Insatiable souls: Philo of Alexandria’s readings of food^*

Abstract

While Philo of Alexandria maintained that the pleasure that stems from the consumption of food can overstimulate human desire, he attributed great philosophical significance to the symbolism of food. On the one hand, in De specialibus legibus 4, the food that is permitted for consumption in the Torah is open to philosophical explanation and inspires learning; on the other, Philo connects what he considers to be the most godlike part of humans—the intellect—with a kind of intellectual nourishment, which is accompanied by a transformed pleasure that is not—and cannot be—excessive. In this chapter, I suggest that Philo adopted Platonic food imagery to differentiate between different layers of desire for and enjoyment of food. This, in turn, was a way to articulate the difference, and also the mediation, between the intellectual (noetic) and the sense-perceptible cosmos.

1. INTRODUCTION

In his interpretation of the Septuagint, Philo of Alexandria made ample use of philosophical concepts derived especially from Plato and the Stoics. Presupposing that the soul interacts with both the sensual and intellectual world, he developed a psychology that owes much to Plato in both the concepts he uses and his figurative language. But he also inherited some problems. The liminal status of the embodied soul raises the question of whether its relation to the body puts an insurmountable limit on its happiness. Is the intellect, understood as the most godlike part of an embodied human soul, contaminated by the fact of the soul’s incorporation? Philo is most eager to dissociate the intellectual cosmos (κόσμος νοητός) and that perceived by the senses (ὁρατὸς κόσμος).¹ The fact that all humans need to eat might seem especially problematic in this context.

But Philo has a philosophical and literary strategy to tackle this problem. By highlighting the complementarity between his interpretation of Jewish food laws and his use of food imagery in allegorical readings of the intellect’s longing for God, I will argue that Philo sees no unresolvable contradiction between the soul’s incorporation and the prime importance of a noetic orientation for human beings. The starting point will be his explanation of the Jewish dietary laws in De specialibus legibus 4. While Philo typically understands forbidden food as a stimulus for unrestricted desire (ἐπιθυμία), he interprets food that is permitted as a symbol for learning. This symbolic dimension of food involves a redirection of desire towards its proper objects. Hence, material food, if understood properly, can hint towards the noetic cosmos. By contextualizing Philo’s reading of food, especially in De opificio mundi, we can see that desire is even allowed to be unrestricted if it longs for the nourishment that it can find in the noetic realm. Philo develops a literary strategy that draws on food imagery to give shape to an intellectual desire and pleasure which is nevertheless supposed to be strictly separated from the pitfalls of sensual pleasure.

2. FOOD AS A SYMBOL IN DE SPECIALIBUS LEGIBUS 4

Philo is in complete agreement with the philosophical schools of his time that a life devoted to the pleasures of eating is antagonistic to a life devoted to wisdom. As a ‘philosophically orientated exegete of scripture’,² he demonstrates that the Septuagint Bible contains the resources that permit a healthy relationship with food. He does so extensively in his treatise De specialibus legibus, where he provides a justification of the Ten Commandments on philosophical grounds. In so doing, he integrates other aspects of the Septuagint, including an explanation of cultic practices and behavioural laws.³ In book 4, Philo comments extensively on the tenth commandment, which he reduces to the formula: You shall not desire.⁴ Hans Svebakken has convincingly argued that Philo draws on a characteristically Middle Platonic understanding of ἐπιθυμία in his commentary.⁵ Philo views ἐπιθυμία as a non-rational aspect of the human psyche, which is only potentially, but not categorically, in conflict with the logistikon. Hence, Philo’s understanding of ‘You shall not desire’ can be interpreted as: You shall not let desire dominate your rational capacities.⁶

