Kenneth L. Schenck on Hebrews 9:23

Image from Wesley Seminary

Several days ago, I questioned Harold Attridge's view that the cleansing of the heavenly tabernacle signified the cleansing of the believer's conscience, but I now see that Attridge is not the only scholar to propose this interpretation, for Kenneth L. Schenck, of Wesley Seminary, has published an article, "Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews: Ronald Williamson's Study after Thirty Years," in The Studio Philonica Annual (volume 14, 2002, pages 112-135 [1-29, this copy]). Like Attridge, Schenck uses Philo to unlock Hebrews:

Hebrews' distinction between body and spirit is also reminiscent of traditions found in the Philonic corpus. On the one hand, we should not confuse Plato's body-soul dichotomy with the Cartesian dualism of material/immaterial.[42] We would more accurately distinguish between corporeal/incorporeal, assuming that all heavenly realities are made of 'stuff' of one density or another.[43] Philo thus passes on a Stoic interpretation of Gen 2:7 in which the spirit God breathes into Adam is a fragment of the divine (e.g. Leg. 1.39-40).[44] Similarly, in Gig. 60 Philo speaks of the human mind as the heavenly component in us.[45]

In Hebrews, God prepares a body for Jesus on earth (Heb 10:5, 10), but Christ offers himself to God through 'eternal spirit' in heaven (9:14).[46] The blood of bulls and goats might clean flesh, but Christ's heavenly offering cleanses conscience (9:13-14). Angels in Hebrews are ministering spirits (1:7, 14), and Hebrews speaks of the human spirit as the part of us that pertains to the heavenly Jerusalem (12:23). God is the father of our spirits (12:9),[47] but Christ's time on earth was the 'days of his flesh' (5:7) when he partook of 'blood and flesh' (Heb 2:14). We might even read the author's sole reference to Christ's resurrection more as a passage upward from the realm of the dead rather than a corporeal reconstitution of some sort (13:20).[48]

Along with Hebrews' clearly drawn distinction between body and spirit is a latent emphasis on the rational. The author encourages the audience to exercise their senses (Heb 5:14; αἰσθητήριον [aisthētērion]), a Stoic technical term found a number of times in Philo.[49] Throughout Hebrews 9 and 10 he contrasts flesh with conscience (9:9, 14; 10:2, 22), where conscience is understood as a faculty of memory.[50] Indeed, we can best explain the need of the heavenly tabernacle for cleansing in Heb 9:23 by supposing that at this point of the argument the author is basically thinking of Christ's offering in the tabernacle as a metaphor for the cleansing of the conscience -- that rational/spiritual element of a human being that potentially pertains to the heavenly realm.[51] Perhaps it is no mistake that Hebrews seems to distinguish between 'sins committed in ignorance' (e.g. 9:7) and sins committed 'willfully' (10:26).

Hebrews thus draws clear lines between the human spirit/conscience and the body/flesh in the same way it draws distinctions between the created and the heavenly realms. The associations are more obvious and consistent than any apocalyptic writing. Rather, they bear a closer resemblance to the cosmology and psychology of the book of Wisdom (e.g. Wis 9:15) and Philo (e.g. Gig. 12, 31). On the other hand, there is nothing specifically Philonic about Hebrews' use of this distinction. The similarities point more to a common milieu than to specific dependence. (Schenck, "Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews," pages 12-14)

[42] Cf. D. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven 1995) 3-15.

[43] Cf. J. Dillon, 'Asômatos: Nuances of Incorporeality in Philo', in C. Lévy (ed.), Philon d'Alexandrie et le langage de la philosophie, Monothéismes et Philosophie (Turnhout 1998) 99-110.

[44] Cf. Tobin, Creation 21.

[45] Philo's understanding of the soul is generally tripartite, sometimes involving the mind (νοῦς, the rational part of the soul; cf. Leg. 1.39), sense perception (αἴσθησις), and the passions (τὰ πάθη, these two form the irrational parts to the soul; cf. Leg. 2.6). Cf. also Her. 55, where Philo calls the human spirit the 'soul of the soul'. Philo can also speak of the soul in terms of 1) reason, 2) high spirit and 3) appetite (Leg. 1.70; 3.115), and in another instance he speaks of a seven-part soul (Opif. 117).

