על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א ה׳On the Special Laws, Book I 5
א׳
1[28] But not only wealth and glory and the like are idols and unsubstantial shadows, but also all those personages, which the myth-makers have invented and spread delusion therewith, building up their false imaginations into a stronghold to menace the truth, and staging as by machinery new gods, in order that the eternal and really existing God might be consigned to oblivion. And to promote the seductiveness they have fitted the falsehood into melody, metre and rhythm, thinking to cajole their audience thereby.
ב׳
2[29] Further, too, they have brought in sculpture and painting to co-operate in the deception, in order that with the colours and shapes and artistic qualities wrought by their fine workmanship they may enthrall the spectators and so beguile the two leading senses, sight and hearing—sight through lifeless shapes of beauty, hearing through the charm of poetry and music—and thus make the soul unsteady and unsettled and seize it for their prey.
ג׳
3[30] Therefore knowing that vanity had attained high power and was championed by the greater part of the human race, not under compulsion but of their own free will, and fearing lest the devotees of piety, true and incorruptible, might be swept away as by a torrent, he stamped upon their minds as with a seal deep imprints of holiness, so that no fusion or smoothing in the course of years should ever blur their distinctness. This lesson he continually repeats, sometimes saying that God is one and the Framer and Maker of all things, sometimes that He is Lord of created beings, because stability and fixity and lordship are by nature vested in Him alone.
ד׳
4[31] We are told, too, that “those who cling to the God that IS all live.” Is not this the thrice-happy and thrice-blessed life, to cling lovingly to the service of the most ancient Cause of all and to reject the thought of serving the menials and the door-keepers rather than the King? This true life stands inscribed on the tables of nature as deathless and agelong, and the writing that records it must endure with the universe to all eternity.