על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב כ״וThat the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 26
א׳
1[96] On Cain, who rejects repentance, He proceeds, owing to the enormity of his guilt, to lay curses most appropriate to the murder of a brother. And first He says to him “Now also art thou accursed from the earth” (Gen. 4:11), showing that it is not now for the first time, when he has perpetrated the treacherous deed, that he is abominable and accurst, but that he was so before also when he plotted the murder, since the purpose is as important as the completed act.
ב׳
2[97] For so long as we only conceive disgraceful actions with the bare imagination of the mind, so long we are not guilty of the intent, for the soul may even against our will move amiss. But when the deeds planned have also been carried out, the very planning involves guilt, for the deliberateness of the offence is the chief point made evident by its execution.
ג׳
3[98] Now He says that the mind will be accurst not from anything else than from the earth; for the earthly part of each one of us is discovered to be accountable for our most dire misfortunes. For instance, the body either suffers from illness and inflicts on its owner the maladies that arise from itself, filling him with nausea and distress, or, having become outrageously gross through indulgence in pleasures, blunts his keenness of perception.
ד׳
4[99] And, as we all know, every one of the senses is an avenue for the entrance of harm. A man sees beauty, and is wounded by the darts of the dread passion of love; or he hears of the death of a kinsman and is bowed down with grief. Frequently too his palate brings about his downfall, upsetting him with disagreeable viands, or oppressing him with a surfeit of delicacies. I need hardly refer to the incitements to sexual indulgence. These have ruined entire cities and countries and vast regions of the earth, as wellnigh all the poets and historians of the world testify.