The Special Laws IV

Philo of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

The laws concerning adultery and murder, and everything that either of these entails, have I believe been stated earlier with full precision. We must now examine what follows in order — the third topic on the second tablet, and the eighth counting both tablets together: the law against stealing.

Whoever takes or carries off what belongs to another, without right, shall — if he does it by force and openly — be recorded as a public enemy, since he weaves shameless audacity together with lawlessness; but if he does it secretly, trying to escape notice like a thief, making darkness a veil for shame over his wrongdoing, let him be punished as a private matter, being liable only to the one he attempted to harm, and let him pay back double the stolen goods, healing an unjust gain with the most just injury.

But if he is too poor to pay the penalty, let him be sold — for it is right that the one who has submitted to the most unlawful profit should be deprived of freedom and become a slave — so that the victim, left uncompensated on account of the thief's lack of means, should not seem to be treated with contempt.

But let no one condemn the decree as inhumane. For the one sold is not left a slave forever; rather within seven years he is released by a general proclamation, as I explained in the discussion of the seventh year.

And let him be content to pay back double the stolen property, or even to be sold, since he does no small wrong: first, because not being satisfied with what he has, he reaches for more, fortifying a scheming and hard-to-cure disease, namely greed; second, because casting covetous eyes on others' property and gaping after it, he sets traps for embezzlement, taking from their owners what they possess; and third, because in his effort to escape notice he alone sometimes reaps the benefits from the deed while turning the accusations against the innocent, making the search for the truth blind.

And in a way he seems to accuse himself, since he is refuted by his own conscience in the acts he steals secretly, being altogether either ashamed or apprehensive — of which the one is a sign that he supposes the act shameful (for shameful things bring shame), and the other a sign that he considers it worthy of punishment, for punishments instill fear.

If someone, driven mad by desire for others' property, attempts to steal, and being unable to take it away easily, breaks through a wall by night, making darkness a veil for his wrongdoing, and is caught in the very act, before sunrise, in the very breach — let him be killed on the spot by the master of the house, since he is accomplishing a lesser deed as his primary aim, theft, but intending as the consequence a greater one, murder, being prepared, should anyone try to stop him, to defend himself with the iron digging-tools he carries and other weapons. But if the sun has risen, let him no longer be killed in the same way by the householder's own hand; instead let him be brought before the rulers and judges to pay whatever penalty they prescribe.

At night, while the rulers along with private citizens are staying at home and have turned to rest, there is no refuge of help for the one being wronged; hence he himself must be master of the punishment, appointed by the occasion itself as both ruler and judge.

By day, however, the courts and council-chambers stand open, and the city is full of those ready to seize the offender — some appointed by vote as guardians of the laws, others who without any such appointment, moved by a hatred of wrongdoing, take up of their own accord the role of champions for the wronged. It is to these that the thief must be brought; for by fleeing the charges of self-will and rashness in this way, he will seem to help himself in a more democratic manner.

If, while the sun is up, someone kills the thief with his own hand before trial, let him be liable, since he has preferred anger to reasoning and put his own desire ahead of the laws. For one should not say, 'Since you were wronged by night by a thief, therefore you yourself by day commit a worse theft' — not theft of money, but of justice, by which the constitution has been ordained to be arranged.

Now other stolen goods are valued at double repayment. But if someone steals an ox or a sheep, the law judged it worthy of a greater penalty, granting a preeminence to these animals, which excel among the tame herds not only in bodily beauty but also in the benefits they provide for human life. For this reason the law did not set the amount of penalty equal for both, but having reckoned up the uses each of the aforementioned animals provides, it legislated the repayment proportionally.

For it orders the thief to repay four sheep, and five oxen, for each one stolen, since the sheep provides four kinds of tribute — milk, cheese, wool, and yearly lambs — while the ox provides five: the same three in milk, cheese, and offspring, plus two special ones, ploughing the earth and threshing, of which the one is the beginning of the sowing of crops, and the other the completion, for the cleansing of the harvested produce toward its readier use as food.

A thief too is the one who kidnaps a person — but a thief of the best of all things that exist upon the earth. Now for inanimate things, and for those animals that do not provide great benefits to life, the law has ordered that double be restored by the thieves to the owners, as was said before, and again fourfold and fivefold in the case of the tamest herds, oxen and sheep.

But man, it seems, has obtained the finest portion among living creatures, being close of kin to God and a relative through his participation in reason, which, though he seems to be mortal, makes him immortal. Therefore everyone in whom a zeal for virtue enters is harsh in temper and utterly implacable toward kidnappers, who for the sake of most unjust profit dare to impose slavery on those who are free by birth and share the same nature.

For if it is a praiseworthy act for masters to free home-bred slaves and those bought with silver — even ones who have often done no great service — releasing them from the bondage that holds them out of the humanity they practice, how much more blame do those deserve who take away from those who possess it the best of all possessions, freedom, for which it is noble for the well-born and well-reared to die?

Already some, increasing their innate depravity and turning their scheming character to implacability, have practiced kidnapping not only against foreigners and those of another race, but also against people of their own nation — sometimes even fellow demesmen and tribesmen — disregarding the common bond of laws and customs in which they were reared from their earliest age, things which seal the firmest goodwill in the souls of those not too savage and not given to cruelty.

These men, for the sake of most unlawful gain, sell such people to slave-dealers and to whoever happens to enslave them abroad, unlikely ever to return, never so much as in a dream to bow again before the soil of their homeland, nor to taste any good hope. For they would have done less wrong if they had simply used the kidnapped as their own servants; but as it is they commit a double wrong by selling them off, setting up for one master two, and doubling the slaveries stationed over them.

For the kidnappers themselves, knowing the former good fortune of those they have subjected, might in time repent, taking late pity on the fallen, feeling shame before the uncertain and unpredictable nature of fortune; but the buyers, through ignorance of their lineage, will think little of them as though they were servants from father and grandfather before them, having nothing in their souls to lead them toward gentleness and humanity, which is naturally preserved toward the free.

Let the penalty against those who enslave people of another nation be whatever the court assesses; but against those who, besides enslaving, have sold their own kinsmen, let the penalty be inexorable death. For these are indeed kinsmen, not far removed from blood relations, bordering on them within a wider circle.

'And in the field too,' as one of the ancients said, 'lawsuits grow,' since greed and desire for others' property exist not only in the city but also outside it, inasmuch as it is rooted not in differences of place but in the minds of insatiable and quarrelsome men.

For this reason the best-governed cities elect two kinds of overseers and officials for the common order and security: those within the walls, whom they call city-wardens, and those outside, to whom they give a fitting name, calling them field-wardens. For what need would there be of field-wardens at all, if there were not also in the countryside some who live to the harm of their neighbors?

If then a shepherd, or goatherd, or cowherd, or in general a herdsman grazes and pastures another's field, sparing neither its crops nor its trees, let him pay back an equivalent amount in produce of the same value.

And let him be content to submit to this, having met with a law both fair and very forgiving, which — though he has done the deeds of an implacable enemy, whose habit it is to ravage fields and destroy cultivated plants — has not punished him as a public enemy with death or exile or, at the very least, deprivation of all his property, but has judged it right only that he make good the damage to the owner.

For always seeking excuses by which it might lighten misfortunes, out of its surpassing gentleness and the humanity it holds both by nature and by practice, the law found a plausible defense on the herdsman's behalf: that the nature of the animals is irrational and disobedient, especially when they are reaching after food.

Let him then be liable, because he drove the herd in the first place into an unsuitable place; but let him not bear responsibility for everything that happened, for it is likely that once he perceived the harm he tried to drive them out as quickly as possible, while the herd, feasting on the green pasture and gorging on tender crops and shoots, resisted in its own contest against him.

They cause harm not only by pasturing their flocks on other people's property, but also by carelessly and heedlessly kindling fire. For the power of fire, once it takes hold of fuel, darts everywhere, spreading and pouring itself out, and once it has gained the upper hand it takes no notice of whatever means of extinguishing it are brought against it, but consumes even these as food for its own growth, until it has used up everything and is itself spent by its own action.

It is fitting that fire be left unguarded neither in houses nor in farm buildings, since people know that a single smoldering spark has often been fanned into flame and has burned down great cities, especially when the blaze has been driven on by a following wind.

In wars of no quarter, at any rate, the first, middle, and final power lies in fire, which men trust more than the ranks of infantry, cavalry, and naval combatants, and the abundant equipment of arms and siege engines; for a single man shooting a fire-bearing arrow at the right moment has burned up a great fleet of ships together with their crews, or has consumed populous armies along with the equipment on which they had rested their hopes of victory.

If, then, someone throws fire into a heap of thorny brushwood, and it catches and sets fire in addition to a threshing-floor of wheat or barley or vetch, or sheaves of grain gathered together, or a deep-soiled plain bearing green crops, let the one who threw the fire pay for the damage, so that by suffering for it he may learn to guard very carefully against the first onsets of such things, and not stir up and awaken a power that is unconquerable and by nature destructive when it is able to remain at rest.

A deposit is the most sacred of matters held in common, resting on the good faith of the one who receives it. Loans are proven through contracts and documents, but things given without a loan, openly for use, have as witnesses those who saw the transaction.

But deposits are not made in this way; rather, a single person gives them, alone, to another alone, in secret, looking around at the place, not even bringing along a slave to help carry the goods, even if that slave happens to be devoted to his master. For each of the two parties seems eager to avoid any proof: the one so that his giving may go unnoticed, the other so that his receiving may go unknown. But over an invisible transaction there presides, in every case, an invisible God, whom it is natural for both parties to call as witness—the one trusting that the deposit will be returned when it is demanded back, the other that he will recover it in due time.

