X. (57) We have now thus spoken at sufficient length concerning the rewards proposed for each individual man: but rewards are also offered to whole houses, and to very numerous families. When the nation was originally divided into twelve tribes, there were at once appointed patriarchs equal in number to the tribes, being not merely of one house or family, but connected by a still more genuine relationship: for they were all brothers having one and the same father; and the father and grandfather of these men were, with their father, the original founders of the whole nation. (58) Therefore the first man who forsook pride and came over to truth, and who despised the jugglery of the Chaldaic branches of learning, because of that more perfect vision which had been granted to him, after having seen which he was so captivated that he followed the vision, just as they say that wire is attracted by the magnet, becoming instead of a sophist which he had been before a wise man in consequence of instruction–he had many children: but they were not all virtuous, though there was one who was utterly blameless, to whom he bound the cables of his whole race, and thus brought them to a safe anchorage. (59) Again his son who had acquired spontaneous and self-taught wisdom had two sons, one a wild and untameable man, full of anger and desire, and one in short who raised up the irrational part of his soul as a fortification against the rational part; but the other a mild and gentle follower and worker of virtue, placed in the more excellent class of equality and simplicity, the very champion of reason and declared enemy of folly: (60) he is the third of the founders of his race, a man with many sons, and the only one truly happy in this children, being free from all injury in every part of his family, and like a fortunate husbandman seeing all his seed in a state of safety, and well cultivated, and bearing fruit.
XI. (61) And every one of these three individuals has in the account which we have received of him a figurative meaning concealed below it, which we must now consider. Now the moment that any one is taught anything, it happens to him to forsake ignorance and to come over the knowledge; and ignorance is a thing of a multiform character: on this account the first of the three is said to have had many children, but not to have thought any one of them worthy for him to call his son, except one: for in a manner he who learns discards the offspring of ignorance, and repudiates them as inimical and hostile to him. (62) Now by nature all we who are men, before the reason that is in us is brought to perfection, live on the borders between virtue and vice, without ever inclining as yet to either side: but when the mind, beginning to put forth its wings, sees an appearance of the good with its whole soul, impressing it in all its parts, it immediately bursts through all restraint, and being borne on wings rushes towards it, leaving behind the kindred evil which was born with it, which it flees from, proceeding in the other direction without ever turning back: (63) this is what he intends to imply by an enigmatical expression when he says that the man who was endowed by nature with a good disposition had two sons, twins: for every man has at the beginning simultaneously with his birth, a soul which is pregnant with twins, namely, good and evil, bearing the impression of both of them: but when it receives the blessed and happy part, then by the force of one single attraction it inclines to the good, never once leaning towards the other side, and never even wavering so as to appear to be balancing between the two. (64) But that soul which besides having a good natural disposition has also received a good education, and has been trained by the third mentioned person in the meditations of virtue, so that none of them float at random on the surface, but that they are all firmly glued and fixed in their places, as if united by some compact sinews, acquires health and acquires power, which are followed by a good complexion, owing to modesty, and also good health and beauty. (65) And thus the soul becoming a perfect company of virtues, by means of these three most excellent patronesses, nature, instruction, and meditation, and not having left one single spot in itself empty, so as to allow of the entrance of anything else, engenders perfect number, namely, two lots of sons, of six in each, being a representation and imitation of the circle of the zodiac, in order to the improvement of everything in them: this is the family exempt from all injury, being continually devoted to the study of the holy scriptures, both in their literal sense and also in the allegories figuratively contained in them: which received as a prize, as I have said before, the supreme authority over each of the tribes of the nation. (66) Of this house therefore, as it increased and became very populous in process of time, well regulated cities were founded, being schools of wisdom, and justice, and holiness, in which also the means of acquiring all other virtue was investigated in a grave manner suited to the importance of the subject.
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