על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב י׳That the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 10
א׳
1[32] Well, I think it has been made sufficiently clear that the plain on to which Cain challenges Abel to come is a figure of a contest to be fought out. We must next endeavour to discover what the subjects of their investigations are when they have gone forth. It is evident that they are to investigate opposing views clean contrary to each other. For Abel, referring all things to God, is a God-loving creed; but Cain, referring all to himself—his name means “acquisition”—a self-loving creed. And lovers of self, when they have stripped and prepared for conflict with those who value virtue, keep up the boxing and wrestling until they have either forced their opponents to give in, or have completely destroyed them.
ב׳
2[33] For they leave no stone unturned, as the saying is, while they ply their questions. ‘Is not the body the soul’s house?’ Why, then, should we not take care of a house, that it may not fall into ruins? Are not eyes and ears and the band of the other senses bodyguards and courtiers, as it were, of the soul? Must we not then value allies and friends equally with ourselves? Did nature create pleasures and enjoyments and the delights that meet us all the way through life, for the dead, or for those who have never come into existence, and not for the living? And what is to induce us to forgo the acquisition of wealth and fame and honours and offices and everything else of that sort, things which secure for us a life not merely of safety but of happiness?
ג׳
3[34] The mode of life of these two classes is a witness to the truth of what I say. The so-called lovers of virtue are almost without exception obscure people, looked down upon, of mean estate, destitute of the necessaries of life, not enjoying the privileges of subject peoples or even of slaves, filthy, sallow, reduced to skeletons, with a hungry look from want of food, the prey of disease, in training for dying. Those, on the other hand, who take care of themselves are men of mark and wealth, holding leading positions, praised on all hands, recipients of honours, portly, healthy and robust, revelling in luxurious and riotous living, knowing nothing of labour, conversant with pleasures which carry the sweets of life to the all-welcoming soul by every channel of sense.’