"[271]
The attainment of the highest excellence demands severe discipline,
save for those few blessed souls whom God perfects without any effort
on their part. The rest can only secure self-realization by
self-renunciation; they must avoid the bodily passions and bodily
lusts.[272] At times the Divine enthusiasm causes Philo, like many a
Jewish saint and like his master Plato, to scorn all bodily
limitations and recommend "insensibility" ([Greek: apatheia])[273]
by which he means that man should crush his physical desires and
repress his feelings. Not that the good life seems to him to imply
absence of pleasure. On the contrary, it is filled with the purest of
joy, for when man rises to the love of God "in calm of mind, all
passion spent," then and then alone has he tasted true joyousness. The
symbol of this bliss is Isaac ([Hebrew: ytshk]), the laughter of the
soul.
It was noticed in the second chapter that Philo modified his ethical
ideas during his life. In the earlier period he insists more strongly
on the need of ascetic self-denial, and has almost a horror of the
world. Maturer experience, however, taught him that man is made for
this world, and that a wise use of its goods was a surer path to
happiness and to God than flight from all temptations. In his later
writings, therefore, he exhibits a striking moderation.
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