This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[12]
Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly, and despise delicacies
in diet; and they follow the conduct of reason; and what that prescribes
to them as good for them they do; and they think they ought earnestly to
strive to observe reason's dictates for practice. They also pay a respect
to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in
any thing which they have introduced; and when they determine that all
things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of
acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God
to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will
of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have
an immortal rigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards
or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in
this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison,
but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account
of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people;
and whatsoever they do about Divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they
perform them according to their direction; insomuch that the cities give
great attestations to them on account of their entire virtuous conduct,
both in the actions of their lives and their discourses also.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.