1. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 25-27, 24 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
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2. Herodotus, Histories, 1.32 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.32. Thus Solon granted second place in happiness to these men. Croesus was vexed and said, “My Athenian guest, do you so much despise our happiness that you do not even make us worth as much as common men?” Solon replied, “Croesus, you ask me about human affairs, and I know that the divine is entirely grudging and troublesome to us. ,In a long span of time it is possible to see many things that you do not want to, and to suffer them, too. I set the limit of a man's life at seventy years; ,these seventy years have twenty-five thousand, two hundred days, leaving out the intercalary month. But if you make every other year longer by one month, so that the seasons agree opportunely, then there are thirty-five intercalary months during the seventy years, and from these months there are one thousand fifty days. ,Out of all these days in the seventy years, all twenty-six thousand, two hundred and fifty of them, not one brings anything at all like another. So, Croesus, man is entirely chance. ,To me you seem to be very rich and to be king of many people, but I cannot answer your question before I learn that you ended your life well. The very rich man is not more fortunate than the man who has only his daily needs, unless he chances to end his life with all well. Many very rich men are unfortunate, many of moderate means are lucky. ,The man who is very rich but unfortunate surpasses the lucky man in only two ways, while the lucky surpasses the rich but unfortunate in many. The rich man is more capable of fulfilling his appetites and of bearing a great disaster that falls upon him, and it is in these ways that he surpasses the other. The lucky man is not so able to support disaster or appetite as is the rich man, but his luck keeps these things away from him, and he is free from deformity and disease, has no experience of evils, and has fine children and good looks. ,If besides all this he ends his life well, then he is the one whom you seek, the one worthy to be called fortunate. But refrain from calling him fortunate before he dies; call him lucky. ,It is impossible for one who is only human to obtain all these things at the same time, just as no land is self-sufficient in what it produces. Each country has one thing but lacks another; whichever has the most is the best. Just so no human being is self-sufficient; each person has one thing but lacks another. ,Whoever passes through life with the most and then dies agreeably is the one who, in my opinion, O King, deserves to bear this name. It is necessary to see how the end of every affair turns out, for the god promises fortune to many people and then utterly ruins them.” |
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3. Plato, Phaedrus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 247a. He is followed by an army of gods and spirits, arrayed in eleven squadrons; Hestia alone remains in the house of the gods. of the rest, those who are included among the twelve great gods and are accounted leaders, are assigned each to his place in the army. There are many blessed sights and many ways hither and thither within the heaven, along which the blessed gods go to and fro attending each to his own duties; and whoever wishes, and is able, follows, for jealousy is excluded from the celestial band. But when they go to a feast and a banquet |
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4. Philo of Alexandria, On The Cherubim, 47, 8, 40 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 40. And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and brought forth Cain; and she said I have gotten a man by means of the Lord; and he caused her also to bring forth Abel his Brother." These men, to whose virtue the Jewish legislation bears testimony, he does not represent as knowing their wives, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and if there are any others of like zeal with them; 40. A third view of the question is, that no king or tyrant may ever despise an obscure private individual, from being full of insolence and haughty pride; but that such an one, coming as a pupil to the school of the sacred laws, may relax his eyebrows, unlearning his self-opinionativeness, and yielding rather to true reason. |
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5. Philo of Alexandria, On The Preliminary Studies, 112-113, 34-38, 111 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 111. And the son of the man who was devoted to learning, learnt a very beautiful doctrine when he went on that admirable embassy, asking in marriage for the self-taught wise man that most appropriate sister, namely, perseverance. For he takes ten camels, a reminder of the number ten, that is to say, of right instruction, from among many and, indeed, infinite memorials of the Lord. |
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6. Philo of Alexandria, On Flight And Finding, 40, 42-52, 25 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 25. But she says, when you see the bad man coming in with great impetuosity, against virtue, and making great account of those things which it is more proper to disregard, such as wealth, glory, and pleasure, and praising the performance of actions of injustice, as being the cause of all the advantages before mentioned: for we see that those who act unjustly, are, for the most part, men possessed of much silver, and of much gold, and of high reputation. Do not then, turn away to the opposite road, and devote yourself to a life of penury, and abasement, and austerity, and solitude; for, by doing so, you will irritate your adversary, and arm a more bitter enemy against yourself. |
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7. Philo of Alexandria, On The Migration of Abraham, 209-211, 208 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 208. I very much admire Rebecca, who is patience, because she, at that time, recommends the man who is perfect in his soul, and who has destroyed the roughnesses of the passions and vices, to flee and return to Charran; for she says, "Now, therefore, my child, hear my voice, and rise up and depart, and flee away to Laban, my brother, to Charran, and dwell with him certain days, until the anger and rage of thy brother is turned from being against thee, and till he forgets what thou hast done to Him. |
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8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Creation of The World, 23, 21 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 21. And the power and faculty which could be capable of creating the world, has for its origin that good which is founded on truth; for if any one were desirous to investigate the cause on account of which this universe was created, I think that he would come to no erroneous conclusion if he were to say as one of the ancients did say: "That the Father and Creator was good; on which account he did not grudge the substance a share of his own excellent nature, since it had nothing good of itself, but was able to become everything. |
