De Decalogo

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 3. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855.

Moreover, let him be aware that he is liable to the charge of sacrilege as having plundered the most sacred of all the possessions of God; for what is a more venerable or more

v.3.p.166

sublime offering to God than man? For gold, and silver, and precious stones, and all such other valuable materials, are only an inanimate ornament of inanimate erections;

but man, who is the most excellent of all animals, in respect of that predominant part that is in him, namely, his soul, is also most closely related to the heaven, which is the purest of all things in its essence, and as the common language of the multitude affirms, to the Father of the world, inasmuch as he has received mind, which is of all the things that are upon the earth the closest copy and most faithful representation of the everlasting and blessed idea.