time set down exactly all that we spake together; but this was the substance. First, I said that I was loth to be as one of the backsliders among my countrymen, who in effect gave up the Law, deriding it as a heap of fables; yet on the other hand, I confessed that after much study of the Law I had not been able to attain to righteousness nor peace. Thereto Philo made answer that he was not one of them that rejected the Law of Israel; for he diligently observed it, believing that it contained all knowledge and all wisdom; “and,” said he, “I consider that Moses was the greatest and most perfect of men, and that he attained unto the very pinnacle of wisdom.1 But as for the wisdom of the Greeks, it is but as a handmaid in respect of our wisdom; even as the slave Hagar was, in respect of her mistress and queen, Sarah. Notwithstanding,” added he, “when I speak of our Scriptures, I mean that there are two interpretations of every Scripture. There is first the outer meaning, which is as it were the body; but there is, next, the inner spiritual meaning, which is, as it were, the soul. Thus, for example, when thou readest that Eve was made out of the rib of Adam, or that the world was made in six days, or that God talked with Moses in a thorn-bush, the letter of these Scriptures is indeed fable, but the spiritual meaning is truth and life.” Then said I, “If the letter be fable, why retain the letter?” But he said, “And if the body be unspiritual, why retain the body? As well cast away the body because it is not soul, as cast away the letter because it is not spirit.”
Then I asked, “But how shall I attain righteousness?” Philo replied, “All men have in them a certain spiritual nature, in virtue whereof they are allied with the Word of God. Whosoever recogniseth the sins wherewith
See Note II.
