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Concerning the sacred Marriage
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But the chief of all the mysteries for Philo was, apparently, the Sacred Marriage, the mystic union of the soul, as female, with God, as male (Deo nubere). In this connection he refers to Gen. iv. 1:
“And Adam knew his wife. And she conceived and bare Cain. And she said: I have gotten a man by means of the Lord. And He caused her also to bring forth Abel his brother. ” 2
We are, of course, not concerned with the legitimacy or consistency of Philo’s allegorising system, whereby he sought to invoke the authority of his national scriptures in support of his chosen doctrines; but we are deeply concerned with these doctrines themselves, as being the favourite dogmas of his circle and of similar circles of allied mystics of the time.
His views on the subject are clearly indicated, for he tells us in the same passage that he is speaking of a secret of initiation, not of the conception and parturition of women, but of Virtues—that is, of the virtuous soul. Accordingly he continues in § 13:
“But it is not lawful for Virtues, in giving birth to their many perfections, to have part or lot in a mortal husband. And yet they will never bring forth of themselves, without conceiving their offspring of another.
“Who, then, is He who soweth in them their glorious [progeny], if not the Father of all universal things—
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the God beyond all genesis, who yet is Sire of everything that is? For, for Himself, God doth create no single thing, in that He stands in need of naught; but for the man who prays to have them [He creates] all things. ”
And then, bringing forward Sarah, Leah, Rebecca, and Sepphora, as examples of the Virtues who lived with the great prophets of his race, Philo declares that “Sarah” conceived, when God looked upon her while she was in solitary contemplation, and so she brought forth for him who eagerly longed to attain to wisdom—namely, for him who is called “Abraham. ”
And so also in the case of “Leah, ” it is said “God opened her womb, ” which is the part played by a husband; and so she brought forth for him who underwent the pains of labour for the sake of the Beautiful—namely, for him who is called “Jacob”; “so that Virtue received the divine seed from the Cause [of all], while she brought forth for that one of her lovers who was preferred above all other suitors. ”
So also when the “all-wise, ” he who is called “Isaac, ” went as a suppliant to God, his Virtue, “Rebecca, ” that is Steadfastness, became pregnant in consequence of his supplication.
Whereas “Moses, ” without any supplication or prayer, attained to the winged and sublime Virtue “Sepphora, ” and found her with child by no mortal husband. 1
Moreover, in § 14, in referring to Jeremiah, Philo writes:
“For I, having been initiated into the Great Mysteries by Moses, the friend of God, nevertheless when I set eyes upon Jeremiah, the prophet, and learned that he is not only a mystes, but also an adept hierophant, I did not hesitate to go to him as his disciple.
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“And he, in that in much [he says] he is inspired by God, uttered a certain oracle [as] from the Face of God, who said unto the Virtue of Perfect Peace: ‘Hast thou not called Me as ’twere House and Father and Husband of thy virginity? ’ 1—suggesting in the clearest [possible] fashion that God is both Home, the incorporeal land of incorporeal ideas, and Father of all things, in that He did create them, and Husband of Wisdom, sowing for the race of mankind the seed of blessedness into good virgin soil.
“For it is fitting God should converse with an undefiled, an untouched and pure nature, with her who is in very truth the Virgin, in fashion very different from ours.
“For the congress of men for the procreation of children makes virgins women. But when God begins to associate with the soul, He brings it to pass that she who was formerly woman becomes virgin again. For banishing the foreign and degenerate and non-virile desires, by which it was made womanish, He substitutes for them native and noble and pure virtues. . . .
“But it is perhaps possible that even a virgin soul may be polluted by intemperate passions, and so dishonoured.
“Wherefore the oracle hath been careful to say that God is husband not of ‘a virgin’—for a virgin is subject to change and death—but of ‘virginity’ [that is of] the idea which is ever according to the same [principles], and in the same mode.
“For whereas things that have qualities, have with their nature received both birth and dissolution, the [archetypal] potencies which mould them have obtained a lot transcending dissolution.
