410 PHILO JUDiEUS.
410 PHILO JUDiEUS.
to destroy the crops. " For why," says he, " do you bear a grudge against inanimate things, which are in their nature quiet, and which produce wholesome fruits? Does the tree, my friend, display the hostile spirit of a man that is an enemy, so that you are to tear it up by the roots in retaliation for the evils which it has inflicted, or which it has designed to inflict upon you? On the contrary, it assists you, bestowing on you, when you are victorious, an abundance of necessary food, and of supplies which conduce to rendering life happy and luxurious; for it is not men alone who contribute reve- nues to their lords, but plants offer even more useful tribute at the fixed seasons of the year, a tribute without which man cannot live." But there is no prohibition against their cutting down those trees which are barren and unproductive, and which are not cultivated for food, for the purpose of making staves, or poles, or posts, or fences; and, when occasion requires, ladders, and engines, and wooden towers; for the chief use of these kinds of trees is for such and other similar purposes.
XIV. We have now enumerated the matters which belong to justioe; but as for justice itself, what poet or orator could celebrate it, in worthy terms, since it is beyond all panegyric and all praise? At all events, there is one most important good thing belonging to it,* which, even if one were to pass over and be silent about all its other parts, would be an all- sufficient panegyric on it; for this is the principle of equality, which is, as those who have accurately investigated the secrets of nature have handed down to us, the mother of justice; and equality is a light which is never shaded; the sun (if one must speak the plain truth) appreciable by the intellect alone, since inequality, on the contrary, in which that which is superior and that which is inferior are both found, is the be- ginning and source of darkness; it is equality which, by its unchangeable laws and ordinances, has arranged, in their pre- sent beautiful order, all the things in heaven and earth; for who is there who does not know this fact, that the days are measured in due proportion to the nights, and the nights in due proportion to the days, by the sun, according to the equality of proportionate distances?
Nature, therefore, has marked out those periods in every * The text has tv/isvaa, which Mangey pronounces corrupt.
ON TI1E CREATION OF MAGISTRATES. 411 year, which are called the equinoxes, from the state of things which exists at that time, namely, the spring and the autum- nal equinox, with such distinctness, that even the most illiterate persons are aware of the equality which then exists between the extent of the days and of the nights. Again, are not the periods of the moon, as she advances and retraces her course, from a crescent to a full circle, and again, from a com- plete orb to a crescent, also measured by an equality of dis- tances? For as great and as long as the period and amount of her increase is, so also is her diminution, in both respects, as to magnitude and duration, as to the number of days and the size of her orb.
And as, in that purest of all essences, heaven, equality is honoured with especial honours, so also is she in the neighbour of heaven, the air. For as the year is portioned out into four divisions, the air is formed by nature to endure changes and alterations at what are called the seasons of the year, and it displays an indescribable regularity in its irregularity; for as the atmosphere is divided by an equal number of months into winter, and spring, and summer, and autumn, it completes the whole year by allotting three months to each season; as, in fact, the very name of the year (sv/ccvrbg) intimates. For it in itself (avrbg h abriZ) contains everything, being complete in itself, though otherwise it would not be able to effect this, if it were not aided by the regular revolutions of the seasons of the year.
Again, this same equality extends from the heavenly bodies, and from those which are raised on high, to the things upon earth, raising on high its own pure nature, which is akin to the air, and sending downwards its beams like the sun, as a sort of secondary light, for all the things which are inhar- monious or irregular among us are caused by inequality, and all those which have in them that regularity which becomes them are the work of equality, which, in the universal essence of the universe, one may fairly call the world, and in cities one may entitle it that best regulated and most excellent of all constitutions, democracy, and in bodies health, and in souls virtue.
For, on the contrary, inequality is the cause of diseases and wickednesses; and the existence of the longest lived man of the human race would fail, if he were to attempt to 412 PHILO JUD.EUS.
enumerate all the praiseworthy qualities of equality, and of its offspring, justice. In consequence of which it seems to me to be best to be satisfied with what has already been said, which may be sufficient to rouse up the recollection of those persons who are fond of learning, and to leave the remaining circum- stances unwritten in their souls, as divine images in a most sacred place.
