Complete Works of Philo Judaeus, Vol. 2

The passions of the desires have been slackened and loosened. Praise, however, would be due to those in the bloom of youth, because, while desire is burning due to the intensity of their age, they have—having acquired the corrective instruments, the arguments of education—relieved the great inflammation and boiling of the passions. Thus, to those in whom no disease is accustomed to arise from a wicked lifestyle, less praise follows, because they have enjoyed good fortune without conscious choice due to a natural blessing. But to those in whom it is aroused and opposes them, greater praise is due, if they have struggled and desired and were able to overthrow it. For to have the strength to overthrow the bait of pleasure with rigorous discipline holds the praise due to voluntary accomplishments. Since, therefore, none have obtained a happy lot, and these abandoned diseases and infirmities live within us, let us be eager to overturn and cast them down. For to make atonement over them is to acknowledge that, while we have them living and active in the soul, we do not surrender. Instead, standing against them all, we struggle firmly until we have completely driven them away.

§. 21. And what follows for one who does not live according to the will of God, if not the death of the soul? This is named Methuselah, who, when interpreted, was "the sending away of death." This is why he is the son of Mehujael, who had abandoned his own life, to whom death is sent. The death of the soul is an irrational transformation according to passion. When this passion conceives, it gives birth, with painful labor, to incurable diseases and infirmities, by which the soul, writhing, is humbled and bent. For each presses upon it, bringing an unbearable burden, so that no one can bow down. All this is named Lamech, for it has the interpretation "humiliation," so that Lamech reasonably becomes the son of Methuselah—a humble, yielding passion of the soul, an infirmity which is the offspring of irrational impulse.