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“Wherefore is it not fitting that God, who is beyond all generation and all change, should sow [in us] the ideal seeds of the immortal virgin Virtues, and not those of the woman who changes the form of her virginity? ” 1
But, indeed, as Conybeare says:
“The words, virgin, virginity, ever-virginal, occur on every other page of Philo. It is indeed Philo who first 2 formulated the idea of the Word or ideal ordering principle of the Cosmos being born of an ever-virgin soul, which conceives, because God the Father sows into her His intelligible rays and divine seed, so begetting His only well-beloved son, the Cosmos. ” 3
Thus, speaking of the impure soul, Philo writes:
“For when she is a multitude of passions and filled with vices, her children swarming over her—pleasures, appetites, folly, intemperance, unrighteousness, injustice—she is weak and sick, and lies at death’s door, dying; but when she becomes sterile, and ceases to bring them forth or even casts them from her, forthwith, from the change, she becometh a chaste virgin, and, receiving the Divine Seed, she fashions and engenders marvellous excellencies that nature prizeth highly—prudence, courage, temperance, justice, holiness, piety, and the rest of the virtues and good dispositions. ” 4
So also, speaking of the Therapeutrides, he writes:
“Their longing is not for mortal children, but for a deathless progeny, which the soul that is in love with God can alone bring forth, when the Father hath sown into it the spiritual light-beams, by means of which it
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shall be able to contemplate (θ ε ω ρ ε ῖ ν ) the laws of wisdom. ” 1
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And as to the progeny of such virgin-mothers, Philo elsewhere instances the birth of “Isaac”—“which could not refer to any man, ” but is “a synonym of Joy, the best of the blessed states of the soul—Laughter, the spiritually conceived (ἐ ν δ ι ά θ ε τ ο ς ) 2 Son of God, Who bestoweth him as a comfort and means of good cheer on souls of perfect peace. ” 3
And a little later on he adds:
“And Wisdom, who, after the fashion of a mother, brings forth the self-taught Race, declares that God is the sower of it. ” 4
And yet, again, elsewhere, speaking of this spiritual progeny, Philo writes:
“But all the Servants of God (Therapeuts), who are lawfully begotten, shall fulfill the law of [their] nature, which commands them to be parents. For the men shall be fathers of many sons, and the women mothers of numerous children. ” 5
So also, in the case of the birth of Joseph, when his mother, Rachael, says to Jacob: “Give me children! ”—“the Supplanter, disclosing his proper nature, will reply: ‘Thou hast wandered into deep error. For I am not in God’s place, who alone is able to open the wombs of souls, and sow in them virtues, and make them pregnant and mothers of good things. ’” 6
So too, again, in connection with the birth of Isaac, referring to the exultant cry of Sarah: “The Lord hath
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made me Laughter; for whosoever heareth, rejoiceth with me” 1—Philo bursts forth:
“Open, then, wide your ears, ye mystæ, and receive the most holy mysteries. ‘Laughter’ is Joy, and ‘hath made’ is the same as ‘hath begotten’; so that what is said hath the following meaning: ‘The Lord hath begotten Isaac’—for He is Father of the perfect nature, sowing in the soul and generating blessedness. ” 2
That all of this was a matter of vital moment for Philo himself, may be seen from what we must regard as an intensely interesting autobiographical passage, in which our philosopher, speaking of the happy childbirth of Wisdom, writes:
“For some she judges entirely worthy of living with her, while others seem as yet too young to support such admirable and wise house-sharing; these latter she hath permitted to solemnise the preliminary initiatory rites of marriage, holding out hopes of its [future] consummation.
“‘Sarah’ then, the Virtue who is mistress of my soul, hath brought forth, but hath not brought forth for me—for that I could not, because I was too young, receive [into my soul] her offspring—wisdom, and righteousness, and piety—because of the brood of bastard brats which empty opinions had borne me.
“For the feeding of these last, the constant care and incessant anxiety concerning them, have forced me to take no thought for the legitimate children who are the true citizens.
