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1 (2014): 141–163
scott d. mackie
scottdmackie@gmail.com
51 Rose Ave. #17, Venice, CA 90291
A version of this essay was read in the Sensory Perception in the Bible and Early Judaism
Section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco, California, in
2011. In its final form it benefitted from the helpful comments of my friend James R. Royse.
1 Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Gender and Geopolitics in the Work of Philo of Alexandria: Jewish
141
142 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
Philo’s negative view of women is only slightly offset by the fact that they fail
to populate his thought-world significantly. As Dorothy Sly notes, “unless Philo is
in a situation where he is forced to notice women as people, his tendency is to oper-
ate in a male world.”2 One of the most common contexts in which Philo does take
note of women is in his recurring feminine characterization of sense percep
tion. Philo is a committed Platonist, particularly with regard to metaphysics and
Piety and Imperial Family Values,” in Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses (ed. Todd
Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele; Biblical Interpretation Series 84; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 82.
2 Sly, Philo’s Perception of Women (BJS 209; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 63. On this same
tendency in Roman literature, Carlin Barton observes, “If Roman literature appears misogynist
it is due, at least in part, to the fact that to speak of a woman at all in public was to offend her—and
her menfolk. The ‘overlooking’ of a woman did not necessarily, as in our culture, imply insult or
inattention; it might be just the reverse” (“Being in the Eyes: Shame and Sight in Ancient Rome,”
in The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body [ed. David Fredrick; Arethusa Books; Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002], 219).
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 143
(1996): 103.
5 So Richard A. Baer, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female (ALGHJ 3; Leiden: Brill,
1970), 40.
144 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
6 Because Philo typically portrays the feminine senses as dominant in his psychology, Taylor
notes, “There is something strangely powerful about the feminine in Philo’s construction. For
while ostensibly the masculine element of the soul is superior to the feminine and ideally should
be in control, the feminine element of the soul frequently prevails over the masculine. In Philo’s
construction of the soul, it is almost impossibly difficult to throw off domination by sense-
perception” (Jewish Women, 235–36). Taylor believes that Philo’s perceptions of gender relations
are perhaps responsible. Though weaker than men, women manipulate men through desire (Legat.
39; Hypoth. 11.14–17).
7 Colleen Conway, “Gender and Divine Relativity in Philo of Alexandria,” JSJ 34 (2003): 478.
In the first context (146–48), Philo aligns Hannah with the ancient cult of
Dionysus: “Now when grace fills the soul, that soul smiles and dances, for it is pos-
sessed with Bacchic ecstasy [βακχεύω]; therefore the uninitiated believe it is intoxi-
cated, crazy, and outside itself [ἐξίστημι]” (146). The connection between interiority
and exteriority is further established by a biological explanation of the phenomena:
“with the God-possessed not only is the soul [ψυχή] stirred and maddened into
loving ecstasy, but the body [σῶμα] also is flushed and fiery, warmed by the over-
flowing joy within that passes on the passion to the outer person” (147). Philo
concludes with the observation that Hannah’s mystical praxis holistically “unites
all good things” (τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἀθρόα, 148). Corporality and spirituality are seamlessly
joined, as Hannah sensually enacts the ecstatic passion of her inner self.
The second context (151–52) charts a similar course, though more deliber-
ately blending female and male attributes:
It is a great and wonderful feat to follow reasoning power … which no passion
inebriates. As a result, the mind [νοῦς] that has drunk deeply of unmixed sobriety
becomes a drink offering in its whole being [ὅλον δι’ ὅλων], a drink offering that
is poured out to God. For the meaning of the expression, “I will pour out my soul
[ψυχή] before the Lord,” is “I will consecrate my entire soul [σύμπας] to him.”
This “consecration” of her “whole being” and “entire soul” leads Hannah directly
to a contemplative ascent to the vision of God. Since the noetic ascent is a contem-
plative activity, occurring in mind alone, the ascender must “come out” of his/her
body and “fly away” from the deceptive and enfeebling senses (Her. 71; Gig. 31).
