1. Hebrew Bible, Exodus, 3.14 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 3.14. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם׃ | 3.14. And God said unto Moses: ‘I AM THAT I AM’; and He said: ‘Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.’" |
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2. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 2.18-2.25 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 2.18. וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים לֹא־טוֹב הֱיוֹת הָאָדָם לְבַדּוֹ אֶעֱשֶׂהּ־לּוֹ עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ׃ 2.19. וַיִּצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִן־הָאֲדָמָה כָּל־חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה וְאֵת כָּל־עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וַיָּבֵא אֶל־הָאָדָם לִרְאוֹת מַה־יִּקְרָא־לוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא־לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה הוּא שְׁמוֹ׃ 2.21. וַיַּפֵּל יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים תַּרְדֵּמָה עַל־הָאָדָם וַיִּישָׁן וַיִּקַּח אַחַת מִצַּלְעֹתָיו וַיִּסְגֹּר בָּשָׂר תַּחְתֶּנָּה׃ 2.22. וַיִּבֶן יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הַצֵּלָע אֲשֶׁר־לָקַח מִן־הָאָדָם לְאִשָּׁה וַיְבִאֶהָ אֶל־הָאָדָם׃ 2.23. וַיֹּאמֶר הָאָדָם זֹאת הַפַּעַם עֶצֶם מֵעֲצָמַי וּבָשָׂר מִבְּשָׂרִי לְזֹאת יִקָּרֵא אִשָּׁה כִּי מֵאִישׁ לֻקֳחָה־זֹּאת׃ 2.24. עַל־כֵּן יַעֲזָב־אִישׁ אֶת־אָבִיו וְאֶת־אִמּוֹ וְדָבַק בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ וְהָיוּ לְבָשָׂר אֶחָד׃ 2.25. וַיִּהְיוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם עֲרוּמִּים הָאָדָם וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וְלֹא יִתְבֹּשָׁשׁוּ׃ | 2.18. And the LORD God said: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.’" 2.19. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof." 2.20. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him." 2.21. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof." 2.22. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man." 2.23. And the man said: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’" 2.24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." 2.25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." |
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3. Plato, Republic, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 509d. he said. Conceive then, said I, as we were saying, that there are these two entities, and that one of them is sovereign over the intelligible order and region and the other over the world of the eye-ball, not to say the sky-ball, but let that pass. You surely apprehend the two types, the visible and the intelligible. I do. Represent them then, as it were, by a line divided into two unequal sections and cut each section again in the same ratio (the section, that is, of the visible and that of the intelligible order), and then as an expression of the ratio of their comparative clearness and obscurity you will have, as one of the section |
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4. Plato, Timaeus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 47a. benefit effected by them, for the sake of which God bestowed them upon us. Vision, in my view, is the cause of the greatest benefit to us, inasmuch as none of the accounts now given concerning the Universe would ever have been given if men had not seen the stars or the sun or the heaven. But as it is, the vision of day and night and of months and circling years has created the art of number and has given us not only the notion of Time but also means of research into the nature of the Universe. From these we have procured Philosophy in all its range |
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5. Philo of Alexandria, On Husbandry, 96-97, 95 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 95. But we must explain what is the enigmatical meaning which he conceals under this prayer, the name of Dan, being interpreted, means "judgment;" therefore he here likens that power of the soul which investigates, and accurately examines, and distinguishes between, and, in some degree, decides on each part of the soul, to a dragon (and the dragon is an animal various in its movements, and exceedingly cunning, and ready to display its courage, and very powerful to repel those who begin acts of violence), but not to that friendly serpent, the counsellor of life, which is wont to be called Eve in his national language, but to the one made by Moses, of the material of brass, which, when those who had been bitten by the poisonous serpents, and who were at the point of death beheld, they are said to have lived and not to have died. XXII. |
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6. Philo of Alexandria, On The Cherubim, 53, 57, 61, 63-65, 40 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 40. And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and brought forth 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." These men, to whose virtue the Jewish legislation bears testimony, he does not represent as knowing their wives, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and if there are any others of like zeal with them; 40. A third view of the question is, that no king or tyrant may ever despise an obscure private individual, from being full of insolence and haughty pride; but that such an one, coming as a pupil to the school of the sacred laws, may relax his eyebrows, unlearning his self-opinionativeness, and yielding rather to true reason. |
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7. Philo of Alexandria, On The Confusion of Tongues, 11-15, 2-10 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 10. But this precaution does not appear to have turned out of any use; for since that time, though men have been separated into different nations, and have no longer used one language, nevertheless, land and sea have been repeatedly filled with unspeakable evils. For it was not the languages which were the causes of men's uniting for evil objects, but the emulation and rivalry of their souls in wrong-doing. |
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8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Preliminary Studies, 171 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 171. Who, then, is so impious as to conceive that God is one who afflicts, and who brings that most pitiable death of hunger upon those who are not able to live without food? For God is good, and the cause of good things, bounteous, the saviour, the supporter, the giver of wealth, the giver of great gifts, driving out wickedness from the sacred boundaries; for thus did he drive out the burdens of the earth, Adam and Cain, from paradise. |
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9. Philo of Alexandria, On The Decalogue, 9, 8 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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10. Philo of Alexandria, On Giants, 65 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 65. But the sons of earth removing their minds from contemplation, and becoming deserters so as to fly to the lifeless and immovable nature of the flesh, "for they two became one Flesh," as the lawgiver says, adulterated the excellent coinage, and abandoned the better rank which had been allotted to them as their own, and deserted to the worse rank, which was contrary to their original nature, Nimrod being the first to set the example of this desertion; |
