Philo of Alexandria · 1713 of 1726

Appendix 2 · From the same author, on Exod 22:19.

He shows most evidently that he is a proselyte, inasmuch as he is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, but in the pleasures and appetites, and all the other passions of the soul; for the Hebrew race was not circumcised in Egypt, but being ill-treated with every imaginable circumstance of ill-treatment by the natural cruelty of the natives of the country to strangers, it nevertheless lived among them with fortitude and patience, and that no more from compulsion than voluntarily, because of the refuge which it possessed in God the saviour, who, sending down his beneficent power, delivered his suppliants from their difficult and apparently inextricable troubles. On this account Moses adds, "For you know the soul of a Proselyte." Now what is the mind of a proselyte? a forsaking of the opinions of the worshippers of many gods, and a union with those who honour the one God, the Father of the universe. In the second place, some persons call foreigners also proselytes, and those are strangers who have come over to the truth in the same manner with those who have been sojourners in Egypt; for the one are strangers newly arrived in the country, but the last are strangers also to the customs and laws, but the common name of proselytes is given to both.