De Migratione Abrahami

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 2. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

But first of all, God wishes to make it understood by you that there is one place for infants and another for full-grown men, the one being called practise and the other wisdom; and secondly, that the most beautiful of all the things in nature are rather such as can be seen than such as can be acquired; for how can it be possible [*](Genesis i. 31. ) [*](Genesis xv. 5. ) [*](Deut. xxxiv. 4. )

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to acquire possession of those things which are endowed in the same degree with the diviner attributes? But it is not impossible to see them, though it may not be given to all men to do so, for this may be permitted only to the purest and most acute-sighted race, to whom the father of the universe, when he displays his own works, is giving the greatest of all gifts.

For what life can be better than that which is devoted to speculation, or what can be more closely connected with rational existence; for which reason it is that though the voices of mortal beings are judged of by the faculty of hearing, nevertheless the scriptures present to us the words of God, to be actually visible to us like light; for in them it is said that, "All the people saw the voice of God;" [*](Exodus xx. 18. ) they do not say, "heard it," since what took place was not a beating of the air by means of the organs of the mouth and tongue, but a most exceedingly brilliant ray of virtue, not different in any respect from the source of reason, which also in another passage is spoken of in the following manner, "Ye have seen that I spake unto you from out of heaven," [*](Exodus xx. 22. ) not "Ye have heard," for the same reason.

But there are passages where he distinguishes between what is heard and what is seen, and between the sense of seeing and that of hearing, as where he says, "Ye heard the sound of the words, but ye saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice;" [*](Deut. iv. 12. ) speaking here with excessive precision; for the discourse which was divided into nouns and verbs, and in short into all the different parts of speech, he has very appropriately spoken of as something to be heard; for in fact that is examined by the sense of hearing; but that which has nothing to do with either nouns or verbs, but is the voice of God, and seen by the eye of the soul, he very properly represents as visible;

and having previously reminded them, "Ye saw no similitude," he proceeds to say, " Only ye heard a voice, which ye all saw;" for this must be what is understood as implied in those words. So that the words of God have for their tribunal and judge the sense of sight, which is situated in the soul; but those which are subdivided into nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech, have for their judge the sense of hearing.

But as the writer being new in all kinds of knowledge, has [*](Exodus xx. 18. ) [*](Exodus xx. 22. ) [*](Deut. iv. 12. )

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also introduced this novelty both in his accounts of domestic and of foreign matters, saying that the voice is a thing to be judged of by the sight, which in point of fact is almost the only thing in us which is not an object of sight, with the single exception of the mind; for the things which are the objects of the rest of the outward senses are, every one of them, visible to the sight, such as colours, tastes, smells, things that are hot or cold, things that are smooth or rough, things that are soft or hard, inasmuch as they are substantial bodies.