This article is an abstract of my doctoral dissertation,"El De Somniis de Filón de Alejandría", defended in Madrid (Universidad Complutense), September 12th. 1995. I want to thank my research supervisor, Prof. Dr. Luis Gil Fernández for all his wise guidance and patience all these years, and my friend Aristotle Papanikolaou, for his invaluable help in the revision of this paper.

Among the many issues worth studying in Philo Alexandrinus’s De Somniis, one of the most intriguing is the missing first book. Only the second and third books survived in the manuscript tradition, which are numbered Books I and II respectively. This study will focus on this lost book of the De Somniis. Specifically, I will attempt to determine its contents through an examination of the structure which lies behind the extant texts.

A three-fold dream classification
We know that the text of the treatise De Somniis is not complete. Both Philo and Eusebius of Caesarea attest to the existence of a first book. At the beginning of the second book of the De Somniis (Book I), Philo himself refers to a previous book. Eusebius tells us about Philo’s work in his Historia Ecclesiastica (II, 18) and includes De Somniis as a treatise divided into five books. An analysis of the existing books, however, will reveal that there were, in fact, only three books, which means that only one is missing.(1)

The reason for doubting Eusebius is the threefold dream classification underlying the whole treatise. Each book talks about one type of dream within this classification, which was probably inherited from Posidonius of Apamea, or at the very least from the Stoic tradition.(2) This dream classification identified dreams according to their source and origin. All dreams are God-sent, but their source is different: either God, immortal souls or the soul of the dreamer. Fortunately, Cicero preserves this classification in his De Divinatione (I, 64): "Now (Posidonius) holds the view that there are three ways in which men dream as a result of divine impulse: first, the soul is clairvoyant of itself because of its kinship with the Gods; second, the air is full of immortal souls, already clearly stamped, as it were, with the marks of the truth; and third, the Gods in person converse with men when they are asleep." (3)

If we compare this short description of Posidonius’s classification with Philo’s introductory words at the beginning of each book we find very important similarities. About the first type of dream, which corresponds to Cicero-Posidonius’s third type, he says: "The treatise before this one embraced that first class of heaven sent dreams, in which, as we said, the Deity of His own motion sends to us these visions which are presented to us in sleep" (Somn. I, 1). He speaks of this type of dream later in the De Somniis (II, 2-3) as one which conveys an unambiguous meaning: "In accordance with these distinctions, the Sacred Guide gave a perfectly clear and lucid interpretation of the appearances which come under the first description, inasmuch as the intimations given by God through these dreams were of the nature of plain oracles."

Philo describes the second type of dream as follows (Somn. I, 2): "The second kind of dream is that in which our mind, moving out of itself together with the Mind of the Universe, seems to be possessed and God-inspired, and so capable of receiving some foretaste and foreknowledge of things to come." He later adds: "You see that the Divine word proclaims as dreams sent from God not only those which appear before the mind under the direct action of the Highest of Causes, but those also which are revealed through the agency of His interpreters and attendant messengers who have been held meet to receive from the Father to Whom they owe their being a divine and happy portion" (I, 90).

This Mind of the Universe is the Divine Logos, who occupies in this case the same level as God’s messengers, the angels, in this hierarchy of the Divine. In this type of dream, God does not appear to the dreamer, but he sends his angels to deliver His message. Moreover, these dreams, according to Philo (Somn. II, 3), are more ambiguous than the first type.

The dreams of the third type are those in which the soul, provided with a prophetic power, foretells the future (Somn. II, 1): "This third class of dreams arises whenever the soul in sleep, setting itself in motion and agitation of its own accord, becomes frenzied, and with the prescient power due to such inspiration foretells the future." This third class is the most obscure and requires the art of a wise interpreter.

