Page:Eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics.djvu/100

80 Let me now explain the above statement. In accordance with what we have made clear in Chapter II, virtues are either intellectual or moral. Similarly, vices are intellectual, as ignorance, stupidity, and want of understanding; or they are moral as inordinate lust, pride, irascibility, anger, impudence, avarice, and many other similar defects, a list of which we have given and explained in Chapter IV. Each of these defects is as a partition separating man from God, the Most High. This is what the prophet meant when he said, “But your iniquities have ever made a separation between you and your God”; which means that our sins—which, as we have said, are the evil qualities—are the partitions which separate us from God.

Know, then, that no prophet received the gift of prophecy, unless he possessed all the mental virtues and a great majority of the most important moral ones. So, the Rabbis said, “Prophecy rests only upon the wise, the brave, and the rich”. By the word “wise”, they undoubtedly refer to all the mental perfections. By “rich”, they designate the moral perfection of contentment, for they call the contented man rich, their definition of the word “rich” being, “Who is rich? He who is contented with his lot”, that is, one who is satisfied with what fortune brings him, and who does not grieve on account of things which he does not possess. Likewise, “brave” stands for a moral perfection; that is, one who is brave guides his faculties in accordance with intelligence and reason, as we have shown in Chapter V. The Rabbis say, “Who is brave? He who subdues his passions”.