On the Virtues

1 Having already said all that seemed necessary about justice, and those precepts which are closely connected with it, I now turn, in due order, to courage, not meaning by courage that warlike and frantic delirium, with passion as its counsellor, which most people take it to be, but knowledge; 2 for some people, elated by boldness when they have bodily strength to back them, take their place in the ranks of war, in complete armour, and kill countless hosts of the enemy to the last man, and by their exploits they gain the improper but fine-sounding name of preeminent valour, and the crowd that judges such matters counts them exceedingly glorious in their victory, though in fact they have been savage and brutal in both nature and practice, thirsting for human blood. 3 Others, by contrast, always remain in their own houses, and while their bodies have been worn away either by long sickness or by painful old age, they are still healthy and vigorous in the better part of their soul, full of high thoughts and inspired with a braver and happier fortitude; and though they never handle weapons of war, not even in their dreams, by setting out and advocating wise counsels for the common good they have often restored both the private affairs of individuals and the common prosperity of their country when it was in danger, putting forward unyielding and inflexible reasoning about what is truly expedient. 4 These, then, are the men who practise real courage, as students and practitioners of wisdom; but the others have only something that takes the name without deserving it, since they live in that incurable disease, ignorance, which one may quite rightly and properly call audacity, just as people say that in coins base metal often bears the same impression as the genuine stamp of real money. 5 There are, moreover, many other things in human life that are admittedly very hard to endure, such as poverty, and lack of reputation, and mutilation, and various kinds of diseases, which break down weak-spirited men, who cannot raise themselves up at all for lack of courage; but men full of high thoughts and noble spirit rise up to struggle against these things and contend against them with fortitude and great vigour, ridiculing and utterly despising their threats and attacks; against their poverty they set wealth, not the wealth that is blind, but the wealth that sees keenly, whose images and treasures the soul is naturally proud to store up; 6 for poverty has overthrown countless multitudes of men who, like exhausted athletes, have fainted and fallen, laid prostrate by their lack of real courage. And if truth is to be the judge, no one at all is really poor who has the indestructible and inalienable riches of nature to provide for him: the air, the first, most necessary and unceasing support of life, breathed in continually night and day; and besides that, the numberless fountains, and the inexhaustible supply not only of winter torrents but of regular rivers, providing everlasting streams to drink; and besides this, the abundance of every kind of food to eat, and every sort of tree that continually bears its yearly fruit; for no one lacks these treasures, but all people in every quarter of the globe enjoy them in the greatest abundance. 7 But if any people, utterly disregarding the true wealth of nature, pursue instead the riches of vain opinions, relying on the riches that are blind instead of those gifted with keen sight, and taking as a guide for their road one who is himself crippled, such men must inevitably fall. 8 We have already described the wealth that guards the body, which nature discovered and bestowed on men; but we must now speak of the more dignified and respectable kind, which belongs not to all men but to those who are themselves truly respectable and glorious; wisdom supplies this kind of wealth through rational, moral and natural doctrines, and through the meditations from which the virtues are derived, which root luxury out of the soul and create in it a desire for temperance and frugality, in keeping with the likeness to God at which it aims; 9 for God needs nothing, since he lacks nothing and is himself all-sufficient for himself. But the bad man has extravagant tastes, always thirsting for what he does not have, because of his insatiable and unappeasable appetites which he fans and excites like fire, and kindles into a flame, directing them towards every kind of gain, whether great or small; but the virtuous man needs little, being placed, as it were, on the border between the immortal and the mortal nature: he has wants because his body is mortal, and is free from extravagance because his soul continually longs for immortality: 10 and so they set wealth against poverty, and glory against a lack of reputation; for praise, which starts from excellence and virtue and flows out of it as from an everlasting fountain, does not mix with the crowd of thoughtless men, who habitually lay bare the inconsistency of the soul with unstable declarations, which they are sometimes not ashamed to sell cheaply in their desire for base gain, uttering them to reproach men chosen for their excellence. But such men are few, for virtue is not often met with in the human race: 11 but since no perfect antidote or remedy can be found for the mutilation of the outward senses, by which thousands upon thousands of people have died prematurely while still alive, prudence, the best of all qualities within us, sets itself against it to prevent it, implanting eyes in our intellect which, thanks to its keen capacity, are altogether and entirely sharper of sight than the eyes of the body: 12 for the bodily eyes see only the surfaces of what is set before them, and need light from outside even to do that, but the intellect penetrates into the inmost recesses of bodies, closely surveying and investigating the whole of them and each separate part, and also the natures of incorporeal things, which the external senses cannot contemplate at all. For the mind, one might almost say, has all the eye's sharpness of sight without needing any spurious light, being itself a star, a sort of representation or copy, as it were, of the heavenly bodies: 13 accordingly, diseases of the body do us very little harm while our souls are sound; and the sound health of the soul consists in a good blend of the powers concerned with hunger, appetite and reason, with the reasoning power predominating and guiding the other two, as a charioteer guides and restrains restive horses; 14 the proper name for this healthy state of the soul is moderation, which brings salvation to the thinking part of our faculties; for since that part is constantly in danger of being overwhelmed by the violence of the passions, moderation does not allow it to be sunk in the depths, but lifts it up and raises it on high, endowing it with soul and vitality, and in some sense with immortality. 15 On all the subjects I have mentioned here, many passages of the law contain admonitions and lessons lastingly engraved, persuading the obedient with great gentleness, and the disobedient with some severity, to despise all the things which affect the body and all external circumstances, regarding a life in accordance with virtue as the one proper end and goal, and desiring everything else that seems to lead to this end; 16 and if I had not dwelt in my earlier treatises on every point connected with simplicity and humility, I would try on this occasion to explain the matter at some length, connecting and fitting together all the precepts that seem to lie scattered in different places; but as I have already said all that the occasion required on these topics, there is no need to repeat my arguments; 17 those, however, who are not indifferent to the subject but have diligently studied the preceding treatises should be aware that nearly all the things which I have said about simplicity and humility apply likewise to courage, since it too belongs to a vigorous, noble and very well-ordered soul to despise all the things that pride habitually dignifies and extols, to the utter destruction of a life in accordance with truth. 18 But the law shows such great concern and energy in training and exercising the soul to fill it with courage that it even goes into particulars about clothing, prescribing what men ought to wear and forbidding with all its might a man to wear a woman's garments, so that no trace or shadow of the female may cling to the male part of mankind to its discredit; for the law, being at all times in perfect consistency and accordance with nature, wants to establish laws that are akin to and in perfect harmony with one another from beginning to end, even on the minute points that, because of their insignificance, seem beneath the notice of ordinary legislators. 19 For as it saw that the figures of men and women, viewed as if they were sculpted or painted forms, were very different, and, moreover, that the same kind of life was not assigned to both the sexes (for a domestic life is assigned to the woman, while a political one suits the man better), so also, in other matters that were not actually the works of nature but still strictly accorded with nature, it judged it expedient to give injunctions born of sound sense and wisdom. These concerned the way of life, clothing and other such things; 20 for it thought it desirable that one who is truly a man should show himself a man in these particulars too, especially in dress, since he wears it day and night and ought to take care that it shows no sign of any lack of manly courage. 21 In the same way, having also equipped the woman with the ornaments suited to her, the law forbids her to put on a man's dress, keeping men-women at a distance just as much as women-men; for the lawgiver knew well that if even one single thing in the proper order of the house were removed, nothing else would stay in its proper place, where it had been before. 22 Moreover, as human affairs are usually viewed with reference to two different times, the time of peace and the time of war, one can see particular virtues displayed in each period. We have spoken of the other virtues previously, and shall speak of them again if any need arises; but for the present we had better examine courage, and not superficially: courage, whose works even in time of peace the lawgiver has celebrated in many passages of his law-giving, always with due regard to the time, as we mentioned in the proper place. So we will now begin to speak of its effects in war, first stating this much by way of preface, 23 that when he draws up the roll of all the soldiers of the army he does not think it expedient to call up all the youth of the nation, but excuses some, stating very reasonable causes for their exemption from military service. Above all, he exempts all who are fearful or cowardly, since they would be likely to be taken prisoner because of their innate effeminacy, and to spread fear among the rest fighting alongside them; 24 for a man's neighbour is very apt to take on the impression of any of his faults, especially as men's reason is confused at such a time by the disorder of the contest and cannot form an accurate notion of the true picture of affairs; for, at such a time, they are accustomed to call prudent caution timidity, and to look upon fear as a prudent knowledge of the future, and upon a desire for safety as unmanly cowardice, dressing up the most shameful conduct in specious and dignified names. 25 Therefore, so that the affairs of his own people might not be harmed by the cowardice of those who go out to battle, while the enemy wins success and glory, killing those cowards with great contempt, and aware also that an inactive, irresolute coward was of no use at all, but was rather a hindrance to success, the lawgiver removed from the army all who lacked boldness and all who were inclined to faint or shrink back out of cowardice, just as, I imagine, no general would force men with any bodily infirmity to go to war, but would let their weak health serve as their excuse. 26 Cowardice is a disease, and a worse one than any that affects the body, since it destroys the faculties of the soul; for diseases of the body are at their height for only a short time, but cowardice is an evil that grows with the man more than, or at least as much as, the parts of the body united to it, clinging to the soul from its earliest infancy to the very extremity of old age, unless God himself intervenes to cure it; for all things are possible to God. 27 Moreover, the lawgiver does not call up even all the men of impetuous courage, not even those full of strength and energy in both soul and body and eager to be foremost in the conflict and in meeting danger; but, having praised them for their good will, because they show a disposition willing, eager and fearless to share the dangers of their countrymen, he goes on to inquire whether they are entangled in any important circumstances with a strong and influential power of attraction. 28 For, he says, 'If anyone has lately built a house, and has not as yet entered it to dwell in it; or if anyone has planted a newly-arranged vineyard, having himself planted the cuttings in the ground, but it has not yet reached the season for bearing fruit; or if anyone has become engaged to a virgin and not consummated his marriage; he shall be excused from all military service.' Here humanity finds grounds for such exemption for two reasons; 29 first, so that, since the outcome of war is uncertain, others who never laboured at the work may not reap the fruits of these men's toil; for it seemed hard for a man to be unable to enjoy even what really belonged to him, and for one man to build a house and another to live in it; and for one man to plant a vineyard and for another, who never planted it, to enjoy the fruit of it; and for one man to become engaged to a wife, but for another who was not engaged to her to complete the marriage; as it was not expedient for those who had cherished good hopes about life to find them all baffled and vain. 30 And secondly, so that men might not be fighting with their bodies while their souls were far from the battle; for the minds of men in the condition described above cannot help being held back and kept under strain by a desire to enjoy the things from which they have been torn away. For just as hungry or thirsty men, if they so much as catch sight of anything to eat or drink, pursue it and run after it without ever turning aside in their eagerness to reach it, so also men who have laboured to obtain a legitimate wife, or a house, or the possession of a farm, and who in their hopes believe that the time to enjoy each of these things has all but arrived, if they are then deprived of that enjoyment, resist, so that though they may be present elsewhere in body, they are not present with the better part of their soul, which decides whether men succeed or fail. 31 Therefore our lawgiver does not think it proper to include those men, or any in a similar condition, in the roll of his soldiers, but only those who have no domestic circumstances of that kind to detain them, so that with free and unhindered inclinations they may go after danger without shrinking; for as a weak or crippled body gains no advantage from a panoply of armour, which it would rather throw off because it cannot bear it, so in the same way a vigorous body afflicts a diseased soul by being out of keeping with its present condition. 