Philo: On Husbandry

XXVIII. (124) Everything, then, that is requisite has now been said on the subject of a horseman and a rider, and a keeper of sheep and a shepherd, and a tiller of the ground and a husbandman; and all the difference existing between each of these pairs has been very accurately defined, as far as it was in our power. It is time now to turn to what follows. (125) Moses, then, introduces the man who is desirous of virtue as not possessing a complete knowledge of the whole business of a husbandman, but only as labouring with diligence at its principles and rudiments; for he says, "Noah began to be a Husbandman."

And the beginning, as the proverb of the old writers has it, is half of the whole; as yet, therefore, he is half of the distance removed from the end, and where the end is not attained, it has been often injurious to many persons, to have begun great enterprises. (126) At all events, before now, some persons whose minds were not right, through their thoughts revolving in continued changes, have conceived a notion of some good things, but have derived no advantage from it; for it has happened that, as they did not attain the end which they desired, they have been overwhelmed by the impetuosity of a number of adverse circumstances coming against them, and so that good conception has been destroyed.