On the Confusion of Languages (46-50)

For when he sees war stirred up in the midst [*] [*]

For they do in peace every thing that is done in war; they plunder, they ravage, they drag into slavery, they carry off booty, they lay waste, they behave insolently, they assault, they destroy, they pollute, they murder treacherously, they murder openly if they are the more powerful;

for every one of them, proposing to himself riches or glory as his object, aims all the actions of his life as so many arrows at it, and neglects equality, and pursues inequality, and repudiates associations, and labours to acquire to himself all the possessions together properly belonging to every one; he is a misanthrope and a hater of all his fellows, making a hypocritical pretence of benevolence, being a companion of a bastard kind of flattery, an enemy of genuine friendship, a foe to truth, a champion of falsehood, slow to do good, swift to do injury, very ready to calumniate, very slow to defend, clever at deceiving, most perjured, most faithless, a slave of anger, yielding to pleasure, a guardian of all that is evil, a destroyer of all that is good.

These and other similar gifts are the most desirable treasures of peace, that blessing so celebrated and so admired, which the mind of each individual among the foolish men sets up for itself as an image, and admires and worships; at whom, very naturally, every wise man is grieved, and is accustomed to say to his mother and nurse, wisdom, "O mother, what a person hast thou brought me forth!" not in strength of body, but in energy and courage, a determined hater of wickedness, a man of disquietude and battle, by nature peaceful, and, on this very account, an enemy to those who pollute the desirable beauty of peace.

"I have done no good to them, nor have they done any good to me;" nor have they even derived any advantage from my good things, nor have I from their evil things; but according to the word of Moses, "I have received no desirable thing from any one of them," [*] [*]