על השכר והעונש י׳On Rewards and Punishments 10
א׳
1[57] This may suffice for the rewards set before individual men, but houses and families of many members have theirs also. For instance the twelve tribes into which the nation was divided had the same number of chieftains connected not only by membership of the same house and family but by a still more real affinity, for they were brothers with the same father, and their grandfather and great-grandfather as well as their father were the founders of the nation.
ב׳
2[58] The first of these who passed from vanity to truth, who spurned the impostures of Chaldean astrology for the sake of the fuller spectacle which he beheld and followed the vision, drawn to it as iron is said to be drawn by the magnet, thus changed by instruction from sophist to sage, had many children, but all faulty save one to whom he bound fast the cables of the race and there found a safe haven.
ג׳
3[59] That son again endued with a nature which learned from no other teacher than itself had two sons. One was wild and indocile, brimful of fierce temper and lust, who to sum him up armed the unreasoning part of the soul to war against the rational. The other was gentle and kindly, a lover of noble conduct, of equality and simplicity, a soldier of the better cause, the champion of reason and antagonist of folly.
ד׳
4[60] This is the third of the founders, father of many children and alone among the three blessed in them all, who met with no mishap in any part of his household, like a happy husbandman who sees his whole crop safe and sound, thriving under his hand and bearing fruit.