A TREATISE ON THREE VIRTUES, THAT IS TO SAY, ON COURAGE, HUMANITY, AND REPENTANCE. ON COURAGE.
I. Having previously said all that appeared to be necessary about justice, and those precepts which are closely connected with it, I now proceed in regular order to speak of courage, not meaning by courage that warlike and frantic delirium, under the influence of passion as its counsellor, which the generality of men take for it, but knowledge;* for some persons, being elated by boldness when they have bodily strength to assist them, array themselves in the ranks of war, in complete armour, and slay innumerable hosts of the enemy to a man, gaining by their exploits the unseemly but fine sounding name of pre-eminent valour, being accounted by the multitude which judges of such matters exceedingly glorious in their victory, though in fact they have been savage and brutal both in nature and practice, having thirsted for human blood.
But then as some men who, always remaining in their own houses, while their bodies have been worn away either by long sickness or by painful old age, still being healthy and vigorous * This seems to be an imitation of what Plato says in the Protagoras. "We must not look upon all bold (QappaXsovg) men as courageous (avdpdovg), for boldness is derived from human skill, or from anger, or from madness; but courage arises only from nature, and from a good disposition of the soul." — P. 350.
ON COURAGE. 413 in the better part of their soul, and being full of high thoughts, and inspired with a braver and happier fortitude, never, not even in their dreams, meddling with warlike weapons, never- theless by their exposition and advocacy of wise counsels for the common advantage, have often re-established both the private affairs of individuals, and the common prosperity of their country when it was in danger, putting forth unyielding and inflexible reasonings concerning what has been really expedient.
These men, then, are they who practise real courage, being studiers and practisers of wisdom; but those other men have only what does not deserve to be so called though it assumes the name, as they live in that incurable disease, ignorance, which one may very fitly and properly called audacity, just as people say that in coins base metal often bears the same impression as the real stamp and money.
II. Moreover, there is also no small number of other things in human life which are confessed to be very difficult to endure, such as proverty, and want of reputation, and muti- lation, and various kinds of diseases, by which weak spirited men are broken down, not being able to raise themselves at all through their want of courage; but those men who are full of high thoughts and noble spirits, rise up to struggle against these things, and contend against them with fortitude and exceeding vigour, ridiculing and greatly despising their threats and attacks against their poverty; arraying wealth, not that wealth which is blind, but that which sees acutely, whose images and treasures the soul is naturally proud to treasure up; for poverty has overthrown innumerable multitudes of men, who, like wearied athletes, have fainted and fallen, being reduced to a state of prostration by their want of real courage.
And if truth is to be the judge, then no one whatever is really poor, who has the indestructible and inalienable riches of nature for his purveyor, the air, that first and most necessary and incessant support of life, being continually inhaled night and day, and besides that the numberless fountains, and the inexhaustible supply not only of winter torrents but of regular rivers, furnishing everlasting streams for drink, and besides this the abundance of all kinds of food to eat, and all de- scriptions of trees which are continually bearing their yearly fruits; for these are treasures of which no one is destitute, 414 PHILO JUDiEUS.
but all men in every quarter of the globe enjoy them in the greatest abundance.
But if any persons, utterly disregarding the true wealth of nature, pursue instead the riches of vain opinions, relying on those riches which are blind instead of on those winch are gifted with acute sight, and taking a guide for their road who who is himself crippled, such men must of necessity fall down.
III. We have then before now described that wealth which is the guard of the body, being the thing discovered by and bestowed on men by nature; but that more dignified and respectable kind, which belongs not to all men but to those who are themselves truly respectable and glorious, must now be spoken of; this kind of wealth wisdom furnishes by means of rational, and moral, and natural doctrines, and meditations from which the virtues are derived, which eradicate luxury from the soul, engendering in it a desire for temperance and frugality, in accordance with the resemblance to God at which it aims; for God is a being who is in need of nothing, as there is nothing of which he is destitute, but as he is himself all-sufficient for himself.
