על יוסף ו׳On Joseph 6
א׳
1[28] After this literal account of the story, it will be well to explain the underlying meaning, for, broadly speaking, all or most of the law-book is an allegory. The kind of character then here under discussion is called in the Hebrew “Joseph,” but in our language is “addition of a lord,” a most significant title well suited to the thing which it indicates, since polity as seen in the various peoples is an addition to nature who is invested with a universal lordship.
ב׳
2[29] For this world is the Megalopolis or “great city,” and it has a single polity and a single law, and this is the word or reason of nature, commanding what should be done and forbidding what should not be done. But the local cities which we see are unlimited in number and subject to diverse polities and laws by no means identical, for different peoples have different customs and regulations which are extra inventions and additions.
ג׳
3[30] The cause of this is the reluctance to combine or have fellowship with each other, shewn not only by Greeks to barbarians and barbarians to Greeks, but also within each of them separately in dealing with their own kin. And then we find them alleging causes for this which are no real causes, such as unfavourable seasons, want of fertility, poverty of soil or how the state is situated, whether it is maritime or inland or whether it is on an island or on the mainland and the like. The true cause they never mention, and that is their covetousness and mutual mistrusts, which keep them from being satisfied with the ordinances of nature, and lead them to give the name of laws to whatever approves itself as advantageous to the communities which hold the same views.
ד׳
4[31] Thus naturally particular polities are rather an addition to the single polity of nature, for the laws of the different states are additions to the right reason of nature, and the politician is an addition to the man whose life accords with nature.