Because the festivals are symbols of spiritual joy and of
our gratitude to God, we must not therefore give up the
fixed assemblies at the proper seasons of the year. Nor,
because circumcision symbolizes the excision of all lusts
and passions, and the destruction of the impious opinion
according to which the mind imagines that it is itself
capable of production, must we therefore abolish the law of
fleshly circumcision. We should have to neglect the service
of the temple, and a thousand other things, if we were to
restrict ourselves only to the allegorical or symbolic
sense. That sense resembles the soul, the other sense the
body. Just as we must be careful of the body, as the house
of the soul, so must we give heed to the letter of the
written laws. For only when these are faithfully observed,
will the inner meaning, of which they are the symbols,
become more clearly realized, and, at the same time, the
blame and accusation of the multitude will be avoided."[168]
Philo's position is, then, that man on the one hand owes loyalty to
his nation, and on the other is not only a creature of spirit, but has
a body and bodily passions. He cannot, therefore, have a religion
which is individual or merely spiritual, but he requires common forms
and ceremonies that can bind him with the rest of the community, and
train his body by good habit to obey his reason.
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