על הבריחה והמציאה ו׳On Flight and Finding 6
א׳
1[33] Truth would therefore rightly find fault with those who without full consideration give up the business and financial side of a citizen’s life, and say that they have conceived a contempt for fame and pleasure. For they do not despise these things, they are practising an imposture. Their dirty bodies and gloomy faces, the rigour and squalour of their pinched life, are so many baits to lead others to regard them as lovers of orderliness and temperance and endurance.
ב׳
2[34] But they are unable to deceive the more sharp-sighted, who peer inside and refuse to be taken in by what meets the eye. For they thrust this back as mere screening of quite different things, and get a view of the true nature of the things concealed within, which, if they are beautiful, they admire, but if ugly, ridicule and loathe them for their hypocrisy.
ג׳
3[35] To such men, then, let us say: Do you affect the life that eschews social intercourse with others, and courts solitary loneliness? Well, what proof did you ever give before this of noble social qualities? Do you renounce money-making? When engaged in business, were you determined to be just in your dealings? Would you make a show of paying no regard to the pleasures of the belly and the parts below it—say, when you had abundant material for indulging in these, did you exercise moderation? Do you despise popular esteem? Well, when you held posts of honour, did you practise simplicity? State business is an object of ridicule to you people. Perhaps you have never discovered how serviceable a thing it is.
ד׳
4[36] Begin, then, by getting some exercise and practice in the business of life both private and public; and when by means of the sister virtues, household-management and statesmanship, you have become masters in each domain, enter now, as more than qualified to do so, on your migration to a different and more excellent way of life. For the practical comes before the contemplative life; it is a sort of prelude to a more advanced contest; and it is well to have fought it out first. By taking this course you will avoid the imputation of shrinking from it through sheer laziness.
ה׳
5[37] It was on this principle too that the Levites were charged to perform their active service until the age of fifty (Numb. 4:3 ff.), but, when released from their practical ministry, to make everything an object of observation and contemplation; receiving as a prize for duty well done in the active life a quite different way of life whose delight is in knowledge and study of principles alone.
ו׳
6[38] And apart from this, it is a vital matter that those who venture to make the claims of God their aim and study should first have fully met those of men; for it is sheer folly to suppose that you will reach the greater while you are incapable of mastering the lesser. Therefore first make yourselves familiar with virtue as exercised in our dealings with men, to the end that you may be introduced to that also which has to do with our relation to God.