Complete Works of Philo Judaeus (Vol. 4)

...of the truly good, he called the first lover of hope Enos a name Philo associates with the Greek word for "man," but here specifically identified with the hope of good things, bestowing upon him the common name of the race as a special favor. For the Chaldaeans a term Philo often uses to refer to ancient wise men or astronomers call a human being Enos, as if he alone were truly a human being who awaits good things and is established in hopeful expectations.

P. 351 From this it is clear that he does not consider the one who lacks hope to be a human being, but a beast in human form, having been stripped of the most characteristic quality of the human soul, which is hope. Hence, also, he who wishes to praise the hopeful man most beautifully, having previously said that

M.

"He hoped in the Father and Creator of all," original: "Οὗτος ἤλπισεν ἐπὶ τὸν τῶν ὅλων πατέρα καὶ ποιητήν" (Gen. 4:26)

adds,

"This is the book of the generations of men," original: "Αὕτη ἡ βίβλος γενέσεως ἀνθρώπων" (Gen. 5:1)

even though fathers and grandfathers had already existed. But he considered those the previous generations to be the progenitors of the mixed race, and this one to be of the purer and more refined race, which is truly rational. Just as the poet Homer is spoken of by way of eminence, though there are countless poets; and just as the black ink with which we write is called "the black," even though everything that is not white is black; and just as the Archon the chief magistrate at Athens is the one who gives his name to the year, being the best of the nine magistrates, from whom the times are numbered; in the same way, he called the one who uses hope "man" by way of eminence, passing over the multitudes of others as not worthy of sharing in the same designation. Well, indeed, did he also call it the "book of the generations" of the man who is truly human, and not without purpose; because the hopeful man is worthy of writing and memory, not the kind written on scraps of paper that will be destroyed by moths, but that which is written in immortal nature, with whom it happens that noble deeds are recorded. Yet, if one were to count from the first earth-born man to the one called Enos by the Chaldaeans and "Man" in the Hellenic dialect, one would find him to be the fourth.