De Somniis (lib. i-ii)

Philo Judaeus

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

But the greater part of their employment consists in saying what they ought not; for having opened their mouth and leaving it [*](Exodus xv. 1. ) [*](Numbers xxi. 17. ) [*](Deut. xxvi. 13. )

v.2.p.392

unbridled, like an unrestrained torrent, they allow their speech to run on indiscriminately, as the poets say, dragging on thousands of profitless sayings;

therefore those who have devoted themselves to the advocacy of pleasure and appetite, and every sort of excessive desire, building up irrational passion as a fortification against dominant reason, and preparing themselves for a contentious sort of discussion, have come at last to a regular dispute, hoping to be able to blind the race which is endowed with the faculty of sight, and to throw it down precipices, and into depths from which it will not be able at any future time to emerge.