Philo: the diminution of Africa, the construction of the virgin/whore dichotomy, and the basis for disowning Judeans

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Philo's treatise “On Mating with Preliminary Studies” (which we have already begun to look at) is an attempt to construct a philosophical allegory from a socio-historical narrative.  Philo uses the Patriarchal narratives of Abraham (Sarah/Hagar), and Jacob (Leah/Rachel) as paradigms for discussion of how Judean writing conforms to Greek philosophy.  The problem is, of course, that it doesn’t.

Philo constructs a dichotomy of “higher learning” (as represented by the “legitimate wife” Sarah) and “lower learning” (as represented by the “handmaid” Hagar).   He expands the allegory to include Jacob/Leah/Rachel, and suggests that as with the Abraham/Sarah/Hagar narrative, each of the “legitimate wives” (Leah and Rachel) had “handmaids” who they also offered to their spouse, as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham.

It is conjecturable that this was the origin of the Muslim practice of permitting a man to have up to four wives with the provision that he treat all of them equally.

It is more than certain that the “higher learning”/”lower learning” dichotomy is the basis for the virgin/whore dichotomy which has afflicted Western culture since the inception of Christianity.  It has been supposed that this dichotomy originated with the “Mary the virgin”/”Mary Magdalen, the penitent prostitute” paradigm.  However Philo’s treatise predates those narratives (and certainly predates the conflation of texts that gave rise to that model).

“On Mating” also provides us with more evidence that Philo was the source of the Greco-Roman presumption that Judeans should not be the heirs of their own texts, and that it was right and proper to separate the “church” from any identification with “pagan” belief.

Let’s start with that:  in the course of a long and rather convoluted allegory on how sex with a concubine represents “lower learning,”  (i.e. grammar, according to Philo),  Philo says:

It will teach us to despise the vain delusions of our empty imagination by showing  us the calamities which heroes and demi-gods who are celebrated in such literature are said to have undergone.

On Mating, 4:15b

Phllo emphasized the “lowness” of the learning by identifying its allegoric representation in On Mating 5:20a:

The primary characteristic marks of the lower education are represented by two symbols giving its race and name.  In race, it is Egypt, but its name is Hagar, which is by interpretation “sojourning.”

Ha-gar, in Hebrew, means “the resident” in the sense of distinguishing between a native (citizen) and a non-citizen who is travelling through.  The “resident” is one who is not of a people, but who dwells among a people.  This is separate from the “slave/free” dichotomy we are used to seeing.

Philo continues:

The votary of the school studies, the friend of the wide learning, must necessarily be associated with the earthly and Egyptian body.

On Mating, 5:20b

It is arguable that Greco-Roman understanding of this contributed to the devaluation of northern Africans, something not previously documented.  Representing Egypt, which had been a dominant power in the past, as “earthly” indicates a diminution of status.

In On Mating 5:22, we find:

The lower education is in the position of a sojourner.  For knowledge and wisdom and every virtue are native born, indigenous, citizens in the truest sense, and in this they are absolutely alone;  but the other kinds of training, which with second or third or last prizes, are on the border-line between foreigners and citizens.  For they belong to neither kind in its purest form, and yet in virtue of a certain degree of partnership they touch both.  The sojourner in so far as he is staying in the city is on a par with the citizens, in so far as it is not his home, on a par with foreigners.  In the same way, I should say, adopted children, in so far as they inherit from their adopters, rank with  the family;  in so far as they are not their actual children, with outsiders.

This would appeal to the Greco-Roman sense of entitlement as “citizens,” and would be sufficient for them to understand that anyone who was not a citizen was not worthy of ownership of “promise” and virtue.  The final sentence would resonate with Greco-Romans who, having read TaNaKh in Greek, and having sought acceptance within the Judean Temple cult, found that while they were “accepted,” they were also outside.  This particular passage would furnish the information necessary for those Greco-Romans to declare that, since they read and accepted the text, and since they fulfilled the specifics outlined by Philo, a Judean, they were the ones to whom he referred when he spoke of rightful ownership of the text.

In the continuation of his allegory, Philo describes a second dicnotomy:  “reasoning/unreasoning.”  Where Sarah represented “higher” learning, and Hagar represented “lower learning,” in this dichotomy, Leah represents “reason,” while Rachel represents “unreason.” 

Philo says

For since our soul is twofold, with one part reasoning and the other unreasoning, each has its own virtue or excellence, the reasoning Leah, the unreasoning Rachel.

On Mating, 6:26

            This second “higher/lower” allegory does little more than reinforce a “good woman/bad woman”  mystique , which easily leads to the “virgin/whore” dichotomy that has ruled Western civilization since the inception of doctrinal Christianity.

Philo continues his allegory in language that foreshadows the rhetoric of 1 Cor 13:

Now vice is malignant and sour and ill-minded by nature, while virtue is gentle and sociable and kindly, willing in every way, either by herself or others, to help those whom nature has gifted.  Thus in the case before us, since as yet we are unable to beget by wisdom, she gives us the hand of her maiden, who is, as I have said, the culture of the schools;  and she does not shrink, we may almost say, to carry out the wooing and preside over the bridal rites;  for she herself, we are told, took Hagar and gave has as wife to her husband.

This is an entirely different dimension of: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:4-6) “On Mating” it is rhetorically consistent with 1 Cor.