The one who denies a deposit, then, should not fail to realize that he commits the greatest wrong, since he has cheated the one who entrusted it of his hope, has concealed depraved character under the cover of respectable words, and has feigned faithlessness while playing the part of counterfeit good faith, rendering worthless both the pledge of his right hand and his unfulfilled oaths. He must be regarded as having shown contempt for both human and divine things, and as denying a double deposit: that of the one who entrusted his own property, and that of the most truthful witness, who oversees the affairs of all and hears the affairs of all, whether they wish it or not.

But if the one who received the deposit as a sacred trust thinks he must guard it untouched, revering truth and good faith, while others—thieves and housebreakers lying in wait for what belongs to others—slip in and steal it, then, if they are caught, let them pay double the penalty prescribed for thieves who are apprehended.

But if these thieves are not caught, let the one who received the deposit come forward of his own free will before the divine tribunal, and, raising his hands to heaven, let him swear, calling destruction down upon himself, that he has neither embezzled any part of the deposit, nor conspired with anyone else regarding it, nor fabricated any theft that never occurred. For it would be absurd either to penalize one who has done no wrong, or to make one who ran to help a friend's trust, and was himself wronged by others, liable for the resulting loss.

Deposits are made not only of inanimate things but also of living creatures, and here the danger is twofold: one, common to inanimate things, is theft; the other, peculiar and distinctive, is death. Theft has already been discussed; it remains also to legislate concerning death.

If, then, animals entrusted as a deposit should die, let the one who received them summon the one who entrusted them and show him the animals, thereby clearing himself of any base suspicion. But if the owner happens to be abroad, it is not proper to call in other witnesses, whom perhaps the one who trusted him took care to keep unaware of the matter; instead, when the owner returns, the receiver must swear that he is not concealing unjust embezzlement under a false claim of death.

But if someone takes a utensil or an animal not as a deposit but because he needs to use it, and afterward both are stolen, or the animal dies, then, if the lender was present with him the whole time, the one who took it would not be liable, since he can point to the lender himself as a witness that he is not making excuses; but if the lender was not present with him, he must pay compensation. Why?

Because it is possible that, in the owner's absence, the one using the animal wore it out with continual toil so as to kill it, or was careless with the utensil, disregarding what belonged to another, when he ought to have taken good care of it and not made it easy for thieves to steal.

If anyone else is skilled at observing sequence in affairs, he too, in framing successive prohibitions one after another, aims at continuity, weaving what follows into harmony with what has gone before. He says that the harmony of what was going to be said was proclaimed by an oracle in the person of God himself, in this manner: "You shall not steal, and you shall not lie, and you shall not falsely accuse one another in my name unjustly, and you shall not profane my name" (Lev. 19:11–12)—expressed altogether beautifully and with great didactic force.

For the thief, convicted by his own conscience, denies the charge and lies, fearing the punishments that would follow if he confessed; and the one who falsely denies, eager to shift the accusation onto someone else, slanders and devises schemes by which the false charge may seem plausible; and every slanderer is at once a perjurer, giving little thought to piety, since, lacking legitimate proofs, he takes refuge in what is called artless proof, the proof by oaths, thinking that by invoking God he can produce conviction in his hearers. Let such a person know that he is unholy and profane, defiling the name that is by nature undefiled and divine. "You shall not bear false witness."

This is the ninth of the ten headings, the fourth in number of those on the second tablet, and one able to benefit human life immeasurably if it is observed, just as, conversely, it can cause harm if neglected.

The slanderer is blameworthy, but the one who bears false witness is more culpable still; for the one helps himself, while the other collaborates in wrongdoing for another's sake, and in comparing wicked men, the one who sins for his own sake is less unjust than the one who sins for another's.

Every judge eyes the accuser with suspicion, as one who cares little for the truth in his eagerness to win the case—which is why speakers need introductions to secure the attention of their hearers. But toward the witness, from whom he has suffered no prior wrong, the judge extends an open, unguarded trust with a free mind and open ears, since the witness masquerades under the names of good faith and truth—names most beneficial to affairs, and most persuasive of all—which he uses as bait, as it were, to hunt down what he desires and longs for.

That is why the lawgiver in many places exhorts us not to consent to any injustice, whether committed by a person or in a matter; for consent, when it is not given for a sound purpose, invites false testimony, since everything that is unjust is, in truth, harsh and hateful, an enemy to the light of truth.

It is no great marvel not to join one wicked man in his madness when he invites others to similar deeds; but not to be swept along with a multitude rushing headlong into lawlessness, as if down a steep slope in a single onrush, belongs to a noble soul and to a spirit steeled with courage.

For some suppose that whatever seems right to the majority, however lawless it may be, is lawful and just—judging wrongly; for it is good to follow nature, but the rush of the crowd is the very opposite of following nature.

If, then, some people gather together in factions and populous crowds and stir up revolution, one must not consent to them, since they are debasing the ancient and approved currency of the constitution; for a single wise counsel defeats many hands, while ignorance joined with a crowd is a greater evil. But some carry their wickedness to such an excess

that they not only accuse men of things that never happened, but persisting in their depravity, they stretch and extend their falsehood all the way to heaven, bearing false witness against the blessed and happy nature of God. These are the readers of portents and omens, the diviners by sacrifice, and all the others who labor at the art of divination—if the truth must be told, at the artful malpractice of it—counterfeiting the divinely inspired possession and prophecy.

For the true prophet declares nothing at all of his own; rather, he is an interpreter, prompted by another, of everything that he utters, at the time when he is inspired and in a state of unknowing, his own reasoning having departed and vacated the citadel of the soul, while the divine spirit has entered and taken up residence there, playing upon and sounding every instrument of his voice, so as to make clear and evident the things he foretells.

But of those who aspire to the counterfeit and vulgar art of divination, each one, through guesswork and conjecture, sets an order that does not belong to it beside the order of truth, and easily leads astray those whose character is unstable—like unballasted boats driven off course and capsized by a strong contrary wind—away from the safe harbors of piety; for he thinks he ought to proclaim as predictions the things he has merely guessed at, not as his own discovery, but as divine oracles vouchsafed to him alone in secret, so as to win more secure belief in his deception from the great and populous crowds who hear him.

This sort of man he calls, with an aptly aimed name, a false prophet, since he counterfeits true prophecy and overshadows what is genuine with spurious inventions. But in quite a short time such stratagems are wholly exposed, for nature does not love to remain hidden forever, but when the moment comes reveals her own beauty by unconquerable powers.

For just as in solar eclipses the rays, dimmed for the briefest while, shortly afterward blaze out again, displaying an unshadowed and far-shining light, with nothing at all standing in the sun's way, as though in a clear open sky the whole disk were shining forth—so too, whenever certain men, contriving a divination they have falsified, assume the specious name of prophecy and falsely claim to be inspired by God, they will easily be refuted; for truth will come again and will blaze up, flashing forth a most far-shining light, so that the falsehood that had overshadowed it disappears.

Here too is another altogether admirable ordinance he further laid down: he commanded that the testimony of a single witness not be admitted—first, because deception is possible, for false impressions are countless and are apt to befall people from countless sources;

and second, because it is most unjust to rely on one witness either against several persons or even against a single one; for many witnesses are more deserving of credence toward conviction, while one does not prevail by number, and to give equal weight belongs to unfair advantage. For why should one assent more readily to a witness testifying against another than to the accused speaking on his own behalf? The best course, it seems, is to hold to a mean where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Concerning what pertains to the judge.

The law holds that all who adhere to the sacred constitution of Moses ought to be free of every irrational passion and every vice more than those who live under other laws, and above all, those who have been allotted or elected to judge. For it is absurd that men entrusted with dispensing justice to others should themselves be liable to wrongdoing—men who must, as though from an original painting, reproduce the works of nature for others to imitate.

For just as the power of fire, in warming whatever it touches, is itself hot long before, from its own nature, and conversely the power of snow, being itself chilled, chills other things as well, so too a judge ought to be filled with justice unmixed and pure, if indeed he is to water with justice those who come before him, so that, as from a sweet spring, a drinkable stream may flow for those thirsting for lawful order.

And this will come about if a man, on entering to judge, considers that he is at once judging and being judged, and takes up together with his vote understanding, so as not to be deceived; justice, for the distribution to each party of what is fitting according to merit; and courage, for remaining unyielding before pleas and pity in the punishments meted out to the condemned.

The man who cultivates these virtues would rightly be considered a public benefactor, calming, like a good pilot, the storms of affairs, for the safety and security of those who have entrusted their own concerns to him.

The law, then, first commands the judge not to admit an idle report. What does this mean? Let your ears, it says, be purified; and they will be purified if they are continually washed with the streams of serious discourse, refusing to admit the long-winded speeches of tale-spinners, mime-writers, or fashioners of vanity, who dress up in solemn language things worth nothing—vain, hackneyed talk deserving only ridicule.

And from the injunction not to admit an idle report, something else is also made clear, in harmony with the former: he who attends to those who testify by hearsay, it says, will attend vainly and unsoundly. Why? Because eyes meet the events themselves, touching the facts in a certain manner and grasping them wholly through and through, with the aid of light, by which all things are both illumined and tested; but ears, as someone before us aptly said, are less trustworthy than eyes, since they do not meet the facts themselves but are dragged along by words that interpret the facts—words that are not always by nature truthful.

This is why some lawgivers among the Greeks, transcribing from the most sacred pillars of Moses, seem to have legislated well in ordaining that hearsay not be admitted as testimony, holding that what a man has seen should be judged reliable, but what he has merely heard is not altogether certain.