Accordingly, Hannah also “comes out” of her body, as evidenced by her declaration,
“I will loosen all the chains that have bound my soul” and “I will send it outside”
(προάγω ἔξω, Ebr. 152). Though she ascends in mind alone, Philo unexpectedly
depicts her exercising tactility in the noetic realm. Her soul “reaches out for [τείνω]
and diffuses itself [ἀναχέω], so that it may touch [ἅπτω] the bounds of the All, and
it is urged on towards … the vision of the Uncreated One.” This feminine, sensual
tactility probably also extends to her visual apprehension of God, since Philo, like
most ancients, thought that sight involved the assertive emission of light rays from
the eye; these rays reach out “almost as if they were tentacles” and “physically ‘grope’
the objects with which they make contact.”8 Thus, in contrast to Opif. 165–66,
which depicts the female senses leading the male mind astray, Hannah’s sensorium
is instrumental in helping the mind navigate and experience the noetic realm.
Classical Antiquity,” in Visuality before and beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (ed.
Robert S. Nelson; Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 75. She also notes, “Almost all the ancient schools of thought about optics
… put an emphasis on the tactile nature of sight” (p. 74). Cf. Philo’s warning in Abr. 76: “it is
contrary to holiness that the mortal should touch [ψαύω] the eternal” with the “eyes of the body.”
146 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
The imagery of Ebr. 151–52 would seem to suggest that Hannah uses her soul
as an extension of her embodied self: she “extends” her soul from within, deftly
deploying it across an otherwise insurmountable epistemological and metaphysical
divide, to exercise tactility in the noetic realm. This ambiguous “embodied disem-
bodiment” seems to have been deliberately crafted to connect the climax of the
account with the preceding instances of enacted spirituality (146–48). Conse-
quently, Hannah does not transcend her embodied existence in order to ascend to
the vision. Rather, her sensual body cooperates perfectly with her masculine mind
as she attains the visio Dei.9 In so doing, she not only models the Edenic intent for
humanity, she also effortlessly and fluidly transcends the anthropological and
metaphysical dualisms that rigidly structure Philo’s thought-world.10
9 As Mattila notes, the mind is capable of sliding up and down Philo’s gender gradient,
depending on its control of the senses and emotions (“Wisdom, Sense Perception,” 127).
10 On Philo’s cosmology, see David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria: On the Creation of the
commonly used in Greek philosophy to denote the more neutral sense of “emotion,” “passion”
aptly captures the excess and negativity often evident in Philo’s usage.
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 147
Passions in Plato
Because the “passions and desires” of the body inhibit one’s ability to “behold
the actual realities with the eye of the soul,” Plato’s Socrates encourages an ascetic
and “cathartic” purification and separation of the soul/mind from the body (Phaed.
66c–d, 67a, c). Thus, “true philosophers” “are always eager to release their souls—
for the release and separation of the soul from the body is the true goal of philo-
sophic inquiry” (67d).14 In later writings this dualistic opposition was relocated to
the confines of the soul, with the passions emanating from nonrational parts of the
soul. In a number of contexts in middle and late dialogues, Plato advances a com-
plex tripartite psychological model, comprising appetitive/desiring (τὸ ἐπιθυμη
τικόν), spirited (τὸ θυμοειδές), and rational (τὸ λογιστικόν) parts (Resp. 434e–444d;
Phaedr. 246b–249d; Tim. 69c–71a).15 Passions are then understood as arising from
12 See A. A. Long, “Roman Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman
Philosophy (ed. David Sedley; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 186: “It is difficult
to think of a society where the members of the upper class were more generally aware of philosophy
than seems to have been the case in Imperial Rome.”
13 The literary appropriation of philosophic discourse on passion is discussed by Christopher
Gill, The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), 408–61, and the essays in Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (ed. John T.
Fitzgerald; London: Routledge, 2008) and The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (ed.
Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
14 As T. M. Robinson notes, the Phaedo “abounds in language like ‘purification’ ” and “purity
of soul.” This, he contends, “is the language of the religious believer” (Plato’s Psychology [2nd ed.;
Phoenix Supplement 8; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995], 24).
15 See the essays in Plato and the Divided Self (ed. Rachel Barney, Tad Brennan, and Charles
Brittain; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Hendrik Lorenz, The Brute Within:
Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle (Oxford Philosophical Monographs; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 9–52; John M. Cooper, “Plato’s Theory of Human Motivation,” in Plato,
vol. 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul (ed. Gail Fine; Oxford Readings in Philosophy;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 186–206; Robinson, Plato’s Psychology, 39–46, 119–25.