[46] Most translations interpret 'holy spirit' in Heb 9:14 as a reference to the Holy Spirit. An allusion to the Holy Spirit is not impossible, but πνεῦμα is anarthrous, highlighting the character of the offering -- spiritual -- rather than the Holy Spirit as the specific spirit in question. Even more than the blood of Christ, it is the spiritual and thus heavenly nature of the offering that really contrasts with the earthly, fleshly blood of bulls and goats.

[47] While this comment is an allusion to Num 16:22, Hebrews' use of the phrase places it within its overall body/spirit dualism.

[48] Heb 13:20 uses ἀνάγω, which can mean 'brought up' as well as 'brought again'. However, Heb 6:2 uses traditional Christian corporeal language: 'resurrection of dead [=corpses]'.

[49] Philo himself uses the word eight times: Leg. 1.104; 3.183, 235; Det. 15; Post. 112; Ebr. 155, 201; Conf. 20. In my opinion, Williamson's attempt to distinguish between an emphasis on the organs of sense in Philo and a more metaphorical reference to the senses in Hebrews is not only questionable but also makes a distinction without a difference (Philo 114-16). Heb 5:14 reminds us of 4 Macc 2:22, where the mind is enthroned above the senses. Interestingly, Williamson claimed that Hebrews has a significant overlap in vocabulary (22 words that are hapax legomena in Hebrews) with 1-4 Maccabees (Philo 14-15).

[50] Note the parallelism between συνείδησις and ἀνάμνησις in Heb 10:2-3. An 'evil conscience' in 10:22, therefore, probably refers to an awareness of unatoned sins.

[51] Cf. W. R. G. Loader, Sohn und Hohepriester: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Christologie des Hebräerbreifes, WMANT 53 (Neukirchen 1981) 169-70. (Schenck, "Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews," pages 12-14)

The central statement is this: "Indeed, we can best explain the need of the heavenly tabernacle for cleansing in Heb 9:23 by supposing that at this point of the argument the author is basically thinking of Christ's offering in the tabernacle as a metaphor for the cleansing of the conscience -- that rational/spiritual element of a human being that potentially pertains to the heavenly realm." By "the need of the heavenly tabernacle for cleansing," Schenck means its need to be cleansed, just in case there should be any misunderstanding. But I have the same objection as with Attridge. Look again at Hebrews 9:18-23:

[18] Wherefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated apart from blood. [19] For when every command had, according to the Law, been read to the whole people by Moses, he took the blood of the calves, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled the book itself and the whole people, [20] saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God made with you." [21] And, similarly, he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the implements of the service with the blood. [22] Indeed, almost everything is cleansed with blood according to the Law, and apart from the effusion of blood there is no remission. [23] It is necessary therefore, that the copies of what is in the heavens be cleansed with these things, but that the heavenly things themselves be cleansed with sacrifices better than these. (Harold W. Attridge, Commentary on Hebrews, pages 253a and 260a)

[18] ὅθεν οὐδὲ ἡ πρώτη χωρὶς αἵματος ἐγκεκαίνισται [19] λαληθείσης γὰρ πάσης ἐντολῆς κατὰ τὸν νόμον ὑπὸ Μωϋσέως παντὶ τῷ λαῷ λαβὼν τὸ αἷμα τῶν μόσχων καὶ τῶν τράγων μετὰ ὕδατος καὶ ἐρίου κοκκίνου καὶ ὑσσώπου αὐτό τε τὸ βιβλίον καὶ πάντα τὸν λαὸν ἐράντισεν [20] λέγων τοῦτο τὸ αἷμα τῆς διαθήκης ἧς ἐνετείλατο πρὸς ὑμᾶς ὁ θεός [21] καὶ τὴν σκηνὴν δὲ καὶ πάντα τὰ σκεύη τῆς λειτουργίας τῷ αἵματι ὁμοίως ἐράντισεν [22] καὶ σχεδὸν ἐν αἵματι πάντα καθαρίζεται κατὰ τὸν νόμον καὶ χωρὶς αἱματεκχυσίας οὐ γίνεται ἄφεσις [23] ἀνάγκη οὖν τὰ μὲν ὑποδείγματα τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς τούτοις καθαρίζεσθαι αὐτὰ δὲ τὰ ἐπουράνια κρείττοσιν θυσίαις παρὰ ταύτας (Morphological Greek New Testament [mGNT])

