Citation with stable link: Philip A. Harland, 'Ethiopians: Philo of Alexandria on the supposed lowness of Ethiopians and self-control of Assyrians (early first century CE),' Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World, last modified August 13, 2024, https://philipharland.com/Blog/?p=21299.
Ancient author: Philo of Alexandria (early first century CE), Allegorical Interpretation 1.63-70 and 2.65-67 (link).
Comments: In these allegorical or symbolic interpretations of the Adam and Eve narratives in Genesis, the Judean Philo of Alexandria makes the assumption that Ethiopia (and therefore Ethiopians) represents cowardice whereas Assyrians represent self-control. He then returns to Ethiopians in connection with Moses’ Ethiopian wife, although it’s hard to understand exactly what he is talking about there (besides that he associates the Ethiopian woman with the blackness of a pupil and it took resolve for Moses to marry her).
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[Genesis narrative about the rivers flowing out of Eden]
(1.63-70) “A river goes forth from Eden to water the garden. From there it is separated into four sources. The name of first is Pheison. This is the one that encircles all the land of Euilat, there where the gold is. The gold of that land is good, and there is the ruby and the emerald. And the name of the second river is Geon. This encompasses all the land of Ethiopia. And the third river is Tigris. This is the one whose course is in front of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates” [Genesis 2:10-14].
[Allegorical interpretation of rivers as virtues]
With respect to these rivers, his purpose is to indicate the particular virtues (aretai). These virtues are four in number: practical wisdom, self-control, courage (or: manliness), and justice. The largest river, of which the four are effluxes, is generic virtue, which we have called “goodness.” The four effluxes are the virtues of the same number. Generic virtue takes its start from Eden, the wisdom of God, which is full of joy, brightness, and exultation, glorying and priding itself only upon God its father. But the specific virtues, four in number, are derived from generic virtue, which like a river waters the perfect achievements of each of them with an abundant flow of noble actions. . . [omitted allegorical interpretation of the first river].
[Geon is “courage” encircling Ethiopia as “cowardice”; Tigris is “self-control” opposite Assyria]
“And the name of the second river is Geon. This encircles all the land of Ethiopia.” This river figuratively represents courage, because the word Geon is “breast” or “butting” and each of these indicates courage (or: manliness; andreia). This is because courage has its place around men’s chest where the heart also is, and it is fully equipped for self-defence. It is the knowledge of things that we should endure and not endure, and of things that fall under neither category.
This river encompasses and troubles Ethiopia, whose name being interpreted is “lowness” (tapeinōsis); and cowardice (deilia) is a low thing, while courage is an enemy of lowness and cowardice. “The third river is Tigris. This is that whose course is opposite the Assyrians.” Self-control is the third virtue, and takes its stand against pleasure, which thinks that it can direct the course of human weakness. This is because, when expressed in the Greek language, “Assyrians” is “directing.” He [Moses] further compares desire, with which self-control is occupied, to a tiger, the animal least capable of being tamed.
It is worth inquiring why courage is mentioned in the second place, self-mastery in the third, and practical wisdom in the first, and why he [Moses] has not presented a different order of the virtues. We must observe, then, that our soul is threefold, and has one part that is the seat of reason, another that is the seat of high spirit, and another that is the seat of desire. And we discover that the head is the place and abode of the reasonable part, the chest of the passionate part, and the abdomen of the lustful part. To each of the parts a virtue proper to it has been attached. Practical wisdom has been attached to the reasonable part, because it belongs to reason to have knowledge of the things we should do and of the things we should not do. Courage has been attached to the emotional part. Self-control has been attached to the lustful part. For it is by self-control that we heal and cure our desires. As, then, the head is the first and highest part of the living creature, the chest the second, and the abdomen the third, and again of the soul the reasoning faculty is first, the high-spirited second, the lustful third. So too of the virtues, first is practical wisdom which has its sphere in the first part of the soul which is the domain of reason, and in the first part of the body, namely the head. Second is courage, for it has its seat in high spirit, the second part of the soul, and in the breast, the corresponding part of the body. Third self-control, for its sphere of action is the abdomen, which is of course the third part of the body, and the lustful faculty, to which has been assigned the third place in the soul. “The fourth river” he [Moses] says, “is Euphrates.” “Euphrates” means “fruitfulness,” and is a figurative name for the fourth virtue, justice, a virtue fruitful indeed and bringing gladness to the mind. When, then, does it appear? When the three parts of the soul are in harmony. . . [omitted remainder of the allegorical interpretation of Genesis].
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[Further allegorical interpretations of the Adam and Eve narrative]
(2.65-67) Let’s look again at the words, “they [Adam and Eve] were not ashamed.” The words suggest three points for consideration: lack of a sense of shame and awareness of shame, and absence of both lack of a sense of shame and awareness of shame. Lack of a sense of shame, then, is peculiar to the worthless man, awareness of shame to the man of worth, and to feel neither an awareness of shame nor a lack of a sense of shame to the man who is incapable of right apprehension and of due assent thereto, and this man is at this moment the prophet’s subject. For he who has not yet come to an apprehension of good and evil cannot possibly be either lacking in shame or aware of shame. Examples of lack of shame are all those unseemly actions, when the mind uncovers shameful things which it should hide from view, and vaunts itself in them and prides itself on them. Even in the case of Miriam, when she spoke against Moses, it is said, “If her father had only spat in her face, should she not feel shame seven days?” [Numbers 12:14]. For veritably lack of shame and bold was sense-perception in daring to decry and find fault with Moses for that for which he deserved praise.
[Moses’ black Ethiopian wife]
In comparison with him who was “faithful in all God’s house” [Numbers 12:14], sense-perception was set at nothing by the God and father. It was God himself who wedded to Moses the Ethiopian woman, who stands for resolve unalterable, intense, and fixed. For this Moses merits high praise because he took to him the Ethiopian woman, even the nature that has been tried by fire and cannot be changed. For, even as in the eye the part that sees is black, so the soul’s power of vision has the title of woman of Ethiopia.
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Source of translation: F.H. Colson, G. Whitaker, and R. Marcus, Philo, 12 volumes, LCL (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1929-41), public domain (Colson passed away in 1943; Whitaker passed away in 1929; Marcus passed away in 1956), adapted by Harland.