Philo: Allegorical Interpretation, III

LXIV. (182) "And I will place enmity between thee and between the Woman."

In reality, pleasure is hostile to the external sense, although, to some persons, it appears to be especially friendly to it. But as one would not call a flatterer a companion (for flattery is a disease of friendship), nor would one call a courtezan friendly to her lover, for she adheres only to those who give her presents, and not to those who love her; so, also, if you investigate the nature of pleasure, you will find that she has but a spurious connection with the external senses. (183) When we are sated with pleasure, then we find that the organs of the external senses in us lose their tone.

Or do not you perceive the state of those men who from love of wine get drunk?--that seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear; and, in the same way, they are deprived of the accurate energies of the other external senses? And, at times, through immoderate indulgence in food, all the vigour of the external senses is relaxed when sleep overtakes them, which has derived its name from the relaxation of them. For, at that time, the organs of the external senses are relaxed, just as they are on the stretch in our waking hours, when they no longer receive unintelligible blows from external things, but such as speak loudly and are evident, and which transmit their impressions to the mind. For the mind, when stricken, must recognize the external thing, and receive a visible impression from it.