A second precept to the judge: not to accept gifts. For gifts, the law says, blind seeing eyes, corrupt justice, and do not allow the mind to walk the straight highway.

To take bribes on behalf of unjust causes is the work of utterly wicked men; to take them on behalf of just causes is the work of men only half wicked. For there are certain well-dressed persons, half-corrupt, half-just, who take up the cause of the wronged against the wrongdoers, yet are unwilling to record as victors, without payment, those who are bound to win in any case, and instead make their judgment a thing bought and sold for hire.

Then, when someone accuses them, they say they have not perverted justice—for those who deserved to lose have lost, and those who deserved to prevail have prevailed—offering a poor defense; for a good judge must bring two things to bear, the most exact knowledge of the law and incorruptibility; but the man who awards justice for gifts, without realizing it, disgraces a thing naturally noble.

He commits two further wrongs besides: the one, in habituating himself to love money, which is the starting point of the greatest transgressions; the other, in harming the very man he ought to have benefited, by putting a price on justice.

This is why, in a most instructive manner, Moses commands that justice be pursued justly, hinting thereby that justice can also exist unjustly, on account of those who award it for gifts—not only in the courts, but everywhere, on land and sea, and in almost all, I might say, the affairs of life.

Indeed, there was once a man who, having received a deposit of little value, gave it back—not out of goodwill toward the depositor, but as a trap, so that by letting down the trust shown in small matters as bait, he might hook the trust given in greater ones; which was nothing other than doing a just thing unjustly. For the restoring of another's property is just, but it was not done justly, insofar as it was done for the sake of hunting bigger prey.

The cause of such offenses is above all an attachment to falsehood, which, from earliest birth and even in swaddling clothes, nurses and mothers and the rest of the household throng, both slave and free, by their deeds and words continually foster as a lifelong companion, fitting it and uniting it to the soul as though it were a necessary part of nature—a thing which, even if it really had been born together with us by nature, ought to have been cut away by the practice of what is good.

But what in life is so noble as truth? The all-wise lawgiver set it up as an inscription in the most sacred place, on the vestment of the high priest, where he wished to adorn the ruling faculty of the soul with the finest and most distinguished of ornaments; and beside truth he set up a kindred power, which he called Manifestation—both being images of the two forms of reason within us, the reason held within and the reason uttered aloud. For the uttered reason has need of manifestation, by which the hidden thoughts within each of us are made known to our neighbor, while the reason held within has need of truth, for the perfecting of a life and conduct through which the road to happiness is discovered.

A third precept to the judge: to examine the facts before the litigants, and to try in every way to withdraw himself from the impression the parties in the case make on him, forcing himself into ignorance and forgetfulness of what he knows and remembers—kinsfolk, friends, fellow citizens, and likewise on the other side, strangers, enemies, foreigners—so that neither goodwill nor hatred may overshadow his knowledge of what is just. For it is inevitable that a man who advances like one blind, without a staff and without guides on whom to lean securely, will stumble.

Hence it befits the good judge to veil from his sight the litigants, whoever they may be, and to look upon the nature of the matters themselves unadorned and bare, intending to judge not according to reputations but according to truth, and taking to heart this thought: that “judgment belongs to God” (Deuteronomy 1:17), and the judge is only a steward of judgment; and a steward is not permitted to give away as favors what belongs to his master, since he has received as a deposit the best of all things in human life, entrusted to him by the best of all beings.

In addition to what has already been said, he introduces yet another wise ordinance: he commands that the poor man not be pitied in judgment—he who has filled up almost the whole of legislation with ordinances of mercy and humanity, holding out great threats against the arrogant and the boastful, and setting great rewards before those who see fit to set right the misfortunes of their neighbors, and who regard their own abundance not as private possessions but as common property belonging to those in need.

For what someone before us aptly said is true, that there is nothing in which men come nearer to God than in showing favor. And what greater good could there be than for mortal creatures to imitate the eternal God?

Let not the rich man, then, having gathered abundant silver and gold at home, hold it back, but bring it out into the open, that he may enrich the harsh way of life of the poor with cheerful sharing; nor let any man of high repute, exalting himself, boast and swagger, but honoring equality, let him share his freedom of speech with the disreputable; and let the man endowed with bodily strength be a support to the weaker, and not, as in athletic contests, utterly overpower with his might those who are lesser, but let him be eager to share his own strength with those who have grown weary from their own.

For as many as have drawn from the springs of wisdom, having driven envy beyond the borders of their thought, of their own accord and without need of exhortation strip for the benefit of their neighbors, pouring the streams of reasoned discourse through the ears into their souls, so that they may share in the same knowledge; and whenever they see young men of good stock and noble growth, like well-sprouted and well-born saplings, they rejoice, believing they have found heirs of the soul's wealth—which alone is truly wealth—and taking them in hand, they cultivate their souls with doctrines and theories, until, once rooted, they bear the fruit of nobility of character.

Those who have drawn from the springs of wisdom, having driven envy beyond the bounds of their thinking, strip for action on behalf of their neighbors of their own accord, without needing exhortation, pouring the streams of reason into the souls of others through their ears, to bring them into a share of the same understanding. And whenever they see young people of good natural growth, like well-sprouted and noble shoots, they rejoice, thinking they have found heirs to their wealth of soul, which alone is true wealth in reality, and taking them in hand they cultivate their souls with doctrines and theories, until, once rooted, they bear the fruit of nobility of character.

Such images are woven into and worked through the laws, for the relief of those without resources -- people it is not right to pity on the basis of judgment alone; for pity belongs to misfortune, but one who does wrong by deliberate choice is not unfortunate but unjust.

Let punishments for the unjust stand as firm as honors for the just, so that no wicked person, lacking resources, cowering and hiding behind his poverty, may cheat his way out of paying the penalty by appeal to pity, having done deeds deserving not pity -- how could it be? -- but anger. And let the one who enters to judge, like a good money-changer, distinguish and separate the natures of things, so that the genuine may not be confused, mixed up with the counterfeit.

Much else could be said about false witnesses and about judges; but so as not to speak at length, let us proceed to the last of the Ten Words, which, like each of the others, has been proclaimed in summary form. It is this: “You shall not desire.” You shall not desire.

Every passion is culpable, since every excessive and overflowing impulse, and every irrational and unnatural movement of the soul, is blameworthy. Or is it an old passion, once let loose? It settles in, and unless a bridle is fitted to it, as to unruly horses, one is dealing with a hard-to-cure passion, and then, before one realizes it, one is carried off by its unruliness, like a charioteer swept along by his team, into ravines or pits hard to climb out of, from which it is scarcely possible to be saved.

Of all the passions, none is as troublesome as desire for things that are absent -- things that seem good but in truth are not -- for it breeds difficult and endless longings; it stretches and drives the soul to the furthest extreme, toward the unbounded, even when at times the very thing pursued flees from it, showing contempt not by turning its back but by facing it directly.

For whenever desire perceives that it is being pursued with eagerness, it pauses briefly to entice its pursuer and hold out hope of being caught, and then withdraws to a greater distance, mocking it; and the soul, left behind and falling short, writhes, suffering a punishment like that of Tantalus, laid upon the wretched soul. For the story tells that he too wished to draw water to drink but could not, the water always slipping away, and if he wished to pluck fruit, it all vanished, the abundance around the trees turning barren.

For just as the harsh and inconsolable mistresses of the body, thirst and hunger, rack it as much as, or no less than, if it were being broken on the wheel by a torturer, often even to the point of death, unless someone tames their savagery with food and drink, so too desire, having emptied the soul by making it forget what is present and remember what is far away, implants in it a frenzy and uncontrollable madness, and produces mistresses heavier than the first pair but bearing the same names -- thirst and hunger -- not for the pleasures of the belly, but for money, reputation, positions of power, physical beauty, and countless other things that in human life seem enviable and worth fighting for.

And just as the disease physicians call “creeping” does not remain fixed in one place but moves and travels about and, as its very name shows, creeps everywhere, spreading and pouring itself out, seizing and linking together the whole community of the body's parts from the crown of the head to the feet, in the same way desire, darting through the whole soul, leaves not even the smallest part of it unaffected, imitating the power of fire fed by abundant fuel: it kindles and blazes up until, having consumed it entirely, it destroys the whole.

So great, then, and so overwhelming an evil is desire -- or rather, if the truth must be told, it is the source of all evils; for thefts and robberies, defaults on debts, false accusations and assaults, and beyond these seductions and adulteries and murders, and every wrong, private or public, sacred or profane -- from what else did they flow?

For desire, truly called the origin of evil, whose slightest offspring is erotic love, has not once but many times already filled the inhabited world with disasters beyond number -- disasters that not even the whole circuit of the earth could contain, but which, through their sheer mass, poured out into the sea as if driven by a torrent, so that everywhere every sea was filled with enemy ships and all the devices that naval wars bring forth were assembled together; and falling in a mass again upon islands and mainlands, they were swept back, running their course, as in the ebb and flow of tides, back to the place from which they had first been set in motion.

We will grasp a clearer picture of this passion in the following way: whatever desire lays hold of, it works a change for the worse, like venomous creatures and deadly poisons.

What do I mean by this? If it is directed toward money, it produces thieves, cutpurses, footpads, and burglars, liable for defaulting on debts, denying deposits, taking bribes, robbing temples, and everything else of the kind.

If toward reputation, it produces boasters, people who despise others, unstable and unsettled in character, with ears stopped up by flattering voices, humbled and puffed up at once because of the fickleness of crowds whose praise and blame come in an uncritical torrent, indiscriminate in hatred and friendship, so that they easily exchange one for the other, and all else that is kin and akin to this.

