על עבודת האדמה ל״זOn Husbandry 37
א׳
1[159] It befits all these, the beginners, those making progress, and those who have reached perfection, to live without contention, refusing to engage in the war waged by the sophists, with their unceasing practice of quarrelsomeness and disturbance to the adulteration of the truth: for the truth is dear to peace, and peace has no liking for them.
ב׳
2[160] If our friends do come into this conflict, mere unprofessionals engaging trained and seasoned fighters, they will undoubtedly get the worst of it; the beginner because he lacks experience, the man who is progressing, because he is incomplete, the man who has reached completeness, because he is still unpractised in virtue. It is requisite, just as it is that plaster should become firm and fixed and acquire solidity, so too that the souls of those that have been perfected should become more firmly settled, strengthened by constant practice and continual exercise.
ג׳
3[161] Those who do not enjoy these advantages have the name among the philosophers of wise men unconscious of their wisdom. For they say that it is out of the question that those who have sped as far as the edge of wisdom and have just come for the first time into contact with its borders should be conscious of their own perfecting, that both things cannot come about at the same time, the arrival at the goal and the apprehension of the arrival, but that ignorance must form a border-land between the two, not that ignorance which is far removed from knowledge, but that which is close at hand and hard by her door.
ד׳
4[162] It will, then, be the business of him who fully apprehends and understands the subject and thoroughly knows his own powers, to go to war with the strife-loving band of sophists; for there is ground for expecting that such an one will be the conqueror. But for him whose eyes are still covered by the darkness of ignorance, the light of knowledge not being strong enough as yet to shine out, it is safe to stay at home, that is, not to come forward for the contest about matters which he has not fully apprehended, but to keep still and be quiet.
ה׳
5[163] But he who has been carried away by presumption, not knowing his opponents’ grips and throws, before he can be an agent will quickly be a victim and experience the death of knowledge, which is a far more woeful death than that which severs soul and body.
ו׳
6[164] This is bound to befall those who are cheated by sophistries; for they fail to find the way to refute these, and owing to their having regarded false statements as true and given them credence, they die so far as the life of knowledge is concerned. Their experience is the same as that of those who are taken in by flatterers: for in their case, too, the true and healthy friendship of the soul is thrust out and overturned by the friendship that is essentially unwholesome.