על עשרת הדברות כ״חOn the Decalogue 28
א׳
1[142] The last commandment is against covetousness or desire which he knew to be a subversive and insidious enemy. For all the passions of the soul which stir and shake it out of its proper nature and do not let it continue in sound health are hard to deal with, but desire is hardest of all. And therefore while each of the others seems to be involuntary, an extraneous visitation, an assault from outside, desire alone originates with ourselves and is voluntary.
ב׳
2[143] What is it that I mean? The presentation to the mind of something which is actually with us and considered to be good, arouses and awakes the soul when at rest and like a light flashing upon the eyes raises it to a state of great elation. This sensation of the soul is called pleasure.
ג׳
3[144] And when evil, the opposite of good, forces its way in and deals a home thrust to the soul, it at once fills it all against its will with depression and dejection. This sensation is called grief, or pain.
ד׳
4[145] When the evil thing is not yet lodged inside nor pressing hard upon us but is on the point of arriving and is making its preparation, it sends in its van trepidation and distress, messengers of evil presage, to sound the alarm. This sensation is called fear.
ה׳
5[146] But when a person conceives an idea of something good which is not present and is eager to get it, and propels his soul to the greatest distance and strains it to the greatest possible extent in his avidity to touch the desired object, he is, as it were, stretched upon a wheel, all anxiety to grasp the object but unable to reach so far and in the same plight as persons pursuing with invincible zeal, though with inferior speed, others who retreat before them.
ו׳
6[147] We also find a similar phenomenon in the senses. The eyes are often eager to obtain apprehension of some very far off object. They strain themselves and carry on bravely and indeed beyond their strength, then hit upon a void and there slip, failing to get an accurate knowledge of the object in question, and furthermore they lose strength and their power of sight is dimmed by the intensity and violence of their steady gazing.
ז׳
7[148] And again when an indistinct noise is carried from a long distance the ears are roused and pressed forward at high speed and are eager to go nearer if they could, in their longing to have the sound made clear to the hearing.
ח׳
8[149] The noise however, whose impact evidently continues to be dull, does not shew any increase of clearness which might make it knowable, and so a still greater intensity is given to the ceaseless and indescribable longing for apprehension. For desire entails the punishment of Tantalus; as he missed everything that he wished for just when he was about to touch it, so the person who is mastered by desire, ever thirsting for what is absent remains unsatisfied, fumbling around his baffled appetite.
ט׳
9[150] And just as diseases of the creeping type, if not arrested in time by the knife or cautery, course round all that unites to make the body and leave no part uninjured, so unless philosophical reasoning, like a good physician, checks the stream of desire, all life’s affairs will be necessarily distorted from what nature prescribes. For there is nothing so secreted that it escapes from passion, which when once it finds itself in security and freedom spreads like a flame and works universal destruction.
י׳
10[151] It may perhaps be foolish to dilate at this length on facts so obvious, for what man or city does not know that they provide clear proof of their truth, not only every day but almost every hour? Consider the passion whether for money or a woman or glory or anything else that produces pleasure: are the evils which it causes small or casual?
י״א
11[152] Is it not the cause why kinsmen become estranged and change their natural goodwill to deadly hatred, why great and populous countries are desolated by internal factions, and land and sea are filled with ever-fresh calamaties wrought by battles on sea and campaigns on land?
י״ב
12[153] For all the wars of Greeks and barbarians between themselves or against each other, so familiar to the tragic stage, are sprung from one source, desire, the desire for money or glory or pleasure. These it is that bring disaster to the human race.