On Flight and Finding

A runaway servant is found by an angel at a spring, and Philo turns her escape into a study of why people flee and what they find.

by Philo of Alexandria74 passages held

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Original title: De fuga et inventione
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

The law of Moses sets aside cities of refuge for anyone who kills another by accident, and lets the killer go home only when the high priest dies. Taken literally, Philo admits, the rule troubles him: some high priests live long and some die young, so two people guilty of the same act may serve exile for decades or for a day. His way out is the one the whole treatise takes. The high priest, he argues, is not a man but the Logos, the divine reason, free of every wrong, intended or not, and the six cities of refuge are the Logos itself and five of God's powers, to which a fallen soul can run. The treatise begins with a runaway. Hagar, Sarah's pregnant Egyptian servant, flees her mistress's harsh treatment and is found by an angel beside a spring in the desert on the road to Shur. From her flight Philo draws a small anatomy of running away: people flee out of hatred, out of fear or out of shame, and Jacob, who ran from Laban and from Esau, supplies examples. From her being found he draws another, sorting those who seek and find, those who find without seeking, those who seek and fail, and those who neither look nor find. The spring itself becomes God, the oldest of fountains, whom the prophet says his people abandoned for leaking cisterns. The Greek title, already in Eusebius's fourth-century list of Philo's works, pairs flight with finding, and the Loeb edition keeps the pairing.

Key concepts

Why is the high priest the Logos in On Flight and Finding?

Because only a priest free of every wrong, intended or not, can end the exile of someone who fell by accident. Read literally, the law made an exile's length depend on one man's lifespan, which troubled Philo. Read as the Logos, the divine reason, the high priest becomes the sinless mediator in whose keeping the fallen soul is safe, and the rule turns from an arbitrary sentence into a picture of refuge.

What are the six cities of refuge in Philo's reading?

They are the Logos and five of God's powers: the creative power by which the world was made, the kingly power by which it is ruled, the merciful power, and the powers that command what is right and forbid what is wrong. They are graded by distance. The strongest runner makes for the divine word, the weaker for a nearer power, so that every kind of fallen soul has a refuge within its reach.

What are the three causes of flight Philo names?

Hatred, fear and shame. People leave those they hate, children and servants run from those they fear, and friends avoid companions they have wronged out of shame. Jacob supplies the first two, fleeing Laban from hatred and Esau from fear, and Hagar the third: she runs from her mistress out of shame, which is why the angel meets her with counsel instead of pleading her case.

What does the spring where Hagar is found stand for?

Several things, and above all God himself. Philo lists the senses in which Scripture speaks of a fountain: the mind, instruction, a bad disposition, a good one, and finally the Creator and Father of all. The last is the oldest of fountains, whom the prophet says his people abandoned for leaking cisterns, so being found beside a spring means being found near the source of wisdom.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Flight, Refuge and the Wrong Nobody Meant

Where can a person run after doing harm they never intended? Philo moves the refuge out of six walled towns and into God's own reason and powers.

Moses sets aside cities of refuge for anyone who kills by accident, and lets the killer go home only when the high priest dies. Taken literally the rule troubled Philo, since the length of an exile would hang on one man's lifespan. He read the high priest as the Logos, free of every wrong, and the six cities as the Logos and five of God's powers, graded by distance: the swift runner makes for the divine word itself, the slower for the creative or the kingly power, and the weakest for the nearer cities of mercy, command and prohibition. Nobody who has fallen is left without a place to run.

divine word
divine powers
sin
repentance
moral responsibility
free will
divine providence

Enter a dialogue

Those Who Seek, and Those Who Find

Does finding the good depend on looking for it? Philo sorts people by whether they seek and whether they find, and the pairings do not come out fair.

The angel finds Hagar beside a spring, and from that finding Philo builds a second anatomy: some seek and find, some find without seeking, some seek and fail, and some neither look nor find. The last he judges hardest, since they had the power to see acutely and let ignorance blind them. Finding without seeking is the lot of those whom good things reach unasked, like cities a people never built and cisterns it never hewed. And the spring itself becomes God, the oldest of fountains, whom the prophet says his people abandoned for cisterns that leak.

inquiry
knowledge
wisdom
innate wisdom
education
contemplation
soul

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 74
distinct concepts: 165
by passages held, corpus-wide: #568