148 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
the former two parts of the soul, both of which are nonrational and even capable
of motivating irrational desires that are in opposition to reason.
Plato’s increasingly complex psychology is evident in the charioteer myth of
the Phaedrus. There, the appetitive part of the soul, characterized as the “dark horse
of the passions,” has an instrumental role in the noetic ascent, via arousal of eros
(249d–250a, 251a).16 Thus, in distinction to the Phaedo’s simple depiction of an
ascent involving the “release and separation of the soul from the body,” in the
Phaedrus an ascent to the Forms depends on the arousal and mastery of the “unruly
horse” of nonrational/irrational passion (247b–248b, 253c–254e).
Despite this increasing psychological sophistication, Plato continued to occa-
sionally employ the simpler body/soul duality. Moreover, in the Timaeus, a late
dialogue, both dualistic oppositions are gendered. In 33c the body/soul duality
informs Plato’s characterization of the “more excellent” male soul “ruling over” the
female body, while in 70a–71d the rational/nonrational soul conception is opera-
tive, as the male rational aspect of the soul is depicted as exercising authority over
the female nonrational component.17 This feminine part is of course susceptible to
the passions, chief among which are “desire” and “pleasure, a mighty lure to evil.”
Plato’s rational/irrational soul duality would become “standard dogma” in
Middle Platonism.18 Both dualities, body/soul and rational/irrational, are ubiqui-
tous in Philo’s writings, particularly the first three books of the Allegorical Com-
mentary (i.e., Leg. 1–3). For Philo, the struggle between these dichotomies comes
to “define the human condition,” and is determinative in the quest for moral and
philosophic growth.19
Passions in Stoicism
The Stoics amplified Plato’s concern for the control of emotion, as the passions
were seen as possessing a unique capacity to subvert their efforts to live according
to reason, virtue, and nature. Furthermore, the early Stoics rejected the part-based
psychological model of Platonism and adhered instead to a strict monistic and
materialistic psychological model in which reason reigns uncontested. This move
16 On the ascent myth in the Phaedrus, see Andrea Wilson Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth
in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 86–88, 158–68; Graeme Nicholson, Plato’s Phaedrus: The Philosophy of Love (Purdue
University Press Series in the History of Philosophy; West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press,
1999), 155, 163–64, 178, 187, 203–10.
17 Verna E. F. Harrison, “The Allegorization of Gender: Plato and Philo on Spiritual
Childbearing,” in Asceticism (ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995), 523–26.
18 David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Philosophia Antiqua 44;
20 Posidonius (ca. 135–51 b.c.e.) is often held responsible for introducing into Stoicism the
Platonic dualistic psychological model. Philo’s brief definition of πάθος, in Spec. 4.79, probably
reflects this Posidonian hybrid.
21 Teun Tieleman, Chrysippus’ On Affections: Reconstruction and Interpretation (Philosophia
Antiqua 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 124–32; Richard Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic
Agitation to Christian Temptation (Gifford Lectures; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
29–54.
22 Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics
128–29. This account is by no means applicable to all Stoics, as every significant Stoic thinker
possessed varying psychologies and theories of the passions. Sorabji’s Emotion and Peace of Mind
offers the most detailed account of these varying views.
150 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
turn their backs on reason … and are led by their passions into tyrannical
enslavement. (Arius Didymus 10a)24
In this text, written shortly before Philo’s time, “the passions are presented as
though they were independent agents with the power to dominate the reason like
a tyrant.”25
Given such a bleak assessment, it is not surprising that most Stoic “therapists,”
both monistic and part-based, advocated the complete removal, or “extirpation,”
of the passions (Diogenes Laertius 7.117; Cicero, Tusc. 4.57). In contrast to the
Peripatetic and Middle Platonic allowance for “moderate emotion” (μετριωπάθεια)
and “limits,” the Stoics thought that even the slightest allowance for emotions is
comparable to jumping off a cliff and attempting to stop mid-flight through sheer
force of will. Similarly, “it is impossible for a disordered and excited soul to control
itself and stop where it wishes” (Cicero, Tusc. 4.41–42; cf. Seneca, Ira 1.7.4).26
Passions in Philo
The Stoics’ theory of the passions obviously resonated deeply with Philo, as it
occupies a place of prominence in his corpus that is unmatched by any other philo-
sophical theme.27 Philo’s vivid portrayals of reason and passion as two warring
factions within humans are clearly informed by their phenomenological focus on
the destructive power of the passions, as well as the dualistic psychology of the later
Stoics. Thus, “reason is at war with passion” (Leg. 3.116, 186; cf. Somn. 1.174; Abr.
