על המידות הטובות ל״טOn the Virtues 39
א׳
1[211] Now these belong to the erring class, evil children of good parents, who gained no profit from the virtues of their fathers, but suffered countless injuries from the vices of their minds. But I can cite others of the opposite and better class, whose ancestors were men of guilt, but their own lives were worthy of emulation and full of good report.
ב׳
2[212] The most ancient member of the Jewish nation was a Chaldaean by birth, the son of an astrologer, one of those who study the lore of that science, and think that the stars and the whole heaven and universe are gods, the authors, they say, of the events which befall each man for good or for ill, and hold that there is no originating cause outside the things we perceive by our senses.
ג׳
3[213] What could be more grievous or more capable of proving the total absence of nobility in the soul than this, that its knowledge of the many, the secondary, the created, only leads it to ignore the One, the Primal, the Uncreated and Maker of all, whose supreme excellence is established by these and countless other attributes of such magnitude that no human reason can contain them?
ד׳
4[214] Perception of these truths and divine inspiration induced him to leave his native country, his race and paternal home, knowing that if he stayed the delusions of the polytheistic creed would stay within him and render it impossible for him to discover the One, who alone is eternal and the Father of all things, conceptual and sensible, whereas if he removed, the delusion would also remove from his mind and its false creed be replaced by the truth.
ה׳
5[215] At the same time, also, the fire of yearning, which possessed him to know the Existent, was fanned by the divine warnings vouchsafed to him. With these to guide his steps, he went forth never faltering in his ardour to seek for the One, nor did he pause until he received clearer visions, not of His essence, for that is impossible, but of His existence and providence.
ו׳
6[216] And, therefore, he is the first person spoken of as believing in God, since he first grasped a firm and unswerving conception of the truth that there is one Cause above all, and that it provides for the world and all that there is therein. And having gained faith, the most sure and certain of the virtues, he gained with it all the other virtues, so that by those among whom he settled he was regarded as a king, not because of the outward state which surrounded him, mere commoner that he was, but because of his greatness of soul, for his spirit was the spirit of a king.
ז׳
7[217] Indeed, they continued to treat him with a respect which subjects pay to a ruler, being awe-struck at the all-embracing greatness of his nature and its more than human perfection. For the society also which he sought was not the same as they sought, but oftener under inspiration another more august. Thus whenever he was possessed, everything in him changed to something better, eyes, complexion, stature, carriage, movements, voice. For the divine spirit which was breathed upon him from on high made its lodging in his soul, and invested his body with singular beauty, his voice with persuasiveness, and his hearers with understanding.
ח׳
8[218] Would you not say that this lone wanderer without relatives or friends was of the highest nobility, he who craved for kinship with God and strove by every means to live in familiarity with Him, he who while ranked among the prophets, a post of such high excellence, put his trust in nothing created rather than in the Uncreated and Father of all, he who as I have said was regarded as a king by those in whose midst he settled, a sovereignty gained not with weapons, nor with mighty armies, as is the way of some, but by the election of God, the friend of virtue, who rewards the lovers of piety with imperial powers to benefit those around them?
ט׳
9[219] He is the standard of nobility for all proselytes, who, abandoning the ignobility of strange laws and monstrous customs which assigned divine honours to stocks and stones and soulless things in general, have come to settle in a better land, in a commonwealth full of true life and vitality, with truth as its director and president.