Reflecting on the proper relation towards desire, Philo takes food as his main subject of discussion. He justifies this choice by arguing that Moses chose the regulation of the desire for food as a ‘paradigmatic instruction’ (παραδειγματικῇ διδασκαλίᾳ, Spec. 4.96). Philo not only sees Moses as a transmitter of texts and laws, but also as an active and thoughtful interpreter. His view of his own work can be understood as offering a rational account of an already perfectly wise Mosaic text. Philo’s purpose is to provide a convincing account of Moses’ message which in his view was already perfectly consistent, but just not always easily graspable for the human intellect.⁷ In doing so, he does not regard his own account of Mosaic reasoning as infallible (e.g. Spec. 1.214), but strives only to give the most convincing explanation of it. His challenge, then, is to uncover a perfectly rational, but partly enigmatic, Mosaic message.⁸

Philo relies on the distinction between permitted and forbidden animals as outlined in Deuteronomy 14:3–21 and Leviticus 11. He reasons that Moses has forbidden the ‘fleshy and fat’ (εὐσαρκότατα καὶ πιότατα, Spec. 4.100) animals of every kind since he ‘recognized that they would ensnare the most slavish of the senses, namely the insatiable sense of taste’ (εἰδὼς ὅτι τὴν ἀνδραποδωδεστάτην τῶν αἰσθήσεων δελεάσαντα γεῦσιν ἀπληστίαν ἐργάσεται, transl. Svebakken 2012 adapted). His examples for this kind of animals are pigs and scaleless aquatic animals, since it would be ‘generally agreed’ (ἀνωμολόγηται, 4.101) that these are the most pleasant to eat. The flesh of the pig is presented as the epitome of fleshy and fatty food that incites ἐπιθυμία to exceed its proper measure. Here, it is clear that Philo is alluding to the sensory experience of consuming meat derived from pigs and scaleless aquatic animals (via the αἰσθήσεις).⁹

Concerning the animals permitted for consumption, Philo makes no direct allusion to dietary experience, but he does reflect on the meaning of specific properties possessed by these animals. I will focus on his discussion of edible land animals:

βάσανον δὲ καὶ δοκιμασίαν τῶν δέκα ζῴων ὑπογράφεται κοινῇ κατὰ διττὰ σημεῖα, τό τε διχηλεῖν καὶ τὸ μηρυκᾶσθαι· οἷς γὰρ ἢ μηδέτερον ἢ θάτερον αὐτὸ μόνον πρόσεστιν, ἀκάθαρτα. ταυτὶ δὲ τὰ σημεῖα ἀμφότερα σύμβολα διδασκαλίας καὶ μαθήσεως ἐπιστημονικωτάτης ἐστίν, ᾗ πρὸς τὸ ἀσύγχυτον τὰ βελτίω τῶν ἐναντίων διακρίνεται. καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ μηρυκώμενον ζῷον, ὅταν διατεμὸν τὴν τροφὴν ἐναπερείσηται τῇ φάρυγγι, πάλιν ἐκ τοῦ κατ’ ὀλίγον ἀνιμᾶται καὶ ἐπιλεαίνει καὶ μετὰ ταῦτ’ εἰς κοιλίαν διαπέμπεται, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ ὁ παιδευόμενος, δεξάμενος δι’ ὤτων τὰ σοφίας δόγματα καὶ θεωρήματα παρὰ τοῦ διδάσκοντος, ἐπὶ πλέον ἔχει τὴν μάθησιν οὐχ οἷός τε ὢν εὐθὺς συλλαβέσθαι καὶ περιδράξασθαι κραταιότερον, ἄχρις ἂν ἕκαστον ὧν ἤκουσεν ἀναπολῶν μνήμῃ συνεχέσι μελέταις—αἱ δ’ εἰσὶ κόλλα νοημάτων—ἐνσφραγίσηται τῇ ψυχῇ βεβαίως τὸν τύπον.