223), and unless one fights and “wrestles” (Somn. 2.255; Spec. 2.46) against these
“violent and irresistible” passions, they will “tear the soul to pieces” (Leg. 2.11).
24 On Arius’s departures from early Stoic theory, see A. A. Long, “Arius Didymus and the
Exposition of Stoic Ethics,” in Stoic Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 125;
Inwood, Ethics and Human Action, 141–43. Cicero, Seneca, and Epictetus are commonly thought
to occasionally espouse dualistic psychologies; however, defenses of their “orthodox” monism
have been offered by Margaret Graver (Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002], 135–36), Brad Inwood (Reading Seneca: Stoic
Philosophy at Rome [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], 23–64), and A. A. Long (Epictetus:
A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002], 158–65).
25 Inwood, Ethics and Human Action, 143.
26 See Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind, 181–210; Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, 389–401.
The variety of psychological models in the Stoic school—as well as ambiguity about what
constituted and generated a πάθος—led to ambivalence concerning what passions/emotions were
in need of extirpation.
27 So Max Pohlenz, Kleine Schriften (ed. Heinrich Dörrie; 2 vols.; Hildesheim: G. Olms,
1965), 1:353. According to Leg. 3.139, Philo may have written or intended to write his own treatise
“On the Passions.” A careful examination of Philo’s moral psychology has recently been offered
by Hans Svebakken, Philo of Alexandria’s Exposition of the Tenth Commandment (Studia Philonica
Monographs 6; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012).
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 151
The Socratic Higher Ground,” in Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy (ed.
Francesca Alesse; Studies in Philo of Alexandria 5; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 190; Margaret Graver,
Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 102.
29 See Hendrik Lorenz, “Plato on the Soul,” in The Oxford Handbook of Plato (ed. Gail Fine;
Jacques Brunschwig and Martha C. Nussbaum; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993),
329.
32 In the Phaedrus, Plato twice characterizes the vision of beauty as “warming” the
contemplative’s body (251b, 253e). Furthermore, Aristotle considered heat essential to the soul’s
function (Part. an. 652b10), while Galen held it responsible for “states of passion” (PHP 7.3.2).
33 Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 52.
34 Ibid.
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 153
… tears.… For tears, which rise to the surface from the inward heartfelt laughter,
are food to the understanding, coming when the love of God has sunk deep
within and turned the dirge of created being into a song of praise to the Uncreated
One.
The “overflowing joy” of Ebr. 143–52 therefore evinces Stoic influence in both
its materialist psychology and the harmonious cooperation of Hannah’s interiority
and exteriority, and/or rational and nonrational parts, in which “all good things
are united” (148). Two other aspects of Philo’s presentation also conform to the
Stoic conception of eupathic joy: (1) though Hannah initially responds to the
overwhelming joy with “smiling and dancing,” her ethos is immediately thereafter
characterized as “stern and austere” (149). A “woman of a hard day,” she ascetically
renounces “empty desires” (152). This coheres with sentiments expressed by both
Seneca—“true joy is a stern matter … it is not cheerful” (Ep. 23.4–6)—and D iogenes
Laertius, who discusses joy and “good emotions,” and concludes: “all good people
are austere and harsh” (7.117). (2) Joy and virtue are causally intertwined by the
Stoics, as joy is the “motion of the soul” that leads to virtue, and conversely, virtue
produces joy (Seneca, Ep. 59.17). Similarly, “perfect virtue” is accorded an instru-
mental role in Hannah’s joyous mystical praxis (Ebr. 148).35
35 Both the Stoics and the Neopythagoreans considered virtue dependent on inner har
mony (SVF 3:471–471a; Galen, PHP 5.2.20–5.3.11; Archytas, De leg. 33:17; Metopus, De virt.
119.28–120.1), an opinion mirrored in Philo’s claim that for those who are soberly intoxicated,
“all good things are united in the strong wine on which they feast, and they receive the loving cup
from perfect virtue” (Ebr. 148).
