Philo of Alexandria

LXVIII. But the words, " shall watch," intimate two things : in the first place it means as it were " shall keep," and " shall preserve." And, in the second place, it is equivalent to "shall watch for the purpose of destroying." Xow it is inevitable that the mind must be either bad or good. Now, if it be bad, it would be but a foolish guardian and dis- Exodus xvii. 11. + Numbers xziv. 20. £ Genesis iii 15. 158 penser of pleasure, for it rejoices in it. But the good man is an enemy to it, expecting that, when he once attacks it, he will be able utterly to destroy it. And, indeed, on the other hand, pleasure watches the footsteps of the foolish man, but endeavours to trip up and undermine the standing ground of the wise man, thinking that he is always meditating its destruction ; but that the fool is always considering the means by which its safety may be best secured. But, nevertheless, though pleasure appears to trip up and to deceive the good man, it will in reality be tripped up itself by that experienced wrestler, Jacob ; and that, too, not in the wrestling of the body, but in that struggle which the soul carries on against the dispositions which are antagonistic to it, and which attack it through the agency of the passions and vices ; and it will not let go the heel of its antagonist, passion, before it surrenders, and confesses that it has been twice tripped up and defeated, both in the matter of the birthright, and also in that of the blessing. For " rightly," says Esau, " is his name called Jacob, for now has he supplanted me for the second time ; the first time he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing." But the bad man thinks the things of the body the more important, while the good man assigns the preference to the things of the soul, which are in truth and reality the more important and the first, not, indeed, in point of time, but in power and dignity, as is a ruler in a city. But the mistress of the concrete being is the soul.