There are two cleansings in the old covenant, according to Hebrews -- of the people and of the earthly tabernacle. In the new covenant, there would likewise be two cleansings -- of believers and of the heavenly tabernacle. Verse 23 refers to the cleansing of the heavenly tabernacle, whereas other verses refer to the cleansing of the believers, and I think that the author of Hebrews treats the purification of flesh and spirit in the new covenant as effected together -- foreshadowed by the old covenant cleansing of the people in verses 19-20.

But I'll need to think more about this.

Philo: On Bezalel's Name ("In the Shadow of God")

Philo of Alexandria

(Image from Wikipedia)

In yesterday's post, I wondered if Philo had commented on the meaning of Bezalel's name, i.e., "in the shadow of God," and indeed he had, as Professor Brandon Watson notes in a comment. Brandon's comment led me to an online source, The Works of Philo Judaeus, translated from the Greek by Charles Duke Yonge (London, H. G. Bohn, 1854-1890), where I found the two passages Brandon had located, plus a third. Here's one from Allegorical Interpretation, III, presented by Philo as a case in which God predisposes the character of some individuals to their divinely appointed tasks, in this instance the craftsman Bezalel to his job of constructing the holy tabernacle according to God's design:

XXXI. (95) On which account God also calls Bezaleel by name, and says that "He will give him wisdom and knowledge, and that He will make him the builder and the architect of all the things which are in his Tabernacle" [Exodus 31:2]; that is to say, of all the works of the soul, when he had up to this time done no work which any one could praise -- we must say, therefore, that God impressed this figure also on the soul, after the fashion of an approved coin. And we shall know what the impression is if we previously examine the interpretation of the name. (96) Now, Bezaleel, being interpreted, means God in his shadow. But the shadow of God is his word, which he used like an instrument when he was making the world. And this shadow, and, as it were, model, is the archetype of other things. For, as God is himself the model of that image which he has now called a shadow, so also that image is the model of other things, as he showed when he commenced giving the law to the Israelites, and said, "And God made man according to the image of God" [Genesis 1:26], as the image was modelled according to God, and as man was modelled according to the image, which thus received the power and character of the model.

I'm not sure that the author of Hebrews would follow Philo all the way and call the "image of God" a shadow, for in Hebrews 1:3, he calls the Son "the brightness of [His] glory, and the express image of His person" (ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ), but he might like the etymological connection between Bezalel's name and the tabernacle as a "shadow of heavenly things" (Hebrews 8:5). The second passage, also located by Brandon, is from On Dreams, That They are God-Sent, and the context refers to a contrast between the man (Bezalel) who works with copies and the man (Moses) who creates the archetype:

(1.206) Now the sacred scripture calls the maker of this compound work Besaleel, which name, being interpreted, signifies "in the shadow of God;" for he makes all the copies, and the man by name Moses makes all the models, as the principal architect; and for this reason it is, that the one only draws outlines as it were, but the other is not content with such sketches, (1.207) but makes the archetypal natures themselves, and has already adorned the holy places with his variegating art; but the wise man is called the only adorner of the place of wisdom in the oracles delivered in the sacred scriptures.