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9. Philo of Alexandria, On The Posterity of Cain, 135, 143-145, 148-149, 153, 77, 134 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 134. Now of the four virtues, some are always virgins, and some from having been women become changed into virgins, as Sarah did; "For it had ceased to be with her after the manner of Women," when she began to conceive her happy offspring Isaac. But that which is always a virgin, is that of which Moses says, "And no man whatever knows her." For in truth, it is not permitted to any mortal to pollute incorruptible nature, nor even clearly to comprehend what it is. If indeed he were able by any means to become acquainted with it, he would not cease to hate and regret it; |
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10. Philo of Alexandria, On The Sacrifices of Cain And Abel, 4 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 4. And this will be more evidently shown by the oracle which was given to Perseverance, that is to Rebecca; for she also, having conceived the two inconsistent natures of good and evil, and having considered each of them very deeply according to the injunctions of prudence, beholding them both exulting, and making a sort of skirmish as a prelude to the war which was to exist between them; she, I say, besought God to explain to her what this calamity meant, and what was the remedy for it. And he answered her inquiry, and told her, "Two nations are in thy womb." This calamity is the birth of good and evil. "But two peoples shall be divided in thy bowels." And the remedy is, for these two to be parted and separated from one another, and no longer to abide in the same place. |
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11. Philo of Alexandria, On Dreams, 1.46 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.46. therefore his mother, perseverance, that is Rebecca, says to him, "Rise up and flee to Laban, my brother, to Charran, and dwell with him certain Days." Do you not perceive then that the practiser of virtue will not endure to live permanently in the country of the outward senses, but only to remain there a few days and a short time, on account of the necessities of the body to which he is bound? But a longer time and an entire life is allotted to him in the city which is appreciable only by the intellect. IX. |
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12. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 1.43-1.44, 2.55 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.43. But God replied, "I receive, indeed, your eagerness, inasmuch as it is praiseworthy; but the request which you make is not fitting to be granted to any created being. And I only bestow such gifts as are appropriate to him who receives them; for it is not possible for a man to receive all that it is easy for me to give. On which account I give to him who is deserving of my favour all the gifts which he is able to receive. 1.44. But not only is the nature of mankind, but even the whole heaven and the whole world is unable to attain to an adequate comprehension of me. So know yourself, and be not carried away with impulses and desires beyond your power; and let not a desire of unattainable objects carry you away and keep you in suspense. For you shall not lack anything which may be possessed by you. 2.55. For the merciful God lightened her fear, bidding her by his holy word confess that she did laugh, in order to teach us that the creature is not wholly and entirely deprived of joy; but that joy is unmingled and the purest of all which can receive nothing of an opposite nature, the chosen peculiar joy of God. But the joy which flows from that is a mingled one, being alloyed, being that of a man who is already wise, and who has received as the most valuable gift possible such a mixture as that in which the pleasant are far more numerous than the unpleasant ingredients. And this is enough to say on this subject.THE SECOND FESTIVALXV. |
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13. Philo of Alexandria, On The Virtues, 208 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 208. Again, to the one who was approved of as the heir, there were born two sons, twins, resembling one another in no particular except in the hands, and even in them only by some especially providence of God, inasmuch as they were alike neither in their bodies nor in their minds, for the younger one was obedient to both his parents, and was really amiable and pleasing, so that he obtained the praises even of God; while the elder was disobedient, being intemperate in respect of the pleasures of the belly and of the parts beneath the belly, by a regard for which he was induced even to part with his birth-right, as far as he himself was concerned, though he repented immediately afterwards of the conditions on which he had forfeited it, and sought to slay his brother, and, in fact, to do everything imaginable by which he could be likely to pain his parents; |
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14. Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation, 3.88 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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15. Philo of Alexandria, Questions On Genesis, 1.55, 2.57 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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16. Philo of Alexandria, That The Worse Attacks The Better, 30, 45, 119 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 119. But to the impious Cain, neither does the earth contribute anything to give him vigour, even though he never concerns himself about anything which is exterior to it; on which account, in the next sentence, he is found "groaning and trembling upon the Earth," that is to say, under the influence of grief and terror; and such also is the miserable life of a wicked man, who has received for his inheritance the most painful of the four passions, pain and terror; the one being equivalent to groaning, and the other to trembling; for it is inevitable, that some evil should either be present to or impending over such a man. Now the expectation of impending evil causes fear, but the suffering of present evil causes pain. |
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17. Philo of Alexandria, That Every Good Person Is Free, 13 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 13. And since, as that sweetest of all writers, Plato, says, envy is removed far from the divine company, but wisdom, that most divine and communicative of all things, never closes its school, but is continually open to receive all who thirst for salutary doctrines, to whom she pours forth the inexhaustible stream of unalloyed instruction and wisdom, and persuades them to yield to the intoxication of the soberest of all drunkenness. |
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18. New Testament, 1 Peter, 3.1-3.6 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 3.1. In like manner, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; so that, even if any don't obey the Word, they may be won by the behavior of their wives without a word; 3.2. seeing your pure behavior in fear. 3.3. Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing; 3.4. but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God very precious. 3.5. For this is how the holy women before, who hoped in God, also adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: 3.6. as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose children you now are, if you do well, and are not put in fear by any terror. |
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