7. The Limits of Variety
There are some who, regarding laws in their literal sense in the light of
symbols of matters belonging to the intellect, are overpunctilious about the
latter, while treating the former with easy- going neglect. Such men I for my
part should blame ... It is quite true that the Seventh Day is meant to teach
the power of the Unoriginate and the non- action of created beings. But let
us not for this reason abrogate the laws laid down for its observance ... It
is true that receiving circumcision does indeed portray the excision of
pleasures and all passions, and the putting away of impious conceit ... but
let us not on this account repeal the law laid down for circumcising. Why,
we shall be ignoring the sanctity of the Temple and a thousand other things,
if we are going to pay heed to nothing except what is shown us by the inner
meaning of things.With this powerful assault on Jews who interpreted the Torah only alleg-
orically and saw no value in keeping the laws in their literal sense, the
Jewish philosopher Philo, whose own allegoricizing form of Judaism
will be discussed later in this chapter, revealed that there was no limit to
variety in understanding the teachings of Moses. Allegorical readings of
the Bible could impose any meaning whatever on the text both then and
now. This brief mention by Philo in his commentary on Abraham’s wan-
derings as described in chapter 12 of Genesis constitutes the only
reference to these extreme allegorists known from antiquity, and there
is no evidence that a purely symbolic interpretation of the injunctions of
the Torah was widespread. But it is clear that Philo knew about at least
two such Jews (since he wrote about them in the plural). Philo believed
that the failure of these Jews to keep the law literally as well as symbol-
ically was reprehensible, but in attacking them he revealed that their
interpretation was possible.^1
Evidently Josephus’ typology of Judaism as divided into just three
kosher philosophies provided only a partial picture of Judaism in his