32 With these facts in view, our lawgiver selects not only the captains, and the generals, and the other leaders of the army, but also picks out each soldier individually and examines his state in bodily condition and firmness of mind, examining his body to see if it is uninjured in all its parts, and in sound health, and well fitted in all its joints and limbs for the positions and actions that may be required of it; examining the soul also, to see whether it is full of confidence and proper courage, whether it is intrepid, fearless, and inspired with a noble spirit, whether it is eager for honour and inclined to prefer a glorious death to an inglorious life; 33 for, to tell the plain truth, each one of these qualities and circumstances is a separate power in itself. And if they are all united in one individual, they display in full measure an invincible and irresistible might, subduing all their enemies without loss. 34 And the sacred books contain the most undeniable proof of what is stated here. The most numerous of all nations is the Arabians, who were anciently called the Madienaeans. These people were hostile to the Hebrews for no other reason than that they honour and worship the highest and mightiest Cause of all things, since they are dedicated to the Creator and Father of the universe as his own people, and having tried every imaginable device and exhausted every scheme to make them abandon the worship of the one only true and living God, and to forsake holiness and adopt impiety, they thought that if they could do so they would easily get the better of them. But when, despite doing and saying countless things, they had failed in everything, like dying people who have given up hope of survival, they devised the following scheme. 35 They sent for the most beautiful of their women and said to them, You see how invincible the multitude of the Hebrews is; and a defence even more formidable than their numbers is their unanimity and agreement; and the greatest and most powerful cause of this unanimity is the idea they hold of the one God, from which, as from a fountain, they derive a united and indissoluble affection for one another. 36 But a man can be caught by pleasure, especially the pleasure that comes from relations with women. And you are very beautiful, and beauty is by nature a seductive thing; and youth is a time of life very prone to fall into intemperance. 37 And do not be afraid of the names of concubinage or adultery, as if they would bring shame upon you, but set against the names the advantages that will follow from the deeds, by which you will change a bad reputation that lasts only a day into a glory that will never grow old or die; giving up your bodies, it is true, as far as appearance goes, though that is only a desire and a manoeuvre to defeat the enemy, while still preserving the virginity of your souls, on which you will from now on set the everlasting seal of purity. 38 And this war will have a new kind of glory, having been brought to a successful end by women and not by men. For we admit that our sex is in danger of defeat, because our enemies are better supplied with all the equipment of war and the necessities for battle; but your sex is more completely armed, and you will gain the greatest of all advantages, victory, carrying off the prize without facing any danger; for without any loss or bloodshed, or rather, I might say, without even a struggle, you will overpower the enemy at the first sight of you, merely by being seen by him. 39 When they heard this, they stopped thinking about or paying the slightest regard to their reputation for purity of life, having no proper education at all, and so they consented, though all the rest of their lives they had put on a hypocritical show of modesty; and now they adorned themselves with costly garments, and necklaces, and all the other accessories women usually set themselves off with, and they devoted all their attention to enhancing their natural beauty, and making it more brilliant (for the object they pursued was no small one: to lure the young men who were quite ready to be seduced), and so they went out in public. 40 And when they came near them they cast immodest, wanton looks, and sought to entice them with caressing words, and dances, and lascivious movements; and in this way they enticed the shallow-minded company of the young men, youths whose dispositions had no ballast or steadiness in them. And by the shame of their own bodies they captivated the souls of those who came to them, winning them over to unholy sacrifices which ought not to have been sacrificed, and to libations which should never have been offered in honour of deities made with hands, and thus they alienated them from the worship of the one only and truly divine God. And when they had accomplished their purpose, they sent the good news to the men of their nation; 41 and they would probably have drawn over others too, of the firmer and stronger-minded sort, if the bountiful and merciful God had not taken compassion on their unhappy state and, by the prompt punishment of those who had gone astray and committed folly (and they were twenty-four thousand men), admonished and checked by terror the others who were in danger of being carried away by the torrent. 42 But the ruler of the whole nation, pouring doctrines of piety into the ears of his people, and charming the souls of his subjects with them, chose and picked out a thousand men from each tribe, selecting them for their excellence, and ordered them to punish the enemy for the treachery they had contrived by means of the women, when they hoped to destroy the whole multitude by casting them down from the heights of their pure and sublime piety, though in fact they managed to delude only those I have counted. 43 So these men, drawn up against them, a small number against many myriads, made use of their skill and, exerting all their courage as if each one were himself a host, rushed contemptuously upon the dense phalanxes and, killing all they met, mowed down the thickly-packed battalions, and all the forces held in reserve to fill up the ranks where men were killed, so that they overthrew many myriads with a single shout, until not one of all the youth of the opposing army was left. They also killed all the women who had agreed to the men's unholy schemes, but took the young girls alive out of compassion for their innocent age, 44 and though they brought this terrible war to a successful end, they did not lose a single one of their own men; but every man who went out to battle came back unwounded and unhurt, just as he entered the conflict, or rather, to tell the real truth, with redoubled vigour; for their joy at this victory left their strength no less than it had been at first; 45 and the reason for this was simply that they even courted danger in their eagerness to fight for the cause of piety, in which God, that invincible ally, fights in front of them as their champion, inspiring their minds with wise counsels, and implanting the mightiest vigour in their bodies. 46 And there is clear proof that God was their ally in the fact that many myriads of men were defeated by a few, and that not one man of the enemy escaped, and that not one of their own troops was killed, and that the army was not diminished in either number or power; 47 This is why Moses says in his exhortations to his people: 'If you practise justice, and holiness, and the other virtues, you shall enjoy a life untroubled by wars and invariably peaceful; or if any war comes upon you, you shall easily subdue your enemies, since God leads your host, though invisibly, and takes care to put forth his might to save the good. 48 Therefore, if your enemies come upon you with many myriads of men, a host both of infantry, and of cavalry, trusting in the beauty of their armour; and if they seize first all the strong and defensible places, and become masters of the country, and if they rejoice in unbounded supplies, still do not be alarmed or afraid, even if you lack the things they have in plenty, such as allies, and arms, and positions, and good opportunities, and the supplies of war.' 49 For very often a violent wind has fallen on them, as on a merchant ship loaded with all kinds of goods, and has at once overturned and destroyed these things; while on those who have been poorly supplied and sorrowful, hanging their heads like ears of grain withering under drought and disease, God has suddenly showered down and poured forth his saving powers, and has caused them to rise up and become prosperous and perfect. 50 From this it is plain that he clings to what is holy and righteous; for those whose ally is God are consummately happy, but those to whom he is an enemy are sunk in the lowest depths of misery. This seems enough to say on the subject of courage for the present. 51 We must now go on, in due order, to consider the virtue most closely related to piety, its sister, as it were, and its twin: humanity, which the father of our laws loved so much that I do not know whether any human being was ever more attached to it. For he knew that this was, as it were, a plain and level road leading to holiness; and, therefore, he trained and instructed all the people under his rule in precepts of fellowship, the most excellent of all lessons, setting his own life before them as an archetypal model to copy. 52 Everything he ever did, then, from his earliest infancy to old age, in caring and providing for each individual and for all men in general, has already been explained in the three books of the treatise I have written on the life of Moses. But I must also mention one or two things he set in order when he was at the point of death; for they are indicative of that continual and uninterrupted virtue which he stamped on his own soul, fashioned in this way after the divine model so that it would be free from all indistinctness and confusion. 53 For when he was about to reach the appointed limit of human life, and a clear sign from God made him aware that he was about to depart from the world, he did not act like any other person, whether king or private individual, whose only anxiety and prayer is to leave their inheritance to their children; but although he was the father of two sons, the natural affection and love he undoubtedly felt for his offspring did not sway him so far as to make him bequeath his authority to either of them. And yet, even if he had some doubts about the worth of his children, at all events, he had no lack of virtuous and pious nephews, who had indeed already been given the high priesthood as a reward for their virtue. 54 But perhaps he did not think it right to draw them away from the divine ministrations of their office, or, very likely, he thought it would be impossible for them to attend to both, the priesthood and the royal authority, one of which professes to be devoted to the worship of God, the other to governing men and providing for them. Perhaps, too, he did not think it right to make himself the judge in so important a matter, especially as it takes an almost divine power to see clearly who is by nature well suited for such authority, since only the Deity finds it easy to see into the dispositions of men. 55 The clearest proof of what I have said is the following. He had a friend and pupil, Joshua by name, who had been so almost from his earliest youth, and whose friendship he had won, not by any of the arts which are commonly in use among other men, but by that heavenly and unmixed love from which all virtue is derived. This man lived under the same roof and shared the same table with him, except when solitude was required of him, on the occasions when he was inspired and instructed in divine oracles. He also performed other services for him that set him apart from the crowd, being almost his lieutenant and managing with him the affairs of his supreme authority. 56 Yet though Moses knew him accurately from long experience, and though he knew his excellence both in word and deed, and his great good will towards his nation, he did not think it right to appoint him his successor on his own judgement, fearing that he might perhaps be deceived into regarding as good a man who in reality was not, since the tests by which one judges human nature are largely indistinct and unstable. 57 So he did not rely on his own knowledge, but implored and entreated God, who alone can see the invisible soul, who sees accurately the mind of man, to choose and select the most suitable man for the supreme authority, one who would care for the people who were to be his subjects like a father. And stretching towards heaven his pure and, to speak somewhat metaphorically, virgin hands, he said, 58 'Let the Lord God of spirits and of all flesh find for himself a man to be over this multitude, to undertake the care and superintendence of a shepherd, who shall lead them blamelessly, so that this nation may not become corrupt like a flock scattered abroad with no shepherd.' 59 And yet which of all the men of that time would not have been amazed to hear this prayer? Who would not have said, 'What are you saying, master? do you not have legitimate children? do you not have nephews? Leave your authority to your children first, above all men, for they are your natural heirs; but if you disapprove of them, at least bequeath it to your nephews; 60 and if you also regard them as unfit, having a greater regard for the whole nation than for your nearest and dearest relations, still you have an irreproachable friend who has given a proof of his perfect virtue to you who are all-wise and capable of judging it. Why, then, do you not see fit to show your approval of him, if your aim is to select someone not for his family but for his virtue?' 61 But Moses would reply: 'It is proper to make God the judge in everything, and most especially in those things in which acting well or badly brings countless multitudes to happiness or, on the contrary, to misery. And there is nothing of greater importance than sovereign authority, to which all the affairs of cities, in war or peace, are committed. For just as a successful voyage needs a pilot who is both virtuous and skilful, in the same way a very wise governor is needed to secure the good government of the subjects everywhere. 