He also provides a simple way of authenticating and approving these ten animals, based on a pair of traits they all exhibit: each has split hooves and chews its cud. Animals that exhibit neither of these traits, or only one of them, are in Moses’ view unclean. Note that both of these traits are symbols of the most enlightened methods of teaching and learning, which can, when put into practice, lead to the clear discernment of moral excellence from its opposite. Consider the ruminating animal. After a few bites are taken, the food settles in its gullet. Then after a short while, bringing it up again, the animal works it into a smoother substance, before finally sending it down into the stomach. In the same way, a student takes in through his ears various philosophical doctrines and theories from his teacher. But unable to comprehend immediately and grasp the lesson firmly, he continues to hold onto it, until by bringing it up again over and over in his memory through repeated exercises, which act as a sort of glue for ideas, he imprints it securely onto his soul. (Spec. 4.106–07, trans. Svebakken 2012)

In this discussion of edible land animals, Philo reflects on two criteria which he finds in the Septuagint: the possession of split hooves (διχηλεῖν) and chewing the cud or rumination (μηρυκᾶσθαι). Philo calls these criteria ‘signs’ (σημεῖα) and ‘symbols’ (σύμβολα). Chewing cud is read as a symbol for the process of imprinting acquired knowledge into memory, and the split hooves are read as a symbol for diairesis (‘division’), which he understands as a method of distinguishing between different ways of life. The way in which these animals and their traits acquire their meaning differs from the argument for abstention from pig meat: it is not required that an animal recommended for consumption should not be tasty. Hence, Philo does not apply the same criteria that he employs for denominating the animals to be avoided. It is not the taste of the animal that is decisive, but the philosophical legibility of specific aspects of their anatomy and behaviour.

Therefore, the split hooves and chewing the cud are two aspects that depart from the sensory-experiential significance of food. Philo’s symbolic understanding of these food prescriptions has a Platonic ring to it.¹⁰ The rumination symbol is reminiscent of the concept of recollection (anamnēsis).¹¹ It is notable that an imprint on the soul takes place only once the teachings and insights of wisdom (τὰ σοφίας δόγματα καὶ θεωρήματα) are committed to memory. This is a shift of emphasis from the wax-block model found in Theaetetus 191c–195a, and also in the Stoic adoptions of this model, which connect the wax-block to perceptual cognition.¹² Philo transposes the wax-block model on to the learning process of philosophical discourse. The second symbol, the split hooves, which Philo associates symbolically with diairesis, seems to be more exclusively related to Platonic concepts. They allude, specifically, to the diairetic method of identifying concepts by distinguishing them from related ones, which is famously applied in the Sophist (219a–226a). In Spec. 4, Philo adopts the split-hooves–diairesis symbol in a peculiar way, as the continuation of his commentary shows:

ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν ὡς ἔοικεν ὄφελος ἡ τῶν νοημάτων βεβαία κατάληψις, εἰ μὴ προσγένοιτο διαστολὴ τούτων καὶ διαίρεσις εἴς τε αἵρεσιν ὧν χρὴ καὶ φυγὴν τῶν ἐναντίων, ἧς τὸ διχηλοῦν σύμβολον· ἐπεὶ τοῦ βίου διττὴ ὁδός, ἡ μὲν ἐπὶ κακίαν, ἡ δ’ ἐπ’ ἀρετὴν ἄγουσα, καὶ δεῖ τὴν μὲν ἀποστρέφεσθαι, τῆς δὲ μηδέποτε ἀπολείπεσθαι.

But the firm grasp of ideas, it seems, does no good at all without the added ability of sorting through them and making decisions about which to accept and which to reject. This ability to discriminate appears under the symbol of the split hoof, indicating that there are just two roads in life: one leading to vice and one leading to virtue, and we must turn from one and never leave the other. (Spec. 4.108, trans. Svebakken 2012)

Philo embeds the symbolic connection between the split hoof and diairesis in a decidedly ethical context, that of deciding the right path in life. Whoever possesses the method of διαίρεσις will, in principle, have the capacity to make well-grounded decisions regarding their bios, their way of life.¹³ The fact that Philo uses Stoic terminology when referring to a βεβαία κατάληψις does not indicate an orthodox Stoic position, but rather that he draws on the Stoic, and Middle Platonic, presupposition that the attainment of secure knowledge is possible.¹⁴ The symbol of the split hooves–diairesis enables the eater/reader to determine which kinds of knowledge domains are worth ruminating and remembering. Both chewing cud and the split hoof turn out to be epistemic tools that enable one to live a virtuous life.

