On the Migration of Abraham (161-165)

And he is more miserable who is looked upon as a king of considerable renown, and who is born along in the chariot which has the precedence; for to be preeminent in what is not honourable is the most conspicuous disgrace, just as it is a lighter evil to come off second best in such a contest.

But you may learn to perceive how wavering a disposition such a man has from the oaths which he swears, swearing at one time "by the health of Pharaoh," [*] and then again, on the contrary, "not by the health of Pharaoh." But this latter formula of oath, which contains a negation, looks as if it were the injunction of his father’s house, which is always meditating the destruction of the passions, and wishing that they should die; but the other brings us back to the discipline of Egypt, which desires that these passions should be preserved;

on which account, although so great a multitude went up together, he still does not call it a mixed multitude, since to a person who is endowed with a real power of seeing, and who is a lover of virtue, every thing which is not virtue nor an action of virtue, appears to be mixed and confused; but to him who still loves the things of earth, the prizes of earth do by themselves seem to be worthy of love and worthy of honour.

Accordingly, as I have already said, the lovers of wisdom will raise a wall of exclusion against the man who, like a drone, has resolved to injure his profitable labours, and who follows him with this object, and he will receive those who, out of their admiration of what is honourable, follow him with a view to imitating him; assigning to each of them that portion which is suited to them; for, says he, "of the men who went with me, Eschol, Annan, and Mamre, shall receive a share." [*] And by these names of persons he means dispositions which are good by nature and fond of contemplation;

for Eschol is an emblem of a good disposition, having a name of fire, since a good disposition is full of good daring [*] [*] [*]