Quod Deus Sit Immutabilis

Philo Judaeus

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

and further ratifying this same injunction, and as it were setting a seal to it, he adds, "and the flesh which is sound shall pollute him," delivering this injunction in opposition to what is natural or usual: for all men think the things that are sick the pollution of those that are in health, and those that are dead the pollution of the living, and not, on the contrary, that the healthy and the living are the pollution of the sick and of the dead, but rather, they account them their salvation.

But the lawgiver being full of the most modern wisdom in everything, has this peculiarity in his expositions, that he teaches that the healthy and the living are the causes of our not being pure from pollution; for the healthy and living complexion in the soul is truly conviction which rises up against it:

when this conviction rises up, it makes a catalogue of all the offences of the soul, and reproaching it with them, and looking sternly at it, it is scarcely able to be stopped in its attacks upon it; and the soul being convicted recognises all its actions by which it has offended against right reason, [*](Genesis vi. 11. ) [*](Leviticus xiii. 14. )

v.1.p.368
and perceives that it is foolish, and intemperate, and unjust, and full of pollutions.