על צאצאי קין כ״טOn the Posterity of Cain and his Exile 29
א׳
1[98] Let what has been said suffice on the subject of the man who alters and adulterates the original coinage. The lawgiver calls him besides the father of dwellers in tents rearing cattle (Gen. 4:20). Cattle are the irrational senses, and rearers of cattle the lovers of pleasure and lovers of the passions who provide them with food in the shape of external objects of sense. These differ widely from shepherds, for, whereas the latter after the manner of governors punish the creatures that live amiss, the former after the manner of entertainers supply them with unlimited food and let them feel security in doing wrong; for insolence, the daughter of satiety and greediness, never fails to be immediately engendered.
ב׳
2[99] As we might expect, then, the man who alters the make and character of all good things is father of those whose interest is concentrated on everything that is soul-less and an object only of the senses. For, had he taken as the object of his quest the incorporeal natures that come under the cognizance of the mind, he would have kept to the limits laid down by the men of old, which they laid down in the cause of virtue, stamping each form of it with the impress belonging to it.