Sidenote: Susanna 43.
Sidenote: Judges xi. 36.
33. But this arises from the levity of our mind and the infirmity of
our character; because we are occupied by idle cares, and superfluous
actions: but the heart of the wise man, his works and deeds, ought to
be stedfast and immoveable. Moses taught us this, when his hands became
heavy, so that Joshua the son of Nun could scarcely hold them up. And
therefore the people were victorious when works not of a perfunctory
kind, but full of gravity and virtue were being carried on, not the
works of a mind unsteady, and staggering to and fro in its affections,
but of one firmly rooted and established. The wise man therefore
stretches out his hands, but the fool draws them together, as it is
written, _The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own
flesh_, meditating on carnal more than spiritual things. But not so did
that daughter of Juda, who stretched forth her hands and cried to the
Lord _Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me_. She
thought it better not to sin and to incur the calumnies of her accusers,
than to commit sin under the veil of impunity. And by the contempt
of death she preserved her innocence. Not so, either, the daughter
of Jepthah, who by her own consent confirmed and even encouraged her
father’s vow concerning her own immolation.
34. For I will not produce the books of philosophers on the contempt
of death, or the gymnosophists of the Indians, of whom the answer
of Calanus[189] to Alexander, when he commanded him to follow him,
is especially commended. ‘To what praise’ said he ‘do you consider
me entitled, that you require me to travel to Greece, if I can be
compelled to do that to which my will consents not?’ A reply truly full
of dignity, and yet his mind was more full of liberty. He wrote this
letter also.