De Virtutibus

Why so, because in the first place, haughty arrogance is a vice of the soul; but the soul is invisible to any one but God. And anyone who punishes, if he does so blindly, is blameable, as ignorance is his accuser: but if he does so with his eyes open, he is to be praised as doing everything with knowledge; and secondly, because every haughty arrogant man is full of vain groundless pride, looks upon himself as neither man nor demigod, but rather as an actual deity, as Pindar says, [*]( Pindar says nothing of the sort. The passage which Philo appears to allude to is the beginning of the second Olympic Ode: ἀναξίφόρμιγγες ὕμνοιτίνα θεὸν τιν᾽ ἡρῶατίνα δ᾽ ἄνδρα κελαδήσομεν, which Horace has translated, Od. I. xii. 1. Quem virum, aut heroa, lyra, vel acriTibia sumes celebrare, Clio?Quem Deum?! Cujus recinet jocosaNomen imago. ) [*]( Numbers xv. 30.) [*]( Pindar says nothing of the sort. The passage which Philo appears to allude to is the beginning of the second Olympic Ode: ἀναξίφόρμιγγες ὕμνοι τίνα θεὸν τιν᾽ ἡρῶα τίνα δ᾽ ἄνδρα κελαδήσομεν, which Horace has translated, Od. I. xii. 1. Quem virum, aut heroa, lyra, vel acri Tibia sumes celebrare, Clio? Quem Deum?! Cujus recinet jocosa Nomen imago. )

And as the soul of such a man is blameable, so also is his body in all its positions and motions, for he walks on tip-toes, and lifts his head on high, strutting and giving himself airs, and he is elated and puffed up beyond his nature, and though he does see yet it is only with distorted optics, and though he hears he hears amiss; and he treats his servants as though they were cattle, and free men as though they were his slaves, and his kinsmen as strangers, and his friends as flatterers, and citizens as foreigners;

and he looks upon himself as the most wealthy, the most distinguished, the most beautiful, the strongest, the wisest, the most prudent, the most righteous, the most rational, and the most learned of all men; and then he looks upon all the rest of mankind as poor, of no reputation, dishonoured, foolish, unjust, ignorant, mere dregs of mankind, entitled to no consideration. Very naturally then such a man will be likely to meet, as the interpreter of the will of God tells us, with God himself as his adversary and chastiser.