62 Moreover, wisdom is older not only than my own birth but even than the creation of the whole universe; and it is neither lawful nor possible for anyone to decide in such a matter but God alone, and those who love wisdom with guilelessness, and sincerity and truth; 63 and I have learned for myself not to approve as fit to rule any one of those men who appear suitable. 'I myself, indeed, undertook the charge of caring and providing for the common prosperity neither of my own accord nor because I was appointed to the office by any human being; but I undertook to govern this people because God manifestly declared his will by visible oracles and distinct commandments, and commanded me to rule them; and after I had begged and pleaded with him to excuse me, out of respect for the greatness of the task, at last, when he had repeated his commandments many times, I obeyed in fear. 64 How, then, can it be anything but absurd for me not to follow the same steps now, and, since I myself, when about to assume the supreme authority, had God as the one who chose and approved me, not to refer the appointment of my successor to him alone in my turn, without calling in the assistance of any human wisdom which is likely to be somewhat akin to folly, especially as the government to be undertaken is not one over any ordinary nation, but one which is the most populous of all nations everywhere, and one which makes the most important of all professions, the worship of the one true and living God, who is the Creator and the father of the universe? 65 For whatever advantages students of the most approved philosophy derive from it, the Jews derive advantages just as great from their laws and customs, since through them they have rejected all errors about gods who have been created themselves; for there is no created being who is truly God, but such a being is God only in appearance and opinion, lacking the most indispensable quality in God, namely, eternity.' 66 This, then, is the first and most conspicuous proof of his great humanity, good faith and affection towards all his own people, and there is also another no less important than the one I have already mentioned. For when Joshua, being his most excellent pupil and the imitator of his amiable and excellent disposition, had been approved as the ruler of the people by the judgment of God, Moses was not at all downcast, as some other men might have been, that it was not his own sons or nephews who were appointed; 67 but he was filled with unrestrained joy because the nation had secured a governor who was excellent in every respect (for he was sure that the man who was pleasing to God must be virtuous and pious); and accordingly, taking him by the right hand, he led him out to the assembled multitude, not being at all alarmed at the idea of his own impending death, but feeling that he had received a new cause of joy in addition to his former reasons for cheerfulness, not only from the memory of his former happiness, in which he had lived a life abundant in every kind of virtue, but from the hope also that he was now about to become immortal, changing from this corruptible life to an incorruptible one; and accordingly, with a cheerful look proceeding from the joy which he felt in his soul, he spoke to them with joy and exultation, saying: 68 'It is time for me now to be released from the life in the body; and my successor in the government of your nation is this man, having been appointed to it by God.' And then he proceeded to detail to them the oracular words of God which he had received as proof that God had appointed his successor; and the people believed them. 69 And then, looking at Joshua, he exhorted him to prove himself a valiant man, and to be very strong in good and wise counsel, and to show himself the interpreter of his counsels, and to accomplish all his purposes with unyielding and vigorous decision. He said this much to him not because Joshua perhaps needed any recommendation, but because he would not conceal their mutual affection for one another and for the whole people, which spurred him on, as it were, to lay bare before him what he thought would be advantageous. 70 He had also received an oracular command to call his successor and to make him full of confidence and good courage to undertake the care of the nation, without fearing the great burden of the authority committed to him, so that he might be a standard and rule for all future governors, who would look to Moses as their model; so that none of them would ever begrudge good advice to their successors, but would train, and exercise, and instruct their souls with their suggestions and counsels. 71 For the advice of a good man is often able to raise up again those men whose minds are prostrate, and to elevate them again to a height, implanting in them a noble and intrepid spirit, which will thus be firmly established above every circumstance and the demands of any moment. 72 Accordingly, after giving a speech in which he expressed sentiments suited both to the people who had been committed to his care, and to those who were to be the inheritors of his authority, he begins to hymn the praises of God in a song, uttering the last psalm of thanksgiving in this life while still in the body, for all the extraordinary and unprecedented kindnesses and mercies which he had received from his birth to his present old age; 73 and having collected a most divine assembly to hear these praises, namely, the elements of the universe, and the most comprehensive parts of the whole world, the earth and the heaven, one of which is the dwelling of mortals, and the other the home of the immortals, he sang his hymn of praise in the middle of them all, with every kind of harmony and symphony which men and ministering angels hear; 74 the one as pupils, to learn to display their own grateful dispositions in a similar manner, and the others as presiding over them, able by their own experience to ensure that no part of this hymn would be out of tune, and also as feeling some doubt whether any human being bound up in a mortal body could be able to attune his soul to music in the same manner as the sun, and the moon, and the rest of the company of the stars, having properly conformed himself to that divine instrument, the heaven, and to the universal world. 75 And the declarer of the will of God, placed in this way among the beings who form the host of heaven, mingled with his grateful hymns of praise to God proofs of his own genuine affection and good will towards his nation, while he reproved them for their previous sins, and gave them admonitions, and advice, and precepts for the present occasion, and exhortations for the future, inspiring them with favourable hopes, which favourable events were bound to follow. 76 And when he had finished his hymn of melodious praise, which was in a way woven together from piety and humanity, he began to be changed and to depart from mortal existence to immortal life, and gradually to feel a separation of the different parts of which he was composed, namely of his body, which was now removed from him like a shell from a fish, from his soul which was thus laid bare and naked, and which desired its natural departure from here. 77 Then, having prepared all things for his departure, he did not approach the actual end of his existence until he had shown respect to all the tribes of his nation by harmonious and consistent prayers on their behalf, honouring all twelve of them by reciting the name of the patriarch of each tribe, and we must believe that all these prayers will certainly be fulfilled, for the man who offered up the prayers was a devout servant of God, and God is merciful, and the persons on whose behalf the supplications were uttered were men of pure and noble birth, classed in the highest rank possible by the supreme leader of the people, the Creator and Father of the universe. 78 And the things asked for in the petitions were real blessings, not only that such things might fall to their share in this mortal life, but even more when the soul would be released from the bondage of the flesh; 79 for Moses alone, believing, it would seem, that his whole nation had from the very beginning the closest of all possible relationships to God, one much more genuine than ties of blood, made it the inheritor of all the good things which the nature of mankind is capable of receiving, giving from his own store things which he had himself, and entreating God to supply what he himself did not possess, knowing that the fountains of his graces are everlasting, yet are not dispensed to all men but only to those who come to him as suppliants; and suppliants are those persons who love virtue and piety, and it is lawful for them to drink up those most sacred springs, since they are continually thirsting for wisdom. 80 We have now, then, spoken of the proofs of the humanity of the lawgiver, which he displayed by the admirable disposition of his own excellent nature, and also partly by the expositions which he has given in the sacred volumes. We must now proceed to speak of the precepts which he left behind him, commanding that they should be observed by future ages, and we must enumerate, if not all (for that would not be easy), at least the principal topics that are most closely connected with his counsels and most nearly resemble them; 81 for, according to him, gentleness and humanity do not dwell only in the social communion among men, but out of his great liberality and bounty he also spreads them abundantly, and extends it even to the irrational animals, and to the different species of wholesome trees. We must now go on to list separately the ordinances he established for each of these, beginning with men. 82 Therefore Moses forbids a man to lend at interest to his brother, meaning by the term brother not only one born of the same parents, but everyone who is a fellow citizen or a fellow countryman, since it is not just to exact offspring from money, as a farmer does from his cattle. 83 And he instructs his subjects not to hang back on that account or be slower to contribute to the needs of others, but rather to give very cheerfully, with open hands and willing minds, to those in need, considering that gratitude may in some degree be regarded as interest repaid at a more favourable season for what was lent in an hour of necessity, being repaid by the voluntary inclination of the receiver of the kindness. And if a person is not willing to give outright, he should at least lend, giving the temporary use of what is needed freely and cheerfully, without expecting to receive anything beyond the principal. 84 For in this way the poor will not become poorer, by being compelled to restore more than they received; nor will those who lent be doing wrong if they receive back only what they lent. And yet they will receive something more, for with the principal, instead of the interest they did not demand, they will gain the best and most honourable of all human things, as they will have displayed kindness and magnanimity, and will have earned a fair reputation and goodwill. And what acquisition is equal to this? 85 for the mightiest monarch appears poor and helpless when compared with one single virtue, for he has only inanimate riches buried in his treasuries or in the recesses of the earth, but the wealth of virtue is stored up in the dominant part of the soul; and heaven, that purest of all essences, itself claims a share in it, as likewise does the Creator and Father of the universe, God. Therefore we must regard the opulence of money-changers and usurers as poverty and call it so, though they appear to themselves to be mighty kings, while they have never seen the wealth that truly has sight, not even in their dreams. 86 And these men go to such extremes of wickedness that if they have no money, they make usurious advances even of food, lending it on condition of receiving back again more than they lent. Accordingly, such men are quick to give a contribution to those who ask for one, preparing famine and scarcity against a time of plenty and abundance, and making a revenue out of the hungry bellies of miserable men, weighing out the food as it were in a scale, and taking care not to give overweight. 87 Therefore he necessarily commands those who live under his sacred constitution to avoid every kind of revenue of this sort, for all such pursuits were the sign of a thoroughly slavish and illiberal mind, which would have to be turned to savagery and made to resemble brute beasts before it could adopt them. 88 Again, among the various commands that serve to extend humanity, this one is also established: every employer is to pay the wages of the poor man the same day that they are earned, not only because, since he has fulfilled the purpose for which he was hired, it is just that he should receive the reward of his service without any delay, but also because, as some persons have said, since the handicraftsman or burden-carrier is only a daily servant and short lived, suffering hardships with his whole body like any common beast of burden, he fixes all his hopes on his wages, and if he receives them at once, he is delighted, being both glad now, and ready to work twice as hard tomorrow with all cheerfulness; but if he does not get his wages, then, besides being exceedingly disappointed, he is weakened in his nerves and sinews through sorrow, and becomes faint, so that he is unable to bring himself to perform his ordinary tasks. 89 Again, the lawgiver says, let no one who lends at interest enter the house of his debtors to take by force any security or pledge for his debt, but let him stand outside in the outer court, and wait there, quietly asking his debtor to bring him a pledge; and if he has a pledge to give, let him not evade giving it, since it is fitting that the creditor should not, because of his power, behave arrogantly, so as to insult those who have borrowed from him; and that the debtor also, remembering that he has received a loan of another person's property, should not refuse to give an adequate security. 90 And who can help admiring the proclamation or commandment about reapers and gatherers of the fruit of the vineyard? For Moses commands that at the time of harvest the farmer shall not gather up the grain which falls from the sheaves, and that he shall not cut down all the crop, but that he shall leave a portion of the field unreaped, by this law making the rich magnanimous and ready to share their wealth, by compelling them to neglect some portion of their own lawful property, and not to be eager to save it all, nor to collect it all together, not to bring it all home and lay it up in store, and making the poor at the same time more cheerful and contented. For as the poor have no property of their own, he allows them to go into the fields of their fellow countrymen, and to reap what the owners have left as if it were their own. 91 And at the season of autumn he again instructs the owners of the land, when they are gathering their fruits, not to pick up those fruits which fall to the ground, nor to glean the vineyards a second time. And he also gives the same command to those who are gathering olives. He is like a most affectionate father whose children do not all enjoy equal good fortune, since some of them live in abundance, while others are reduced to the very extremity of poverty; and he, commiserating with them and pitying them, summons them to partake of the possessions of their brothers, using what belongs to others as if it were their own, and in doing so not inviting them to any act of shameless wrong, but supplying their real necessities, allowing them a participation, not in the crops alone, but even in the land itself, at least in appearance. 