But the bad man is one of extravagant tastes, being always thirsting for what he has not got, because of his insatiable and unappeasable appetites which he fans and excites like fire, and kindles into a flame, directing them towards every kind of gain, whether great or small; but the virtuous man wants but little, being placed as it were on the borders between the immortal and the mortal nature, having wants indeed by reason of his body being mortal, and his freedom from extravagance because his soul is continually longing for immortality: and so they array wealth against poverty, and glory against a want of reputation; for praise, having excellence and virtue as a start- ing point, and flowing forth from it as from an everlasting fountain, does not mix with the multitude of inconsiderate men, who are in the habit of laying bare the inconsistency of the soul, with unstable declarations, which sometimes they are not ashamed to sell cheaply in their desire of base gains, uttering them in reproach of men selected for their excellence.
But the number of such men is small, for virtue is not a thing frequently met with in the race of men: but since no perfect antidote or remedy can be found for the mutilation of the outward senses, by which thousands and thousands of ON COURAGE. 415 persons have died prematurely while still living, prudence, that best of all qualities within us, sets itself against it to prevent it, implanting eyes in our intellect, which, by reason of its sagacious capacity, are altogether and entirely superior in acuteness of vision to the eyes of the body: for these last see only the surfaces of the things presented to them, and require light from without to enable them to do that, but the intellect penetrates into the inmost recesses of bodies, closely surveying and investigating the whole of them, and each separate part, and also the natures of those incorporeal things, which the external senses are unable to contemplate at all.
For the mind may almost be said to possess all the acute- ness of vision of the eye, without being in need of any spurious light, but being in itself a star, and as it were a sort of repre- sentation or copy of the heavenly bodies: accordingly, the diseases of the body inflict very little injury on us, while our souls are in a sound state; and the sound health of the soul consists in a good admixture of the powers conversant with hunger, and appetite, and reason, the reasoning power having the predominance, and guiding the other two, as a charioteer guides and restrains restive horses; the proper name of this healthy state of the soul is moderation,* which produces salva-. tion to the thinking part of the faculties in us; for as it is con- stantly in danger of being overwhelmed by the impetuosity of the passions, moderation suffers it not to be sunk in the depths, but lifts it up and raises it on high, endowing it with soul and vitality, and in some sense with immortality.
But in all the subjects which I have here mentioned, there are admonitions and lessons engraved lastingly in many passages of the law, persuading the obedient with great gentleness, and the disobedient with some severity, to despise all the things which affect the body and all external circumstances, looking upon a life in accordance with virtue to be the one proper end and object, and desiring everything else which appears con- ducive to this end; and if I had not in my former treatises dwelt upon all points connected with simplicity and humility, I would on this present occasion endeavour to explain the matter at some length, connecting and adapting together all the * The Greek word is oiotypoavvrj, from (ra>£w,, "to preserve," and Qprjv, " the mind," or as Philo says, from owrTjpia, " salvation," r£ <ppovovvTi, " to our thinking part."
416 PHTLO JUD^US.
precepts which appear to lie scattered about in different places but as I have already said all that the occasion required on these topics, it is not necessary to recapitulate my arguments; ■ those, however, who are not indifferent to the subject, but who have applied themselves with diligence to the study of the preceding treatises, ought to be aware that nearly all the things which I have said about simplicity and humility apply likewise to courage, since that also is the attribute of a vigorous, and noble, and very well regulated soul, to despise all the things which pride is in the habit of dignfying and extolling, to the utter destruction of life in accordance with truth. v IV, But such great anxiety and energy is displayed by the law in attaining the object of training and exercising the soul so as to fill it with courage, that it has even descended to par- ticulars in the matter of raiment, enjoining what men ought to Wear, and prohibiting with all its might a man from wearing the garments of a woman, in order that no trace or shadow of the female may be attached to the male part of mankind, to its discredit; for the law, being at all times in perfect consist- ency and accordance with nature, desires to establish laws which shall be akin to and in perfect harmony with one another from beginning to end, even in those minute points which, by reason of their insignificance, appear to be beneath the notice of ordinary legislators.
