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.

And if you ever go to a drinking party or to a costly entertainment, go with a good confidence; for you will put to shame the intemperate man by your own dexterity. For he, falling on his belly, and opening his insatiable desires even before he opens his mouth, will glut himself in a most shameless and indecorous manner, and will seize the things belonging to his neighbour, and will lick up everything without thinking. And when he is completely sated with eating, then drinking, as the poets say, with his mouth open, he will make himself an object for the laughter and ridicule of all those who behold him.

But do you adopt a moderate course without being compelled thereto, and if ever you are constrained to indulge yourself in things beyond moderation, still make reason the governor of the necessity, and never go so far as to change pleasure into unpleasantness, but, if we may speak in such a manner, be drunk in a sober manner.

And here therefore truth may not unreasonably blame those who, without any examination, abandon the business and means of regulating a civil life, and who say that they have learnt to despise glory and pleasure; for those men are

v.2.p.201

behaving insolently, and do not really despise these things, making an open boast of their sordid, and melancholy, and stern appearance, and putting forth their austere and dirty way of living as a bait, as if they were lovers of orderly behaviour, and modesty, and endurance;