92 But there are men who are so sordid in their minds, being wholly devoted to the acquisition of money and labouring to the death for every kind of gain, without paying any attention to where it comes from, that they glean their vineyards again after they have gathered the fruit, and beat their olive branches a second time, and reap the whole of the land which bears barley and the whole of the land which bears wheat, convicting themselves of an illiberal and slavish littleness of soul, and also displaying their impiety; 93 for they themselves have contributed but a small part of what was necessary for the cultivation of their lands, but most of the means for making the land fertile and productive, and the most important of them, have been supplied by nature, such as seasonable rains, a proper temperature of the atmosphere, those nurses of the seeds sown and springing up--heavy and continual dews, vivifying breezes, the beneficial bestowal of the seasons of the year, so that the summer does not scorch the crops, the frost does not chill them, and the revolutions of spring and autumn do not spoil or diminish what is produced. 94 And though these men know and actually see that nature is continually perfecting her work by these means, and is enriching them with her abundant bounties, they still try to appropriate the whole of her liberality to themselves, and, as if they themselves were the causes of everything, they give no share of any of their wealth to anyone, showing at one and the same time their inhumanity and their impiety. Accordingly, since these men have not laboured in the cause of virtue of their own free will, he reproves and chastises them against their will by his sacred laws, which the virtuous man obeys voluntarily, and the wicked man unwillingly. 95 The laws command the people to offer the priests first fruits of grain, and wine, and oil, and of their domestic flocks, and of wools. But the first fruits of the crops produced in the fields and of the fruits of the trees they should bring in full baskets in proportion to the extent of their lands; with hymns made in praise of God, which the sacred volumes preserve in writing. And, moreover, they were not to reckon the first-born of the oxen, and sheep, and goats in their herds and flocks as if they were their own, but were to look upon these also as first-fruits, so that, trained in this way partly to honour God and partly not to seek every possible gain, they might be adorned with those chief virtues, piety and humanity. 96 Again. The law says, if you see the beast of any one of your relations or friends, or, in short, of any man whatever whom you know, wandering in the wilderness, bring it back and restore it to him; and, if the master is a long way off, then keep the animal with your own until he returns, and then he shall receive back the deposit which he has not entrusted to you, but which you, having found, spontaneously restore to him from your own natural feelings of fellowship. 97 Again. Are not all the enactments about the seventh year so formally established, which enjoin the people to leave all the land that year fallow and uncultivated, and allowing the poor to go with impunity over the fields of the rich to gather the fruits that grow spontaneously that year as the gift of nature, most merciful and humane ordinances? 98 The law says, 'For six years let the inhabitants of the land enjoy the fruits as a reward for the acquisitions which they have made and for the labours which they have undergone in cultivating the land; but for one year, namely, the seventh, let the poor and needy enjoy it, since no agricultural work has been done in that year.' For, if any work had been done, it would have been absurd for one man to labour and for another to reap the fruit of his labours. But this ordinance was given so that, with the lands left this year in a sense without any owners and no cultivation of the land contributing to its fertility, the produce, although full and complete, might be seen to proceed wholly from the bounty of God, coming out, as it were, to meet and relieve the needy. 99 Again. What are we to say of the commandments given relating to the fiftieth year? Do they not go to the very furthest extent of humanity? And, indeed, who would deny it, unless he had tasted this sacred code of laws with no more than the edges of his lips, and had not feasted and revelled in its most sweet and beautiful doctrines? 100 For, in this fiftieth year, all the ordinances which are given relating to the seventh year are repeated, and some greater ones are added as well, for instance, a man's recovery of his own possessions which he may have given up to others through unexpected necessity; for the law does not permit anyone permanently to retain possession of the property of others, but blockades and stops up the roads to covetousness for the sake of checking desire, that treacherous passion, that cause of all evils; and, therefore, it has not permitted the owners to be deprived of their original property for ever, as that would be punishing them for their poverty, for which we ought not to be punished but certainly to be pitied. 101 There is also a countless host of other special ordinances of great humanity and beauty relating to one's fellow countrymen; but, as I have mentioned them at sufficient length in my former treatises, I shall be satisfied with what I have said on those subjects, which I then put forth seasonably as a kind of specimen of the whole. 102 Moreover, after the lawgiver has established commandments respecting one's fellow countrymen, he proceeds to show that he also regards strangers as worthy of having their interests looked after by his laws, since they have forsaken their natural relations by blood, and their native land and their national customs, and the sacred temples of their gods, and the worship and honour which they had been accustomed to pay to them, and have migrated with a holy migration, exchanging their home among fabulous inventions for a home in the certainty and clearness of truth, and of the worship of the one true and living God. 103 Accordingly, he commands the men of his nation to love the strangers, not only as they love their friends and relations, but even as they love themselves, doing them all the good possible both in body and soul; and, as to their feelings, sympathising with them both in sorrow and in joy, so that they appear one single creature though the parts are divided, with mutual fellowship uniting the whole and rendering it compact and coherent. 104 There is no need for me to say anything about foods, and drinks, and garments, and all the other matters which relate to the usual way of living and to the necessary requirements of life, which the law requires the foreigners to receive from the natives of the land; for all these things follow the one general law of benevolence, which commands every man to love and cherish a stranger as much as himself. 105 Moreover, extending and carrying further that humanity which is naturally so attractive, he also gives commandments respecting sojourners, thinking it fitting that those persons who, through any temporary distresses, have been driven from their homes should repay those who have received them with a certain degree of honour, with all imaginable respect, if they have done good to them and have treated them with friendliness and hospitality, and with a moderate degree of respect if they have done nothing more than receive them into the land; for to be allowed to live in a city with which one is wholly unconnected, or, I might even say, to be allowed only to tread on the soil which belongs to another, is in itself a great enough bounty for those persons who are unable to dwell in their own land. 106 But the lawgiver here, going beyond all the ordinary boundaries of humanity, thinks it fitting and ordains that such sojourners shall bear no ill-will even to those men who, after having received them in the land, may have ill-treated them, since, though their actions may not have been kind, their name at least resembles the characteristics of humanity. Therefore he says explicitly, 'You shall not curse the Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in the land of Egypt.' 107 And yet what evil did the Egyptians ever fail to inflict on this nation, being continually adding new devices of cruelty to the old ones, and proceeding by all sorts of fresh contrivances to heap inhumanity on inhumanity? But nevertheless, because they originally received them in the land, not shutting their cities against them, and not making their country inaccessible to them when they first came, the lawgiver says, 'Let them, as a reward for their friendly reception of you, have a treaty of peace with you. 108 And if any of them are willing to forsake their old ways and to come over to the customs and constitutions of the Jews, they are not to be rejected and treated with hostility as the children of enemies, but to be received in such a manner that in the third generation they may be admitted into the assembly, and may have a share of the divine words read to them, being instructed in the will of God equally with the natives of the land, the descendants of God's chosen people. 109 These, then, are the ordinances which he enacts for the sojourners in respect of those who have received them into their land, and he also establishes other merciful laws, full of gentleness and humanity, on behalf even of enemies; for he thinks it right that, even if they are at the gates, and standing under the very walls ready to attack them in their complete armour, and raising their warlike engines against them, they should nevertheless not be counted as enemies until the citizens have sent heralds to them and invited them to peace, so that, if they yield, they may find that greatest of all blessings, namely, friendship; but if they are unyielding and refuse, then the citizens, having also gained the alliance and co-operation of justice, may go out to repel them with a good hope of victory. 110 Moreover, if, after taking prisoners in a sally, you come to desire a beautiful woman among them, do not satiate your passion, treating her as a captive, but act with gentleness, and pity her change of fortune, and alleviate her calamity, regulating everything for the best; 111 and you will alleviate her sufferings if you cut the hair of her head, and trim her nails, and take off the garment she wore when she was taken prisoner, and leave her alone for thirty days, during which you shall allow her to mourn and bewail without penalty her father and her mother, and her other relations, from whom she has been separated by their death, or because they have been subjected to the calamity of slavery which is worse than death. 112 And, after that period, you shall cohabit with her as with a legitimate wedded wife; for it is right that one who is about to ascend the bed of her husband, not for hire, like a harlot who trades on the flower of her beauty, but either out of love for the man who has married her, or for the sake of the procreation of children, should be thought worthy of the ordinances which belong to a legitimate marriage. 113 For this reason the lawgiver has framed all his laws with great beauty. For, in the first place, he has not permitted appetite to rush on in its unbridled course, with stiff-necked obstinacy, but he has checked its vehement impetuosity, compelling it to rest for thirty days. And in the second place he has tested love, trying whether it is a frantic passion, easily satisfied, and, in fact, wholly originating in desire, or whether it has any share in that most pure essence of well-tempered reason, for reason will bridle the desire, not allowing it to proceed to any acts of insolence, but compelling it to wait out the appointed period of a month of probation. 114 And, in the third place, he shows his compassion for the captive, if she is a virgin, because it is not her parents who are now giving her in marriage, arranging for her a most desirable connection; and if she is a widow, because she, being deprived of her first husband, is now about to try another, and this too while he still holds over her the power of a master, even though he takes pains to show equality; for whoever is subject to a master must always fear his power, even though he may be very merciful. 115 But if anyone, being filled with desire, and being afterwards sated with enjoyment, no longer chooses to continue his cohabitation with his captive, then the lawgiver does not so much punish him as admonish him and correct him, to improve his disposition, for he commands him in such a case not to sell her, nor to retain her any longer as a slave, but to give her liberty freely, and to allow her to depart from his house with impunity, so that she is not exposed to some intolerable suffering when another woman is brought into the house and the two quarrel, as often happens, out of jealousy, while the master falls under the sway of newer charms and despises those that previously allured him. 116 And so the lawgiver, pouring precept after precept into ready and obedient ears, urges humane conduct. Moreover, even if beasts of burden belonging to an enemy are weighed down by their loads and fall beneath them, he commands the people not to pass them by but to lighten their loads and lift them up, teaching them in this way, by distant examples, not to take delight in the unexpected misfortunes even of those who hate them, knowing that to rejoice in the disasters of others is a malicious and hateful passion, both akin to envy and its opposite: akin to it, because each of these feelings springs from passion, and because they come close to one another and, one might almost say, mirror each other; but its opposite, because one feeling causes grief at another's good fortune, and the other stirs up joy at a neighbour's misfortunes. 117 The law goes on to say, If you see your enemy's animal wandering loose, leave the urge to quarrel to more perverse temperaments, and lead the animal back and return it to its owner; for in this way you will benefit him no more than yourself, since by this means he will save only an irrational animal that is perhaps worthless, but you will gain the greatest and most valuable of all things in nature: excellence. 