על חיי משה, ספר ב ג׳On the Life of Moses, Book II 3
א׳
1[12] That Moses himself was the best of all lawgivers in all countries, better in fact than any that have ever arisen among either the Greeks or the barbarians, and that his laws are most excellent and truly come from God, since they omit nothing that is needful, is shewn most clearly by the following proof.
ב׳
2[13] Anyone who takes a considered view of the institutions of other peoples will find that they have been unsettled by numberless causes—wars, tyrannies or other mishaps—which the revolutions of fortune have launched upon them. Often, too, luxury, growing to excess by lavish supplies of superfluities, has upset the laws; because the mass of people, being unable to bear “good things in excess,” becomes surfeited and consequently violent: and violence is the enemy of law. But Moses is alone in this, that his laws,
ג׳
3[14] firm, unshaken, immovable, stamped, as it were, with the seals of nature herself, remain secure from the day when they were first enacted to now, and we may hope that they will remain for all future ages as though immortal, so long as the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe exist.
ד׳
4[15] Thus, though the nation has undergone so many changes, both to increased prosperity and the reverse, nothing—not even the smallest part of the ordinances—has been disturbed; because all have clearly paid high honour to their venerable and godlike character.
ה׳
5[16] But that which no famine nor pestilence nor war nor king nor tyrant, no rebel assault of soul or body or passion or vice, nor any other evil whether of God’s sending or man’s making, could undo, must surely be precious beyond what words can describe.