And if desire is directed toward power, it produces people factious by nature, unequal in their dealings, tyrannical, savage in temper, enemies of their homelands, merciless masters to those weaker than themselves, implacable enemies to their equals in strength, flatterers of the more powerful in order to attack them through deceit. And if toward physical beauty, it produces seducers, adulterers, pederasts, zealots for licentiousness and lust, treating the greatest evils as if they were the most blessed goods.

Having already reached the tongue, it has introduced countless innovations there; for some desire either to be silent about what ought to be said, or to say what ought to be passed over in silence, and upon those who speak out avenging justice follows, and upon those who hold their tongues, the opposite.

Having taken hold of matters of the belly, it produces gluttons, insatiable people, profligates, zealots for a soft and dissolute life, delighting in drunkenness and gourmandizing, wretched slaves to unmixed wine and fish and delicacies, crawling around banquet tables like greedy little dogs, from which results a miserable and accursed life, more grievous than any death.

For this reason, those who have not merely tasted philosophy with the tips of their lips, but have feasted more fully on its true doctrines, having examined the nature of the soul and discerned in it a threefold form -- one of reason, one of spirit, and one of desire -- assigned to reason, as ruler, the topmost and most fitting dwelling place, the head, where also the ranks of the senses are stationed like the bodyguards of the mind, as of a king; to spirit they assigned the chest, so that

like a soldier clad in a breastplate, even if not free of all passion, it might at least be hard to capture; and so that, settled close to the mind, it might be benefited by its neighbor, who charms it with wisdom and renders it gentle in its passions; and to desire they assigned the region around the navel and what is called the diaphragm.

For it was necessary that desire, having the least share in reasoning, be settled as far as possible from the royal quarters of the mind, virtually at the outer edges, and that, being the most insatiable and unrestrained of all creatures, it graze in

places where there is both food and mating. It was with all this in view, I think, that the most holy Moses stripped off this passion and, loathing it as the most shameful thing and the cause of the most shameful things, forbade desire above all else, as a kind of siege-engine set against the soul -- a passion whose removal, or whose obedience to reason as pilot, will fill everything, throughout everything, with peace, good order, and perfect goods, toward the completeness of a happy life.

Being a lover of brevity, and accustomed to cut short what is boundless in scope through instruction by example, he begins to admonish and instruct concerning the single desire that busies itself with the belly, supposing that the other desires, too, will no longer be as unruly, but will be restrained, once the oldest of them, the one that acts as their ruler, has learned to obey the laws of self-control.

What, then, is the teaching at the outset? Two things above all hold it together: eating and drinking. Neither of these did he leave unchecked, but he curbed both with ordinances most conducive to self-restraint, to human kindness, and -- the greatest thing -- to piety.

For he commands that firstfruits be offered from grain, wine, oil, livestock, and everything else, and that the firstfruits be distributed for sacrifices and to the priests -- the former as thanksgiving to God for the fertility and abundance of all things, the latter for the sanctity connected with the temple, so that the priests may receive payment for their services in the sacred rites.

He permits no one at all to taste or partake of anything before the firstfruits have been set apart, and this serves at the same time as training in the most beneficial self-restraint; for one who has learned not to rush upon the abundance that the seasons of the year have brought, but to wait until the firstfruits have been consecrated, thereby seems to check the unruliness of his impulses, easing the passion.

Nor indeed did he leave participation in and use of other things unrestrained for those who share in the sacred constitution, but whatever among land animals, water creatures, or birds is fleshiest and fattest, tickling and provoking treacherous pleasure, all this he forbade outright, knowing that once it has enticed the most slavish of the senses, taste, it will produce insatiability, an evil hard to cure for both souls and bodies; for insatiability gives birth to indigestion, which is the beginning and source of diseases and infirmities.

Among land animals, the pig's kind is agreed by those who eat it to be the sweetest of all; and among water animals, the kinds without scales. * * * For no other food is as capable of promoting self-control: it trains and strengthens those naturally suited to the practice of virtue, by scantiness and simplicity, working to strip away extravagance.

He legislated neither harsh austerity, like the Spartan lawgiver, nor the indulgence in luxury and softness that the one who instructed the Ionians and Sybarites introduced, but cutting a middle path between the two he relaxed what was too taut and tightened what was too slack, blending the excesses at either extreme, as on a musical instrument, into the middle tone, aiming at harmony of life and blameless concord. This is why he laid down, not carelessly but with great deliberation, what foods were to be used and what were not.

As for beasts that feed on human flesh, one might suppose it just that they suffer the same things at human hands that they inflict on others; but Moses judged it right to hold us back from enjoying these, even though they would provide a most pleasant feast, reckoning what is fitting for a gentle soul. For even if it is proper for those who have inflicted such things to suffer the like, it is not proper for those who have suffered to retaliate in kind, lest, without noticing it, they be brutalized by anger, that savage passion.

And he takes such great precaution over the matter that, wishing to check from far off any impulse toward what has been described, he forbade also the unrestrained use of other flesh-eating animals, setting apart instead the plant-eating kinds into gentle herds, since these are also tame by nature, feeding on the mild produce that the earth yields and engaging in no scheming.

There are ten of these in number: the calf, the lamb, the goat-kid, the deer, the gazelle, the antelope, the wild-goat, the pygarg, the oryx, the giraffe. For always intent on the theory of numbers, which he had come to understand precisely has the greatest power among existing things, he legislates nothing, small or great, without also bringing in and, so to speak, fitting to the matters being legislated their proper number. Now of the numbers arising from the unit the most perfect is ten, which, as Moses says, is also the most sacred and holy, and it is by this number that the kinds of clean animals are sealed, since he wished to assign the use of these to those who share in the constitution ordained by him.

He sets out the test and proof of the ten animals in common, according to two signs: cloven hoof and cud-chewing. Those which lack both, or have only one of the two, are unclean. Both of these signs are symbols of the most scientific kind of teaching and learning, by which the better things are distinguished from their opposites without confusion.

For just as the cud-chewing animal, when it has divided its food and lodged it in its gullet, draws it up again little by little and works it smooth, and only afterward sends it on to the stomach, in the same way the one being educated, having received through the ears the doctrines and theorems of wisdom from the teacher, makes his learning more secure by not being able to grasp and hold it firmly all at once, until, going back over each thing he has heard with continuous acts of memory — for these are the glue of thoughts — he stamps it firmly upon his soul as an impression.

But it seems there is no benefit in the firm grasp of thoughts unless there is added a distinguishing and separating of them, into a choosing of what one must and a fleeing of the opposite; and it is this that the cloven hoof symbolizes. For the road of life is twofold, one leading toward vice, the other toward virtue, and one must turn away from the one and never abandon the other.

For this reason, whatever animals are single-hoofed or many-clawed are unclean, the former because they hint at one and the same nature belonging to good and bad alike — as with a hollowed and rounded road that is both uphill and downhill — the latter because they show that there are many roads, or rather many pathless ways, in life leading to deception; for it is not easy amid a multitude to find the most useful and best path.

Having laid down these boundaries for land animals, he begins also to describe which water animals are clean for eating, marking these too by two distinguishing marks, fins and scales; for whatever has neither, or only one of the two, he sets aside and rejects. The reason for this is not to be stated without purpose.

Whatever lacks either both or one of these is swept along by the current, being unable to withstand the force of its flow; but those possessing both turn to face it, standing their ground, and train themselves against their opponent with unconquerable eagerness and daring, so that, being pushed, they push back, and being chased, they run to meet the chase, checking wide paths through narrow straits into easy passages.

These too are symbols: the former of a pleasure-loving soul, the latter of one that longs for endurance and self-control. For the road leading to pleasure runs downhill and is very easy, producing more of a slide than a walk, while the road toward self-control runs uphill, laborious indeed, but most beneficial of all; and the one carries a person down and forces retreat, bearing them downward on its slope, until it casts them out at the very bottom, while the other leads to heaven those who do not tire beforehand, granting them immortality, if they have the strength to endure its roughness and difficulty of ascent.

Holding to the same pattern, he declares that among creeping things, whatever is footless, or crawls dragging along its belly, or is four-footed and many-footed, is unclean for food, again hinting through the creeping things at those devoted to their bellies in the manner of the sea-gull, endlessly paying tribute of unmixed wine, pastries, fish, and in general all the elaborate contrivances that bakers and caterers, with every kind of dish, devise and produce, fanning into flame and further kindling insatiable and unquenchable desires; and through the four-footed and many-footed creatures he hints at those who are wretched slaves not of one passion only but of all of them together, which in kind number four, but in their forms are countless. Hard indeed is slavery to one master, but heaviest and most unbearable, as one would expect, is slavery to many.

But those creeping things which have legs above their feet, enabling them to leap up from the ground, he records among the clean, such as the various kinds of locusts and the creature called the snake-fighter, again through symbols investigating the characters and ways of the rational soul. For the body's pull, being naturally heavy, drags down the shallow-minded, yoking and pressing them under the weight of the flesh.

Blessed are those to whom it has been given, by a stronger power, to resist the pull of that downward drag through the rules of right education, having been taught to leap upward from the earth and from lowly things into the ether and the revolutions of heaven, the sight of which is to be envied and eagerly sought by those who come to it willingly and not merely as an afterthought.

Having gone through in his account the forms of land animals and of water animals, and having distinguished them by laws as well as could be done, he begins to examine further the remaining nature of those in the air, disqualifying the countless kinds of birds that hunt for blood, whether against other creatures or against humans — flesh-eaters, venomous ones, and in general those that make use of predatory powers.

