De Fuga Et Inventione

Philo Judaeus

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

He is taught by the oracle that, "I will be with thee." And, indeed, inquiries into individual matters have a certain elegant and philosophical kind of meditation in them; for how can they avoid it? But the inquiry into the nature of God, the most excellent of all things, who is incomparable, and the cause of all things, at once delights those who betake themselves to its consideration, and it is not imperfect inasmuch as he, out of his own merciful nature, comes forward to meet it, displaying himself by his virgin graces, and willingly to all those who are desirous to see him. Not, indeed, such as he is, for that [*](Exodus xvi. 4. ) [*](Exodus xvi. 15. )

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is impossible, since Moses also turned away his face, [*](Exodus iii. 6. ) for he feared to see God face to face; but as far as it is possible for created nature to approach by its own power those things which are only discernible to the mind.

And this also is written among the hortatory precepts, for, says Moses, "Ye shall turn unto the Lord your God, and shall find him, when ye seek him with all your heart, and with all your soul." [*](Deuteronomy iv. 29. )

Having now spoken at sufficient length on this point also, let us proceed in regular order to consider the third head of our subject, in which the seeking existed, but the finding did not follow it. At all events Laban, who examined the entire spiritual house of the practiser of virtue, "did not," as Moses says, "find the images," [*](Genesis xxxi. 33. ) for it was full of real things, and not of dreams and vain fantasies.

Nor did the inhabitants of Sodom, blind in their minds, who were insanely eager to defile the holy and unpolluted reasonings, "find the road which led to this" [*](Genesis xix. 11. ) object; but, as the sacred scriptures tell us, they were wearied with their exertions to find the door, although they ran in a circle all round the house, and left no stone unturned for the accomplishment of their unnatural and impious desires.

And before now some persons, wishing to be kings instead of doorkeepers, and to put an end to the most beautiful thing in life, namely order, having not only failed in obtaining the success which they hoped to meet with through injustice, but have even been compelled to part with that which they had in their hands; for the law tells us that the companions of Korah, who coveted the priesthood, lost both what they wished for and what they had: