---
title: "The Special Laws — Books I–IV"
author: "Philo of Alexandria"
translator: "C. D. Yonge"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Second Temple"
section: 69 of 80
url: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/69/
cite: "Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge, The Special Laws — Books I–IV, section 69. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/69/"
---

# The Special Laws — Books I–IV

*Philo of Alexandria, tr. C. D. Yonge*

## 69. Section 4.97

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/69/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/philo-tlg024-yonge-ogl/69/#p-N

[¶0] What, then, is the lesson which he gives us about this origin of all vices? There are two things of a most comprehensive nature, meat and drink. He, then, has not left either of them unrestrained, but has bridled them with especial commands most calculated to lead them to temperance and to humanity, and to the greatest of all virtues, piety;

### Section 4.98

[¶2] for he commanded men to offer first fruits of corn, and wine, and oil, and cattle, and other things; Numbers xviii. 12. and to distribute the first fruits among the sacrificers and the priests; among the sacrificers because of the gratitude due to God for the abundance and fertility of all things, and to the priests because of their sacred ministrations about the temple, and therefore they were worthy to receive wages for their services in respect of the sacred ceremonies. Numbers xviii. 31.

### Section 4.99

[¶4] And he utterly forbids any one to taste of anything, or to take any portion of anything, before separating off the first fruits, wishing also by this injunction to inculcate the practise of most useful temperance; for he who has learnt not to throw himself greedily on all the abundance which the seasons of the year have brought, but to wait till the first fruits are consecrated, Numbers xviii. 12. Numbers xviii. 31. is likely to be able to restrain the restive obstinacy of the passions, making them gentle and manageable.

### Section 4.100

[¶6] CONCERNING ANIMALS.

[¶7] Moreover, Moses has not granted an unlimited possession and use of all other animals to those who partake in his sacred constitution, but he has forbidden with all his might all animals, whether of the land, or of the water, or that fly through the air, which are most fleshy and fat, and calculated to excite treacherous pleasure, well knowing that such, attracting as with a bait that most slavish of all the outward senses, namely, taste, produce insatiability, an incurable evil to both souls and bodies, for insatiability produces indigestion, which is the origin and source of all diseases and weaknesses.

### Section 4.101

[¶9] Now of land animals, the swine is confessed to be the nicest of all meats by those who eat it, Leviticus xi, 7. and of all aquatic animals the most delicate are the fish which have no scales; and Moses is above all other men skilful in training and inuring persons of a good natural disposition to the practise of virtue by frugality and abstinence, endeavouring to remove costly luxury from their characters,

### Section 4.102

[¶11] at the same time not approving of unnecessary rigour, like the lawgiver of Lacedaemon, nor undue effeminacy, like the man who taught the Ionians and the Sybarites lessons of luxury and license, but keeping a middle path between the two courses, so that he has relaxed what was over strict, and tightened what was too loose, mingling the excesses which are found at each extremity with moderation, which lies between the two, so as to produce an irreproachable harmony and consistency of life, on which account he has laid down not carelessly, but with minute particularity, what we are to use and what to avoid.

### Section 4.103

[¶13] One might very likely suppose it to be just that those beasts which feed upon human flesh should receive at the hands of men similar treatment to that which they inflict on men, but Moses has ordained that we should abstain from the enjoyment of all such things, and with a due consideration of what is becoming to the gentle soul, he proposes a most gentle and most pleasant banquet; for though it is Leviticus xi, 7. proper that those who inflict evils should suffer similar calamities themselves, yet it may not be becoming to those whom they ill treated to retaliate, lest without being aware of it they become brutalized by anger, which is a savage passion;

### Section 4.104

[¶15] and he takes such care to guard against this, that being desirous to banish as far as possible all desire for those animals abovementioned, he forbids with all his energy the eating of any carnivorous animal at all, selecting the herbivorous animals out of those kinds which are domesticated, since they are tame by nature, feeding on that gentle food which is supplied by the earth, and having no disposition to plot evil against anything.

### Section 4.105

[¶17] WHAT QUADRUPEDS ARE CLEAN.

[¶18] The animals which are clean and lawful to be used as food are ten in number; the heifer, the lamb, the goat, the stag, the antelope, the buffalo, the roebuck, the pygarga, the wildox, and the chamois, Deuteronomy xiv. 4. for he always adheres to that arithmetical subtilty which, as he originally devised it with the minutest accuracy possible, he extends to all existing things, so that he establishes no ordinances, whether important or unimportant, without taking and as it were adapting this number to it as closely connected with the regulations which he is ordaining. Now of all the numbers beginning from the unit, the most perfect is the number ten, and as Moses says, it is the most sacred of all and a holy number, and by it he now limits the races of animals that are clean, wishing to assign the use of them to all those who partake of the constitution which he is establishing.

### Section 4.106

[¶20] And he gives two tests and criteria of the ten animals thus enumerated Leviticus xi. 3. by two signs, first, that they must part the hoof, secondly, that they must chew the cud; for those which do neither, or only one of these things, are unclean. And these signs are both of them symbols of instruction and of the most scientific learning, by which the better is separated from the worse, so that all confusion between them is prevented;

### Section 4.107

[¶22] for as the animal which chews the cud, while it is masticating its food draws it down its throat, and then by slow degrees kneads and softens it, and then after Deuteronomy xiv. 4. Leviticus xi. 3. this process again sends it down into the belly, in the same manner the man who is being instructed, having received the doctrines and speculations of wisdom in at his ears from his instructor, derives a considerable amount of learning from him, but still is not able to hold it firmly and to embrace it all at once, until he has resolved over in his mind everything which he has heard by the continued exercise of his memory (and this exercise of memory is the cement which connects ideas), and then he impresses the image of it all firmly on his soul.

### Section 4.108

[¶24] But as it seems the firm conception of such ideas is of no advantage to him unless he is able to discriminate between and to distinguish which of contrary things it is right to choose and which to avoid, of which the parting of the hoof is the symbol; since the course of life is twofold, the one road leading to wickedness and the other to virtue, and since we ought to renounce the one and never to forsake the other. .