36 The ascent in the Symposium is also characterized as involving “hard work” (210e). On
this struggle, see Charles L. Griswold, Jr., Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus (University Park:
154 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
contrast to the Phaedrus, her ascent involves neither struggle nor frustration. Suc-
cess is presaged by her confident tone (Ebr. 152), and despite Philo’s claim that her
“reasoning power” is impervious to passion (151), the account of her impassioned
ascent testifies to the harmonious cooperation of her “entire soul” (ψυχή … σύμπας)
—both the rational and nonrational aspects of her psyche (152).37 Philo thereby
contradicts an oft-stated personal conviction: “The person that sees God is study-
ing flight from the passions” and “has passed beyond passion” (Leg. 3.172; cf. Sacr.
134; Her. 71; Fug. 92).
In opposition to Stoic theory, Hannah does not extirpate her passion; in fact
it appears essential to her ethos and instrumental in her praxis. It is also likely her
joy would be seen as exceeding the bounds of Stoic eupathic propriety; Cicero
might even characterize it as “exuberant pleasure, which is joy excited beyond mea-
sure,” the fruit of an “impassioned (perturbatio) soul that is either devoid of reason,
or contemptuous of reason, or disobedient to reason” (Tusc. 3.24). Moreover, the
servant of Eli’s diagnosis of Hannah as “intoxicated, crazy, and beside herself ” (Ebr.
146) sounds remarkably similar to Chrysippus’s description of the person most
urgently requiring Stoic therapy (“out of their minds, in an altered state, beside
themselves,” a “different person”).
In these various divergences and adaptations, Philo appears to be walking a
tightrope between his loyalties to Platonic and Stoic psychologies and theories of
emotion, and his desire to portray Hannah as a passionate and ecstatic female
mystic. In the end it appears his mystical agenda prevailed. Furthermore, a mixture
of feminine and masculine attributes is apparent in this aspect of Hannah’s charac-
terization: virtue and “reasoning power” may both be considered male qualities
(Fug. 51–52), while joy and austerity are ambiguous.38 The characterization of her
mind as impervious to passion yet capable of cooperating with her nonrational
psyche further contributes to this ambivalent mixture of the male and female. How-
ever, the preponderantly passionate texture of the portrayal signals Philo’s ultimate
intent, as his Hannah thereby embraces and redeems the “passion of Eve.”
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 93–96; Rachana Kamtekar, “Speaking with the Same
Voice as Reason: Personification in Plato’s Psychology,” in Barney et al., Plato and the Divided Self,
96–98; and, in the same volume, Frisbee Sheffield, “Erôs before and after Tripartition,” 226–35.
37 John Dillon notes that Philo commonly simplifies the Platonic tripartite model, portraying
the two irrational parts of the soul (appetitive and spirited) as indistinctly “linked together in
opposition to the Reason” (The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 [rev. ed.; Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1996], 174–75).
38 Austerity is on one occasion figured as female (Sobr. 23). Philo is often inconsistent in his
applications of grammatical gender, as noted by Leslie Baynes, “Philo, Personification, and the
Transformation of Grammatical Gender,” Studia Philonica Annual 14 (2002): 31–47. Thus, virtue
is personified in Sarah (Abr. 206); joy is occasionally male (Cher. 8; Mut. 1, 261; QG 4.18); and in
Abr. 102, Philo genders “reasoning power” (λογισμός) as female in relation to male “virtue.” Given
its role in suppressing passion in Ebr. 151, “reasoning power” should be construed as male in this
context.
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 155
39 Attempts to define mysticism, even when restricted to a single religious tradition, have
often been frustrated and deemed problematic. For a recent review of the issues, see Peter Schäfer,
The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 1–20. Noticeably absent from
Philo’s mysticism are concepts and motifs central to other ancient Jewish and early Christian
mystical traditions, such as mystical union, ontological transformation, and elaborate descriptions
of the heavenly realm. We may briefly define his contemplative mysticism as visually oriented
and transcending ontology and cosmology in its effort to come within visual proximity of God.
Though it originates in cognitive activity, this visual encounter occasionally is prefaced by or
generates an ecstatic experience.
40 Richard Seaford, Dionysos (Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World; London: Routledge,
2006), 4; Albert Henrichs, “Changing Dionysiac Identities,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition,
vol. 3, Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Ben F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1982), 137, 152–54; Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (3 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon,
1972), 1:193–94, 201–7.
