About the Planting of Noah (106-110)

But the tree of science and unadulterated friendship having rejected and discarded these things, will bear fruit of the greatest possible service to those who use it, namely, incorruptible good faith. For good-will is a desire that one’s neighbour should enjoy good things for his own sake. But courtesans and flatterers are anxious solely for their own advantage, which is the only motive why they should confer pleasure, the first on their lovers, and the latter on the objects of their flatteries. We must therefore cut down all trickeries and flatteries as evil plants growing up near the tree of friendship.

The due attention to sacred rites, and good faith in the matter of sacrifices, are the most excellent of trees; but along-side of them an evil grows up, namely, superstition, which it is desirable to eradicate before it has time to blossom. For some persons have fancied the sacrificing of oxen to be piety, and they assign a portion of all that they steal or obtain by denials, or by cheating their creditors, or by plundering, to the altars. Impious wretches that

But to such persons I would say, O ye men, the tribunal of God is not to be corrupted by bribes; so that those who have guilty minds will be rejected, even if they sacrifice a hundred oxen every day; and those who are innocent will be received, even if they never sacrifice at all. For God delights in altars on which no fire is burned, but which are frequented by virtues, and which do not blaze with great flame, such as those sacrifices do kindle which are offered by impious men, and which are no sacrifices at all, and which serve to remind one of the ignorances and wickedness of each of the sacrificers; for Moses has somewhere spoken of a sacrifice "reminding one of sin." [*]

All such things therefore, being the causes of great injury, it is necessary to cut off and eradicate, in obedience to the oracle in which it is enjoined "to remove the uncleanness of the tree which has been planted, bearing eatable fruit." [*]

But we, even after we have been instructed, make no progress in learning; but some persons, having a self-taught natural instinct, purify what is good from the evils which surround it, as Jacob did, he who was surnamed the practiser of virtue; for he "peeled the rods, leaving on the white bark, having stripped off all the green;" [*] in order that the dark and dusky vanity in the middle being taken away in every case, a white appearance might be displayed, which should be produced so as to be akin to it, not by diversified art but by nature;