If we believe Eusebius when he said that this treatise contained five books, then we must think about a five-fold classification of dreams, instead of a three-fold, since, as shown, Philo dedicates one whole book to every kind of dream. We can point to a five-fold classification of dreams found in the writings of Artemidorus of Daldis and Macrobius.(4) Their classifications seem to have the same origin, though Macrobius may have inherited it directly from Artemidorus. The dreams are divided according to their form, and not their origin. There are three kinds of predictive and two kinds of nonpredictive dreams:

1. The oneiros or somnium: an allegorical dream, which requires an interpretation of its symbols.
2. The horama or visio: the literal predictive dream, which shows the events just as they are going to happen.
3. The chrematismos or oraculum: an apparition of God or another person who foretells the future.

The nonpredictive dreams are two: enupnion or insomnium, a dream without predictive value; and the phantasma or visum, a dream containing a frightening apparition.(5) We also learn from Chalcidius's Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus of another dream classification. His was a five-fold, (perhaps four-fold classification) (6): 1) dreams produced by physical or psychical causes; 2) by the divine omnipotence; 3) by the love that heavenly powers have for men; 4) seen even during wakefulness and in which men see the future with the help of God; and 5) the revelatio, which is a general type of dream in which the future may be seen.

It is not possible to compare or connect these classifications with each other or with Philo’s. Each has a different origin and purpose. Artemidorus's classification is a popular one whose aim is the interpretation of actual dreams that people used to have and which classified dreams according to their form or manifestation. Philo's is a philosophical classification based on literary dreams, which, as said, classifies dreams according to their origin.(7) Nonpredictive dreams cannot be part of Philo's classification, since he entitled his treatise On dreams, that they are God-sent.

Chalcidius does use, like Philo, a classification of dreams according to their origin. Philo, however, was probably not the direct source for his classification. The expression Hebraica Philosophia, which he uses when he mentions the origin of the theory he exposes, does not refer necessarily to a work by Philo. It is more probable that Chalcidius had a creative spirit and that he created a new classification using elements of different origin.

Three types of Life

The threefold dream-classification is one framework underlying Philo's treatise. But there are others that can help us to recover the first lost book. According to Philo, there are three types of life: contemplative, active life and the life in pleasure. The first one is the most excellent, in which the soul is free from all passions and has reached a state of apatheia. The active life follows. In it, the soul struggles against the body with its the passions and pleasures. The third one is the life of the soul drowning in the material pleasures of life.(8)

Each of these three types of life is represented in some way by a Patriarch. The contemplative life is the "life of the self-taught", and is represented by Isaac. The active life is both the life which results from teaching, represented by Abraham, and the life of practice, represented by Jacob. The life in pleasure, or the life in the body is represented by Joseph.(9) The connection of these three types of life with the structure of our treatise can be explained in Philo's own words:

The lawgiver says that virtue is gained either by nature or by practice or by learning, and has accordingly recorded the patriarchs of the nation as three in number, all wise men. They had not at the start the same form of character, but they were all bent on reaching the same goal. Abraham, the earliest of them, had teaching as his guide on the way that leads to the good and beautiful, as we shall show to the best of our ability in another treatise. Isaac who comes between him and Jacob had as his guide a nature which listens and learns from itself alone. Jacob, the third of them, relied on exercises and practisings preparatory for the strenuous toil of the arena. There being, then, three methods by which virtue accrues, it is the first and third that are most intimately connected (Somn. I, 167-168).

The Patriarchs and the mystical journey towards perfection
Jacob and Abraham are the central figures in the first of the two surviving books of the treatise. Isaac has to be the core of the first lost book. But these three men can also be found in Philo's "mystical triad", the three steps towards perfection, which is also evident in the first extant book. In his first surviving book, Philo comments, using the allegorical method, on Gen. 28: 12-13, Jacob's dream about the ladder to Heaven. But he begins his commentary on verses 10-11, as an introduction to this vision: "Jacob left Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place, and stayed there at night, because the sun had set."

For Philo, the main theme in this book is the mystical journey of the soul towards perfection and the consecutive steps necessary for this journey. Here Haran is the symbol for the body and the senses. The journey to Haran is interpreted as the gnôthi seautón, or "know yourself", and it is considered by Philo as the first stage in the journey of the soul towards perfection, towards the contemplation of God. Jacob has left Beer-sheba, the "Well of Oath", which is the symbol for science or knowledge. This means that the ascetic Jacob leaves the contemplation of nature and heads for the contemplation of himself. In knowing oneself lies the beginning of knowing God, because the acceptance of the insignificance of man leads to the comprehension of God's greatness. But Jacob, the lover of virtue, dwells in Haran, the body, as in a foreign land for a little while, with his mind ever set on the return to his home (Somn. I, 45).

