About evil-doers.
The words of Philo, out of the Questions arising in Exodus.
Page 782. D. The man who lives in wickedness, bears about destruction within him, since he has living with him that which is both treacherous, designing, and hostile to him. For the conscience of the wicked man is alone a sufficient punishment to him, inflicting cowardice on his soul from its own inmost feelings, as it feared blows.
From the same author.
Page 782. D. The life of the wicked man is subject to pain and sorrow, and full of fear; and in everything which it does according to the outward senses, it is mingled with fear and grief.
About monks who break their vows.
The words of Philo, from the Questions arising in Exodus.
Page 784. C. The reasoning of some persons is very rapidly satiated, who, though they have been borne upwards on wings for a little while, yet do presently return back again; not so much flying upwards, says Philo, as being dragged down again to the lowest depths of hell. But happy are they who do not draw back.
From the same author.
Page 784. C. Before now, some persons who have tasted happiness, being very speedily satiated, after they have given hopes of their being in health, have fallen back into the same disease as before.
From the same author, out of the Questions arising in Genesis.
Page 784. D. To commit perjury is impious and mischievous.
About good friends.
The words of Philo, out of the first book of the Questions arising in Exodus.
Page 788. I. We ought to look upon those men as our friends who are inclined to assist us, and to requite our kindnesses with kindness, even if they are destitute of power; for friendship is a thing which is seen more in moments of necessity, than in a steady conjunction or union of dispositions. So that in the case of each person who unites with another in an association of friendship, one may apply the expression of Pythagoras to him, and say, “A friend is a second I.”
About the mercies of God.
The words of Philo, out of the first book of the Questions arising in Exodus.
Page 789. A. When the fruits of these crops which are raised from seed are in a state of perfection, they receive the beginnings of the generation of trees in order that the mercies of God may last for ever, and then that one continually succeeding the other, and connecting ends with beginnings and beginnings with ends, they may be in reality never ending.
From the second book of the same treatise.
Page 789. A. The mercies of God give us not only what is necessary, but also all such things as conduce to a more excessive and liberal enjoyment of life.
FRAGMENTS FROM A MONKISH MANUSCRIPT
About man: to show that God when he made him endowed him with free will.
It is said to you, O noble man, who live in obedience to the divine precepts, endeavour with all thy might not only to preserve the gifts which you have received unimpaired and unalloyed, but also think them worthy of all imaginable honour and regard, as being endowed with free will and independent power, so that he who has committed them to your charge may have no reason to find fault with you for having neglected to take proper care of them; and the Creator of the world has entrusted to your care to employ them according to your own deliberative purpose, a soul, and speech, and the outward senses. Therefore, those men who receive these gifts in a proper spirit, and who preserve them for him who has bestowed them on them, have kept their intellect carefully in such a way that it shall never think of anything else than of God and his virtues; and their speech in such a manner that with unwearied mouth it shall honour the Father of the universe with praises and hymns; and their outward senses in such a way that after they have represented to themselves the whole of the world which is perceptible to those senses, namely, the heaven and the earth, and the natures which are between those two, they may relate what they have been in a pure and guileless manner to the soul.
Page 1234567891011121314151617181920212223