I presume that the connection to dreams here would likely be the vision of heavenly things, said to be given to Moses on Mount Sinai, one of these heavenly things being the model for the tabernacle. Anyway, the third passage is from Concerning Noah's Work as a Planter and the context refers to the intricate construction of various complex objects in the holy tabernacle, of which Bezalel has the honor:

VI. (26) Therefore, also, Moses will be summoned upwards, the steward and guardian of the sacred mysteries of the living God. For we read in the book of Leviticus, "He called Moses up to Him" [Exodus 31:2 is the passage alluded to, and not any verse in Leviticus]. Bezeleel also will be summoned up, being thought worthy of the same honours. For him, also, God calls up for the preparation of the sacred furniture and for the care of the sacred works. (27) But he receives only the second honour of this summons, and the all-wise Moses shall have the first place assigned to him. For the former fashions shadows only, like painters do, in which it is not right to form any living thing. For the very name Bezeleel is interpreted to mean, "working in shadows." But Moses does not make shadows, but the task is assigned to him of forming the archetypal natures of things themselves. And in other places, also, the great Cause of all things is accustomed to reveal his secrets to some in a more conspicuous and visible manner, as if in the pure light of the sun, and to others more sparely, as though in the shade.

Note that the contrast is once again made between Bezalel as the one working shadows and Moses as the one who works with archetypes. I should also note that Professor Harold Attridge was well aware of Philo's etymological speculations on the name "Bezalel," as I would have discovered earlier if I had followed up his citations, which I even cited:

Philo frequently develops the contrast between the chief craftsman Bezalel (Exodus 31:2), who builds the shadows of the realities that Moses alone has seen. Cf. Leg. all. 3.96, 103; Plant. 27; Som. 1.206 (Attridge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, page 219b, note 44).

But since Attridge does not explicitly refer to Bezalel in connection with the tabernacle as a "shadow of heavenly things" (Hebrews 8:5), then I gather that he doesn't consider this significant for the writer of Hebrews.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jim Davila of PaleoJudaica for sending traffic my way.

Philo on Free Will II

Dr. Jan Krans

New Testament Scholar

(Image from The Amsterdam NT Weblog)

Yesterday, I posted a passage from Philo on "free will" but had only a couple of English translations to look at. The crucial sentence was this one:

But man, who has had bestowed on him a voluntary and self-impelling intellect, and who for the most part puts forth his energies in accordance with deliberate purpose, very properly receives blame for the offences which he designedly commits, and praise for the good actions which he intentionally performs.

I noted that this comes from On the Unchangableness of God, in The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus (London, H. G. Bohn, 1854-1890) and was translated from the Greek by Charles Duke Yonge. The other translation, I found in Giovanni Reale's Schools of the Imperial Age (edited and translated by John R. Catan):

But man, possessed of a spontaneous and self-determined will, whose activities for the most part rest on deliberate choice, is with reason blamed for what he does wrong with intent, praised when he acts rightly of his own will. (Reale, Schools of the Imperial Age, page 201)

Giovanni Reale provides an interesting discussion on the passage in which this occurs, so interested readers might take a look at what he says. I don't know if John R. Catan personally translated the passages into English or if he borrowed an existing translation. An endnote (page 485, n. 1) refers to important translations in various languages and offers as an English version the one in the "Loeb Classical Library" by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker (and some kind reader could check).

Frank McCoy noted that I lacked the Greek and therefore offered his own transliteration:

Ho de anthrwpos ethelourgou kai autokeleustou gnwmes lachwn kai prosairetikais chrwmenos ta polla tais energeiais eikotws phogon men eschen eph hois ek pronoias adikei epainon de eph hois hekwn katorthoi.

Jan Krans -- whose image appears above -- noted that I might like to have the Greek itself and thus offered the original:

ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος ἐθελουργοῦ καὶ αὐτοκελεύστου γνώμης λαχὼν καὶ προαιρετικαῖς χρώμενος τὰ πολλὰ ταῖς ἐνεργείαις εἰκότως ψόγον μὲν ἔσχεν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἐκ προνοίας ἀδικεῖ, ἔπαινον δὲ ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἑκὼν κατορθοῖ. (Note ψόγον.) (Source: "The Philo Concordance Database" module in BibleWorks 7)

With the benefit of this Greek original, I was able to locate two websites with the entire Greek passage online, in case anyone should be interested in taking a look (Quod deus sit immutabilis X, 47: here and here).

Readers will recall that I was interested in what Yonge translated as "a voluntary and self-impelling intellect" and what Catan provided as "a spontaneous and self-determined will," for both translations make Philo sound as though he is talking about what contemporary philosophers call "libertarian free will."

