Philo: On Drunkenness

XXXV. (140) And the scripture says that, "he shall not die who offers abstemious sacrifices;" since ignorance brings death, and education and instruction bring immortality. For as in our own bodies disease is the cause of dissolution, and health of preservation; so in the same manner in our souls also, that which saves is prudence, for this is a kind of good health of the mind; and that which destroys is folly, which inflicts an incurable disease. (141) And he expressly declares his opinion, and pronounces this last to be an everlasting Evil.

For he considers that there is an undying law set up and established in the nature of the universe embracing these principles, that instruction is a salutary and saving thing, but that ignorance is the cause of disease and destruction. (142) He also besides delivers this further statement, that the laws which are established in accordance with truth are at once everlasting; since right reason, which is law, is not perishable. For also, on the other hand, the contrary thing, namely lawlessness, is a thing of brief existence, and by its own intrinsic nature easily destructible, as it is confessed to be by all persons of sound sense.

(143) And it is an especial property of law and of instruction to distinguish what is profane from what is holy, and what is unclean from what is clean; as, on the other hand, it is the effect of lawlessness and ignorance to combine things that are at variance with one another by force, and to throw everything into disorder and confusion.