Works of Philo of Alexandria

Philo — Works Vol. I, Yonge — Section 41

has fallen upon them has crushed them altogether, or snow has chilled them, or the violence of the winds has torn them up by the roots ; for water and air cause many alterations, tending to destroy the productiveness of the crops. But if the immo- derate violence of the passions were appeased by temperance, and the inclination to do wrong and depraved ambition were corrected by justice, and in short if the vices and unhallowed actions done in accordance with them, were corrected by the virtues, and the energies in accordance with them, the war of the soul being terminated, which is in good truth the most grievous and heavy of all wars, and peace being established, and founding amid all our faculties, a due regard for law, with all tranquillity and mild- ness, then there would be hope that God, as being a friend to virtue, and a friend to honour, and above all a friend to man, would bestow upon the race of man, all kinds of spontaneous blessings from his ready store. For it is evident that it is easier to supply most abundantly the requisite supplies without having recourse to agricultural means, from treasures which already exist, than to bring forth what as yet has no existence. XXVII. I have now mentioned the second reason. There is also a third, which is as follows : — God, intending to adapt the beginning and the end of all created things together, as being all necessary and dear to one another, made heaven the be- ginning, and man the end : the one being the most perfect of incorruptible things, among those things which are perceptible by the external senses ; and the other, the best of all earth- born and perishable productions — a short-lived heaven if one were to speak the truth, bearing within himself many starlike natures, by means of certain arts and sciences, and illustrious speculations, according to every kind of virtue. For since the corruptible and the incorruptible, are by nature opposite, he has allotted the best thing of each species to the beginning and to the end. Heaven, as I before said, to the beginning, and man to the end.