Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 1. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

for as he philosophises more with a regard to political wisdom than to truth, he brings into one place and connects together the three kinds of good things, namely, external things, the things concerning the body, and those concerning the soul, things utterly different from one another in their [*]( Genesis xxxi. 5. ) [*](Genesis xxxvii. 12. ) [*](Genesis xxxvii. 3. )

v.1.p.243

whole natures; wishing to show that each has need of each, and that everything has need of everything; and that that which is really the complete and perfect good, is composed of all these things together, and that the parts of which this perfect good is compounded are parts or elements of good, but are not themselves perfect goods.

In the same way, as neither fire, nor earth, nor any one of the four elements, out of which the universe was created, are the world, but the meeting and mixture of all the elements together; in the same way also happiness ought not peculiarly to be sought for either in the external things, or in the things of the body, or in the things of the soul, taken by themselves; for each of the aforementioned things has only the rank of parts and elements, but it must be looked for in the combination of them all together.