The Greek that I was interested in is "ἐθελουργοῦ καὶ αὐτοκελεύστου γνώμης" ("ethelourgou kai autokeleustou gnwmes"). For γνώμης (gnwmes), the Liddle-Scott dictionary gives "organ by which one perceives or knows, intelligence," which is closer to Yonge's "intellect," and "will, disposition, inclination," which is the same as offered by Catan. In either case, it would seem that Philo is speaking of the so-called "rational will." The important thing for Philo is that this "intellect" or "will" is free of the bonds of necessity, which is what he means by "ἐθελουργοῦ καὶ αὐτοκελεύστου" ("ethelourgou kai autokeleustou"). For ἐθελουργοῦ (ethelourgou), Liddle-Scott gives "willing to work, indefatigable," which fits better Yonge's "voluntary" than Catan's "spontaneous." For αὐτοκελεύστου (autokeleustou), Liddle-Scott gives "self-bidden, i. e. unbidden," which fits both Yonge's "self-impelling" and Catan's "self-determined."

Thus, one might also offer for "ἐθελουργοῦ καὶ αὐτοκελεύστου γνώμης" ("ethelourgou kai autokeleustou gnwmes") the translation "a voluntary and self-impelling will," the implication being that this will is not rigidly bound by causality but is freely informed by reason.

And I am now out of time for today.

Philo on Free Will

Philo of Alexandria

(20 BC - 50 AD)

(Image from Wikipedia)

I have not forgotten that I owe several people a follow-up post on divine sovereignty and human freedom, and I have been thinking about a response to the critiques.

In the meantime, I've been alerted by Frank McCoy (of St. Paul, Minnesota) to a passage in Philo of Alexandria's text On the Unchangableness of God:

X. Man, then, has received this one extraordinary gift, intellect, which is accustomed to comprehend the nature of all bodies and of all things at the same time; for, as in the body, the sight is the most important faculty, and since in the universe the nature of light is the most pre-eminent thing, in the same manner that part of us which is entitled to the highest rank is the mind. (46) For the mind is the sight of the soul, shining transcendently with its own rays, by which the great and dense darkness which ignorance of things sheds around is dissipated. This species of soul is not composed of the same elements as those of which the other kinds were made, but it has received a purer and more excellent essence of which the divine natures were formed; on which account the intellect naturally appears to be the only thing in us which is imperishable, (47) for that is the only quality in us which the Father, who created us, thought deserving of freedom; and, unloosing the bonds of necessity, he let it go unrestrained, bestowing on it that most admirable gift and most connected with himself, the power, namely, of spontaneous will, as far as he was able to receive it; for the irrational animals, in whose soul there is not that especial gift tending to freedom, namely, mind, are put under the yoke and have bridles put in their mouths, and so are given unto men to be their slaves, as servants are given to their masters. But man, who has had bestowed on him a voluntary and self-impelling intellect, and who for the most part puts forth his energies in accordance with deliberate purpose, very properly receives blame for the offences which he designedly commits, and praise for the good actions which he intentionally performs. (48) For, in the case of other plants and other animals, we cannot call either the good that is caused by them deserving of praise, nor the evil that they do deserving of blame; for all their motions in either direction, and, all their changes, have no design about them, but are involuntary. But the soul of man, being the only one which has received from God the power of voluntary motion, and which in this respect has been made to resemble God, and being as far as possible emancipated from the authority of that grievous and severe mistress, necessity, may rightly be visited with reproach if she does not pay due honour to the being who has emancipated her. And therefore, in such a case, she will most deservedly suffer the implacable punishment denounced against slavish and ungrateful minds. (49) So that God "considered" and though within himself, not now for the first time, but long ago, and with great steadiness and resolution, "that he had made man;" that is to say, he considered within himself what kind of being he had made him. For he had made him free from all bondage or restraint, able to exert his energies in accordance with his own will and deliberate purpose, on this account: that so knowing what things were good and what, on the contrary, were evil, and having arrived at a proper comprehension of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, and apprehending what things are just and what unjust, and, in short, what things flow from virtue and what from wickedness, he might exercise a choice of the better objects and an avoidance of their opposites; (50) and this is the meaning of the oracle recorded in Deuteronomy, "Behold, I have put before thy face life and death; good and evil. Do thou choose life."12 Therefore he teaches us by this sentence both that men have a knowledge of good and of the contrary, evil, and that it is their duty to choose the better in preference to the worse, preserving reason within themselves as an incorruptible judge, to be guided by the arguments which sound sense suggests, and to reject those which are brought forward by the contrary power.