For as it perceived that the figures of men and women,- looking at them as if they had been sculptured or painted forms, were very dissimilar, and, moreover, that the same kind of life was not assigned to both the sexes (for to the woman is assigned a domestic life, while a political one is more suited to the^-man), so also in respect of other matters which were not actually the works of nature, but still were in strict accordance with nature, it judged it expedient to deliver injunctions which were the result of sound sense and wisdom. And these related to the mode of living, and to apparel, and to other things of that kind; for it thought it desirable that he who was truly a man should show himself a man in these particulars also, and especially in the matter of dress, since, as he wears that both day and night, he ought to take care that there is no indication in it of any want of manly courage.
And, in the same manner, having also equipped the woman in the ornaments suited to her, the law prohibits her from ON COURAGE.. 417 assuming the dress of a man, keeping at a distance men-women just as much as it does women-men; for the lawgiver was well aware that when only one single thing in the proper economy of the house was removed, nothing else would remain in the same position as it ought and as it was in before.
V. Moreover, as the affairs of men are usually looked at with reference to two different times, that of peace and that of war, one can see that there are particular virtues which are visible at each period. Now, of the other virtues we have spoken previously, and we shall speak again if any necessity shall arise; but, at the present moment, we had better examine courage, not in a superficial manner, the works of which, even in time of peace, the lawgiver has celebrated in many passages of his delivery of the law, always having a due regard to the time, as we mentioned in the proper place.
Therefore, now we will begin to speak of its effects as relat- ing to war, having first premised thus much by way of preface, that when he makes out the roll of all the soldiers of the army he does not think it expedient to summon forth all the youth of the nation, but some he excuses, stating very reasonable causes for their exemption from military service. And, above all, he exempts all those who are alarmed or cowardly, as they would be likely to be taken prisoners by reason of their innate effeminacy, and to cause fear to the rest who were fighting, alongside of them; for a man's neighbour is very apt to take the impression of any one of his faults, and especially this is the case since men's reason is confused at that time by reason of the disorder of the contest, and is unable to attain to an accurate notion of the real picture of affairs; for, at such a time, they are wont to call prudent caution timidity, and to look upon fear as a prudent knowledge of the future, and upon a desire for safety as unmanly cowardice, investing most shameful conduct with specious and dignified appellations.
In order, therefore, that the affairs of his own people may not be injured by the cowardice of those who go forth to battle, while the enemy obtains success and glory, slaying those cowardly foes with great contempt, and being also aware that an inactive irresolute coward was of no use at all, but was rather a hindrance to success, the lawgiver removed from the army all those who were devoid of boldness, and those who •were inclined to faint or shrink out of cowardice, just as I VOL. III. E E 418 PHILO.TUD^EUS.
imagine no general would compel men afflicted with any bodily infirmity to go forth to war, but would allow their weak health to plead their excuse. And cowardice is a disease, and a worse one, too, than any of those which affect the body, inas- much as it destroys the faculties of the soul; for diseases of the body, indeed, are at their height but for a short period, but cowardice is an evil which grows with the man in a greater degree, or, at all events, not less than the parts of the body which are united to it, cleaving to the soul from its earliest infancy to the very extremity of old age, unless God himself interpose to cure it; for all things are possible to God.