118 And as surely as a shadow follows a body, the dissolution of your enmity will necessarily follow; for the man who has received a benefit is willingly drawn to make peace from then on, enslaved by the kindness shown to him; and the one who has conferred the benefit, with his own good deed as his counsellor, is already almost ready in his mind for complete reconciliation. 119 And this is the goal the most holy prophet strives to achieve throughout his whole code of laws, seeking to create unanimity, and fellowship, and agreement, and that proper blending of different temperaments by which houses, and cities, and altars, and nations, and countries, and the whole human race may be led to the very highest happiness. 120 Up to now these are only wishes, but, as I at least am persuaded, they will one day be the most real of facts, since God will give a plentiful harvest of virtue, as he gives the harvest of the fruits of the seasons; and we shall never fail to attain these things if we cherish a desire for them from our earliest infancy. 121 These, then, and others like them are the ordinances he laid down for free-born men to observe. And it seems he also established other regulations consistent with them concerning slaves, all of which tend to foster gentleness and humanity, a share of which he gives even to slaves. 122 Accordingly he thinks it right that those who, needing the necessities of life, have devoted themselves to the service of others should not be compelled to endure anything unworthy of their free birth; and he advises those who benefit from their service to consider the unexpected misfortunes that have come upon their servants, and to respect their change of condition. Nor does he allow those who become debtors for daily loans, and who, by a figurative and metaphorical expression, have received both the name and unhappy condition of ephemeral animals, or those who through some still more urgent necessity have gone from free men to slaves, to suffer misery for ever; he gives them complete release in the seventh year. 123 For, he says, six years of servitude is enough for debtors who cannot repay their loans to the lender, or who for any other reason have become slaves after being free. And those who were not slaves by nature are not to be deprived of all happiness and liberty for ever, but are to return to the freedom they once had, which they lost through unforeseen calamities. 124 'And if,' the lawgiver goes on to say, 'someone who has been another man's slave for three generations, from fear of the threats of his master, or from knowing that he has committed some offence, or, if he has committed no offence at all but has a savage and inhuman master, flees for refuge to someone else, in the hope of getting help from him, do not reject him; for abandoning a suppliant is inconsistent with holiness, and even a slave is a suppliant, since he has taken refuge at your hearth, where it is fitting for him to find asylum, especially if he has come without any guile to offer honest service. And if he cannot obtain this protection, at least let him be sold to someone else; for it is uncertain what may be the effect of his change of masters, and an uncertain evil is easier to bear than an acknowledged one.' 125 These, then, are the ordinances he lays down concerning one's own relations, and strangers, and friends, and enemies, and slaves, and free men, and, in short, the whole human race. Moreover, he extends his principles of humanity and compassion even to the race of irrational animals, always allowing them to share in these benefits as in a pleasant fountain; 126 for in the case of domestic animals, flocks of sheep and of goats and herds of oxen, he commands the people to abstain from using newborn animals, and from taking them either for food or on the pretext of sacrificing them. For he regarded it as proof of a cruel disposition to plot against such creatures the moment they are born, separating the offspring from the mother at once for the sake of the pleasures of the belly, or rather for some absurd and preposterous unpleasantness that the soul fancies. 127 So he says to the man who is about to live by his most sacred constitution, 'My good man, there is a great abundance of things you are permitted to enjoy without any blame; if it were otherwise, it might perhaps have been pardonable, since need and scarcity compel men to do many things they would not otherwise intend. But you ought to excel in temperance and the practice of every virtue, since you are counted in the most admirable of all ranks and enrolled under a most excellent captain, the right reason of nature; all these considerations ought to make you humane, so that you admit nothing wrong into your mind. 128 And why, on top of the pains the animal bears in giving birth, should you also inflict other pains from outside, by immediately separating the mother from her offspring? For she will inevitably resist and be indignant when they are parted in this way, because of the affection nature has implanted in every mother towards her offspring, especially at the time of birth; since at this time the breasts are full of springs of milk, and if the flow is checked for lack of the child that should suck them, they grow hard, swollen by the weight of the milk, and the women themselves are overwhelmed with pain. 129 So, says the law, give the offspring to its mother, if not for the whole time, then at least for the first seven days, to rear on her milk, and do not make useless the fountains of milk that nature has placed in her breasts, destroying her second bounty, which she prepared with great prudence, foreseeing from afar by her everlasting and perfect wisdom what was to come. 130 For her first bounty was birth, by which what did not exist was brought into being; the second gift was the flow of milk, the most tender and timely food for a tender creature, which, though only one thing, is both food and drink at once. For insofar as part of the milk is watery, it is drink, and insofar as part of it is somewhat solid, it is food; and it was given these qualities out of prudent foresight, so that the newborn would not come to disaster through need lying in wait for it at different times, nature taking care in this way that, by one and the same supply of both kinds of food, it may escape those cruel mistresses, hunger and thirst. 131 So read this law, you excellent and most admirable parents, and hide your faces, you who are continually plotting the deaths of your children, you who harbour cruel designs against your offspring and expose them the moment they are born, you irreconcilable enemies of the whole race of mankind; 132 for toward whom will you ever feel good will, when you are the murderers of your own children? You who, as far as you can, make cities desolate, beginning with the destruction of your nearest relations; you who overturn all the laws of nature, and pull down all that she builds up; you who are savage and untameable in the barbarity of your souls, raising up destruction against birth, and death against life? 133 Do you not see how the all-wise and all-good lawgiver has taken care that, even among brute beasts, the offspring shall not be separated from the mother until it has been nourished by her milk? And this is ordained mainly for your sake, you noble people, so that if you lack it by nature, you may at least learn proper affection for your kindred by instruction, looking to the examples of lambs and kids, which are not hindered from revelling in the most abundant possible supply of necessary food, which nature itself prepares for them in the most convenient places, granting easy enjoyment of food to those that need it, while the lawgiver provides, with great zeal and care, that no one shall intercept the bountiful and saving gifts of God. 134 And wishing to implant the seeds of gentleness and humanity in the minds of men by every means imaginable, he also adds another command akin to the preceding one, forbidding anyone to sacrifice the mother and the offspring on the same day, for even if both are to be sacrificed, it must be at different times, since it is the height of barbarity to kill on one day both the animal that has been born and the mother who is the cause of its birth. 135 And for what purpose is this done? One is killed on the pretext of sacrifice, the other for the gratification of the belly. If it is on the pretext of offering them in sacrifice, then the very name is false, for animals taken for such a purpose are victims, not sacrifices. And what altar of God would ever receive such unholy sacrifices? And as for the fire, would it not divide itself of its own accord into two parts and stand apart, avoiding all the contamination which might arise from any contact with such a profane thing? I imagine that it would not have stayed, no, not even for the briefest moment, but would have been immediately extinguished, out of a watchful care that the air, and the most holy nature of the Spirit, should not be polluted by the ascending flames. 136 And if they are taken not to be offered in sacrifice but to be feasted on, then who could fail to loathe and reject all these new and unprecedented kinds of preposterous gluttony? for such men are, indeed, pursuing pleasures beyond all reason. And what pleasure can men eating meat find in devouring, at the same meal, the flesh of the mothers and of their offspring? And if anyone wanted to hack up the limbs of the two animals together, run them on a spit, roast them and so devour them, I truly believe the very limbs themselves would not stay quiet, but would be filled with indignation and would utter speech, in their fury at the extraordinary and unprecedented injury done to them, and would revile with countless reproaches for their gluttony the men who had prepared such an unmentionable banquet. 137 But the law banishes all pregnant animals far from the sacred precincts, not permitting them to be sacrificed until they have given birth, and regards the animals still in the womb as equal to those just born; not because those that have not yet come to light are really regarded as equal in importance to living creatures, but because this ordinance is given to banish far away the rashness of those who habitually confound everything; 138 for if animals that grow and increase like plants, and are considered parts, as it were, of the mothers that conceived them, still united with them and destined, after an appointed number of months, to be separated from the close bond that now holds them, are preserved for now by the safety this guarantees their mothers, because of the hope that they may one day become living creatures, so that the pollution mentioned above may not happen; how can the animals already born, which have received the gift of life and body in their own persons, not be preserved still more? For it is the most impious of all customs to kill both offspring and mother at one time, on one day. 139 And it seems to me that some lawgivers, starting from this point, have also enacted the law about condemned women, which commands that pregnant women who have committed an offence deserving death shall nevertheless not be executed until they have given birth, in order that the creature in their womb may not be slain with them when they are put to death. 140 But while these men established such enactments for human beings, this lawgiver of ours, going beyond them all, extends his humanity even to brute beasts, so that by practising on creatures of a different kind we may display an exceptional degree of humanity towards beings of our own kind, refraining from pursuing anyone, or even from annoying them in return for any annoyance we have received from them, and so that we may not secretly store up our own good things to keep them to ourselves, but may bring them out into the open, and offer them freely to all men everywhere, as if they were our kinsmen and our natural brothers. 141 Moreover, let wicked slanderers malign the whole nation as given to inhumanity, and our laws as prescribing unsociable and inhuman practices, when the laws so openly show compassion even to herds of cattle, and while the whole nation from its earliest youth is, as far as the disobedient nature of their souls allows, won over to a peaceable disposition by the honest admonitions of the law. 142 And our lawgiver strives to surpass even himself, being a man resourceful in every way that leads to virtue, and having a certain natural gift for urging virtue; for he commands that no one take an animal from its mother, whether it is a lamb, or a kid, or any other creature belonging to the flocks or herds, before it is weaned. And having also given a command that no one shall sacrifice the mother and the offspring on the same day, he goes further and is quite lavish in the detail of his commands, adding this too: 'You shall not boil a lamb in his mother's milk.' 143 For he regarded it as a very terrible thing for the nourishment of the living to become the seasoning and sauce of the dead animal, and, when provident nature had, as it were, showered forth milk to support the living creature and ordained that it flow through the mother's breasts as through a regular channel, for the unbridled licentiousness of men to go so far that they use what sustained the animal's life to consume its body. 144 And if anyone wants to cook meat with milk, let him do so without incurring the double reproach of inhumanity and impiety. There are countless herds of cattle everywhere, and some are milked every day by the cowherds, or goatherds, or shepherds, since, indeed, the milk is the greatest source of profit to all breeders of stock, being partly used in a liquid state and partly allowed to coagulate and solidify, so as to make cheese. So, since there is the greatest abundance of lambs, and kids, and all other kinds of animals, the man who boils the flesh of any one of them in the milk of its own mother displays a terrible perversity of disposition and shows himself wholly lacking in the feeling that, above all others, is most indispensable to and most closely akin to a rational soul: compassion. 145 I also greatly admire the law that, like a singer in a well-trained chorus, is in perfect harmony with those that came before it, and which forbids a man to 'muzzle the ox which treads out the grain.' For it is the ox that, before the sowing, cut the furrows through the deep-soiled plain and prepared the field for the work of heaven and the labours of the farmer: for the farmer, so that he might sow it at the right time, and for heaven, so that the deep bosom of the earth might receive its bounty poured out in gentle showers, and so store up rich nourishment for the seed and give it out gradually until the seed swells into the full ear and brings its annual fruit to perfection. And once the grain has ripened, the ox is needed again for another service, namely, for the purification of the sheaves, and the separation of the chaff from the genuine useful grain. 