This passage is found in the work On the Unchangableness of God, from The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus (London, H. G. Bohn, 1854-1890) and was translated from the Greek by Charles Duke Yonge. I searched for an online copy of the original Greek text but found only a defective one Google Books here, which begins on page 75 but is missing pages 76 and 77, so the copy is not very helpful.

This is unfortunate, for I'd like to know the Greek for what Yonge has translated as "a voluntary and self-impelling intellect," for this sounds rather like what contemporary philosophers call "libertarian free will" in its emphasis upon the "self-impelling" of our intellect. Another translation -- appearing in Giovanni Reale's Schools of the Imperial Age (edited and translated by John R. Catan) -- offers "a spontaneous and self-determined will," which is similar in meaning but differing in terms.

Philo, of course, is drawing on Stoic and Platonic thought, but he attempts to ground his theology in scripture, specifically Deuteronomy 30:15, which states: "Behold, I have put before thy face life and death; good and evil. Do thou choose life."

I did manage to find the Greek for this quote:

Quod Deus immutab. § 10, i. 280 = [10].50, quoting Deut. 30.15: παρὸ καὶ λόγιόν ἐστι τοιοῦτον ἀναγεγραμμένον ἐν Δευτερονομίῳ· „ἰδοὺ δέδωκα πρὸ προσώπου σου τὴν ζωὴν καὶ τὸν θάνατον, τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ κακόν, ἔκλεξαι τὴν ζωήν‟ (Deut. 30.15,19). And this is the meaning of the oracle recorded in Deuteronomy, "Behold, I have put before thy face life and death; good and evil. Do thou choose life" (Yonge).

This comes from a website presenting the notes that Herbert Edward Ryle wrote for an edition of Philo (1895).

Enough for now, for the day calls me to my works of days and ways.

Hans Blumenberg: Complicating the Curiosity-Complex

Apuleius

A curious ass...

(Image from Wikipedia)

In his investigation into the process by which curiositas became a vice, Blumenberg must also explore the Greek side of the Graeco-Roman understanding, which entails drawing links between etymologically unrelated terms.

Blumenberg does so in looking into the Latin work Metamorphoses (aka The Golden Ass), by Apuleius, and its intellectual background in Greek thought:

In the Latin patristic literature, the term curiositas receives its specifically anti-Gnostic aspect of significance from Tertullian (ca. 160-220 A.D.). Here the characteristic imprint that the word had been given in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, which were produced between 170 and 180 A.D., may have had an influence. The process whereby the cognitive appetite was transformed into a constituent element of the catalog of vices took a decisive step forward here, in that curiositas became the dominant trait of a character, of a type. (Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, page 298)

I should here note that Blumenberg will next deal with the Greek background to the curiosity-complex, a point that he has earlier touched upon: "This polypragmonein [busyness, meddling] is the equivalent of periergia [overcarefulness, superfluity, investigation of 'curious' matters]" (p. 288). One will recall that Blumenberg has already noted the denigration of periergia in Greek thought, as expressed in Philos Judaeus's allegory De migratione Abrahami: "Chaldea is the land of curiosity (periergia), . . . understood as the independence of the senses, which have evaded their subordination to the intellect and instead of this deliver man up to what accords with them" (Legitimacy, page 284). I have commented on this passage in an earlier post. According to Blumenberg, this Greek understanding of polypragmonein as equivalent to periergia, both being terms for a disreputable curiosity, stand behind Apuleius's depiction of curiositas as "the dominant trait of a character, of a type":