How can the difference in arguing between the sense-related pleasure of eating pork and the intellectual benefit of eating cud-chewing animals with split hooves be explained? Whereas the argument about the pig concerns the actual practice of eating, the second reading is qualified as signs (σημεῖα) and symbols (σύμβολα).¹⁵ It is noteworthy, however, that these symbols, too, relate to actual animals. For this reason, Philo’s symbolic reading does not fall prey to a simplistic dualism that would deprive sensory experience of ethical significance. Not only in De specialibus legibus—which amply documents Philo’s insistence on the observance of ritual laws—but also throughout many other writings he emphasizes that a literal understanding and observance of the Torah is of key importance.¹⁶ The fact that food can also acquire an allegorical and exclusively soul-related meaning shows that food can also lend itself to the longing for wisdom. This becomes even more apparent when Philo demonstrates that the longing for divine wisdom can itself be understood as a kind of nourishment for the soul, as we will now see.

3. READINGS OF THE INSATIABLE

Philo’s interpretation of permitted food as a symbol for an epistemically and ethically virtuous life in De specialibus legibus is an attempt to integrate the material aspects of life into a meaningful unity of a philosophical bios. His understanding of food as a symbol is closely connected with the technique of allegorical readings of the Septuagint. It is noteworthy that the difference between allegory and symbol is minimal in Philo’s writings: while the term ‘symbol’ denominates an object that has an ‘other’ and ‘deeper’ meaning, Philo typically speaks of allegory (or of the verb ἀλληγορεῖν) when referring to the subject. That is, on the one hand, the writer and lawgiver (i.e. Moses),¹⁷ who is supposed to have written with a deeper meaning in mind, and, on the other hand, the reader who is supposed to understand when an allegorical reading is appropriate.¹⁸ Therefore, allegory and symbol are concepts that require the reader’s search for a meaning which does not necessarily lie on the surface of a text, but in a different (e.g. philosophical) metatext.

Now, how does food lend itself to the allegorically attuned reader? When referring to food and the pleasure of consuming it, Philo insistently connects it with excessive temptations. He associates the belly and the sense of taste with vicious and even unphilosophical behaviour.¹⁹ The sense of taste is consistently considered the least philosophical of the senses, whereas sight (in accordance with Plato) is regarded as the most akin to the intellect.²⁰ Hence, the belly and the sense of taste are described as the most distant from a philosophical way of life. At the end of De opificio mundi, the ‘lover of lust’ (φιλήδονος), who desires nothing but the (impossible) fulfilment of ἐπιθυμία for food and sexual pleasure, is the protagonist of a failed and vicious way of life. Imitating the snake in Eden, the lover of lust is drawn to the earth and its fruits. Interestingly, however, Philo contrasts the lover of lust with the lover of learning, who is fed by a ‘heavenly food’ (οὐράνιον τροφήν).²¹ Therefore, Philo’s allegorical readings not only criticize a way of life that ignores the noetic cosmos, but they also interpret ‘words and doctrines’ (λόγων καὶ δογμάτων) as a kind of intellectual food one ought to long for.

In De migratione Abrahami, Philo also contrasts a life devoted to (apparently) immediate pleasures of food with the longing for a true and heavenly nourishment that entails the attainment of wisdom and happiness. Philo interprets Abraham’s escape from Chaldea as a flight from the senses. In accordance with De specialibus legibus, the senses are depicted as a potential threat to the philosophical life, with the sense of taste and the belly being the lowest of the senses. In Migr. 204, Philo contends that a feast for the senses leads to hunger for the intellect—and vice versa.²² The reversed imagery of an intellect that can be hungry and can feast recurs in the following passage. In Migr. 205, the unforgettable in memory is called the best and most nourishing fruit of the soul.²³ This passage imagines an intellectual foodstuff for the soul that is entirely distinct from material food.²⁴ The similarity with material food lies in the agent’s dependence upon this food (and its donor, i.e. God) as well as respective states of hunger and enjoyment. The difference is that what cannot be forgotten is always abundantly available—though the soul has to go for it.

