Philo About the Contemplative Life (De Vita Contemplativa)

[Translation of the Greek text:]

Nor could I break the uprisings from those who are considered the only wicked ones. For if we believed that brilliant honors could be set in motion upon these assumptions, we could have resolved this matter even before you. But other things escape us because of those who are alone and in doubt. What will he know? What will he declare? What might the judgment be? For he heard the argument from one side, but he misunderstood the other. How could I show favor to all the Jews everywhere?

Could he show favor to our enemies? Who would join in another’s opinion? Who would not worry about those living with them? Who would not fear an attack? And what kind of fair-minded person would not present justice to those who are adorned according to the ancestral customs of the Jews? And at the same time, soldiers, and especially the supply-giver, and the exceptional laws, and the common rights for each of the cities—we are pulled down by such arguments, at least according to the law. For so many have cast away what seems right to us; being ordered, at least for weeks, not as we are, but as they went out through fear. But if not for as many laws as the measure inhabited toward the greatest—the main points of the cause of Gaius’s Caligula hostility toward the entire Jewish nation have been spoken. One must also speak of the recantation.

A decorative, flourished drop-cap E epsilon featuring floral motifs in the margin. A small cross is positioned above it.

Having discussed the Essenes a Jewish sect living in strict communal piety who pursued the active life and labored in all things—either the part that was previously unbearable or, as they say, they shone forth in every part—I will now speak, following the order of the treatise, of those who have embraced the contemplative life, adding nothing of my own.