The library · Edition and sources
Philo: The Decalogue
C. D. Yonge (1854–1855) · Translated text
Section XV
XV. (73) And yet it is well for us, speaking with all proper freedom, to say to those who have shown themselves so devoid of sense;
"My good men, the best of all prayers, and the end, and proper object of happiness, is to attain to a likeness to God. (74) Do you therefore pray to become like those erections of yours, that so you may reap the most supreme happiness, neither seeing with your eyes, nor hearing with your ears, nor respiring, nor smelling with your nostrils, nor speaking, nor tasting with your mouth, nor taking, nor giving, nor doing anything with your hands, nor walking with your feet, nor doing anything at all with any one of your members, but being as it were confined and guarded in the temple, as if in a prison, and day and night continually imbibing the steam from the sacrifices offered up; for this is the only one good thing which can be attributed to any kind of building or erection."
(75) But I think that when they hear these things, they will be indignant, as if they were listening not to prayers, but to curses, and that they will take refuge in such defence as chance may furnish them with, bringing retaliatory accusations; which may be the greatest proof of the manifest and undesirable impiety of those men, who look upon those beings as gods, to whom they themselves would never wish to have their own natures assimilated.
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