Nm 21,4-9 en la interpretació al·legòrica de Filó d'Alexandria

Philo applies philosophy to interpret the episode of Numbers 21 symbolically(συμβολικῶς φιλοσοφεῖσθαι). This study first of all looks at De opificiomundi 154-158, 164, which presents a commentary on Genesis 3: the tree oflife and of knowledge is a type, a symbol of an allegorical truth. De LegumAllegoriae 2,71-87 is based on the statement there was ‘a third somethingwhich acted as a bond between … love and desire, and pleasure (ἡδονὴ), notobtaining the dominion and mastery, which pleasure Moses here speaks ofsymbolically, under the emblem of the serpent.’ The serpent which Moseslifted up, being comparable to the hardness of bronze, points to temperance,as opposed to intemperance (ἀκρασία). In Leg. 2,92, with the serpent changedinto a stick, pleasure is mastered and becomes instruction, while in Leg.3,169, the dew over the camp (Num. 11.7) is ‘the Logos of the Lord, which isthe word that holds everything together’. In De Agricultura, Dan becomes ajudge, like a serpent near the road. The philosophical and allegorical methodof Philo, in a Hellenistic milieu, introduces a method of interpretation whichwill be taken up in the first centuries of Christianity.