On the Migration of Abraham (61-65)

Among men, then, the unjust multitude is usually honoured more than one single just person; but in the eye of God a small company that is good is preferred to an infinite number of persons who are unjust. And, on that account, he warns men never to consent to a multitude of such a character; "For," says he, "thou shalt not join with a multitude to do evil." [*] May one, then, join a few to do so? One may never join a single bad man. But a bad man, though he be but a single individual, is a multitude in wickedness, and it is the greatest possible evil to join with him; for, on the contrary, it is becoming rather to oppose him and to make war upon him with fearless energy.

"For if," says Moses, "you go forth to war against your enemies and see a horse," the emblem of arrogant and restive passion which scorns all control, "and a rider," the symbol of the mind devoted to the service of the passions, riding upon it, "and a great body of your people," admirers of those before-mentioned passions, and following in a solid phalanx, "you shall not be terrified so as to flee from them," for you, though only a single person, shall have a single being for your ally, "because the Lord your God is on your side;" [*]

for his advance to battle puts an end to war, builds up peace again, overthrows numbers of long-accustomed evils, preserves the scanty race which loves God, to whom every one who becomes subject hates and abominates the ranks of the more earthly armies. [*] [*] [*]

"For," says Moses, "you shall not eat those animals which have a multitude of feet, being numbered among all the reptiles that are upon the earth; because they are an abomination." [*] But the soul is not deserving of being hated which goes upon the earth in one part of itself, but only that which does so with all or with the greatest proportion of its parts, and which is exceedingly greedy about the things of the body, and which, in short, is unable to penetrate into and contemplate the divine revolutions of the heaven.

And, moreover, as the animal with many feet is accursed among reptiles, so also is that which has no feet at all; the one for the cause already mentioned, and the other because it entirely falls upon the ground in all its parts, not being supported off the ground by anything, not even for the briefest minute. For Moses says that, "Everything which goes upon its belly is unclean;" [*] meaning, under this figurative expression, to point out those who pursue the pleasures of the belly.