על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד י״זOn the Special Laws, Book IV 17
א׳
1[100] At the same time he also denied to the members of the sacred Commonwealth unrestricted liberty to use and partake of the other kinds of food. All the animals of land, sea or air whose flesh is the finest and fattest, thus titillating and exciting the malignant foe pleasure, he sternly forbade them to eat, knowing that they set a trap for the most slavish of the senses, the taste, and produce gluttony, an evil very dangerous both to soul and body. For gluttony begets indigestion which is the source and origin of all distempers and infirmities.
ב׳
2[101] Now among the different kinds of land animals there is none whose flesh is so delicious as the pig’s, as all who eat it agree, and among the aquatic animals the same may be said of such species as are scaleless. … Having special gifts for inciting to self-control those who have a natural tendency to virtue, he trains and drills them by frugality and simple contentedness and endeavours to get rid of extravagance.
ג׳
3[102] He approved neither of rigorous austerity like the Spartan legislator, nor of dainty living, like him who introduced the Ionians and Sybarites to luxurious and voluptuous practices. Instead he opened up a path midway between the two. He relaxed the overstrained and tightened the lax, and as on an instrument of music blended the very high and the very low at each end of the scale with the middle chord, thus producing a life of harmony and concord which none can blame. Consequently he neglected nothing, but drew up very careful rules as to what they should or should not take as food.
ד׳
4[103] Possibly it might be thought just that all wild beasts that feed on human flesh should suffer from men what men have suffered from them. But Moses would have us abstain from the enjoyment of such, even though they provide a very appetizing and delectable repast. He was considering what is suitable to a gentle-mannered soul, for though it is fitting enough that one should suffer for what one has done, it is not fitting conduct for the sufferers to retaliate it on the wrongdoers, lest the savage passion of anger should turn them unawares into beasts.
ה׳
5[104] So careful is he against this danger that wishing to restrain by implication the appetite for the food just mentioned, he also strictly forbade them to eat the other carnivorous animals. He distinguished between them and the graminivorous which he grouped with the gentle kind since indeed they are naturally tame and live on the gentle fruits which the earth produces and do nothing by way of attempting the life of others.