On the Cherubim

Two guardians at Eden's gate and a mother's boast at Cain's birth lead Philo to one claim: nothing a person holds is theirs.

by Philo of Alexandria54 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: De Cherubim
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

Eve names her first son Cain, from a word meaning possession, and says she has gained a man through God. Philo hears in that sentence the mind's oldest mistake: the belief that anything it holds is its own. He compares it to the boast told of Alexander the Macedonian king, who looked out over Europe and Asia and declared both his, and he answers it with the Law's own words, that the land belongs to God and its people are strangers and sojourners. Skills can be forgotten and the body fails; God grants the use of them and keeps the ownership. All this is the treatise's second part. The first turns to the cherubim and the flaming sword set at the gate of Eden after the expulsion: Philo reads the two cherubim as God's two chief powers, goodness and sovereignty, and the sword as reason, which joins them. He presents that reading as something his own soul told him in a moment of inspiration, and later in the book he says he learned the deepest mysteries from Moses and then took the prophet Jeremiah as a second teacher. The book belongs to the Allegorical Commentary on Genesis, and the Loeb Classical Library prints it at the head of its second Philo volume, before the treatises on Abel and Cain that continue the story.

Key concepts

What does Cain's name mean in On the Cherubim?

Cain means possession, and Philo makes the name a diagnosis. When Eve says she has gained a man through God, she speaks for the mind that believes whatever it holds belongs to it. Cain is that belief given a body: self-love that treats gifts as property. The rest of the second part argues against it, by showing that nothing a person has is theirs to keep.

What do the two cherubim at Eden's gate stand for?

They stand for God's two chief powers, goodness and sovereignty. Goodness is the power by which God made the world at all; sovereignty is the power by which he rules what he made. Placing them at the gate of Eden means a soul cannot come near God by knowing only one of them: fear without love, or love without awe, both miss him.

What is the flaming sword in Philo's reading?

The flaming sword is reason, which joins God's two powers of goodness and sovereignty. It is fiery and turning because reason moves swiftly and never rests. Placed between the two cherubim, it holds together what a soul might otherwise pull apart, so that God is grasped as both ruler and benefactor at once rather than as one or the other.

What does it mean to be strangers and sojourners in On the Cherubim?

It means living in a world that belongs to God as a guest rather than an owner. Philo takes the phrase from the Law, which says that the land is God's and its people are strangers and sojourners with him. Everything a person uses, from the land to their own skills and body, is granted for use, while the ownership stays with God.

Themes of the book

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

Nothing a Person Holds Is Their Own

What changes when a person stops saying mine? Philo's answer is that the use of everything is granted and the ownership never is.

Eve names her first son Cain, from a word meaning possession, and says she has gained a man through God. Philo hears in it the mind's oldest mistake, the belief that anything it holds is its own, and sets it beside Alexander, who looked out over Europe and Asia and called both his. The answer comes from the Law itself: the land belongs to God, and its people are strangers and sojourners. Skills can be forgotten and the body fails, so what a person has is lent, and the lender keeps the title.

ownership
divine ownership
pride
mortality
fortune
happiness
change
suffering
moral responsibility

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The Two Powers at Eden's Gate

Is God to be loved for his goodness or feared for his rule? The cherubim at the gate answer that he must be known as both, and held together by reason.

After the expulsion, Genesis sets cherubim and a flaming sword at the gate of Eden. Philo reads the two cherubim as God's two chief powers, goodness and sovereignty, and the sword as reason, which joins them. By sovereignty God rules what he made; by goodness he made it at all; a soul that knows only one of the two knows God wrongly. Philo presents this reading as something his own soul told him in a moment of inspiration, and later in the book names Moses and then the prophet Jeremiah as his teachers.

divine attributes
divine causation
divine providence
reason
cosmology
allegory
knowledge
causation

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 54
distinct concepts: 124
by passages held, corpus-wide: #645

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 10 pairings. 47 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
education	virtue	4
allegory	virtue	3
soul	virtue	3
allegory	cosmology	2
divine causation	virtue	2
divine ownership	virtue	2
allegory	soul	1
cosmology	divine causation	1
cosmology	ownership	1
education	soul	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)
Hagar's flight and the angel who finds her, Genesis 16:6–14, read within the Allegorical Commentary.
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) you are here 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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