156 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
(“to be possessed with Bacchic ecstasy”), is used both literally, of the ecstatic danc-
ing and divine possession prevalent in Bacchic celebrations (Herodotus 4.79), and
figuratively, to describe mystical experiences that resemble Bacchic ecstasy (Plutarch,
Mor. 580c). Two figurative uses of the βακχ- word group are particularly relevant:
(1) in the Symposium, Socrates is described as committed to “philosophic frenzy
and Bacchic ecstasy” (βακχεία, 218b),41 (2) and in Plutarch’s Obsolescence of Oracles
the psychosomatic effects of divine inspiration and spirit indwelling are compared
with what occurs in “Bacchic ecstasy” (βακχεύσιμον): the soul becomes “hot and
fiery,” and by this “warmth and diffusion … certain passages” are opened, “through
which visions of the future are transmitted” (432e–f). This recalls the “flushed,
fiery,” and “warmed” psychosomatic symptoms and ecstatic behavior of Hannah
(Ebr. 147), as well as the mystical visuality in section 152.
Mystical visuality and epiphany are in fact central to the Dionysus cult. As
Richard Seaford observes, “Of all Greek deities it is Dionysos who most tends to
manifest himself among humankind.”42 Similarly, Ovid is convinced there is “no
god more present than Dionysus” (Metam. 3.658–59; cf. Diodorus Siculus 4.3).
Euripides’ Bacchae provides perhaps the most important testimony: Dionysus is
the “manifest god” (ἐμφανὴς δαίμων, 22, 42, 50–54), and like a “mighty light” (607),
he is said to “bestow his mysteries seeing and being seen” (ὁρῶν ὁρῶντα, 470; cf.
477, 501, 912–24, 1017).43
Divine possession also links the Dionysus cult to Philo’s Hannah. Like
Hannah, who is “filled with Bacchic ecstasy” (Ebr. 146) and “possessed by God”
(147), a number of the dramatis personae in Euripides’ Bacchae are “put out of their
minds” and “ecstatically possessed” by Bacchus (300, 850–51, 1124, 1295). Plato
(Ion 534a) and Sophocles (Ant. 963) similarly characterize Dionysus’s female fol-
lowers as “possessed” by the deity. Furthermore, the mystery cult was widely pur-
ported to possess the ability to cure madness homeopathically, through a divine
madness effected by trance possession (Plato, Leg. 790e–791b).44
Another relevant aspect of the Dionysus cult is its ability to dissolve bound-
aries and reconcile dualities. Like Hannah, who appears to reconcile so many
dualities (sense perception and noetic apprehension, interiority and exteriority,
41 Michael L. Morgan asserts that the Dionysiac mysteries provide the “dominant religious
background for the Symposium” (Platonic Piety: Philosophy and Ritual in Fourth-Century Athens
[New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990], 99).
42 Seaford, Dionysos, 39. See also Albert Henrichs, “ ‘He Has a God in Him’: Human and
Divine in the Modern Perception of Dionysus,” in Masks of Dionysus (ed. Thomas H. Carpenter
and Christopher A. Faraone; Myth and Poetics; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993),
13–22.
43 Henrichs notes that Euripides’ Bacchae is a “gold mine of information” on the otherwise
secretive Dionysus mystery cult; however, it is “treacherous for anyone unfamiliar with this kind
of terrain” (“Changing Dionysiac Identities,” 155).
44 Seaford, Dionysos, 106–8; Ivan M. Linforth, “The Corybantic Rites in Plato,” University of
45 This is a recurring refrain in Seaford, Dionysos (e.g., pp. 5, 11, 18, 28–29, 32–34, 36, 60,
75, 83, 86, 95–97, 146–48); idem, Euripides Bacchae: Introduction, Translation and Commentary
(Warminster: Aris & Philips, 1996), 31–32, 43–44.
46 On this text, see Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Instructions for
the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 162; Leiden:
Brill, 2008), 61–94; and the essays in The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further along
the Path (ed. Radcliffe G. Edmonds; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
47 Cf. Euripides, Bacch. 63, 87, 113, 220, 511, 1153; Aristophanes, Ran. 327, 356, 371; Plato,
Leg. 791a; Plutarch, Mor. 759a, 1105b; frag. 178; Seaford, Dionysos, 69–70, 103–4.