But doves, pigeons, turtledoves, and the flocks of cranes, geese, and similar birds he numbers among the tame and gentle order, granting their use without fear to those who wish it.

So it is that in each of the parts of the world — earth, water, air — he withdraws from our use the various kinds of animals, land, water, and winged, just as one removes fuel from fire, and so brings about the quenching of desire.

He commands, moreover, that neither a carcass nor an animal killed by wild beasts be brought near for eating: the former because it is not fitting for a human being to share a table with untamed beasts, virtually feasting together with them on their flesh-eating; the latter because it is perhaps harmful and disease-bearing, the blood having died along with the pus within it, and perhaps also because, once death had already taken hold of it, it was fitting to keep it untouched, out of respect for the compulsions of nature by which it had already been seized.

Those skilled at hunting, expert marksmen against wild game, rarely missing their mark, holding their heads high over successful hunts, especially when, together with the huntsmen and the hounds, they divide up the portions of the captured prey — these are praised by most lawgivers among Greeks and barbarians as being not only courageous but also sociable in character. But the one who introduced the sacred constitution would rightly find fault with them, since he flatly forbade the enjoyment of carcasses and of animals killed by beasts, for the reasons stated.

But if any of those in training should be a lover of exercise and of the hunt, supposing such pursuits to be rehearsals and preliminary contests for wars and dangers against enemies, then whenever he has good fortune in the hunt, let him set the captured game before the dogs as a feast, a wage or prize for their courage and blameless partnership, but let him himself not touch it, being taught beforehand, through irrational animals, what he ought to think concerning enemies — that one must make war on them not for unjust gain, imitating the deeds of robbers, but either in retaliation for wrongs already suffered at their hands, or because of what one expects to suffer from them.

But some Sardanapaluses, stretching their excessive and overly luxurious lack of self-restraint wide open toward the boundless and endless, devising ever new pleasures, prepare things that ought never to be sacrificed, choking and strangling and entombing in the body — in blood — the very substance of the soul, which ought to be left free and unshackled; for it would have been enough to enjoy the flesh alone, without touching anything that has kinship with the soul.

For this reason, elsewhere he lays down a law concerning blood, that neither blood nor fat is to be eaten. Blood, for the reason I have stated, because it is the substance of the soul — not the intellectual and rational soul, but the sentient one, by which living itself is common to us and to the irrational animals; for the substance of that other soul is divine breath, and especially so according to Moses, who says in the account of the world's creation that God breathed the breath of life into the first man, the founder of our race, into the most sovereign part of the body, the face, where the senses, like bodyguards of the mind, are stationed as around a great king; and it is clear that what was breathed in was ethereal breath, or, if there is anything superior even to ethereal breath, since it is a radiance of the blessed and thrice-blessed nature —

and fat, because it is the richest of things, again as an instruction toward self-control and zeal for a strict life — that one should freely let go of what is easiest and closest at hand, but willingly endure cares and labors for the sake of acquiring virtue.

It is for this reason that from every sacrificial victim these two choice parts are wholly burnt, as a kind of firstfruits — fat and blood — the one poured out like a libation, the other brought as fuel for the flame in place of oil, because of its richness, to the fire that has been consecrated and made holy.

He censures some of his contemporaries as gluttons, people who supposed that self-indulgence was among the greatest of blessings. Not content to live luxuriously only in cities, where the supply and provision of necessities is abundant, they insisted on having markets of fish and meat and every article of a bountiful season even in trackless, impassable wastelands.

Then, when there was a shortage, they banded together, shouted, made accusations, and with shameless boldness harassed their leader, and did not stop their unrest until they got what they craved — got it, indeed, to their own destruction, for two reasons: so that it might be shown that all things are possible for God, who finds a way out of what is impassable and impossible, and so that those who could not master their bellies and who rebelled against holiness might be punished.

For a cloud of quails, lifted up from the sea, poured out around dawn, and the camp and its surroundings were overshadowed all around to the distance of a day's brisk walk for a man; and the height of the creatures' flight was reckoned at about two cubits from the ground, for easy capture.

It would have been reasonable for them, awestruck at the marvel of what had been wrought on so great a scale, to be satisfied with the sight, and, filled with reverence, nourished by it, to abstain from eating meat. But instead they, arousing their appetite even more than before, rushed at it as though at the greatest good, and, hauling in the creatures with both hands, filled their laps; then, storing them away in their tents, went out again to catch more — for excessive greed knows no measure — and, preparing every kind of dish, gorged themselves insatiably, these empty-minded men about to perish from their own surfeit.

And indeed, before long, they were destroyed by purgings of bile, so that the place even took its name from what had happened to them: it was called "Graves of Desire" (Num. 11:34), since, as the account has taught, there is no greater evil in the soul than desire.

This is why Moses says most excellently in his exhortations: "Let no one do what is pleasing in his own sight" (Deut. 12:8), which is equivalent to saying, let no one indulge his own desire; rather let a person seek to please God, the universe, nature, the laws, and wise men, renouncing self-love, if he is to become a truly good and noble man.

So much, then, has been said, to the best of my ability, concerning matters that fall under desire, in completion of the Ten Words and the precepts subordinate to them. For if the headings proclaimed by the divine voice must be shown to be the genera of the laws, and all the particular laws that Moses expounded must be shown as species subordinate to them, then, for the sake of an unconfused and precise grasp, some skill was needed, which I have used in assigning and attaching to each genus what belongs to it from the whole body of legislation.

Enough, then, of this. But one must not fail to recognize that, just as each of the Ten has certain particulars akin to it and having no fellowship with any other genus, so too there are some common to all, fitting, so to speak, not one or two, but all ten of the Words.

These are the virtues beneficial to the community. For each of the Ten Sayings individually, and all of them in common, anoint and urge us on toward practical wisdom, justice, piety toward God, and the whole chorus of the virtues, weaving sound reasoning together with good counsel, and earnest actions together with reasoning, so that the instrument of the soul, harmoniously tuned throughout its whole self, may resound in melody of life and irreproachable concord.

Concerning the leading virtues, piety and holiness, and also practical wisdom and self-control, I have spoken earlier; now I must speak of justice, which practices what is akin and kindred to these. On Justice.

One part of justice — no small part — concerned the courts and judges; of this I made mention earlier, when, in dealing at length with the subject of testimony, I went through it more fully so that nothing pertaining to it should be omitted. Since I am not accustomed to repeat myself, except where some necessity compels it under pressure of circumstance, I will leave that aside and turn to the other parts, having said only this much by way of preface.

The just precepts, says the law, must be placed in the heart and bound as a sign upon the hand and kept moving before the eyes, hinting through the first image that just precepts must not be entrusted to unbelieving ears — for trust does not reside in hearing — but must be impressed upon the ruling faculty of the soul, the best of all lessons, engraved there as with tested seals.

And through the second image, that one must not only form conceptions of what is noble but also put into practice without delay what has been decided — for the hand is the symbol of action, and it is upon action that he commands the just precepts to be bound and hung, saying that this will be a sign, though he has not stated outright of what, because, as it seems to me, it is a sign not of one thing but of many, indeed of nearly everything that belongs to human life.

And through the third image, that just precepts must be pictured always and everywhere as though close before the eyes; let them, he says, have a swaying motion — not so that they be unstable and unsettled, but so that by their motion they may draw the sight toward a clear vision, for motion, by stirring and arousing, is what attracts vision, or rather it renders the eyes sleepless and wakeful.

Whoever has managed to imprint upon the eye of his soul precepts that are not at rest but in motion, exercising their natural activities, should be recorded as a perfect man, no longer to be classed among the disciples and learners but among the teachers and instructors, and should offer to those of the young who wish to draw from him, as from a spring, an abundant stream of words and doctrines; and if one of the more timid, through modesty, hesitates and is slow to come forward to learn, let him go to that person himself and pour in, channeling into his ears a flood of instruction, until the reservoirs of his soul are filled.

Let him teach the just precepts beforehand to his kinsmen and friends and all the young, at home and on the road, going to bed and rising up, so that in every posture and every motion, in every place both private and public, not only waking but also sleeping, they may take delight in visions of just things; for there is no pleasure sweeter than to have one's whole soul filled through and through with justice, practicing its eternal doctrines and contemplations, leaving no place empty into which injustice might slip.

He also commands that these precepts, once written, be set up before the doorposts of every house and upon the gates in the walls, so that both those departing and those at home, citizens and strangers alike, encountering the writings engraved before the gates, may keep an unfailing memory of what must be said and done, taking care both not to do wrong and not to suffer wrong; and, going into their houses and out again, men and women and children and household alike, may do what is fitting and incumbent, both for others and for themselves.

Most admirable, too, is what he further proclaims: to add nothing and take nothing away, but to preserve unchanged, in equal and identical form, the ordinances laid down from the beginning. For it appears that addition results in unjust things, and subtraction in the removal of just things; for nothing is more fitting for the wise lawgiver than participation in whole and complete justice.

He also hints at the utmost perfection of the other virtues as well; for each of them is complete and full, having its perfection entirely from itself, so that, should any addition or subtraction occur, the whole would be turned and changed through and through into the opposite condition.

What I mean is this: courage, the virtue concerned with dreadful things, is known even by those not entirely without culture or refinement, even if they have had but a slight taste of education, to be the knowledge of what things must be endured.

But if someone, yielding to ignorance born of arrogance, thinking himself superior and capable of correcting what needs no correction, dares to add or take away anything, he alters the whole image, reshaping a noble character into a shameful one; for by addition he will produce rashness, and by subtraction cowardice, leaving not even the name of courage, which is of the greatest benefit to life.

