על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א ט״וOn the Special Laws, Book I 15
א׳
1[79] The nation has twelve tribes, but one out of these was selected on its special merits for the priestly office, a reward granted to them for their gallantry and godly zeal on an occasion when the multitude was seen to have fallen into sin through following the ill-judged judgement of some who persuaded them to emulate the foolishness of Egypt and the vainly imagined fables current in that land, attached to irrational animals and especially to bulls. For the men of this tribe at no bidding but their own made a wholesale slaughter of all the leaders of the delusion and thus carrying to the end their championship of piety were held to have done a truly religious deed.