על עבודת האדמה ה׳On Husbandry 5
א׳
1[20] It is for this reason that Moses, the all-wise, ascribes to the righteous man soul-husbandry as a science in keeping with him and rightly pertaining to him, saying “Noah began to be a husbandman,” whereas to the unrighteous man he ascribes that working of the ground which is without scientific knowledge and carries very heavy loads.
ב׳
2[21] For he says, “Cain was one working the ground” (Gen. 4:2), and, a little later, when he is discovered to have incurred the pollution of fratricide, it is said: “Cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand, with which thou shalt work the ground, and it shall not yield its strength to give it thee” (Gen. 4:12 f.).
ג׳
3[22] How, I ask, could anyone shew more clearly than in this manner that the lawgiver considers the bad man a worker of the soil and not an husbandman? We must not, however, suppose that what is here spoken of is either a man able to work with hands and feet and the other powers of the body, or that it is soil on hill or plain. No, the subject dealt with is the faculties of each one of us; for the soul of the bad man has no other interest than his earthy body, and all the body’s pleasures.
ד׳
4[23] At all events the majority of mankind traversing all the quarters of the earth and finding their way to its utmost bounds, and crossing its oceans, and seeking what is hidden in far-reaching creeks of the sea, and leaving no part of the whole world unexplored, are always and everywhere procuring the means of increasing pleasure.
ה׳
5[24] For even as fishermen let down nets, sometimes very long, taking in a large extent of sea, in order that they may enclose within the toils as many fish as possible imprisoned as though by a wall: in just the same fashion the larger part of mankind stretching what the poets call, I think, “all-capturing nets,” not only over every part of the sea but over the whole realm of water, earth and air, ensnares from all quarters things of all sorts to satisfy and indulge Pleasure.
ו׳
6[25] They dig into the ground and cross the seas and do all works incidental to war or peace to provide lavish materials for Pleasure as for a queen. These people have not learned the secrets of soul-husbandry, which sows and plants the virtues and reaps as their fruit a happy life. They have made the objects dear to the flesh their business, and these they pursue methodically. With all earnestness they seek to make their own that composition of clay, that moulded statue, that house so close to the soul, which it never lays aside but carries as a corpse from birth to death, ah! how sore a burden!