In the same way, too, in the queen of the virtues, piety: if anyone adds anything, whether small or great, or conversely takes something away, in either case he will pervert and transform its form; for addition will generate superstition, and subtraction irreligion, piety itself being thereby abolished — piety, whose rising and shining is a thing to be prayed for, since it is the cause of the greatest of goods, producing the knowledge of how to serve God, which must be considered more sovereign and more royal than any office of rule or command.

Similar things to those stated may be said concerning each of the other virtues as well; but since I am accustomed to cut short the length of my discourse, I will be content with what has been said, which may serve as sufficient indications even of matters passed over in silence.

A further precept of common benefit has also been enjoined: "not to move the boundary marks of your neighbor, which those before you set up" (Deut. 19:14). This, it seems, is legislated not merely concerning inherited plots and the boundaries of land, for the cutting off of greed, but also for the safeguarding of ancient customs; for customs are unwritten laws, the decrees of men of old, engraved not on steles or on sheets of papyrus consumed by moths, but on the souls of those who share the same commonwealth.

For children ought to inherit from their parents, apart from their estates, ancestral customs, with which they have lived from their very swaddling clothes, and not despise them merely because their tradition is unwritten; for one who obeys the written laws would not rightly be praised, since he is admonished by necessity and fear of punishment, whereas one who abides by the unwritten laws, displaying virtue voluntarily, is worthy of commendation. The Establishment of Rulers.

Some introduced offices filled by lot, unprofitably for the masses; for the lot reveals good fortune, not virtue. At any rate, many unworthy men have often won by lot—men whom a good man, once he had taken command, would reject and would put to the test even among the subjects.

For even the so-called petty rulers among some peoples, whom they call masters, do not bring under their power all the home-bred or purchased slaves they are able to, but only those who become obedient, sometimes selling off in herds those whose character is incurably bad, as being unworthy even to serve good men.

Is it fitting, then, to make masters and rulers of whole cities and nations out of men who have obtained office by lot—by some slip of fortune, an unstable and unsettled thing? But for the care of the sick the lot counts for nothing; physicians do not obtain their post by lot, but are tested by experience.

And for the safe voyage and preservation of seafarers, it is not the man who has drawn the lot to steer who is straightaway sent to the stern, likely through inexperience to work shipwrecks of his own making even in fair weather and calm, but rather whoever from his earliest years can be shown to have been carefully trained in the art of piloting. This is the man who has sailed many times, who has crossed all or most of the seas, who has carefully examined the trading posts, harbors, anchorages, and roadsteads on islands and mainlands, and who knows the paths of the sea—thanks to his exact observation of the heavenly bodies—no less well than, indeed better than, the roads on land.

For by observing the courses of the stars and following their ordered movements, he has been able to cut unerring highways through pathless wastes, so that—the most incredible of all things—the nature that belongs to dry land might be able to make its crossing by way of what floats.

But is a man who is about to take in hand great and populous cities, full of inhabitants, and government, and the care of private, public, and sacred affairs—which one would not be wrong to call the art of arts and the science of sciences—going to weigh the exact test of truth against the unstable drift of the lot,

having fled from it? The test of truth consists in convictions grounded in reason. Having contemplated all this in his soul, Moses, wisest of all, does not even mention office by lot, but resolved to introduce offices filled by vote. At any rate he says: "You shall appoint over yourself a ruler, not a foreigner, but one from among your brothers" (Deuteronomy 17:15), making plain a voluntary choice and an unimpeachable scrutiny of the ruler, which the whole multitude, acting in agreement, will carry out. And God too—the guarantor of everything beneficial to the community—adds his vote to seal the choice, since he takes the man to be a kind of representative of the race, as an eye represents

the body. He sets out two reasons why one must not choose a foreigner for the office: one, so that he not amass a great quantity of silver, gold, and livestock, storing up great and altogether unjust wealth out of the poverty of his subjects; the other, so that he not uproot the nation from its own land for the sake of his private greed and force it to migrate, carried here and there in endless wandering, its hopes of acquiring greater goods left unfulfilled, in exchange for the loss of what it was already securely enjoying.

For he supposed in advance, reasonably, that a man of the same tribe and kin, sharing in the intimacy that belongs to the highest kinship—and the highest kinship is one commonwealth, one law, and one God, to whom all who belong to the nation have been allotted—would never go wrong in the ways just described, but on the contrary, instead of displacing the inhabitants, would provide a safe return for those scattered in foreign lands, and instead of taking away the property of others, would give his own substance to those in need, making it common.

From the day on which anyone enters office, he commands him to write out with his own hand a summary form of Deuteronomy containing all the laws, wishing what has been ordained to become fastened firmly to his soul; for from one who merely reads, the thoughts slip away, swept off by the current, but for one who writes at leisure they are stamped and firmly settled, since the mind takes its own time over each point and rests upon it, not moving on to the next before it has firmly grasped the one before. Once he has written it, however, let him try to consult and read it every day,

for the sake of a continuous, uninterrupted memory of the good ordinances that benefit everyone, and so that a firm love and longing for them may take root in him, his soul being continually taught and habituated to converse with sacred laws; for long familiarity produces an unfeigned and pure friendship, not only toward people, but also toward forms of writing worthy of love.

And this will come about if the ruler studies not another's writings and notes, but the ones he himself has written; for each person's own possessions are somehow more familiar to him and more readily called to mind.

And besides, as he reads, he will at the same time reason with himself in something like these terms: "I wrote these things—I, such a ruler—without making use of anyone else, though I had countless attendants at my service. Was it so that I might fill up a book, like men who write for hire, or like those who train eye and hand, the one for keenness of sight, the other for speed in writing? Not at all! It was so that, in writing these things into a book, I might at once transcribe them into my soul and stamp upon my mind characters more divine and indelible.

Other kings carry staffs and bear scepters, but for me the scepter is the book of Deuteronomy, a boast and a glory beyond rivalry, the emblem of a rule beyond reproach, modeled on its archetype, the kingship of God.

Ever leaning and resting upon the sacred laws, I shall acquire the two best things of all: first, equality, than which no greater good can be found, for arrogance and haughtiness belong to a small-minded soul that does not foresee the future.

Equality, then, will produce the goodwill and security that come from subjects who repay just returns in kind, while inequality produces the most treacherous dangers. These I shall flee, hating inequality, patron of darkness and of wars, and I shall have a life free from plots by honoring untroubled equality, which begets light and stability.

And I shall secure a second thing besides: not to tip the scale to one side, as on a balance, by twisting and distorting what has been ordained; but I shall try to guide these things along the highway of the middle course, keeping to straight and even steps, toward a share in a life free from stumbling."

Moses is accustomed to call the middle way "the royal road," since it lies on the border between excess and deficiency, and also because, within a triad, the middle position has been allotted the leading rank, fitting together what lies on either side into a unity by an unbreakable bond—by which, indeed, it is escorted like a king by his bodyguard.

Of the lawful ruler who honors equality, who cannot be bribed, who judges just things justly (Deuteronomy 16:20), who continually practices the laws, he says that the reward is long-lasting rule—not so that a long life should be granted him together with presiding over public affairs, but so that he may teach those who do not know it that the lawful ruler, even should he die, lives on for ages through his deeds, which he has left behind as immortal, indestructible monuments of nobility.

It befits the man deemed worthy of the highest and greatest office to choose successors who will share his rule, share his judging, and jointly administer whatever else serves the common good. For one man alone would not suffice, however eager and however robust in both body and soul, for the magnitude and multitude of affairs, worn out by the flood of matters pouring in day after day from every quarter, unless he had helpers at his side—all chosen for excellence in wisdom, capability, justice, piety, and in not merely avoiding but hating, as an enemy and the greatest evil, arrogance.

For such men would prove the helpers and supporters best fitted to lighten and ease the burden for a good and noble man weighed down by public affairs. And besides, since some matters are greater and others smaller, he would rightly entrust the lesser ones to his subordinates, so as not to be worn down over trifles, while for the greater matters he himself would necessarily become the most exacting examiner.

One must suppose the great matters to be, not what some think—when men of reputation contend against men of reputation, the rich against the rich, rulers against rulers—but rather the opposite: when private individuals, the poor, and the obscure contend against the more powerful, for whom the judge is their one hope of suffering nothing beyond remedy.

Clear examples of each of these can be found in the sacred laws, and it is good to imitate them. For there was once a time when Moses alone administered judgment by himself, laboring from dawn until night; but afterward his father-in-law arrived, saw with what a weight of business he was burdened, with those bringing disputes constantly streaming in upon him, and gave him the excellent advice to choose successors, granting him some respite.

Persuaded by what was said—for it was indeed advantageous—he chose the most highly approved men from the whole multitude and appointed them at once as both subordinates and judges, commanding that the greater cases be brought up to him.

This ordinance the sacred books contain in written form, for the instruction of the rulers of every generation: first, so that they not reject counselors as though they alone were capable of overseeing everything, since Moses, all-wise and beloved of God, did not reject them; and second, so that they choose a second and a third in command, taking care not to neglect more urgent matters while wearing themselves out over trifles, since it is impossible for human nature to attend to everything at once.

One of the examples has now been set out; the proof of the second must be fitted to it. I said that the cases of the humbler people carry great weight in judgment. Weak and humble are the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien. It is for these that the highest king must judge, he who has bound upon himself sovereignty over all things, since, according to Moses, God, the ruler of the universe, has not cast them out of his own administration of justice.

For the hierophant, hymning the virtues of him who is, speaks in this way: "The great and mighty God, who does not marvel at a person's face nor accept a bribe in giving judgment" (Deut. 10:17-18) — and he adds, judgment for whom? Not for satraps and tyrants who have bound upon themselves dominion over land and sea, but "for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow".

