Philo: On Monarchy, Book II from the Ancient Writings of The Set-Apart Bible. Read free with the Sacred Names (Yahuah, Yahshua, Elohim) and audio narration.
1 We ought to look upon the universal world as the highe and truest temple of God, having for its most holy place th most sacred part of the essence of all existing things, namely, tl heaven ; and for ornaments, the stars ; and for priest9, tl subordinate ministers of his power, namely, the angels, incc poreal souls, not beings compounded of irrational and ration natures, such as our bodies are, but such as have the irration parts wholly cut out, being absolutely and wholly intellects pure reasonings, resembling the unit. But the other temple is made with hands ; for it was desir ble not to cut short the impulses of men who were eager bring in contributions for the objects of piety, and desiro * This prophecy, Deuteronomy xviii. 18, is always looked upon one of the most remarkable of the early prophecies of our Saviour. ON MONARCHY. 191 ier to show their gratitude by sacrifices for such good tune as had befallen them, or else to implore pardon and jiveness for whatever errors they might have committed. He reover foresaw that there could not be any great number of iples built either in many different places, or in the same ce, thinking it fitting that as God is one, his temple also uld be one. Ln the next place, he does not permit those who desire to form sacrifices in their own houses to do so, but he orders men to rise up, even from the furthest boundaries of the th, and to come to this temple, by which command he is at same time testing their dispositions most severely ; for he 0 was not about to offer sacrifice in a pure and holy spirit lid never endure to quit his country, and his friends, and itions, and emigrate into a distant land, but would be likely, ng under the influence of a more powerful attraction than ,t towards piety, to continue attached to the society of his st intimate friends and relations as portions of himself, to ich he was most closely attached. And the most evident iof of this may be found in the events which actually took ce. For innumerable companies of men from a countless variety cities, some by land and some by sea, from east and from st, from the north and from the south, came to the temple at >ry festival, as if to some common refuge and safe asylum m the troubles of this most busy and painful life, seeking find tranquillity, and to procure a remission of and respite m those cares by which from their earliest infancy they had in hampered and weighed down, and so, by getting breath it were, to pass a brief time in cheerful festivities, being ed with good hopes and enjoying the leisure of that most portant and necessary vacation which consists in forming a ii'lship with those hitherto unknown, but now initiated by dness and a desire to honour God, and forming a combinaa of actions and a union of dispositions so as to join in sacris and libations to the most complete confirmation of mutual "I will.