146 And since I have explained this clear and humane command about the oxen that tread out the grain,⁠a I will now go on to the one about the animals that plough, which belongs to the same family; for the lawgiver also forbids the farmer to yoke the ox and the ass together in the same plough for ploughing, taking into account here not only the difference in nature between the two animals, because the one is clean, while the ass is one of the unclean beasts, and it is not fitting to bring together animals so utterly estranged, but also, because they are unequal in strength, looking after the weaker one, so that it may not be oppressed and worn out by the greater power of the other. And indeed the ass, the weaker animal, is driven outside the sacred precincts; but the more vigorous beast, namely, the ox, is offered up as a victim in the most perfect sacrifices. 147 Even so, the lawgiver neither neglected the safety of the unclean animals nor permitted the clean ones to use their strength in disregard of justice, crying out and declaring loudly in plain words, so to speak, to those who have ears in their soul, not to injure anyone of a different nation unless they have some grounds for accusing them beyond the fact that they belong to another nation, which is no ground for blame; for things that are not wickedness, and do not spring from wickedness, are free from all reproach. 148 And, full of mercy in every part, he displays it once again in abundant and overflowing measure, crossing over from the beings endowed with reason to the brute beasts, and from the brute beasts to plants, which we must now go on to discuss at once, since we have already said enough about men and about all animals endowed with life. 149 He has expressly forbidden cutting down for timber any trees that bear edible fruit, ravaging a plain of grain before its proper season in order to destroy it, and, in short, destroying any kind of crop in any way, in order that the race of mankind may enjoy an abundance of nourishment without any limitation, and may have enough not only of necessary food but also of the kinds that make life luxurious. For the crop of wheat and grain is necessary, since it is set apart as man's actual daily food; but the innumerable varieties of the fruits which grow on trees are given to make his life luxurious; and very often, in times of scarcity, even these become a secondary food. 150 And, going beyond all other lawgivers in humanity, he does not allow his people even to ravage the country of their enemies, but he commands them to abstain from cutting down the trees, thinking it unjust that anger stirred up against men should be vented on things innocent of all evil. 151 Besides this, by this commandment he shows that it is right to look not only at the present but also, with keen reasoning, to survey the distant future as from a watch-tower, since nothing remains long in the same condition, but everything is subject to alternations and variations; so it is natural for those who have been enemies for a while, once they have sent heralds and made overtures towards reconciliation, to become friends again in the bonds of peace. 152 And it would be wicked to deprive one's friends of necessary food when, because of the uncertainty of the future, they have probably stored up nothing of use to them. For the ancients had an admirable saying: that one must enter into friendships without being blind to the possibility that they may turn into enmity, and must repel an enemy as one who may later become a friend, so that each man, with this in mind, might store up in his own soul something that serves his safety, and might not, left completely bare and defenceless, regret in word and deed his excessive good nature, blaming himself when there is no need. 153 Cities too should act on this principle, providing in peace the things which will be necessary in time of war, and in time of war the things which will be desirable in peace, and refraining from placing such implicit, boundless confidence in their allies, as if they could never possibly change and become their enemies; nor, on the other hand, showing such distrust toward their enemies as if they would never be able to bring them over to reconciliation and peace. 154 Moreover, even if nothing is to be done for one's enemies in the hope of reconciliation, still no plant is an enemy; all plants are at peace with us and useful to us. And those that produce edible fruit are extremely necessary, since their fruit is either food itself or the equivalent of food. And why should men be roused to hostility against things that are not hostile, cutting them down, or burning them, or tearing them up by the roots; things that nature herself has brought to perfection with streams of water and the admirable warmth of summer, so that they pay yearly revenues to mankind as subjects pay their kings? 155 So Moses, as a good overseer, took every care to implant, not only in animals, but also in plants, invincible strength and vigour, and especially in those that produce edible fruit, since they deserve more care and are not equal in size and vigour to the wild trees of the forest, needing the farmer's skill to give them greater vigour; 156 for he commands that the young plants be carefully tended for three years, while the farmer prunes away the superfluous off-shoots, in order that the trees may not be weighed down and exhausted by them, in which case their fruit would become small and weak for lack of nourishment, and the farmer must also dig around each tree and clear the ground, in order that no injurious plant may grow near it, so as to hinder its growth. And he does not allow anyone to gather the fruit out of season as they please, not only because, if that were done, it would be imperfect and produced from imperfect trees (just as animals that are not perfect themselves cannot produce perfect offspring), but also because the young plants themselves would be injured, and would in a way be bowed down and kept creeping along the ground, prevented from shooting up into straight, stout trunks. 157 Accordingly, many farmers watch their young trees at the start of spring so as to destroy at once whatever fruit appears before it grows or reaches any size, for fear that, if it is left on, it may weaken the parent tree. For if no one took care beforehand, it might happen that when the tree ought to bring its fruit to perfection, it would either bear none at all or be unable to ripen any, being completely weakened by having been allowed to glut itself with bearing before its proper time, just as old vine stems, when weighed down, are exhausted in both root and trunk. 158 But after three years, when the roots have gone deeper and taken a firmer hold of the soil, and when the trunk, being supported as it were on a firm unbending foundation, grows up vigorously, then in the fourth year it is able to bear perfect fruit in proper quantity: 159 and in the fourth year he permits the fruit to be gathered, not for the enjoyment and use of man, but so that the whole crop may be dedicated to God as the first-fruits, partly as a thank-offering for mercies already received, and partly in hope of good crops to come and of revenue from the tree in the future. 160 You see, therefore, what great humanity and compassion our lawgiver displays, and how he spreads his kindness over every kind of man, even foreigners or enemies; and secondly, how he extends it also to brute beasts, even though they are not clean, and in fact to everything, to sown crops, and to trees. For the man who has learnt the principles of humanity toward natures devoid of sense is never likely to go wrong toward those endowed with life; and the one who never treats harshly creatures that have only life is taught, from far off, to take great care of those also blessed with reason. 161 Having, then, civilised and softened by precepts such as these the minds of those who live under the constitution of his laws, he has turned them away from haughtiness and arrogance, those most grievous and burdensome of evils, which men generally cling to as the greatest of goods, especially when riches, or glory, or authority supply them in unlimited abundance; 162 for arrogance very often arises in men of no reputation or character, just like any other passion, disease or infirmity of the soul, but in such men it does not grow or increase; like fire, it goes out for lack of fuel. But in great men it is very conspicuous, since, as I said before, they have food for this evil in riches, glory and authority, which fill them entirely, and like those who have drunk great quantities of strong wine they become intoxicated, and in their drunkenness they attack slaves and free men alike, and at times even whole cities; for satiety produces insolence, as the ancient proverb tells us. 163 For this reason Moses, in declaring the will of God, commands men to abstain from every kind of offence, and above all from arrogance. And afterwards he reminds them of the things that tend to kindle passion, such as an abundance of immoderate eating, and extravagant wealth in houses, and lands, and cattle; for when they possess these things, they immediately become unable to restrain themselves, being distended with pride and puffed up; and the only remaining hope of curing such men lies in keeping them from forgetting God. 164 For just as, when the sun rises, the darkness disappears and all places are filled with light, so in the same way, when God, the sun perceptible only to the intellect, rises and illuminates the soul, the whole darkness of vices and passions is dissipated, and the pure and lovely appearance of bright and radiant virtue is displayed to the world. 165 And he seeks still more to check and root out haughtiness, choosing to gather together the reasons for which he commands men to build in their souls an undying remembrance of God; 'For God,' says Moses, 'gives strength to get power,' and in this he speaks very instructively; for the man who has been accurately and thoroughly taught that he has received an endowment of great strength and vigour from God, will consider the weakness that was his before he received this great gift, and will consequently repel all haughty, and arrogant, and overbearing thoughts, and will give thanks to him who has been the cause of this change for the better. And arrogance is inconsistent with a grateful soul, just as ingratitude, on the contrary, is closely akin to haughtiness. 166 Are your affairs prosperous and flourishing? Then, receiving and increasing a strength of body you perhaps did not expect, get power; and those who do not see very clearly what this expression implies must investigate its meaning carefully. Many people try to bring on others the exact opposite of the benefits they have received themselves; for either, having themselves become rich, they prepare poverty for others, or, having reached a high degree of honour and reputation, they become the causes of dishonour and infamy to others: 167 but it is right instead for the wise and prudent man to try, as best he can, to bring his neighbours into the same condition as well; and that the temperate man should seek to make others temperate, the brave man to make others courageous, the righteous man to make others just, and in short every good man ought to try to make everyone else good; for these qualities, it seems, are powers that the virtuous man will cling to as his own; but infirmity and weakness, on the contrary, are inconsistent with a virtuous character. 168 And elsewhere the lawgiver also gives this precept, which is most fitting and suitable to a rational nature, that men should imitate God to the best of their power, omitting nothing that could contribute to as close a likeness as the case allows. So since you have received strength from a being more powerful than you, give others a share of that strength, distributing among them the benefits which you have received yourself, in order that you may imitate God by bestowing gifts like his; 169 for all the gifts of the supreme Ruler are of common advantage to all men; and he gives them to certain individuals not so that, having received them, they may hide them out of sight or use them to injure others, but so that they may put them into the common stock and invite everyone they can find to use and enjoy them with them. 170 So we say that men possessed of great riches, and of high renown, and of great strength of body, and of great learning, ought to try to make everyone they meet rich, and strong, and learned, and in short good, and that they ought not to prefer envy and jealousy to virtue, and so oppose those who might otherwise attain prosperity; 171 and the law has very beautifully brought those who are inflated by arrogance, and are altogether possessed by incurable pride, not before the tribunal of men, but before the judgment seat of God, to which alone it has assigned the office of judging them; for it says, 'Whoever attempts to do anything in a haughty arrogant manner, makes God angry.' 172 Why so? Because, in the first place, haughty arrogance is a vice of the soul; but the soul is invisible to anyone but God. And anyone who punishes, if he does so blindly, is to blame, since ignorance accuses him: but if he does so with his eyes open, he is to be praised as doing everything with knowledge; and secondly, because every haughty arrogant man is full of vain, groundless pride and regards himself as neither man nor demigod, but rather as an actual deity, as Pindar says, thinking himself worthy to overstep all the boundaries of human nature. 173 And just as the soul of such a man is blameworthy, so is his body in all its postures and movements, for he walks on tip-toes, and holds his head high, strutting and giving himself airs, and he is elated and puffed up beyond his nature, and though he does see, he sees only with distorted vision, and though he hears, he hears wrongly; and he treats his servants as though they were cattle, and free men as though they were his slaves, and his kinsmen as strangers, and his friends as flatterers, and citizens as foreigners; 174 and he regards himself as the wealthiest, the most distinguished, the most beautiful, the strongest, the wisest, the most prudent, the most righteous, the most rational, and the most learned of all men; and he regards all the rest of mankind as poor, of no reputation, dishonoured, foolish, unjust, ignorant, mere dregs of mankind, entitled to no consideration. Naturally, then, such a man is likely to meet, as the interpreter of the will of God tells us, with God himself as his adversary and chastiser. 