For the alien, because he has made the very kinsmen who alone might naturally have been his allies into implacable enemies, by migrating toward truth and toward honoring the one worthy of honor, turning away from the mythical fictions and the plurality of rulers which his parents, grandparents, ancestors, and all who share the blood of those who founded this admirable colony held in esteem. For the orphan, because he has been deprived of father and mother, the natural helpers and champions, and left destitute of the one power that was necessary for his defense. For the widow, because she has lost the man who took over from her parents the care and protection of her; for a husband is to a wife what parents are to an unmarried girl.

Indeed, almost the whole nation of the Jews stands, in comparison with all others everywhere, in the position of an orphan. For other peoples, when disasters not sent by God come upon them, are not at a loss for help, because of their intermingling with other nations who act in concert with them; but no one readily joins forces with this nation, since it lives by exceptional laws. Its people are of necessity solemn, since they are trained toward the utmost virtue; and solemnity is austere, and this the great mass of mankind shuns, because they prefer the way of pleasure.

But nonetheless, Moses says that the ruler of the universe, to whom this nation has been allotted, always takes pity and compassion on its orphanhood and desolation, because out of the whole human race it has been set apart as a kind of firstfruits for the maker and father.

The reason is the justice and virtues, fought over and prized, of the founders of the nation, which endure like immortal, ever-flourishing plants, bearing fruit that preserves and benefits their descendants in every way, even if these descendants themselves happen to go astray in ways that are curable rather than utterly incurable.

Yet let no one, thinking that noble birth is a perfect good, grow careless of good actions on that account, reckoning that a person born of the best deserves greater anger if by wickedness of character he brings shame upon his parents. For having in his own family models of nobility to imitate, and turning away from none of them, he is culpable if he fails to set his life on a sound and upright course.

The law forbids, with the most just of prohibitions, that anyone entrusted with the leadership and care of the community should walk deceitfully among the nation; for it is the act of a soul that is unfree and utterly servile to veil treacherous designs beneath a mask of hypocrisy.

For a ruler must stand before his subjects as a father before his children, so that he too may be honored in return as by legitimate sons. Hence good rulers are, in truth, the common parents of cities and nations, showing an equal, sometimes even a greater, goodwill toward them. But those who wrap themselves in great power for the injury and harm of their subjects must be called not rulers but enemies, since they act as implacable foes act.

Moreover, those who do wrong by deceit are more wicked than those who oppose openly, if indeed it is easy to ward off those who lay bare their hostility without disguise, while the depravity of the others is hard to grasp and hard to hunt down, since, as on a stage, they put on a costume not their own to conceal their true appearance.

This form of rule extends already, and has crept in, I might almost say, into every department of life, differing only in size and degree. For what a king is to a city, that a headman is to a village, and a master to a household, and a physician to the sick; a general is to an army what a captain is to a ship's marines and crew; and again, what a shipowner is to a cargo-vessel, a pilot is to sailors. All of these have it in their power to do either well or worse, but they ought to will what is better; and what is better is to benefit, not to harm, all those it is in their power to help.

For this is what it means to follow God, since he too has the power to do either, but wills only the good. This is shown by the creation and governance of the world; for he called what did not exist into being, bringing order out of disorder, qualities out of what had no qualities, likenesses out of unlike things, sameness out of things differing, community and harmony out of things without communion or concord, equality out of inequality, and light out of darkness. For it is always his concern, and that of his beneficent powers, to transform and remodel whatever is disordered in the inferior substance

toward the better. This is what good rulers ought to imitate, if indeed they have any concern to be made like God. But since countless things slip away and escape the notice of the human mind, bound as it is to so great a crowd of the senses, quite capable of leading it astray and deceiving it with false opinions, or rather entombed within a mortal body — which one might properly call a tomb — let no judge be ashamed to admit that he does not know what he in fact does not know.

For, first, the one who lies will become worse than himself, having banished truth beyond the borders of his own soul; and second, he will do countless harm to those on trial, presenting a blind kind of knowledge because he does not see what is just.

So then, whenever unclarity and great darkness dim his grasp of the matters at hand, let him decline to render judgment and refer the case to more accurate judges. And who might these be but the priests, and the head and leader of the priests?

For the true ministers of God have sharpened their understanding with care, holding that even the smallest fault is no small thing, because of the surpassing greatness in every respect of the King they serve — which is why all who are consecrated as priests are commanded to offer sacrifice sober, so that no drug that creeps in to cause raving and delirium may dim the eyes of their understanding —

and perhaps also because the priest who is a priest in truth is at once a prophet, having advanced to the service of him who truly is not so much by lineage as by virtue; and to a prophet nothing is unknown, since he carries within himself an intelligible sun and rays that cast no shadow, granting the clearest apprehension of things invisible to sense but comprehensible to the mind.

Again, the merchants, shopkeepers, and market-traders who handle weights, scales, and measures, and all others who sell for a living the wares — dry or liquid — that people need, are set under the authority of market inspectors, but they ought, if they are prudent, to be rulers over themselves, doing what is just not out of fear but by free choice; for everywhere a right action done of one's own free will is more honorable than one done under compulsion.

Hence the law commands shopkeepers and merchants, and all others who have taken up such a way of life, to keep just scales, weights, and measures, contriving nothing to the harm of buyers, but speaking and acting in every matter from a free and guileless soul, reckoning that unjust gains are most harmful, while wealth gained with justice can never be taken away.

And since wages are set as the rewards of diligent labor for craftsmen, and it is those in need, not those with abundant means, who do the work, the law commands that payments not be deferred, but that the agreed wage be given on the very day. For it is absurd that the wealthy should receive services from the poor, yet not render in return the payment due, when they themselves live in immediate abundance.

Are these not clear proofs of a safeguard against greater wrongs? For he who does not allow even a wage that will certainly be paid to fall past its due time, fixing the deadline at evening, by which the laborer, on going home, must receive his payment — does not this same lawgiver, well before this, forbid robbery, theft, fraud on debts, and all things of that kind, shaping and molding the soul toward the approved form of true nobility?

It is also well said elsewhere that no one should slander or speak ill of anyone, and above all not of the deaf, who can neither perceive that a wrong is being done to him nor defend himself in kind. For of all conflicts the most lawless is one in which one party is put to the test in acting, and the other only in suffering.

Those who abuse the speechless and those whose hearing is impaired commit a wrong like that of people who trip the blind or put other obstacles in their path; for of necessity, being unable through ignorance to step over them, they stumble on both counts, missing their way and injuring their feet.

Against those who do such things, and those who take delight in them, the law holds out the fear of God, fittingly and appropriately, since he alone stretches out his hand and shields those unable to help themselves; and he all but declares outright to wrongdoers, concerning those who have been wronged:

"O empty of understanding, do you think you will go unnoticed, treating their misfortunes as a laughing matter and sinning against them further — the very things that have befallen these people, their ears through revilings, their eyes through obstacles set in their path? But the God who watches over and oversees all things, you will never escape his notice, as you trample upon the misfortunes of wretched human beings, thinking you will not suffer the like fate, going about with a body exposed to every disease, and senses so precarious that, for a slight and chance cause, they are not merely dimmed but suffer incurable disablement."

As for those who have forgotten themselves, who suppose they stand above the natural weakness common to all human beings and imagine they have escaped the hidden and unpredictable machinations of Fortune -- Fortune, who has often hurled sudden thunderbolts and, upon people enjoying a fair voyage through life, has brought them down almost within the very harbor of happiness -- why should such people boast and trample on the misfortunes of others, showing no reverence even for Justice, who sits enthroned beside the Ruler of all things, and to whom it is granted, with eyes sleepless and of the sharpest sight, to survey even what lies hidden in dark corners as though in the clear light of the sun?

These people seem to me, out of an excess of cruelty, not even to spare the dead, but -- to use the common expression -- would not hesitate to strike a corpse a second time, since they think it right to insult and outrage even parts of the body that are, in a sense, already dead before the rest -- for eyes that no longer see and ears that no longer hear are themselves dead -- so that even though these are parts belonging to a human being who has vanished from among the living, such people will display their pitilessness and implacability, doing nothing of that humane and sympathetic character which is preserved for the dead even by enemies in wars fought without any formal truce. So much, then, on this subject.

Next he sets out, one after another in orderly sequence, a harmony of precepts of a similar kind, saying that cattle are not to be mated with those under a different yoke, that a vineyard is not to be sown with two different crops, and that a garment woven from two kinds of material -- a fraudulent piece of work -- is not to be worn. The first of these was stated among the laws against adultery, to give clearer emphasis to the principle that one must not lie in wait to ambush marriages that belong to others, corrupting both the characters of wives and the honest hopes attached to the begetting of legitimate children; for the one who has forbidden the mating of different species among irrational animals evidently works, from a distance, to check adultery.

It must be spoken of again now, in the discussion of justice; for where the same principle can be applied to a number of cases, it should not be passed over. It is just, then, to bring together things capable of sharing in common; and things of the same kind are naturally suited to partnership, since things of different kinds are, on the contrary, by nature unmixed and incapable of partnership. Whoever contrives unlawful unions among such things acts unjustly, doing away with a law of nature.

But the truly sacred law has employed such great forethought for justice that it does not even permit the plowing of the earth by animals of unequal strength, but has forbidden yoking together an ass and a calf to plow, so that the weaker one, forced to compete against the excessive power of the stronger, should not be worn down and collapse beforehand.

And yet the stronger animal, the bull, is listed among the clean animals, while the weaker one, the ass, is among the unclean. But even so, the law did not begrudge those thought to be inferior their share of the benefit that comes from justice, for the sake, I think, of the most necessary lesson for judges -- that they should never disadvantage the lowborn in their judgments, in matters where the examination concerns not lineage but virtue or vice.

