De Migratione Abrahami

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 2. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

Do you not see flatterers who, [*](Genesis xiL 2. ) [*](Genesis xii 3. )

v.2.p.68

day and night, weary and annoy the ears of those to whom they address their flatteries, and who not only nod assent to every word that they say, but who also string together long sentences, and connect rhapsodies, and often pray to them with their mouths, but who are continually cursing them in their hearts?

What, then, would any one in his senses say? Would he not pronounce that those who speak thus are, in reality, enemies rather than friends, and do in reality blame them rather than praise them, even if they put together whole dramas full of panegyric and sing them in their honour?

Therefore, the vain Balaam, although he sang hymns of exceeding sublimity to God, among which, also, is that one beginning, "God is not as a man," [*](Numbers xxiii. 19. ) the most beautiful of all songs, and who uttered panegyrics on the seeing multitude, Israel, going through a countless body of particulars, is rightly judged by the wise lawgiver to have been an impious man and accursed, and to have been cursing rather than blessing;

for he says that he was hired for money by the enemy, and so became an evil prophet of evil things, bearing in his soul most bitter curses against the God loving nature, but being compelled to utter prophetically with his mouth and tongue the most exquisite and sublime prayers in their favour; for the things that he said, being very excellent, were, in fact, suggested by the God who loves virtue; but the curses which he conceived in his mind (for they were wicked) were the offspring of his mind, which hated virtue.

And the sacred scripture bears testimony to this fact; for it says, "God did not grant to Balaam leave to curse thee, but turned his curses into blessing;" [*](Deuteronomy XXIII. 5. ) though, in fact, all the words that he uttered were full of good omen. But he who looks into all that is laid up in the recesses of the heart, and who alone has the power to see those things which are invisible to created beings, from these secret things has passed a condemnatory decree, being in his own person at once the most indubitable of witnesses and the most incorruptible of judges, since even the contrary thing is praised, namely, for a man who appears to calumniate and to accuse with his mouth, in his heart to be blessing, and praising, and speaking words of good omen.