Before this triad, the Bible presents
another group of three, who represent the virtues preparatory to the
acquisition of perfect goodness: Enosh, Enoch, and Noah.[138] They
typify respectively, as their names indicate, hope, repentance, and
justice. It is a pretty thought, helped by an error in the Septuagint
translation,[139] which sees in the name of the first (_i.e._, man,
[Hebrew: 'nosh]) the symbol of hope. Hope, the commentator suggests, is the
distinguishing characteristic of man[140] as compared with other
animals, and hope therefore is our first step towards the Divine
nature, the seed of which faith is the fruit. Next in order come
repentance and natural justice, and from these stepping-stones we can
rise to the higher self. Philo's interpretation of these Bible figures
would appear to have behind it an old Midrashic tradition. As far back
as the book of Ben Sira, in the passage on "the Praises of Famous Men"
(xliv), they are taken as typical of the different virtues, and Enoch
notably is the type of repentance. In the first century the world was
becoming incapable of understanding abstract ideas, and required
ethics to be concretely embodied in examples of life. Philo found
within the Jewish Scriptures what the Christian apostles later
transferred to other events.
Joseph, whose life followed that of the patriarchs, is the type of the
political life, the model of the man of action and ambition.
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