Akin to these is also the last ordinance in this series of paired precepts, that one must not weave together substances of different kinds -- wool and linen; for in these too, not only is their difference a barrier to partnership, but the dominance of one over the other, when they must be put to use, produces tearing rather than union.

The middle precept of the triad of paired laws was that one must not sow a vineyard with a second crop. First, so that things belonging to a different kind should not become mixed together in confusion; for sown crops are not suited to trees, nor trees to sown crops. For this reason nature has not fixed the same appointed time for both toward the production of their yearly fruit, but has assigned to the one the spring for the season of reaping, and to the other the end of summer for the gathering of tree-fruit.

At any rate, it happens that at the same time some things wither after having flowered earlier, while others sprout after having withered earlier; for in winter, while the trees are shedding their leaves, the sown crops are in flower, and in spring, on the contrary, while the wild and cultivated timber of the trees is withering, the sown crops sprout; and it is very nearly the same boundary at which the fruits of the sown crops reach completion and those of the trees take the beginning of their generation.

It was fitting, then, that things so widely separated from one another, both in their natures and in their flowering and in the seasons appropriate to the generation of what belongs to them, should be kept apart and settled in separate places, bringing order out of disorder; for order is akin to the cosmos, and disorder to the uncosmic.

Second, so that neither kind should suffer harm and inflict harm in turn upon the other, each drawing away the nourishment belonging to the other; for once this nourishment is split into fragments, as in famine and scarcity, all the plants alike will necessarily grow weak throughout, and either will become altogether barren from complete failure to bear, or, having grown weak beforehand from want, will never produce noble fruit.

Third, so that the fertile earth should not be crushed under the heaviest burdens, on the one hand by the continuous and overlapping density of what is sown and grows in the same place, and on the other by the doubling of the yield of fruit. For it is enough for the owner to take one yearly tribute from a single piece of land, just as a king takes one from a city; but to attempt to collect several tributes is the work of excessive greed for money, by which even the ordinances of nature are overturned.

For this reason the law might say to those who have resolved to sow their vineyards out of greed for gain: "Do not become worse than kings who have subdued cities and territories by arms and campaigns, who, out of forethought for the future and at the same time out of consideration for their subjects, think it right to collect a single yearly tribute, being on their guard against reducing them, in a short space of time, to utter and complete destitution.

But if you exact from the same soil, in spring, the tribute of barley and wheat, and in summer the tribute of tree-fruit, you will break its neck under a double burden; for it will fail you, in all likelihood, like an athlete who is not allowed to catch his breath and gather strength again for the beginning of a new contest.

But you seem to forget with ease those provisions of mine made for the common good; for if you had remembered my institution concerning the seventh year, by which I judged it right that the sacred land should be released, worn out by none of the labors of farming, on account of the toils it had undergone over the six years, bearing fruit each year in its season according to the ordinances of nature -- would you not, in youthful recklessness and grasping greed, have devised new sowings, planting even the land given to trees, and especially the vine-bearing land, with a second crop, so that you might, by a double and doubly unjust income each year, swell your estates through love of money, that lawless desire, hoarding up silver?"

For the very same person would not tolerate his own fields being left fallow in the seventh year without bringing in revenue, for the sake of restoring the exhausted land -- and yet he burdens and oppresses it with a double load.

It was necessary, then, for me to declare that the produce of such holdings -- both the fruit of the orchard and the fruit of the sown crop -- is unconsecrated and impure, because the life-breath animating the fertile earth is, in a manner of speaking, throttled and strangled, and because the owner, in dealing with the gifts of God, does violence and runs riot, unleashing his unjust desires upon it without setting any limit or measure to them."

Is it not worth falling in love with instructions of this kind, which from far off check and restrain the frenzy of human greed? For the private individual who has unlearned, in dealing with plants, the taking of unjust profit -- if he should lay hold of greater affairs and become a king -- will apply the same habit toward men and women alike, exacting no double tribute nor breaking the necks of his subjects with double levies; for the habit ingrained by long familiarity is enough to soften hard characters and, in a sense, to train and mold them toward better patterns -- and the better patterns are those which the soul stamps with the seal of justice.

These are the laws he lays down for each individual. But there are other, more general commands, which he proclaims in common to the whole nation, exhorting them as to how they must conduct themselves not only toward friends and allies, but also toward those who revolt from an alliance.

"For if," he says, "they shut themselves up quickly within their walls and offer resistance, let your young men, well armed and equipped for war, march out and, having thrown a camp around the city in a circle, wait watchfully, granting nothing to anger in advance of reasoning, so that they may set about what must be done with greater firmness and steadiness. Let them then at once send heralds to invite them beforehand

to a settlement, and at the same time to show the formidable strength of the arrayed force; and if, repenting of their recent uprising, they yield and turn toward peace, let them gladly accept the terms of truce;

for peace, even if it is very costly, is more profitable than war. But if they persist in their madness, emboldened and relying also on the invincible alliance of justice, let the besiegers press their siege-engines against the walls, and then, having broken open sections of them, let them charge in together in a mass, and, striking unerringly with their spears and cutting down without mercy, wheeling about with their swords, let them defend themselves by inflicting what these people intended to suffer, until they have laid low, man for man, the whole opposing army.

Then, having taken the silver and gold and the rest of the spoil, let them set the city on fire, so that it may never again be able to recover its breath, rise up, and rebel -- and also as a warning, to instill fear in neighboring peoples, since human beings are taught moderation by the sufferings of others. But let them release the young women and the wives, expecting them to suffer none of the violence that war inflicts, since they have been granted mercy on account of their natural weakness."

From this it is clear that the nation of the Jews is bound by treaty and friendly toward all who share the same disposition, and is peaceable in its intentions, yet not so contemptible as to yield, out of cowardice, to those who use force unjustly; but when it goes forth to defend itself, it distinguishes between those who live by treachery and those who do the opposite.

For to slaughter indiscriminately, even those who have done the least wrong or none at all, I would call the mark of a savage and untamed soul, and to treat women as an addition to a war waged by men -- women whose life is by nature peaceable and confined to the household -- is likewise the mark of such a soul.

He instills such a passion for justice in those who live under his constitution that he does not even allow the fruitful land of a hostile city to be ravaged by men cutting down its trees to destroy its produce.

"Why," he says, "do you bear a grudge against things that have no soul, whose nature is gentle and which produce gentle fruits? Does a tree, my friend, display the hostility of an enemy at war, that in return for what it offers you it should be made ready to be torn up by its very roots?"

On the contrary, it does good, supplying the victors with an abundance of necessities and of the means to a life of comfort. For it is not men alone who pay tribute to their masters, but plants too, bringing their more useful produce according to the seasons of the year, without which life is not possible."

But let there be no sparing of trees that are barren and unfruitful, and of all timber that grows wild, for those who wish to cut them for palisades and stakes and pointed stockades for trenches, and, when the need arises, for the construction of ladders and wooden siege-towers; for it is to such uses, and others like them, that these trees might fittingly be put.

So much, then, has been said concerning what pertains to justice. But justice itself — what poet or prose-writer could worthily sing its praise, standing as it does above every commendation and every encomium? At any rate, one thing alone, the most venerable of its excellences, its noble birth, would be praise enough in itself, even if a person were to pass over everything else and remain silent.

For equality, as those who have precisely studied nature have handed down to us, is the mother of justice. And equality is unshadowed light — the sun, if the truth must be told, of the intelligible realm — since its opposite, inequality, in which there is the one who exceeds and the one who is exceeded, is the beginning and source of darkness.

Equality has ordered well all things, both in heaven and on earth, by laws and ordinances that cannot be moved. For who does not know that days are measured against nights, and nights against days, by the sun, in an equality of proportionate intervals?

The equinoxes that occur each year, called by the name of what happens at them, the spring equinox and the autumn equinox, nature has made so plain that even the most unmusical of people perceive the equality, in their magnitudes, of days against nights.

And what of the moon's circuits, as it runs its double course from conjunction to full light and from fullness back to conjunction — are these not measured by an equality of intervals? For by as much and to whatever degree its waxings occur, by just so much and to the same degree do its wanings occur, in both aspects of its quantity, that of its number of days and that of its magnitude of light.

And just as equality is honored above all in the purest of substances, heaven, so too it is honored in the neighboring element, air; for the year being divided into four parts called the seasons, the air by nature turns and changes in its turnings and changes, displaying an order that cannot be perceived amid what looks like disorder. For being distinguished by an equal number of months into winter and spring, summer and autumn, three to each season, it completes the year, which, just as its very name indicates, contains all things within itself as it comes full circle, and could not have accomplished this in any other way had it not apportioned itself according to the seasons of the year.

Equality extends from the heavenly and celestial realms down to the things of earth, sending up on high the pure nature that belongs to itself, akin to the ether, while dispatching downward, like the sun's own radiance, to the earth, a second brightness.

For whatever among our affairs is out of tune is the work of inequality, and whatever has the order that is fitting is the work of equality — which, in the substance of the universe, to speak in the most proper sense, is order itself; in cities it is the most law-abiding and best of constitutions, democracy; and again, in bodies it is health, and in souls it is nobility of character; for inequality, conversely, is the cause of diseases and of vices.

Even the longest-lived among us would run out of time were he to wish to recount all the praises of equality and of the justice it has begotten. For this reason it seems better to me, content with what has been said, for the sake of stirring the memory of those who love learning, to leave the rest inscribed on their souls, as sacred images set in a most holy place.

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