על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב ל״חThat the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 38
א׳
1[138] Having shown, then, as far as in us lay, citing in the person of Moses a most truthful witness, that joy is peculiar to the wise man, let us show in the next place that hope is so also, calling in the same witness as before. For the son of Seth named Enos, which means “man” [was distinguished by] hope. “This man,” it says, “first hoped to call on the name of the Lord God” (Gen. 4:26). It is a sound statement. For what could be found more in keeping with one who is truly a man than a hope and expectation of obtaining good things from the only bountiful God? This is, to tell the truth, men’s only birth in the strict sense, since those who do not set their hope on God have no part in a rational nature.
ב׳
2[139] Accordingly having first said of Enos “this man hoped (and ventured) to call on the name of the Lord God,” he adds expressly, “this is the book of the nativity of men” (Gen. 5:1.). In saying this he utters an important truth, for an entry is hereby made in the book of God to the effect that man only is hopeful. The converse therefore is true, that he that is despondent is not man. The definition, then, of our complex being is “a living creature endowed with reason subject to death,” but that of man as Moses portrays him “a soul so constituted as to hope on the God that really IS.” Well, then, let goodly men, having obtained joy and hope as their happy portion, either enjoy or at all events expect good things:
ג׳
3[140] but let worthless men, of whose company Cain is a member, living in constant pains and terrors, gather in a most grievous harvest, in the experience or expectation of evils, groaning over the painful case in which they are already, and trembling and shuddering at the fearful things which they expect (cf. Gen. 4:12).