על עשרת הדברות ב׳On the Decalogue 2
א׳
1Pride is also the creator of many other evils,
ב׳
2[5] boastfulness, haughtiness, inequality, and these are the sources of wars, both civil and foreign, suffering no place to remain in peace whether public or private, whether on sea or on land.
ג׳
3[6] Yet why dwell on offences between man and man? Pride also brings divine things into utter contempt, even though they are supposed to receive the highest honours. But what honour can there be if truth be not there as well, truth honourable both in name and function, just as falsehood is naturally dishonourable?
ד׳
4[7] This contempt for things divine is manifest to those of keener vision. For men have employed sculpture and painting to fashion innumerable forms which they have enclosed in shrines and temples and after building altars have assigned celestial and divine honours to idols of stone and wood and suchlike images, all of them lifeless things.
ה׳
5[8] Such persons are happily compared in the sacred Scriptures to the children of a harlot ; for as they in their ignorance of their one natural father ascribe their paternity to all their mother’s lovers, so too throughout the cities those who do not know the true, the really existent God have deified hosts of others who are falsely so called. Then as some honour one,
ו׳
6[9] some another god, diversity of opinion as to which was best waxed strong and engendered disputes in every other matter also. This was the primary consideration which made him prefer to legislate away from cities.
ז׳
7[10] He had also a second object in mind. He who is about to receive the holy laws must first cleanse his soul and purge away the deep-set stains which it has contracted through contact with the motley promiscuous horde of men in cities.
ח׳
8[11] And to this he cannot attain except by dwelling apart, nor that at once, but only long afterwards, and not till the marks which his old transgressions have imprinted on him have gradually grown faint,
ט׳
9[12] melted away and disappeared. In this way too good physicians preserve their sick folk: they think it unadvisable to give them food or drink until they have removed the causes of their maladies. While these still remain, nourishment is useless, indeed harmful, and acts as fuel to the distemper.