Just as the body longs for food, the soul longs for its own foodstuff—namely understanding. The most prominent image for the activity of the intellect is that of the eye and of light. Echoing Plato and especially the Timaeus, Philo describes the sense of sight as the most philosophical of the senses.²⁵ However, it is worth remarking that the imagery of sight is supplemented with gustatory imagery in two passages of De opificio mundi. In Opif. 53–54, where Philo comments on the creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day of Genesis, the intellect (νοῦς) is represented as the eye of the soul.²⁶ Owing to the creation of light, humans can see the perfect movements of the planets, which instils a desire to know and, hence, to philosophize. This perfect movement is a synaesthetic feast for the eye:

… χορείας τε πάντων ἐμμελεῖς νόμοις τοῖς μουσικῆς τελείας διακεκοσμημένας, ἄλεκτον ἐμπαρεῖχε τῇ ψυχῇ τέρψιν τε καὶ ἡδονήν· ἡ δ᾿ ἑστιωμένη θεαμάτων ἐπαλλήλων, ἐξ ἑτέρων γὰρ ἦν ἕτερα, πολλὴν ἀπληστίαν εἶχε τοῦ θεωρεῖν·

When sight [ὅρασις] observed the concordant choral dances of all these [movements of heavenly bodies], ordered with the laws of perfect musicality, it instilled in the soul unspeakable delight and pleasure. Feasting on a succession of spectacles, the one following after the other, the soul was filled with an insatiable desire for contemplation. (Opif. 54, trans. Runia 2001)

We see here that the observation of the heavens develops into a longing full of relish that is supplemented with imagery of eating and feasting. The sense of sight is explicitly represented as the most philosophical sense, which can perceive the musicality of the dances of heavenly bodies, but the soul’s attitude towards these domains of perfect knowledge is portrayed in gastronomical (or even gastrosophical) terms. The intellect is presented as capable of consumption and enjoyment.²⁷ Even more interestingly, the νοῦς is described as insatiable for contemplation (πολλὴν ἀπληστίαν εἶχε τοῦ θεωρεῖν). In this context, the attribute of being ‘insatiable’ clearly has a positive connotation, since the object of desire—the planets within their perfect movement—represents an object of infinite (sensual and intellectual) awe.²⁸ This contrasts strongly with a depiction of sensual ἀπληστία, which brings disorder to the soul.²⁹

In Opif. 70–71, the connection between intellectual vision and intellectual enjoyment comes up again. Pondering on the significance of humans being created after God’s image, Philo describes the ascent of the intellect to the celestial realms:

καὶ ὧν εἶδεν ἐνταῦθα αἰσθητῶν ἐν ἐκείνῃ τὰ παραδείγματα καὶ τὰς ἰδέας θεασάμενος, ὑπερβάλλοντα κάλλη, μέθῃ νηφαλίῳ κατασχεθεὶς ὥσπερ οἱ κορυβαντιῶντες ἐνθουσιᾷ, ἑτέρου γεμισθεὶς ἱμέρου καὶ πόθου βελτίονος, ὑφ’ οὗ πρὸς τὴν ἄκραν ἁψῖδα παραπεμφθεὶς τῶν νοητῶν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν ἰέναι δοκεῖ τὸν μέγαν βασιλέα· γλιχομένου δ’ ἰδεῖν, ἀθρόου φωτὸς ἄκρατοι καὶ ἀμιγεῖς αὐγαὶ χειμάρρου τρόπον ἐκχέονται, ὡς ταῖς μαρμαρυγαῖς τὸ τῆς διανοίας ὄμμα σκοτοδινιᾶν.

