Brother In Messiah

Excerpts from chapter X

…When an opportunity occurred, the king asked the first of those who had not yet been questioned, how he could avoid being deceived by fallacious reasoning?

3 And he replied, ‘By noticing carefully the speaker, the thing spoken, and the subject under discussion, and by putting the same questions again after an interval in different forms. But to possess an alert mind and to be able to form a sound judgement in every case is one of the good gifts of Alahim, and you possess it, O King.’…

…Why is it that the majority of men never become virtuous?

5 ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘all men are by nature intemperate and inclined to pleasure. Hence, injustice springs up and a flood of avarice. The habit of virtue is a hindrance to those who are devoted to a life of pleasure because it enjoins upon them the preference of temperance and righteousness. For it is Alahim who is the master of these things.’…