48 See Taylor, Jewish Women, 314–17, 340. On the likelihood that Philo’s account reflects
some degree of reality, see ibid., 8–19. A skeptical appraisal has recently been offered by Ross
158 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
Sober Inebriation
Though never explicitly expressed, the oxymoronic “sober intoxication” motif
undergirds Ebr. 143–52. This theme, which also appears in conjunction with Bac-
chic ecstasy in Euripides (Bacch. 686–87, 940) and Plutarch (Mor. 291a–b) is found
throughout Philo’s writings, including the Allegory (Leg. 1.84; Fug. 32), Exposition
(Opif. 71; Mos. 1.187), QGE (QG 2.68), and philosophical treatises (Prob. 13; Con-
templ. 89). Some interpreters have emphasized the “sober” half of the phrase, a
position supported by such texts as Leg. 3.82, which describes the phenomenon as
“more sober than sobriety itself,” and Fug. 166: the autodidact “never stops being
drunk with the sober drunkenness that reason brings.”51
Both aspects of this theme, however, are represented in Ebr. 143–52. The “ine-
briated” side of the equation is evident in the wealth of psychosomatic phenomena
attending Hannah’s ecstatic experience, as well as Philo’s admission, “it is true the
sober ones are drunk in a sense” (148). Furthermore, within the narrative world of
the text, the servant’s accusation of drunkenness (“How long will you be drunk?
Put away your wine!”) functions as a sort of independent testimony to the somatic
manifestations of Hannah’s mystical encounter with God (146). The Bacchic imag-
ery also coheres with this aspect of the motif, further reinforcing the emotional and
ecstatic orientation of Hannah’s inebriated sobriety. Coincidentally, the same mis-
interpretation made by the “uninitiated” servant of Eli was apparently made by
observers of the Dionysus cult. According to Albert Henrichs,
Shepard Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman
Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 66.
49 James M. Scott, “Dionysus in Philo of Alexandria: A Study of De vita contemplativa,”
Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1, From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (until
1300), part 1, Antiquity (ed. Magne Sæbø; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 169; David
Winston, “Philo’s Mysticism,” Studia Philonica Annual 8 (1996): 75; idem, “Was Philo a Mystic?”
in Studies in Jewish Mysticism: Proceedings of Regional Conferences Held at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and McGill University in April, 1978 (ed. Joseph Dan and Frank Talmadge;
Cambridge, MA: Association for Jewish Studies, 1982), 34; David M. Hay, “The Psychology of
Faith in Hellenistic Judaism,” ANRW 2.20.2 (1987): 905.
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 159
the ritual madness associated with Dionysus in myth and cult had nothing to do
with alcohol or drugs. Seized by the god, initiates into Bacchic rites acted much
like participants in other possession cults. Their wild dancing and ecstatic behav-
ior were interpreted as “madness” only by the uninitiated.52
sense, for all good things are united in the strong wine on which they feast” (Ebr.
148). This mixture of female nonrational and male rational qualities further serves
to situate Hannah near the middle of Philo’s gender gradient.
54 Mackie, “Seeing God in Philo of Alexandria: The Logos, the Powers, or the Existent One?”
Studia Philonica Annual 21 (2009): 25–47; and “Seeing God in Philo of Alexandria: Means,
Methods, and Mysticism,” JSJ 43 (2012): 147–79.
55 Winston, “Philo and the Contemplative Life,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible through
the Middle Ages (ed. Arthur Green; World Spirituality 13; New York: Crossroad, 1986), 225; idem,
“Was Philo a Mystic?” 31.
56 Mackie, “Logos, the Powers,” 34–36.
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 161
response to God’s empowerment (146–47) and her virtuous and abstinent life (148–
51). Unaided human effort may be detected in Hannah’s declared intent to “pour out
my soul” (149), as well as her recital from the “handbook for heavenly ascents,” with
its recurring assertions of efficacious mystical volition: “I will consecrate … I will
loosen … I will send” (152). This blend of passivity and active agency could be seen
as another indication of her central position on Philo’s gender gradient.
A number of practices are implicated in Philo’s ascent and visio Dei accounts,
including Platonic contemplation (Migr. 34–35), the pursuit of virtue (Ebr. 83; Her.