This [character type] had been prepared for, in the conceptual history of the Greek polypragmosyne [officious busyness, meddling], by Plutarch (ca. 45-ca. 125 A.D.), in a treatise that had described busybody activity as harmful, particularly in the realm of human relations. Plutarch's suspicion of this characteristic takes as its point of departure the assumption that man's supposed 'interest' in other men is directed especially at hidden wickedness, which it seeks to bring to light and publicize through 'gossip.' This gossipy curiosity is directed at the intimate sphere of one's fellow man and penetrates the secrecy (which is, in its own way, humane) of human wickedness. It puts into words, and into the circulation of talk, the unspeakable things that pertain to others, so that, in an extreme comparison, adultery can be described as a sort of curiosity about someone else's carnal pleasure. It is characteristic of Plutarch, the Greek, that he recommends as a means of curing such gossipy curiosity the diversion of interest by other objects, and explicitly mentions the heavens, earth, air, and sea. He assures us, in this connection, that nature has nothing against the cognitive appetite diverted toward it; however, no hidden wickedness is to be found there, and he who cannot do without it will have to stick to history.

In Apuleius's novel, curiositas is radicalized; its magical potency -- which Philo earlier thought he had recognized in its secret drive toward transposition -- is made thematic. One of the ironies with which the author treats Lucius's curiosity -- animallike, credulous, and capable of any indecency -- is that he counts among his famous ancestors not only the author of the treatise on curiosity, Plutarch, but also the Skeptic Sextus Empiricus. For even the hero's immoderate lust for knowledge is exhibited as the degeneration of the philosophical appetite for knowledge when he introduces himself as "not indeed curious but still desirous of knowing everything, or in any event a great deal." Elsewhere he does not shrink from describing himself as possessed by an innate curiosity. The 'ontological' precondition of the hero's immoderate curiositas and of his magical inclinations is the vanished firmness of the contours of the world's constitution, the suspension of the cosmic quality of reality and the resulting explosion of the horizon of possibility, which creates a space in which what man can look forward to is indeterminate: "Nihil impossibile arbitror . . ." [I think that nothing is impossible]. What is unexpected in common experience, happens. Of the voluptuousness of a feast it is said, "Quicquid fieri non potest ibi est" [Whatever could not possibly come into being is there]. Curiosity seeks no longer what is admirable and wonderful in the cosmos but rather the strange, the peculiar, the curious (in the objective sense), that which can only be gaped at, in a structure of reality that is dissolved into transitions and alterations of form. The hero also describes himself as "all too eager to become acquainted with strange and astonishing things." (Blumenberg, Legitimacy, pages 298-299)

One sees from this development of the curiositas complex that a curious concern with cosmic phenomena would begin to be seen meddling in the things that God has created for his own purposes, things that are none of mankind's business, things of which one should not speak lest one fall into the sin of gossip, which would perhaps imply that one is speaking of the things that God has created as though they were the result of improper acts of some "hidden wickedness" and one were a voyeur who had seen (or at least heard) of them. In some Gnostic treatises, the cosmic process of creation was, indeed, a sexual one -- as much birth, or abortion, as creation. The patristic authors critical of curiosity would not consider this to be the actual process by which the true God created the cosmos, but curiosity is credulous, quick to believe in and gossip about such nonsense, and therefore must be curtailed, condemned.

Such are the complications of the curiositas-complex.

Hans Blumenberg: Philo Judaeus as Augustine's Predecessor (Curiositas)

Philo of Alexandria

aka "Philo Judaeus"

(Image from Wikipedia)

Hans Blumenberg devotes one chapter of his Legitimacy of the Modern Age to preparing his argument on how curiosity came to be enrolled in the category of vices by looking at a predecessor to Augustine, Philo of Alexandria -- also known as Philo Judaeus (Philo the Jew), who clad Jewish belief in the garments of Greek thought.

