to approximate in character to the divine nature. For the good man, standing as the boundary between an immortal and a mortal nature, has few needs; having wants in consequence of his body, and his birth itself, but taught by rational self-control to want few things.
What reason is there in the law's prohibiting a man from "wearing woman's clothing?"[1] Is it not that it would have us to be manly, and to be effeminate neither in person and actions, nor in thought and word? For it would have the man, that devotes himself to the truth, to be masculine both in acts of endurance and patience, in life, conduct, word, and discipline by night and by day; even if the necessity were to occur, of witnessing by the shedding of his blood. Again, it is said, "If any one who has newly built a house, and has not previously inhabited it; or cultivated a newly-planted vine, and not yet partaken of the fruit; or betrothed a virgin, and not yet married her;"[2]—such the humane law orders to be relieved from military service: from military reasons in the first place, lest, bent on their desires, they turn out sluggish in war; for it is those who are untrammelled by passion that boldly encounter perils; and from motives of humanity, since, in view of the uncertainties of war, the law reckoned it not right that one should not enjoy his own labours, and another should, without bestowing pains, receive what belonged to those who had laboured. The law seems also to point out manliness of soul, by enacting that he who had planted should reap the fruit, and he that built should inhabit, and he that had betrothed should marry: for it is not vain hopes which it provides for those who labour; according to the gnostic word: "For the hope of a good man dead or living does not perish,"[3] says Wisdom; "I love them that love me; and they who seek me shall find peace,"[4] and so forth. What then? Did not the women of the Midianities, by their beauty, seduce from
- ↑ Deut. xxxi. 5.
- ↑ "These words are more like Philo Judæus, i. 740, than those of Deut. xx. 5–7."—Potter.
- ↑ Prov. x. 7.
- ↑ Prov. xi. 7, viii. 17.