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “education” and “virtue”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 20 pairings. 54 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
education	virtue	5
education	wisdom	5
reason	soul	5
allegory	virtue	4
contemplation	virtue	4
virtue	wisdom	3
allegory	education	2
allegory	reason	2
divine word	reason	2
divine word	soul	2
divine word	virtue	2
education	reason	2
soul	virtue	2
allegory	divine word	1
allegory	soul	1
allegory	wisdom	1
contemplation	divine word	1
contemplation	wisdom	1
education	soul	1
reason	virtue	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Against Flaccus (In Flaccum)
Written as a demonstration of divine justice, this account of the Alexandrian riots of 38 CE and of the prefect Philo blamed for them stands with his historical and apologetic works.
EN
Allegorical Interpretation (Legum allegoriae I–III)
The first surviving treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, Philo's long verse-by-verse reading of Genesis, covering its second and third chapters in three books.
EN
Every Good Man Is Free (Quod omnis probus liber sit)
Written in the manner of the Greek schools rather than as commentary on Moses, it is, with On the Eternity of the World, one of Philo's philosophical treatises.
EN
On Abraham (De Abrahamo)
The first of Philo's lives of the patriarchs in the Exposition of the Law, following On the Creation of the World; its companions on Isaac and Jacob are lost, and On Joseph continues the set.
EN
On Cultivation (De agricultura)
Noah the farmer is a subject Philo splits across two treatises; this first one is built on the difference between near-synonyms, and On Planting continues it.
EN
On Dreams (De somniis I–II)
A treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, in two surviving books on the dreams of Jacob, Joseph and Pharaoh's court.
EN
On Drunkenness (De ebrietate)
Of the two books on drunkenness known in antiquity, this is the one that survives; it sits between On Planting and On Sobriety in the Allegorical Commentary's run on Noah and the vine.
EN
On Flight and Finding (De fuga et inventione) you are here EN
On Joseph (De Josepho)
The life of the statesman in Philo's series of patriarch lives within the Exposition of the Law. It follows On Abraham; lives of Isaac and Jacob, now lost, once stood between them.
EN
On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (De congressu eruditionis gratia)
Philo's reading of Genesis 16 as a theory of education, set within the Allegorical Commentary; On Flight and Finding continues Hagar's story.
EN
On Planting (De plantatione)
The second of Philo's two treatises on Noah as farmer, turning from farming in general to the planting of the vineyard.
EN
On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis et de exsecrationibus)
The closing treatise of the Exposition of the Law, on the rewards, punishments, blessings and curses the Law sets before its hearers.
EN
On Sobriety (De sobrietate)
A short sequel to On Drunkenness in the Allegorical Commentary, on Noah waking and pronouncing his blessings and curse. Its Greek title names exactly that: what Noah prayed for and cursed once sober.
EN
On the Change of Names (De mutatione nominum)
Genesis 17 and its renamings, from Abram and Sarai to Jacob and Joshua, read in the Allegorical Commentary; it also carries Philo's clearest statement that God has no proper name.
EN
On the Cherubim (De Cherubim)
Two short commentaries joined under one title: the cherubim at Eden's gate, then the birth of Cain. Within the Allegorical Commentary it picks up where the three books of Allegorical Interpretation stop.
EN
On the Confusion of Tongues (De confusione linguarum)
The Tower of Babel in the Allegorical Commentary, opening with a defence of Genesis against critics who likened it to Greek myth.
EN
On the Contemplative Life (De vita contemplativa)
A portrait of the Therapeutae, classed with Philo's historical and apologetic writings; it opens by referring back to his account of the Essenes, the active life to this contemplative one.
EN
On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi)
The overture to Philo's Exposition of the Law, the series that goes on to lives of the patriarchs and a code of laws. It stands apart as his reading of the creation story in its literal order.
EN
On the Decalogue (De decalogo)
The hinge of the Exposition of the Law, turning from the lives of the patriarchs to the written law.
EN
On the Embassy to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium)
The companion of Against Flaccus: an eyewitness history of the embassy Philo led to Gaius, and the fullest account he left of his own public life.
EN
On the Eternity of the World (De aeternitate mundi)
Among Philo's philosophical treatises, the one that names the Greek schools and their arguments most openly.
EN
On the Giants and On the Unchangeableness of God (De gigantibus; Quod Deus sit immutabilis)
Two treatises that editions usually separate but that read as one commentary, in the Allegorical Commentary, on the verses of Genesis leading up to the flood.
EN
On the Life of Moses (De vita Mosis I–II)
Philo's biography of Moses in two books, usually counted with the Exposition of the Law though it stands on its own.
EN
On the Migration of Abraham (De migratione Abrahami)
Abraham's call in Genesis 12, read as the soul's migration toward God; in the Allegorical Commentary it follows On the Confusion of Tongues in the order of Genesis.
EN
On the Posterity of Cain (De posteritate Caini)
The last of the Cain treatises in the Allegorical Commentary, following Cain from his exile through his descendants.
EN
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini)
One of the run of treatises on Cain and Abel in the Allegorical Commentary, taking up the brothers' offerings in Genesis 4.
EN
On the Special Laws (De specialibus legibus I–IV)
The largest work in the Exposition of the Law, in four books; it follows On the Decalogue and is followed by On the Virtues.
EN
On the Virtues (De virtutibus)
A pendant to On the Special Laws in the Exposition of the Law, gathering laws under the virtues they train rather than under the Ten Commandments.
EN
The Worse Attacks the Better (Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat)
It follows On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain in the Allegorical Commentary and carries the brothers' story on to the murder itself.
EN
Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit)
Best known for its long passage on the Logos dividing the world into opposites, this reading of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 belongs to the Allegorical Commentary.
EN

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