"We are born for fellowship"

In Josephus's panegyric on the Law which concludes his apologetic work Against Apion, the Jewish historian has this to say on Temple worship:

"Our sacrifices are not occasions for drunken self-indulgence--such practices are abhorrent to God--but for sobriety (σωφροσύνην). At these sacrifices prayers for the welfare of the community must take precedence of those for ourselves; for we are born for fellowship (κοινωνίᾳ), and he who sets its claims above his private interests is specially acceptable to God" (Josephus, Against Apion, 2.195-6; Thackeray LCL vol. 1).

Josephus's description is a salutary reminder of such NT passages as Acts 2:42-47 and Phil 2:1-4, contrasting as it does with the solitary individualism still so pervasive among academics, for whom "libraries are our natural habitat" (James Dunn as quoted by Mark Goodacre).