Philo: Who is the Heir of Divine Things?

LIV. (267) And it is well to hear what the things are which are thus said to have been predicted to Abraham. In the first place, that God does not grant to the man who loves virtue to dwell in the body as in his own native land, but only to sojourn in it as in a foreign country. "For knowing," says the scripture, "thou shalt know that thy seed shall be sojourners in a land which is not Theirs."

But the district of the body is akin to every bad man, and in it he is desirous to abide as a dweller, not as a sojourner. (268) Accordingly, these words contain this as one lesson; another is, that the things which bring slavery and disaster and bitter humiliation, as the prophet himself tells us, upon the soul are the dwellings upon earth. For the affections of the body are truly spurious and foreign, being produced by the flesh, in which they are rooted. (269) And this slavery lasts four hundred years in accordance with the powers of the four passions.

For when pleasure rules, the mind is elated and puffed up, being carried away by empty vanity. Again, when the appetite gets the upper hand, a desire for absent things is engendered, which suspends the mind upon unaccomplished hopes, as if in a halter; for then the mind is always thirsting and yet is unable to drink, enduring the punishment of Tantalus. (270) Again, when under the influence of grief, the mind is tortured and contracted, like trees the leaves of which are falling off and withering; for all its flourishing and nutritious particles are dried up.

Also, when fire obtains that supremacy, no one any longer chooses to remain, but betakes to flight and running away, thinking that this is the only way in which he can be saved. For appetite, having an attractive power even if the object which is desired retreats, compels one to pursue it; and fear, on the other hand, causing alienation, separates one from it, and makes one remove to a distance from what is presented to one's view.