על צאצאי קין כ״וOn the Posterity of Cain and his Exile 26
א׳
1[91] Probably, then, the lawgiver gives the title of father of our soul to right reason, and of elders to the associates and friends of right reason. These were the first to fix the boundaries of virtue. To the school of these it is advisable to go, to learn by their teaching the essential matters. The essential matters are these. When God divided and partitioned off the nations of the soul, separating those of one common speech from those of another tongue, and causing them to dwell apart; when He dispersed and put away from Himself the children of earth, whom the lawgiver calls “sons of Adam,” then did He fix the boundaries of the offspring of virtue corresponding to the number of the angels; for there are as many forms or “nations” of virtue as there are words of God.
ב׳
2[92] But what are the portions of His angels, and what is the allotted share of the All-sovereign Ruler? The particular virtues belong to the servants, to the Ruler the chosen race of Israel. For he that sees God, drawn to Him by surpassing beauty, has been allotted as His portion to Him Whom he sees.
ג׳
3[93] How, then, should Jobel escape rebuke, whose name when turned into Greek is “altering” the natures of things or making them other than they are? For he changed the forms of wisdom and endurance and justice and virtue in general, forms of Godlike beauty, substituting contrary shapes of folly, intemperance, injustice, and all wickedness, obliterating the shapes that had been impressed before.