And when the intellect has observed in that realm the models and forms of the sense-perceptible things which it had seen here, objects of overwhelming beauty, it then, possessed by a sober drunkenness, becomes enthused like the Corybants. Filled with another longing and a higher form of desire, which has propelled it to the utmost vault of the intelligibles, it thinks it is heading towards the Great King himself. But as it strains to see, pure and unmixed beams of concentrated light pour forth like a torrent, so that the eye of the mind, overwhelmed by the flashing lights, suffers from vertigo. (Opif. 71, trans. Runia 2001, modified)

In this melting-pot of imagery of inebriation, vision, and erotic attraction, two aspects are notable. First, the intellectual joy that relates to understanding is distinct from joy related to sensuality. The enjoyment itself is not the intellect’s aim; rather, it comes as a by-product. Secondly, the oxymoron of ‘sober drunkenness’ evokes an ecstatic, albeit not irrational state of the intellect.³⁰ The human intellect strives to grasp the highest objects, which turn out to be overwhelming for it. But the soul is in no way impaired in this heavenly journey. The intellect’s sober drunkenness discovers great benefits in the grandeur of the object which it desires. Unlike the insatiable desire of food-oriented ἐπιθυμία, the ‘higher form of desire’ of the soberly inebriated νοῦς brings the soul to the closest vicinity with God, even though an insuperable gulf between the divine and human νοῦς still persists.

4. THE PLEASURE OF THE INTELLECT—A PLATONIC TASTING

Both the explanation of the dietary laws in De specialibus legibus and the account of creation in De opificio mundi emphasize the superiority of intellectual over material food: while the recommended food hints towards ethical concepts of learning, the highest part of the soul—the intellect—has an infinite hunger for its proper object, i.e. God. We have seen that food for the body is depicted by Philo as potentially harmful for the soul, whereas food that benefits the soul is knowledge that allows one to lead a happy life. Each type of food entails a specific type of pleasure. The pleasure that is solely related to the body is unstable and brings disorder to the soul. Regarding corporeal pleasure, Philo draws on an Epicurean distinction and only admits kinetic but not a katastematic pleasure that would arise from a painless state, as Carlos Lévy has argued.³¹ In Philo’s view, all corporeal pleasure is related to the satiation or elimination of a need, and is therefore dependent upon its opposite state (e.g. the pleasure of eating to the pain of hunger).³² Corporeal pleasure is never moved by itself, but only by the necessity to fulfil a disturbing need. Thus, it lacks an essential characteristic of the soul as it is described by the Platonic Socrates in the Phaedrus (245c–246a), namely, the capacity to be moved by itself.³³

As we have seen, Philo repeatedly uses the vocabulary of pleasure and enjoyment (ἡδονή, τέρψις, and ἀπόλαυσις) when referring to the intellect’s ascent. Since Philo allows only for kinetic corporeal pleasure, we might ask how the pleasure that relates to the intellect is to be understood. It is worth noting that in many of the passages which connect intellectual pleasure with food imagery, such as Opif. 54, the hunger of the intellect is not part of the biblical text. In other words, the figurative, food-related language does not belong to the explanandum, but to the explanans.³⁴ Philo deals with the idea that there is a specific enjoyment related to the activity of the intellect. Intellectual enjoyment differs from corporeal enjoyment: whereas corporeal enjoyment draws on the desire for finite matter, incorporeal enjoyment feasts on ideas, which are never exhausted. This explains why the ἀπληστία τοῦ θεωρεῖν refers to a categorically different insatiability: the intellect never has its fill of the ideas, which are infinitely available to it.³⁵ Therefore, the pleasure of the intellect is still kinetic, insofar as it responds to a constitutive lack and, hence, a desire. This desire, however, does not cause any pain insofar as its object is never in shortage.

