Philonis Judaei Opera Omnia (Vol. 7)

P. A. 181

...those who know not the path of virtue, since he has turned his face away from every form of sophistry or prognostic art, and has believed in God alone. Let us say that, by bringing in the righteous man endowed with virtue along with the birds now gathered and flying overhead, he demonstrates nothing else metaphorically than that he hinders injustice and greed, and is most hostile to quarrels and wars, while loving constancy and peace. For he is truly a guardian of peace. Since no city has ever rested in tranquility through the wicked, but they have been rendered unstable, a man or two endowed with virtue has emerged whose virtue heals civic diseases, as God grants good morals to those who pursue virtue for the sake of honor; and not only to them, but also to those who approach them for the purpose of attaining utility.

What is the meaning of: Under the setting of the sun, an ecstasy fell upon Abraham, and behold, a great dark horror fell upon him? Genesis 15:12

§. 9. A certain divine and tranquil departure that is, a state of rapture or trance suddenly came upon the one endowed with virtue; for ecstasis a state of being beside oneself/trance, as the word itself clearly indicates, is nothing other than the withdrawal of the mind as it exits from itself. The prophetic race loves to suffer this; for when the intellect divines and is imbued with divine things, it no longer exists within itself, since it receives the divine spirit within and allows it to dwell there. Or rather, as he himself said, it the spirit falls upon him, for it does not arrive slowly, but rushes in suddenly. Furthermore, it is well stated that a great dark horror fell upon him: for all these things are trances of the mind; for he who fears is not in his own self, and darkness is an impediment to sight. Indeed, the greater the horror, the more sluggish both seeing and understanding become. These things, however, are not said in vain, but as a sign of the knowledge of manifest prophecy, by which oracles and laws are established by God.