על הענקים ט׳On the Giants 9
א׳
1[36] The meaning of these words it would be well to explain. Men have often possessed an unlimited profusion of wealth, without engaging in lucrative trade, and others have not pursued glory and yet been held worthy to receive civic eulogies and honours. Others, again, who had no expectation of even a little bodily strength have found themselves most abundantly endowed with muscle and vigour.
ב׳
2[37] Let all such learn not to “go near” with deliberate purpose to any of these gifts, that is, not to regard them with admiration or undue satisfaction, judging that each of them is not only no true blessing, but actually a grievous evil, whether it be money, or glory, or bodily strength. For it is the lovers of these things in each case who make the “approach,” money-lovers to money, glory-lovers to glory, lovers of athletics and gymnastics to bodily strength. To these such “approach” is natural.
ג׳
3[38] They have abandoned the better to the worse, the soul to the soulless. The sane man brings the dazzling and coveted gifts of fortune in subjection to the mind as to a captain. If they come to him, he accepts them to use them for improvement of life,
ד׳
4[39] but if they remain afar off, he does not go to them, judging that without them happiness might still be quite possible. He who makes them his quest and would follow in their track infects philosophy with the baseness of mere opinion and therefore is said to “uncover shame.” For manifest surely and clear is the disgrace of those who say that they are wise, yet barter their wisdom for what they can get, as men say is the way of the pedlars who hawk their goods in the market. And sometimes the price is just a trifling gain, sometimes a soft seductive speech, sometimes a hope ungrounded and ill secured, sometimes again promises idle as any dream.