על המידות הטובות ל״הOn the Virtues 35
א׳
1On Nobleness of Birth
[187] This shows also that those who hymn nobility of birth as the greatest of good gifts and the source too of other great gifts deserve no moderate censure, because in the first place they think that those who have many generations of wealth and distinction behind them are noble, though neither did the ancestors from whom they boast descent find happiness in the superabundance of their possessions. For the true good cannot find its home in anything external, nor yet in things of the body, and further not even in every part of the soul, but only in its sovereign part.
[187] This shows also that those who hymn nobility of birth as the greatest of good gifts and the source too of other great gifts deserve no moderate censure, because in the first place they think that those who have many generations of wealth and distinction behind them are noble, though neither did the ancestors from whom they boast descent find happiness in the superabundance of their possessions. For the true good cannot find its home in anything external, nor yet in things of the body, and further not even in every part of the soul, but only in its sovereign part.
ב׳
2[188] When in His mercy and loving kindness God willed to establish the good among us also, He found no worthier temple on earth than the reasoning faculty, for in this alone as the more excellent part the good is enshrined, even though some may disbelieve, who have never tasted or only just sipped wisdom. For silver and gold and honour and offices and good condition and beauty of body are like men set in command for ordinary purposes compared with service to queenly virtue and have never seen the light in its full radiance.
ג׳
3[189] Since then nobility is the peculiar portion of a mind purged clean of every spot, we must give the name of noble only to the temperate and just, even though their parents were slaves, home-bred or purchased; but to the evil children of good parents that portion must be closed ground.
ד׳
4[190] For the fool has no home and no city; he is expatriated from virtue, and virtue is in very truth the native land of the wise. With the fool inevitably comes ignobleness, even though his grandfather or ancestors be men of blameless life, for he habitually treats nobility as a stranger and sets a wide gulf between himself and her both in words and deeds.
ה׳
5[191] But not only do the wicked fail to be noble, but they are actually, I see well, all mortal enemies of nobility, since they destroy ancestral prestige and dim and finally quench all the glory which illumines the family.