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11. Philo of Alexandria, On The Creation of The World, 151-169, 171-177, 2, 37, 76, 1 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1. of other lawgivers, some have set forth what they considered to be just and reasonable, in a naked and unadorned manner, while others, investing their ideas with an abundance of amplification, have sought to bewilder the people, by burying the truth under a heap of fabulous inventions. |
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12. Philo of Alexandria, On The Posterity of Cain, 33 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 33. After he had said this he proceeds to say, "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch." Is it not here reasonable to raise the question, why Cain knew his wife? for there had been no birth of any one other woman since that of Eve who was formed out of the side of the man, until the woman who is here mentioned; |
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13. Philo of Alexandria, On Curses, 40 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 40. But as after Cain had begotten Enoch, one of the posterity of Seth is also subsequently called Enoch, it may be well to consider, whether the two namesakes were men of different or of similar dispositions and characters. And at the same time that we examine this question let us also investigate the differences between other persons bearing the same name. For as Enoch was, so also Methusaleh and Lamech were both descendants of Cain, and they were no less the descendants of Seth also. |
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14. Philo of Alexandria, On The Sacrifices of Cain And Abel, 1 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1. And he also added, that she should bring forth his Brother." The addition of one thing is a taking away of some other; as for instance, of particles in arithmetic, and of reasons in the soul. If then we must say that Abel is added, we must also think that Cain is taken away. But that the unusual character of expression may not cause perplexity to many we will endeavour to explain accurately the philosophy which is apparent beneath them, as clearly as may be in our power. |
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15. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 1.14, 3.178 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.14. and the subjects being all the natures beneath the moon, hovering in the air and adjacent to the earth. But that the rulers aforesaid are not independent and absolute, but are the viceroys of one supreme Being, the Father of all, in imitation of whom they administer with propriety and success the charge committed to their care, as he also presides over all created things in strict accordance with justice and with law. Others, on the contrary, who have not discovered the supreme Governor, who thus rules everything, have attributed the causes of the different things which exist in the world to the subordinate powers, as if they had brought them to pass by their own independent act. 3.178. And this is the cause which is often mentioned by many people. But I have heard another also, alleged by persons of high character, who look upon the greater part of the injunctions contained in the law as plain symbols of obscure meanings, and expressed intimations of what may not be expressed. And this other reason alleged is as follows. There are two kinds of soul, much as there are two sexes among human relations; the one a masculine soul, belonging to men; the other a female soul, as found in women. The masculine soul is that which devotes itself to God alone, as the Father and Creator of the universe and the cause of all things that exist; but the female soul is that which depends upon all the things which are created, and as such are liable to destruction, and which puts forth, as it were, the hand of its power in order that in a blind sort of way it may lay hold of whatever comes across it, clinging to a generation which admits of an innumerable quantity of changes and variations, when it ought rather to cleave to the unchangeable, blessed, and thrice happy divine nature. |
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16. Philo of Alexandria, On The Virtues, 199 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 199. Again, who is there who would deny that those men who were born of him who was made out of the earth were noble themselves, and the founders of noble families? persons who have received a birth more excellent than that of any succeeding generation, in being sprung from the first wedded pair, from the first man and woman, who then for the first time came together for the propagation of offspring resembling themselves. But, nevertheless, when there were two persons so born, the elder of them endured to slay the younger; and, having committed the great and most accursed crime of fratricide, he first defiled the ground with human blood. |
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17. Philo of Alexandria, On The Contemplative Life, 8-9, 7 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 7. Again, what shall we say of those who worship carved works and images? the substances of which, stone and wood, were only a little while before perfectly destitute of shape, before the stone-cutters or wood-cutters hewed them out of the kindred stuff around them, while the remainder of the material, their near relation and brother as it were, is made into ewers, or foot-pans, and other common and dishonoured vessels, which are employed rather for uses of darkness than for such as will bear the light; |
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18. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Moses, 2.194 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 2.194. for the Egyptians, almost alone of all men, set up the earth as a rival of the heaven considering the former as entitled to honours equal with those of the gods, and giving the latter no especial honour, just as if it were proper to pay respect to the extremities of a country rather than to the king's palace. For in the world the heaven is the most holy temple, and the further extremity is the earth; though this too is in itself worthy of being regarded with honour; but if it is brought into comparison with the air, is as far inferior to it as light is to darkness, or night to day, or corruption to immortality, or a mortal to God. |
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19. Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation, 3, 2 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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20. Philo of Alexandria, Questions On Genesis, 1.23-1.53, 4.57 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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21. Philo of Alexandria, Who Is The Heir, 164 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 164. For it is equality which allotted night and day and light and darkness to existing things. It is equality also that divided the human race into man and woman, making two divisions, unequal in strength, but most perfectly equal for the purpose which nature had principally in view, the generation of a third human being like themselves. For, says Moses, "God made man; in the image of God created he him; male and female he created Them." He no longer says "him," but "them," in the plural number, adapting the species to the genus, which have, as I have already said, been divided with perfect equality. XXXIV. |
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22. Nag Hammadi, The Tripartite Tractate, 76.33 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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