175 The most holy Moses, being a lover of virtue, and of honour, and, above all things, of the human race, expects all men everywhere to show themselves admirers of piety and of justice, offering them, as though they were conquerors, great rewards if they repent, namely, a share in the best of all constitutions and the enjoyment of everything to be found in it, whether great or small. 176 The most important blessings are, in the body, good health free from disease; in navigation, a successful voyage free from danger; and in the soul, an undying recollection of all things worthy to be remembered. The blessings of the second class consist of restoration: recovery from disease; a long-wished-for escape from great dangers met on a voyage, and safety after them; and recollection that follows forgetfulness; and the brother and closest relation of this last is repentance, which is not ranked in the first and highest class of blessings, but holds first place in the class next to it. 177 For never to do anything wrong whatsoever is an attribute unique to God, and perhaps, one may also say, to a God-like man. But when one has erred, to change and adopt a blameless way of life for the future is the mark of a wise man, and of one who is not altogether ignorant of what is expedient. 178 For this reason he calls to himself everyone of this disposition, and initiates them in his laws, holding out to them admonitions full of reconciliation and friendship, which exhort men to practise sincerity and to reject pride, and to cling to truth and simplicity, those most necessary virtues which, above all others, contribute to happiness; forsaking all the fabulous inventions of foolish men, which their parents, and nurses, and instructors, and innumerable other persons with whom they have been associated, have impressed on their tender souls from earliest infancy, implanting in them inextricable errors concerning the knowledge of the most excellent of all things. 179 And what can this best of all things be except God? Yet those men have given his honours to beings that are not gods, honouring them beyond all reason and moderation and, empty-minded as they are, wholly forgetting him. We must therefore regard as our friends and kinsmen all those men who, although they did not originally choose to honour the Creator and Father of the universe, have changed and done so afterwards, having learnt to prefer honouring a single monarch to honouring a number of rulers, since they display that greatest of all bonds with which to cement friendship and kindred, namely, a pious and God-loving disposition, and we ought to rejoice with them and congratulate them, since even if they were blind previously they have now received their sight, seeing the most brilliant of all lights instead of the most profound darkness. 180 We have now described the first and most important of the considerations which belong to repentance. And let a man repent, not only of the errors by which he was for a long time deceived, when he honoured the creature in preference to that uncreated being who was himself the Creator of all things, but also of the other necessary and ordinary pursuits and affairs of life, forsaking, as it were, the very worst of all evil constitutions, the sovereignty of the mob, and adopting that best of all constitutions, a well-ordered democracy; that is to say, crossing over from ignorance to a knowledge of the things it is shameful to be ignorant of; from folly to wisdom, from intemperance to temperance, from injustice to righteousness, from cowardice to confident courage. 181 For it is a very excellent and expedient thing to go over to virtue without ever looking back again, forsaking that treacherous mistress, vice. At the same time, just as in sunlight the shadow follows the body, so a share in all the other virtues must inevitably follow from giving due honour to the living God; 182 for those who come over to this worship become at once prudent, and temperate, and modest, and gentle, and merciful, and humane, and venerable, and just, and magnanimous, and lovers of truth, and superior to all considerations of money or pleasure; just as, on the contrary, one may see that those who forsake the holy laws of God are intemperate, shameless, unjust, disreputable, weak-minded, quarrelsome, companions of falsehood and perjury, willing to sell their liberty for luxurious eating, for strong wine, for sweetmeats, and for beauty, for pleasures of the belly and of the parts below the belly; the miserable end of all this enjoyment is the ruin of both body and soul. 183 Moses also gives us very beautiful exhortations to repentance, by which he teaches us to alter our way of life, changing from an irregular and disorderly course into a better line of conduct; for he says that this task is neither excessively difficult nor far out of our reach, being neither above us in the air nor on the extreme borders of the sea, so that we are unable to take hold of it; but it is near us, residing, in fact, in three parts of us, namely, in our mouths, and our hearts, and our hands; that is, symbolically, in our words, and counsels, and actions; for the mouth is the symbol of speech, and the heart of counsels, and the hands of actions, and in these happiness consists. 184 For when the mind matches the words, and the actions match the counsels, then life is praiseworthy and perfect. But when these are all at odds with one another, life is imperfect and blameworthy, unless someone who is at the same time a lover of God and beloved by God takes it in hand and produces this harmony. For this reason the oracular declaration was very fittingly given, and in perfect accordance with what has been said above, 'You have this day chosen the Lord to be your God, and the Lord has this day chosen you to be his people.' 185 When a man shows such eagerness to serve God, it is a very beautiful exchange and recompense for his choice that God takes the suppliant to himself as his own without any delay, and goes out to meet the intentions of the man who, in a genuine and sincere spirit of piety and truth, hastens to serve him. But the true servant and suppliant of God, even if on his own he is counted and classed as one man, is still in power, as has been said elsewhere, the whole people, since he is equal in value to a whole people. And this is naturally true in other matters too; 186 for, as in a ship, the pilot is of as much importance as all the rest of the crew put together; and, as in an army, the general is of as much value as the whole of the army, since, if he is killed, the whole army is defeated as much as if it had been killed to a man and utterly destroyed; so in the same way the wise man is equal in importance to the whole nation, being defended by that indestructible impregnable fortress, piety towards God. 187 We ought to rebuke in the strongest language those who celebrate nobility of birth as the greatest of all blessings, and the cause also of great blessings, if, in the first place, they consider nobly born those who are descended from people who were rich and glorious in the days of old, when the very ancestors they boast of descending from were not themselves made happy by their unlimited abundance; since, in truth, what is really good does not naturally or necessarily lodge in any external thing, nor in any of the things which belong to the body, and indeed I may even say not in every part of the soul, but only in the dominant and most important portion of it. 188 For when God determined to establish this in us out of his own exceeding mercy and love for the human race, he could find no temple on earth more beautiful or better suited for its dwelling than reason: for the mind makes, as it were, an image of the good and consecrates it within itself, and if any persons disbelieve in it, they are those who have either never tasted wisdom at all, or else have done so only with the edges of their lips (for silver and gold, and honours, and offices, and vigour and beauty of body, resemble those men who are appointed to positions of authority and power, in order to serve virtue as if she were their queen), never having obtained a sight of the most brilliant of all lights. 189 Since, then, nobility of mind, perfectly purified by complete purifications, is the proper inheritance, we ought to call those men alone noble who are temperate and just, even if they are household slaves or were bought with money. But the region of nobleness is wholly closed to those who, though born of virtuous parents, themselves turn out wicked; 190 for every bad man is without a house and without a city, having been driven from his proper country, namely, virtue; which is the real, genuine country of all wise men: and ignobleness necessarily attaches itself to such a man, even though he is descended from grandfathers and great grandfathers whose lives were wholly irreproachable, since he strives to alienate himself from them, and in all his words and actions detaches himself from real nobility and removes himself as far from it as possible. 191 Moreover, besides the fact that wicked men cannot possibly be noble, I also see that they are all of them irreconcilable enemies to nobility, since they have destroyed the reputation that came to them from their ancestors, and have dimmed and extinguished all the brilliance that existed in their race. 192 And it is for this reason, it seems to me, that some most affectionate fathers disown and disinherit their sons, cutting them off from their homes and from their kindred, when the wickedness which is displayed in them has over-mastered the immense, all-pervading love that nature implants in parents. 193 And the truth of this claim of mine is easy to see from other circumstances too. What good could it ever do a man that his ancestors had been endowed with the keenest vision, if he himself had been deprived of his eyes? How could that fact assist him to see? Or again, if a person has an impediment in his speech, how would it help his utterance that his parents or his grandfathers had had fine voices? And how will it help a man who has been emaciated and exhausted by a long, wasting disease to recover his former strength, if the original founders of his race are enrolled, for their strength as athletes, among the Olympic conquerors or the victors at any other periodic games? For their bodily infirmities will remain just as they were before, not improved in any way by the successes of their relations. 194 In the same manner, just parents are of no advantage to unjust men, nor temperate parents to intemperate children, nor, in short, are ancestors of any kind of excellence any advantage to wicked descendants; for even the laws themselves are of no advantage to those who transgress them, as they are meant to punish them, and what ought we to regard as unwritten laws, except the lives of those who have imitated virtue? 195 For this reason, I imagine, nobility herself, if God were to give her the form and organs of a man, would stand before those obstinate and unworthy descendants and speak like this: 'Where truth is the judge, relationship is not measured by blood alone, but by a similarity of actions, and by a careful imitation of the conduct of your ancestors. But you have pursued an opposite line of conduct, thinking hateful the actions that are dear to me, and loving the deeds that are hateful to me; for in my eyes modesty, and truth, and moderation, and a due government of the passions, and simplicity, and innocence, are honourable, but in your opinion they are dishonourable; and to me all shameless behaviour is hateful, and all falsehood, and all immoderate indulgence of the passions, and all pride, and all wickedness. But you regard these things as near and dear to you. 196 Why, then, when your actions show every possible eagerness to alienate yourselves from them, do you shelter under a plausible name and hypocritically claim a relationship in words? For I cannot endure false and seductive insinuations, or any deceit, because it is easy for anyone to find specious arguments, but it is not easy to change an evil disposition into a good one. 197 'And so, looking at these facts, I both now consider and shall always consider those who have kindled sparks of enmity to be my enemies, and I shall look upon them with more suspicion than upon those who have been reproached openly for lack of nobility; for they at least can plead in their defence that they have no connection at all with excellence. But you who act like this, after being born of noble houses and being fond of boasting of your noble descent and regarding it as your glory, are justly liable to punishment; for, though archetypal models of virtue have been established in close connection with, and in a way implanted in you, you have determined to give no good impression of them yourselves. 198 But many circumstances make it plain that nobility lies only in the acquisition of virtue, and that you ought to think the man who has it the only one really noble, and not the man born of noble and virtuous parents.' 199 Again, who would deny that the sons of the man who was made out of the earth were themselves noble, and the founders of noble families? They received a birth more excellent than that of any later generation, since they sprang from the first wedded pair, from the first man and woman, who then for the first time came together for the propagation of offspring resembling themselves. Nevertheless, of the two so born, the elder brought himself to kill the younger; and, having committed the great and most accursed crime of fratricide, he first defiled the ground with human blood. 200 Now, what good did the nobility of his birth do to a man who had displayed this lack of nobleness in his soul? God, who surveys all human things and actions, saw it and detested it; and, casting it forth, affixed a punishment to it, not killing him at once, which would have brought him immediate insensibility to misfortune, but suspending over him ten thousand deaths in his external senses, by means of incessant griefs and fears, so as to make him feel the most grievous calamities. 201 In later generations there was a man very highly approved, a most holy man, whose piety the sacred historian, who has written the books called the law, has thought worthy of being recorded in the sacred volumes. Accordingly, in the great deluge when all the cities of the world were utterly destroyed (for even the highest mountains were overwhelmed by the increase and continual rising of the rapid flood), he alone was saved, with all his kindred, having received such a reward for his virtue that it is not possible to imagine a greater one. 202 This man, again, had three sons; and, though they had shared in the blessing given to their father, one of them dared to ridicule his father, the cause of his safety, laughing at him, and mocking and reviling him, because of an error which he committed unintentionally, and showing to those who had not seen it what he ought to have concealed, and so bringing disgrace on the man who had fathered him. Therefore, having fallen from his brilliant nobility of birth and having become accursed, and having also become the beginning of misery to all his posterity, he suffered all the evils it was fitting for a man to suffer when he had disregarded all the honour due to his parents. 