And, moreover, the lawgiver does not summon even all the men of impetuous courage, not even although they are full of strength and energy, both in soul and body, and eager to be the foremost in the conflict and in the encountering of danger; but, having praised them for their good will, because they dis- play a disposition willing to share in the dangers of their countrymen, and eager, and void of fear, he proceeds to inquire whether they are entangled in any important circumstances which have a strong influential power of attraction. For, says he, " If any one has lately built a house, and has not as yet entered it to dwell in it; or if any one has planted a newly- arranged vineyard, having himself planted the cuttings in the ground, but which has not yet arrived at the season of its bearing fruit; or if any one has espoused a virgin and not consummated his marriage; he shall be excused from all military service." Humanity here finding an excuse for such exemption for two causes; first of all, in order that, since the events of war are uncertain, others who have never laboured in the work may not reap the fruits of these men's toil; for it appeared to be a hard thing for a man to be unable even to enjoy what really belonged to him, but for one man to build a house and another to dwell in it; and for one man to plant a vineyard and for another, who never planted it, to enjoy the fruit thereof; and for one man to espouse a wife, but for one who has not espoused her to complete the marriage; as it was not expedient that those who had entertained good hopes respecting life to find them all baffled and vain. And, secondly, that men might not be warring with their bodies while their souls were far from the battle; for it is impossible but that the minds of men in such a condition as has been described above must be ON COURAGE. 410 beld back and kept on the stretch, from a desire to enjoy the things from which they have been torn away. For as men who are hungry or thirsty, if they only get a sight of anything to eat or to drink, pursue it and run after it without ever turning aside in their eagerness to reach it, so also men who have laboured to obtain a legitimate wife, or a house, or the posses- sion of a farm, and who in their hopes believe that the time for their enjoyment of each of these objects is all but arrived, if they are then deprived of that enjoyment, resist, so that though they may be present in body elsewhere, they are not present with the better part of their soul, by which it is that men succeed or fail.
VT. Therefore our lawgiver does not think it proper to in- clude those men, or any in a similar condition, in the roll of his soldiers, but only such as have no domestic circumstances of such a nature to detain them, in order that with free and unembarrassed inclinations they may engage in the pursuit of danger without shrinking; for as a weak or crippled body derives no advantage from a panoply of armour, which it will rather discard as being unable to bear it, so, in the same manner, a vigorous body causes affliction to a diseased soul by not being in conformity with its existing circumstances. And our lawgiver, having a regard to these facts, selects not only the captains, and the generals, and the other leaders of the army, but also picks out separately each individual soldier, examines in what state he is in respect of good condition of body and firmness of mind, examining his body to see if it is uninjured in all its parts, and in sound health, and in all its joints and limbs well adapted for the positions and actions which may be required of it; examining the soul also, to see whether it is full of confidence and proper courage, whether it is intrepid, fearless, and inspired with a noble spirit, whether it is eager for honour and inclined to prefer death with glory to an inglorious life; for each one of these qualities and circum- stances is individually a separate power, if one is to say the plain truth. And if they are all united together in one indi- vidual, then they do most abundantly exhibit a certain invin- jcible and irresistible might, subduing all their enemies without loss.
VII. And the sacred volumes contain the most undeniable I proofs of what has been here stated. The most numerous of 119 420 PHILO JUD^EDS.
all nations is that of the Arabians, whose ancient name was the Madienseans. These people being inimieably disposed towards the Hebrews, for no other cause more than because they honour and worship the highest and mightiest Cause of all things, as being dedicated to the Creator and Father of the universe as his peculiar people, and having tried every imaginable device and exhausted every contrivance to cause them to abandon the worship of the one only true and living God, and to forsake holiness and adopt impiety, thought that if they could do so they should be easily able to get the better of them. But when, in spite of having both done and said innumerable things, they had failed in everything, like dying people who> now despair of their safety, they contrived a device of the following nature. Having sent for the most beautiful of their women, they said to them, You see how invincible the multitude of the Hebrews is; and a defence to them more formidable than even their number is their unanimity and agreement; and the greatest and most powerful cause of this unanimity is the idea which they entertain of the one God, from which, as from a fountain, they derive a united and indissoluble affection for one another. But man may be caught by pleasure, and especially by such pleasure as proceeds from connections with women. And ye are very beautiful, and beauty is by nature a seductive thing; and youth is a season of life very apt to fall into intemperance. And do not be afraid of the names of concubinage or adultery, as if they would bring shame upon you, but set against the names the advantages which will ensue from the facts, by which you will change your evil reputation, which will endure only for a day, into a glory which will never. grow old or die; abandoning your bodies, indeed, as far as appearance goes, which, however, is only a desire and manoeuvre to defeat the enemy, and preserving still the virginity of your souls, on which you will for the future set the everlasting seal of purity. And this war will have a novel- glory as having been brought to a successful issue by means of women, and not by means of men.