De Virtutibus

Philo Judaeus

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

And, besides this, by this commandment he points out that it is right not to look only at the present, but also by the acuteness of the reasoning powers to survey the future afar off as from a watch-tower, since nothing remains long in the same condition, but everything is subject to alternations and variations; so that it is natural that those who have for a while been enemies, when they have sent heralds and made overtures towards reconciliation, should again become friends in the bonds of peace.

And it would be a wicked thing to deprive one’s friends of necessary food, who have probably stored up nothing which can be of use to them because of the uncertainty of the future. For this was an admirable saying which [*]( This idea is deservedly reprobated by Cicero, De Amic. xvi. "We shall be able to arrive at another definition of true friendship when we have first mentioned what Scipio was accustomed to blame with great indignation. He used to say that no sentence more hostile to friendship, or more at variance with every correct notion of it, could possibly be found, than that one of the man who said that it became a man always to form a friendship with the idea that he might some day or other hate his friend. And he said that he could never be induced to believe that this, as some people fancied, had been said by Bias, who was accounted one of the seven wise men, but he looked upon it as the saying of some profligate or ambitious man, or of some one who referred everything to the preservation of his own powers." ) was in vogue [*]( Deuteronomy xx. 19.) [*]( This idea is deservedly reprobated by Cicero, De Amic. xvi. "We shall be able to arrive at another definition of true friendship when we have first mentioned what Scipio was accustomed to blame with great indignation. He used to say that no sentence more hostile to friendship, or more at variance with every correct notion of it, could possibly be found, than that one of the man who said that it became a man always to form a friendship with the idea that he might some day or other hate his friend. And he said that he could never be induced to believe that this, as some people fancied, had been said by Bias, who was accounted one of the seven wise men, but he looked upon it as the saying of some profligate or ambitious man, or of some one who referred everything to the preservation of his own powers." )

v.3.p.448
. 443 PHILO JUDAUS. among the ancients, that one must enter into friendships without at the same time being blind to the possibility that it may be turned into enmity, and that one must repel an enemy as if he may hereafter become a friend, in order that each man might, through this consideration, lay up something in his own soul which might conduce to his safety, and might not, being laid completely bare and defenceless, in word and in deed repent of his too great facility of temper, blaming himself when there is no need of any such thing.

And cities also should act upon this principle, providing in peace the things which will be necessary in time of war, and in time of war the things which will be desirable in peace, and abstaining from placing such implicit, boundless confidence in their allies, as if they could never possibly change so as to become their enemies; nor, on the other hand, exhibiting such distance towards their enemies as if they would never be able to bring them over to reconciliation and peace.