203 But why should I speak of these men, and pass over the first man who was created out of the earth? In the nobleness of his birth he can be compared to no mortal whatever, since he was fashioned by the hand of God, and given a form in the likeness of a human body by the highest perfection of the art of moulding. And he was also thought worthy of a soul derived from no created being that had yet come into existence, but God breathed into him as much of his own power as mortal nature was capable of receiving. Was this not, then, a nobleness surpassing all others, which could not possibly be compared with any other celebrated example? 204 for all persons who lay claim to that kind of eminence rest their claims on the nobility of their ancestors. But even their ancestors were only animals, subject to disease and to corruption, and their prosperity was, for the most part, very unstable. But the father of this man was not mortal at all, and the sole author of his being was God. And he, being in a way his image and likeness in the dominant mind of the soul, 205 though it was his duty to preserve that image free from all spot or blemish, following and imitating as far as he could the virtues of the one who had created him, since the two opposite qualities of good and evil (what is honourable and what is disgraceful, what is true and what is false) were set before him to choose and to avoid, deliberately chose what was false, and disgraceful, and evil, and despised what was good, and honourable, and true; and for this conduct he was very fairly condemned to change an immortal for a mortal existence, being deprived of blessedness and happiness, and so he was naturally changed and descended into a laborious and miserable life. 206 However, let these men serve as common examples and warnings for all men, in order to prevent them from priding themselves on their noble birth, and so departing from and losing the rewards of excellence. But there are also other special rules given to the Jews besides the common ones which are applicable to all mankind; for they are derived from the original founders of the nation, to whom the virtues of their ancestors were of absolutely no benefit at all, since they were detected in blameable and guilty actions, and were convicted, if not by any other human being, then at least by their own consciences, the only tribunal in the world that is never led astray by any artifices of speech. 207 The first man of them had a numerous family, since he had children by three wives, not forming these connections for the sake of pleasure, but because of his hope of multiplying his race. But of all his children, only one was appointed to inherit his father's possessions; and all the rest, disappointed in their reasonable hopes, and having failed to obtain any portion whatever of their father's wealth, departed to live in different countries, having been completely alienated from that celebrated nobility of birth. 208 Again, the one who was approved as heir had two sons, twins, who resembled one another in nothing except their hands, and even there only by some special providence of God, since they were alike neither in their bodies nor in their minds, for the younger one was obedient to both his parents, and was really amiable and pleasing, so that he won praise even from God; while the elder was disobedient, being intemperate in respect of the pleasures of the belly and of the parts beneath the belly, for the sake of which he was even induced to part with his birthright, as far as he himself was concerned, though he repented immediately afterwards of the conditions on which he had forfeited it, and sought to kill his brother, and, in fact, to do everything imaginable that was likely to pain his parents; 209 therefore they, in the first place, offered up prayers for his brother to the supreme God, who accepted them, and who chose not to leave any of them unfulfilled; while to the other they gave, out of compassion, a subordinate rank, appointing him to serve his brother, thinking, as is indeed true, that not being his own master is good for a wicked man. 210 And if the elder brother had cheerfully submitted to the servitude, he would have been thought worthy of a secondary reward, as having come off second in a contest of virtue; but as it was, having behaved in a self-willed manner, and having refused to submit to servitude, he became the cause of great reproach, both to himself and to his descendants, so that his miserable life has been indelibly recorded as the clearest proof that nobility of birth is of no service whatever to those who do not deserve to have it. 211 These two men, then, both belong to the class that is open to reproach; since they showed themselves wicked men, though descended from virtuous fathers, the virtues of their fathers did not profit them in the least, while the vices which existed in their souls did them infinite mischief; and I can also speak of others, who, on the contrary, ranged themselves in a better class, after having been born in a worse, since their ancestors were guilty, while their own lives were admirable and full of praise and virtue. 212 The most ancient person of the Jewish nation was a Chaldaean by birth, born of a father who was very skilful in astronomy, and famous among those men who pass their lives in the study of mathematics, who look upon the stars as gods, and worship the whole heaven and the whole world; thinking that all good and all evil come from them to every individual among men, since they do not conceive that there is any cause whatever except those included among the objects of the outward senses. 213 What can be more horrible than this? What can more clearly show the innate ignobleness of the soul, which, as a consequence of its knowledge of the generality of things, of secondary causes, and of things created, proceeds onwards to ignorance of the one most ancient uncreated Being, the Creator of the universe, and who is most excellent on this account, and for many other reasons also, which the human reason is unable to comprehend because of their magnitude? 214 But this man, having formed a proper conception of this in his mind, and being under the influence of inspiration, left his country, and his family, and his father's house, well knowing that, if he remained among them, the deceitful fancies of polytheistic doctrine, which would remain there too, must make his mind incapable of arriving at the proper discovery of the true God, who is the only everlasting God and the Father of all other things, whether perceptible only to the intellect or to the outward senses; while, on the other hand, he saw that if he rose up and left his native land, deceit would also depart from his mind, changing his false opinions into true belief. 215 At the same time, also, the divine oracles of God which were imparted to him further excited his longing to attain to a knowledge of the living God, and, guided by them, he set out with the most unhesitating earnestness to the investigation of the one God. And he never gave up this investigation until he arrived at a more distinct perception, not indeed of his essence, for that is impossible, but of his existence, and of his over-ruling providence as far as man is allowed to attain to such perception; 216 for this reason he is the first person said to have believed in God, since he was the first who had an unswerving and firm comprehension of him, apprehending that there is one supreme cause, and that it is he who by his providence governs the world and all the things in it. And having attained to a most firm comprehension of the virtues, he acquired at the same time all the other virtues and excellencies also, so that he was looked upon as a king by those who received him, not indeed in respect of his appointments, for he was only a private individual, but in his magnanimity and greatness of soul, since he was of a royal spirit. 217 Indeed, his servants always watched him steadfastly, as subjects observe a ruler, looking with admiration at the universal greatness of his nature and disposition, which was more perfect than one usually meets in a man; for he did not speak as ordinary men do, but, like one inspired, generally spoke in more dignified language. Whenever, therefore, he was possessed by the Holy Spirit he at once changed everything for the better, his eyes and his complexion, and his size and his appearance while standing, and his motions, and his voice; for the Holy Spirit, breathed into him from above, took up residence in his soul, clothing his body with extraordinary beauty, and investing his words with persuasiveness while it endowed his hearers with understanding. 218 Would anyone not be quite correct, then, to say that this man who thus left his native land, who thus forsook all his relations and all his friends, was the most nobly related of all men, since he aimed to make himself a kinsman of God and laboured by every means in his power to become his disciple and friend? And that he was deservedly ranked in the very highest class among the prophets, because he trusted in no created being in preference to the uncreated God, the Father of all? And he was honoured as king, as I have said before, by those who received him among them, not because he had obtained his authority by warlike arms, or by armed forces, as some persons have done, but because he had received his appointment from the all-righteous God, who honours the lovers of piety with independent authority, to the great advantage of all who are associated with them. 219 This man is the standard of nobleness to all who come to settle in a foreign land, leaving that ignobleness which attaches to them from foreign laws and unbecoming customs, which give honours due only to God to stocks, and to stones, and, in short, to all kinds of inanimate things; and who have thus come over to a constitution really full of vitality and life, whose president and governor is truth. 220 This nobleness has been an object of desire not only to God-loving men, but likewise to women, who have discarded the ignorance in which they were brought up, which taught them to honour, as deities, creatures made with hands, and have instead learnt that there is only one supreme Ruler of the universe, by whom the whole world is governed and regulated; 221 for Tamar was a woman from Syria Palestina, who had been brought up in her own native city, which was devoted to the worship of many gods, being full of statues, and images, and, in short, of idols of every kind and description. But when, emerging as it were out of profound darkness, she was able to see a faint beam of truth, she then, at the risk of her life, exerted all her energies to arrive at piety, caring little for life if she could not live virtuously; and living virtuously was exactly the same as living to serve the one true God and in constant supplication to him. 222 And though she married two wicked brothers in turn, one after the other, first the one who was the husband of her virginity, and then the one who succeeded to her by the law that enjoined such a marriage when the first husband had left no family, she nevertheless preserved her own life free from all stain and was able to attain to that fair reputation which falls to the lot of the good, and to be the beginning of nobleness to all those who came after her. But though she was a foreigner, she was nevertheless a freeborn woman, born of freeborn parents of no small importance; 223 but her handmaidens were born of parents who lived on the other side of the Euphrates on the extremities of the country of Babylon, of the kind given as part of the dowry to maidens of high rank when they married, but still were often thought worthy to be taken to the bed of a wise man; and so they were first raised from the title of concubines to the name and dignity of wives, and in a short time, I may almost say, instead of being regarded as handmaidens, they were raised to equal dignity and esteem with their mistresses, and, most extraordinary of all, were even invited by their mistresses to this position and dignity. For envy does not dwell in the souls of the wise, and wherever envy is absent, they all hold all things in common. 224 And the illegitimate sons borne by those handmaidens differed in no way from the legitimate children of the real wives, not only in the eyes of the man who fathered them, for it is not at all surprising that the man who was the father of them all displayed an equal degree of good-will to them all, since they were all equally his children; but they were also equally esteemed by their stepmothers. For the stepmothers, laying aside all the dislike that women so commonly feel towards their stepsons, turned it into an unceasing affection that bound them to the boys. 225 And the stepsons, showing goodwill to them in return, honoured their stepmothers as if they were their natural mothers. And their brothers, though separated from them only by the mixture in their blood, still did not think half the affection was all they deserved, but even increased their feelings so that they felt a double love for them, and were loved equally by them in return. In this way they more than made up for what might otherwise have seemed likely to fall short, eager to show the same harmony and unity of disposition with them as with their brothers by both parents. 226 We must not, therefore, give in to those who try to creep stealthily into possession of something that belongs to others, namely nobility of birth, as though it were rightfully their own; apart from those I have mentioned, such people might justly be regarded as enemies not only of the race of the Jews but of the whole human race everywhere. They are enemies of the Jews because they grant a truce to their own countrymen, letting them despise sound and stable virtue by trusting implicitly in the virtue of their ancestors; and enemies of everyone else because, even if others could attain the highest and most absolute perfection of all excellence, they would still gain nothing from it themselves, since they do not have irreproachable fathers and grandfathers. 227 I do not know whether there can possibly be a more harmful doctrine than this, if no avenging punishment is to follow those who, though descended from virtuous parents, have made themselves wicked, and if, on the contrary, no honour is to be given to those who have become good though born of wicked parents; yet the law judges each man by himself, and does not praise or blame anyone for the virtues or vices of his ancestors.