Rediscovering Ancient Wisdom

Philo, On Jacob’s Dream

Christian Platonism
catholicgnosis.wordpress.com/2019/12/09/philo-on-jacobs-dream/

Jacob’s Dream (detail), St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh

WHETHER they exist as metaphysical entities or not, angels are certainly psychologically
real — that is, as certain inspirations, communications, subtle insights and promptings and high
contemplative experiences that we consider ‘angelic.’ Angels, therefore, are, in terms of Jungian
psychology, archetypally real; this is also evident from the proliferation of the angel motif in art,
folklore, myth, etc.
The classic treatment of angels in the Bible is the story of Jacob’s Ladder in Genesis, which
Philo addressed in his work, On Dreams.. Philo — the great allegorical exegete of the Pentateuch
— didn’t write a great many words about this, but what he did write great words!

Note a certain asymmetry with regard to ascending and descending angels in Philo’s discussion.
The ascending ones involve the drawing up of our minds to thoughts and ‘spectacles,’ whereas
the descending angels heal and quicken the soul. Philo associates angels with the logoi of God,
which we may understand as God’s ‘words’, i.e., discrete units of God’s will which direct the
world (or, in this case, our mind):

[146]
XXIII. Such then is that which in the universe is figuratively called stairway. If we
consider that which is so called in human beings we shall find it to be soul. Its foot is
sense-perception, which is as it were the earthly element in it, and its head, the mind
which is wholly unalloyed, the heavenly element, as it may be called.
[147]
Up and down throughout its whole extent are moving incessantly the “words” [λόγοι] of
God, drawing it up with them when they ascend and disconnecting it with what is mortal,
and exhibiting to it the spectacle of the only objects worthy of our gaze; and when they
descend not casting it down, for neither does God nor does a divine Word cause harm,
but condescending out of love for man and compassion for our race, to be helpers and
comrades, that with the healing of their breath they may quicken into new life the soul
which is still borne along in the body as in a river.
[148]
In the understandings of those who have been purified to the utmost the Ruler of the
universe walks noiselessly, alone, invisibly, for verily there is an oracle once vouchsafed
to the Sage, in which it is said: “I will walk in you, and will be your God” (Lev. 26:12):
but in the understandings of those who are still undergoing cleansing and have not yet
fully washed their life defiled and stained by the body’s weight there walk angels, divine
words, making them bright and clean with the doctrines* of all that is good and
beautiful.

Source: Philo, On Dreams (De somniis) 1.146ff, tr. Colson & Whitaker, p. 375.
* this word is uncertain in manuscripts.

Bibliography
Colson, F.H.; Whitaker, G. H. On Dreams. In: Philo in Ten Volumes, Vol. 5. Loeb Classical
Library, Cambridge, MA, 1938.