This idea of painless insatiability shows, once again, that Philo was not only an astute, but also a free-spirited reader of Plato. Philo’s allegorizing of a hunger for wisdom that nourishes the best part of the soul has an important intertext in the Phaedrus. When speaking of the chariot as a model for the human soul, Socrates distinguishes between ‘apparent food’ (τροφῇ δοξαστῇ), which feeds the horses when true being is lost from sight, and uplifting nourishment, which grows on the meadow of truth for the best part of the soul.³⁶ Here we find an equivalent distinction between food that constantly brings disorder to the soul and food that lifts the soul into a realm of heavenly bliss (i.e. true knowledge) without causing any damage (ἀεὶ ἀβλαβῆ εἶναι, 248c).³⁷ The idea that two kinds of food exist—one that draws the psyche to the realm of the bodily senses, which lacks secure knowledge, and another which uplifts the soul to the truth—also serves to illustrate the difference between corporeal and intellectual desire and enjoyment in both the commentary on food laws and in his account of visio Dei in De opificio mundi, as I have tried to show.

However, insatiability is much more important as the philosopher’s adequate attitude in Philo than in Plato. In the Republic, ἀπληστία is attributed to the defective types of souls and cities because they are characterized by an infinite longing for finite goods (honour in the timocracy, money in the oligarchy, freedom in the democracy, and power in the oligarchy).³⁸ In book 9, the Platonic Socrates distinguishes those who understand pleasure only in corporeal (and especially culinary) terms from those who, in filling their intellect with Being, have thus tasted a solid and purified pleasure (βεβαίου τε καὶ καθαρᾶς ἡδονῆς ἐγευσαντο).³⁹ The intellect is associated with gustatory pleasure here, but not with ἀπληστία, which is only attributed to a defective order of the soul. Only in Republic 475c Socrates maintains that a philosopher ought to have an insatiable longing (ἀπλήστως ἔχοντα) for learning. This positive idea of insatiable hunger as the appropriate attitude for philosophy is further substantiated by Philo. His attribution of ἀπληστία to the intellect in Opif. 53 highlights that the intellect’s defect, that is, its lack of understanding of the heavens, instils a longing to contemplate God’s creation. In this and further passages, Philo consistently connects pleasure, contemplation, and insatiability as the philosopher’s way towards the intelligible cosmos.⁴⁰

The recontextualization of aspects that are related to the sense-perceptible cosmos into the noetic sphere allows Philo to kill two birds with one stone, as it were. For one, it enables him to say that the consumption of food in the sensual realm is an insufficient pleasure because it does not fulfil what it promises, i.e. there is no real satisfaction and corporeal ἀπληστία turns out to be a perpetual mode of unhappiness. And, secondly, it means the subordinate nature of the sense-bound realm can only be understood by turning to the noetic realm. Only here does it turn out that enjoyment and hungry longing are not bad per se, so long as they are directed towards an infinitely rewarding object, namely the noetic cosmos, which can be recognized via God’s logos. This intellectualist recontextualization of both food laws and food and drink imagery allows Philo to give shape, as well as a literary appeal, to the activity of the intellect.

5. CONCLUSION

By way of conclusion, we can note that attending to Philo’s readings of food as matter and as symbol shines light on his differentiation between the sensual and the noetic sphere. His reading of the food laws attempts to show that the food which is permitted in the Septuagint lends itself to philosophical legibility. Thus, Philo does not see material existence as an insuperable impediment to a philosophical life. By placing this interpretation in the context of other passages dealing with the activity of the intellect, we have seen that Philo deliberately uses food imagery to flesh out the possibilities of a reflected form of pleasure that comes as the by-product of desire for a knowledge of God.

Philo consistently portrays the embodied human psyche as participating in both the noetic and sensual cosmos. This essentially Platonic conception allows one to attribute very different semantic content to identical words (such as ἀπληστία). As in Plato’s Phaedrus, references to food can serve as a paradigm for a Bedeutungsverschiebung (a ‘transference of meaning’). While a life dedicated to the pleasures of bodily food fails to achieve a philosophical bios, the longing for wisdom itself can also be enjoyed as a food-like pleasure, but one that does not suffer from the deficiencies of corporeal food.

Footnotes