Throughout the first book, Philo relates this mystical journey to the contemplation of God, whose phases are symbolised by patriarchs. Philo explains the progress with the triad Abraham, Jacob and Isaac (in this order) in I, 170. Abraham, guided by his faith emigrated from Chaldaea, symbol of the body and nature, and then from Haran, the material life, and as seen, the "know yourself". He represents the step of "learning". Jacob represents the next step, that of the ascetic. His soul knows where the truth is to be found, and he is on his way toward this truth. Isaac is the most excellent of the three of them. He has natural knowledge and needs no practice. He is already perfect.

Philo dedicated the whole book II to the explanation of the life in pleasure, and Joseph is the figure who represents such a life. In this book, Philo comments on the text of the dreams of Joseph (Gen. 37), of Pharaoh's butler and baker (Gen. 40) and of Pharaoh himself (Gen. 41). These dreams are presented as dreams from the soul, as Philo explains at the beginning of the book. But the interpretation of the texts does not fit with the description of the third type of God-sent dreams in Philo's classification. This may prove that Philo did not create the classification but inherited it from Posidonius.

In the description at the beginning of book II, these dreams are the visions that the soul sees due to its kinship to the Divine. But throughout book II they are presented as those of the soul drowned in passions, the soul blinded by vainglory in the case of Joseph, by bodily passions in the case of the servants, and every possible passion in the case of the Pharaoh. There is no prophecy, no truth shown in these visions.

The fact that Joseph is the centre of this book is also the reason why he is not included in the mystical triad, the three steps in the way to perfection. Joseph represents the soul that has not even noticed that it has lost its way.

Structure of the treatise as a combination of different frames

We observe that all the classifications exposed form all together a structure for De Somniis. They coincide and give us much information about the lost book.

Putting all this together we get the following scheme:

Philo uses a classification of dreams to construct a treatise whose real aim is to present the types of soul and their possibility of communicating with God.(10) The most perfect soul deserves to see God Himself, the practising soul deserves to see the angels sent by God, or the Divine Logos, which belongs to the same level in the hierarchy of the Divine. The imperfect soul does not deserve to see any true visions. As Philo says, they see themselves, their own "folly and madness" (Somn. II 163).

The contents of the lost book

The contents of the lost book can be inferred from the structure of the treatise discussed above. The central figure must be a Patriarch considered perfect by Philo. As we saw, this Patriarch is Isaac, although Moses, who for Philo is a model of the perfect soul, could also be the centre of the lost book.(11) The problem is that he first appears in Exodus. Since one of Philo's purposes in the De Somniis is a running commentary of the text of Genesis, the central figure of the lost book must be Isaac.

Once accepted that Isaac is the principal figure, the next step is to locate the text in Genesis that would form the basis for a commentary by Philo in the lost book. It must be a text situated between Gen. 17 and 27, since Philo comments on Gen. 17 in the book which preceded De Somniis, De mutatione mominis (On the change of names), and since the preserved text of De Somniis starts on Gen. 27. Some scholars have thought of Abimelech's dream in Gen. 20 as a possibility.(12) Such an interpretation seems improbable, since Abimelech's soul lacks the perfection required to receive a vision from God.

I propose the text in Gen. 26: "And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abim'elech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him, and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you (...)’". In my opinion, this text offers Philo good material for his commentaries. The only problem is that it is not a dream seen while sleeping, but an apparition, a waking vision.

The fact, however, that it is a waking vision is not an hindrance, if we consider that, for Philo, ecstasy is a requirement for the contemplation of God. The last step on the way to God, after leaving the realm of the body, the senses and the language, is to go beyond oneself and to meet God.(13) The vision of God appears after the ascetic has gone out of himself, to let the Divine spirit possess him.