On the Tilling of the Earth by Noah (121-125)

and he who shows himself superior to all the rest of these is most admirable, and we must not envy him, when he gets the first prize of all the wrestlers. And those who are thought worthy of the second or of the third place, must not be cast down; for these prizes are proposed for the acquisition of virtue. But to those who are

Therefore it is said in a way to convey much instruction, "The horseman will fall," that if any one falls from vice, he may be raised up by leaning on good things, and so may stand upright again. And in a still more instructive manner is that other expression used, which bids one not leap off in front, but "fall backwards," since it is always advantageous to be behind-hand in vice and passion;

for it is always good to be beforehand in doing what is good, but to be slack in doing what is disgraceful: and, on the other hand, it is good to come close to the one, but to stand aloof from and to be as far as possible removed from the other. And that man is free from all disorder, to whom it happens to be removed at a distance from the errors of passion. Accordingly, Moses says that he is "awaiting the salvation which comes from God," [*] in order that, as far as he is removed from committing iniquity, so far he may also advance in well-doing.

Everything, then, that is requisite has now been said on the subject of a horseman and a rider, and a keeper of sheep and a shepherd, and a tiller of the ground and a husbandman; and all the difference existing between each of these pairs has been very accurately defined, as far as it was in our power. It is time now to turn to what follows.

Moses, then, introduces the man who is desirous of virtue as not possessing a complete knowledge of the whole business of a husbandman, but only as labouring with diligence at its principles and rudiments; for he says, "Noah began to be a husbandman." [*] And the beginning, as the proverb of the old writers has it, is half of the whole; as yet, therefore, he is half of the distance removed from the end, and where the end is not attained, it has been often injurious to many persons, to have begun great enterprises.