Concerning the status of curiosity (Greek: periergia) in Philo's De migratione Abrahami (On the Migration of Abraham), we read the following by Blumenberg:

The Augustinian conceptualization of curiositas had its most suggestive precedent in Philo's allegory De migratione Abrahami, even if we cannot assume that it directly influenced Augustine. Abraham's travels from Chaldea via Haran to Sichem and finally to Egypt give Philo the ground plan for a representation of the spiritual path from self-estrangement to self-appropriation. Chaldea is the land of curiosity (periergia), and specifically in the form of astronomy. Curiosity is understood as the independence of the senses, which have evaded their subordination to the intellect and instead of this deliver man up to what accords with them. Abraham's path leads from sense perception to spiritual wisdom. The sojourn in Haran represents a turning from astronomical curiosity to self-knowledge, which in turn leads through the self's discovery of its ignorance to recognition of God, and finally through this last to recognition of the world as God's work. The requirement of this detour on the way to the cosmos is explained as legitimate because of the Author's 'ownership' of the truth of His work, which can become accessible only through Himself. Philo's God does not, like the Platonic demiurge, find the cosmos already in existence in the form of the ideal reality of an independent objective sphere; rather He Himself produces even the spiritual plan of His Creation, the science of its coming into being.

This is a train of thought that leads to the critical epistemological principle of the identity of verum and factum [truth and fact], to the solus scire potest qui fecit [only he can know who makes (the object)]; but here it still stops with the metaphor of property and its reserved character: Legitimate knowledge can only derive from God, the origin and source of all skills and sciences, and should not try to found itself on unmediated, as it were, unauthorized inspection of the cosmos. The pseudowise men of Egypt stand for the dishonest and unjust claim to have seen 'directly': Their theories about the cosmos rest on the eyewitness claim to truth, since they presume to know the grounds of everything, "as if they had been present at the origin of the cosmos or had even helped the world's master builder with advice in his work."

God's sovereign right to the secret of His creation, which is communicated by Him alone on the condition of knowing and acknowledging His authorship, is one of the most enduring themes that were to enter into the curiositas complex. It found a place in the exegetical question why man came into existence as the last in the order of creation, the answer to which could be, so that he should not witness the work of creation and its secrets. This theme has not outgrown the mythical idea of the gods' jealousy of man. It still plays a role in the ideas of divine majesty held by late-medieval nominalism, to which admittedly man was no longer to submit with humble resignation, but which he would rather oppose with a new epistemological conception of the possibilities left open to him even with this reservation. (Blumenberg, Legitimacy of the Modern Age, pages 284-285).

Blumenberg's quote from Philo critcizing the arrogance of the Egyptian 'pseudowise' men, who talk "as if they had been present at the origin of the cosmos or had even helped the world's master builder with advice in his work," recalls God's criticism of Job, who claims that he is suffering despite having done no wrong for which he should be punished, to which God counters:

Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand. (Job 38:2-4, New International Version, 1984; cf. Judaica Press)

God then procedes to overwhelm Job with the complexity of His creation, overtaxing Job's knowledge and implicitly charging Job with ignorance. Job admits his insufficiency:

I am unworthy -- how can I reply to you?
I put my hand over my mouth.
I spoke once, but I have no answer --
twice, but I will say no more. (Job 40:4-5, NIV, cf. Judaica Press)

God then repeats his earlier challenge to take a different tack:

Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself? (Job 40:7-8, NIV, cf. Judaica Press)

The point seems to be that Job is far too limited in his knowledge of God's purposes in creation even to question the justice of his own seemingly unjustified suffering. The point is not easily countered, for if God is infinite in his knowledge and wisdom, then how can one knowingly assert that one is suffering unjustly? God might have some good reason for allowing suffering . . . though an innocent one engulfed in suffering might have doubts. At any rate, Job is persuaded:

I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
You asked,
'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?'
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know. (Job 42:2-3, NIV, cf. Judaica Press)

Job, of course, hadn't made any claims to knowledge of the cosmos, nor had he exhibited much curiosity about such things, but implicit in God's retort about Job's ignorance would seem to be that it is an ignorance invincible, for if Job could provide answers to any of the questions, the rhetorical effect -- grounded in the assumption of Job's ignorance -- would be lessened.

In such a complex of thought, curiosity might well be taken as an affront to God, a presumptiveness that one has the right to know what God has implied that one simply cannot know.

Blumenberg does not cite Job at this point, however, nor does the name "Job" appear in the "Name Index" to Legitimacy of the Modern Age, so I will stop at this point today but perhaps return tomorrow.