241; QE 2.51), and exegetical text work (Spec. 3.1–6). Though Hannah’s ascetic,
virtuous life is partially accorded a role in her ascent (Ebr. 148, 150–51), perhaps
the most apt comparison can be made with the practice of Platonic contemplative
ascent. The ascent myth of the Phaedrus, in particular, features a number of com-
parable phenomena: passion, divine madness and possession (245b, 249d–e),
holistic reasoning (249b), the psychosomatic manifestation of “heat” (251b, 253e),
mystical visuality (246a–251a, 253c–254e), and mystery language (249c–d,
250b–c).57 The exercise of tactility in the noetic realm is also a common motif in
Platonic ascent accounts.58 And although the noetic ascent is often represented by
Philo as a quintessentially masculine activity, requiring the suppression of feminine
attributes, including the senses and passions, and the exercise of masculine initia-
tive and disembodiment, the textual representation of Hannah’s rapturous tactility
in the noetic realm evinces a decidedly feminine “touch.”
Finally, despite attempts to divorce Philo’s mystical praxis from the visio Dei,
thereby construing “seeing” simply as a metaphor for “knowing” (i.e., achieving a
rational awareness of God’s existence),59 the emotional and experiential language
and imagery that often appear in ascent texts, and occasionally in visio Dei accounts,
suggest that actual mystical experiences underlie and inform them. In fact, the
affective and experiential detail of Ebr. 143–52 is unparalleled within the Philonic
corpus. In spite of the aforementioned instances of heightened cognitive acuity,
as well as the assertion of Hannah’s passionless “reasoning power” (151), her
noetic ascent is devoid of rational pursuits. Rather, it represents a passionate and
ecstatic act of worship that attempts to attain tactile intimacy with the Beloved. It
should also be noted that a number of the phenomena charted in Ebr. 143–52 are
congruent with common mystical experiences that have been documented in
57 On the mysteries in the Phaedrus, see Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth, 86–88; Morgan,
211b, 212a. On the “vision of beauty” as “an erotically tactile phenomenon,” see Shadi Bartsch,
The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2006), 79–80.
59 So Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam (2nd ed.; 2 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), 2:90–92; Winston,
“Philo’s Mysticism,” 82.
162 Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 1 (2014)
IV. Conclusion
60 Eugene G. d’Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of
Religious Experience (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 13–14, 26, 49–50, 87, 90–92, 98–100, 183, 191.
61 Van den Hoek, “Endowed with Reason or Glued to the Senses: Philo’s Thoughts on Adam
and Eve,” in The Creation of Adam and Eve: Interpretations of the Biblical Narratives in Jewish and
Christian Traditions (ed. Gerard P. Luttikhuizen; Themes in Biblical Narrative 3; Leiden: Brill,
2000), 74.
62 Sly, Philo’s Perception of Women, 223.
Mackie: Philo of Alexandria, De ebrietate 143–52 163
As valid as these accusations may largely be, they are inapplicable to Philo’s
portrayal of Hannah and the grace-infused vision of realized womanhood that
radiates from Ebr. 143–52. As we have seen, a number of elements in the account
have placed Hannah near the middle of Philo’s gender gradient, thus harmoniously
balancing male and female. These include senses and mind, nonrationality and
reason, embodiment and disembodiment, passivity and activity, as well as the
characteristics of her emotional life: virtue, joy, and austerity. However, these
male and female elements do not negate each other, thereby “neutering” Hannah.
Rather, they complement and accentuate each other. And though she is on two
occasions masculinized by Philo (her interactions with the servant, and her passion-
impervious “reasoning power”), the preponderantly passionate and ecstatic texture
of the portrayal points to Philo’s overarching intent to figure Hannah as an adept
female mystic, and thus position her within the female portion of his gender gradi-
ent. In so doing, the passion and sensuality that so crucially contribute to Eve’s
characterization as “the beginning of the blameworthy life” (Opif. 151) are fully
redeemed in the equally passionate and sensuous ecstasy of Hannah. In what is
surely the most emotional, embodied, and sensual visio Dei in the Philonic corpus,
Hannah “pours out” as a “drink offering” these fully realized aspects of her woman-
hood, bringing them into the immediate presence of God, thereby recovering “all
the glory of Eve.”
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Copyright of Journal of Biblical Literature is the property of Society of Biblical Literature and
its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.