Philo here treats the stories in the opening of Genesis as pure
allegories, in which the men and women represent symbolically
characters and qualities. It should be remembered, however, that these
interpretations occur in the commentary where our author is not so
much expounding the Torah as deducing secret doctrines from it. His
proper exposition of the law proceeds from the book on the Creation to
the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then to the
lives of Joseph and Moses. And in this commentary the Bible narrative
is taken as historical truth: only in addition to the historical fact
there is a moral and universal value in every figure and every
episode. The patriarchs' lives represent the unwritten law which the
Greek world held in high honor, for it was considered to contain the
broad principles of individual and social conduct, and to be prior
logically and chronologically to the written codes. Moses, therefore,
the perfect legislator, according to Philo, has presented in the three
founders of the Hebrew race embodiments of the unwritten law of good
conduct for all mankind. Each of them is a moral type of eternal
validity and represents one of the ways in which blessedness may be
attained.[137] Abraham represents the goodness which comes from
instruction; Isaac, the spontaneous goodness that is innate, and the
joy (or laughter) of the soul that is God's gift to his favored sons;
Jacob, the goodness that comes after long effort, through the life of
practice and severe discipline.
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