“It is well, therefore, to pray Virtue not only to bear children, who even without praying brings her fair
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progeny to birth, but also to bear sons for us, so that we may be blessed with a share in her seed and offspring.
“For she is wont to bear to God alone, with thankfulness repaying unto Him the first-fruits of the things she hath received, [to Him] who, Moses says, ‘hath opened’ her ever-virgin ‘womb. ’” 1
But, indeed, Philo is never wearied of reiterating this sublime doctrine, which for him was the consummation of the mysteries of the holy life. Thus, then, again he sets it forth as follows:
“We should, accordingly, understand that the True Reason (Logos) of nature has the potency of both father and husband for different purposes—of a husband, when he casts the seed of virtues into the soul as into a good field; of a father, in that it is his nature to beget good counsels, and fair and virtuous deeds, and when he hath begotten them, he nourisheth them with those refreshing doctrines which discipline and wisdom furnish.
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“And the intelligence is likened at one time to a virgin, at another to a wife, or a widow, or one who has not yet a husband.
“[It is likened] to a virgin, when the intelligence keeps itself chaste and uncorrupted from pleasures and appetites, and griefs and fears, the passions which assault it; and then the father who begot it, assumes the leadership thereof.
“And when she (intelligence) lives as a comely wife with comely Reason (Logos), that is with virtuous Reason, this self-same Reason himself undertakes the care of her, sowing, like a husband, the most excellent concepts in her.
“But whenever the soul is bereft of her children of
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prudence, and of her marriage with Right Reason, widowed of her most fair possessions, and left desolate of Wisdom, through choosing a blameworthy life—then, let her suffer the pains she hath decreed against herself, with no wise Reason to play physician to her transgressions, either as husband and consort, or as father and begetter. ” 1
Referring to Jacob’s dream of the white, and spotted, and ring-straked, and speckled kine, Philo tells us that this, too, must be taken as an allegory of souls. The first class of souls, he says, are “white. ”
“The meaning is that when the soul receives the Divine Seed, the first-born births are spotlessly white, like unto light of utmost purity, to radiance of the greatest brilliance, as though it were the shadowless ray of the sun’s beams from a cloudless sky at noon. ” 2
With this it is of service to compare the Vision of Hades seen by Thespesius (Aridæ us), and related by Plutarch. Thespesius’ guide in the Unseen World draws his attention to the “colours” and “markings” of the souls as follows:
“Observe the colours of the souls of every shade and sort: that greasy, brown-grey is the pigment of sordidness and selfishness; that blood-red, inflamed shade is a sign of a savage and venomous nature; wherever blue-grey is, from such a nature incontinence in pleasure is not easily eradicated; innate malignity, mingled with envy, causes that livid discoloration, in the same way as cuttle-fish eject their sepia.
“Now it is in earth-life that the vice of the soul (being acted upon by the passions, and re-acting upon the body) produces these discolorations; while the purification and correction here have for their object
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the removal of these blemishes, so that the soul may become entirely ray-like and of uniform colour. ” 1
Again, in giving the allegorical meaning of the primitive-culture story of Tamar, 2 Philo not only interprets it by the canon of the Sacred Marriage, but also introduces other details from the Mysteries. Thus he writes:
“For being a widow she was commanded to sit in the House of the Father, the Saviour; for whose sake for ever abandoning the congress and association with mortal [things], she is bereft and widowed from [all] human pleasures, and receives the Divine quickening, and, full-filled with the Seeds of virtue, conceives, and is in travail with fair deeds. And when she brings them forth, she carries off the trophies from her adversaries, and is inscribed as victor, receiving as a symbol the palm of victory. ” 3
And every stage of this divine conception is but the shadow of the great mystery of cosmic creation, which Philo sums up as follows:
“We shall, however, be quite correct in saying that the Demiurge who made all this universe, is also at the same time Father of what has been brought into existence; while its Mother is the Wisdom of Him who hath made it—with whom God united, though not as man [with woman], and implanted the power of genesis. And she, receiving the Seed of God, brought forth with perfect labour His only beloved Son, whom all may perceive 4—this Cosmos. ” 5
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