Chapter I.
The title of the book and the method of exposition are explained: then what usefulness is to be sought from the examples of Abraham is demonstrated by divine authority, and by comparison with the philosophers.
1. The title of this book is Abraham, because it occurred to me to consider the actions of this patriarch in order. About him, our moral treatise will be first and simple. For although in a deeper discussion a certain process and form of virtue, and a certain kind is expressed; nevertheless, it is a progress of virtue to also consider the traces of his forensic actions. Indeed, if those things which nature has produced for the sustenance of human beings are not of one, but of twofold or even more abundant grace, how much more should those things by which minds are delighted be estimated as not of narrow, but of more abundant and various use, and of numerous kinds of food.
2. However, the task is not mediocre or idle. For when our Lord God has bestowed this rich blessing on us, in order to provoke others by His grace and correct their institution, Moses has also described for us an example to imitate; so that the hearts of men, slipping into vice, may be revived by the sight of this man, as if from a certain earthly grave, it should not be considered superficial if we also diligently follow in the footsteps of the same man. For if the wise men of this world, like Plato himself, the chief of philosophers, proposed to pursue not a true, but a fictitious and shadowy commonwealth, which we read about in his Republic, in order to teach what kind of commonwealth ought to exist: and thus, though he had neither seen nor heard of anything like it in any city, he thought it should be described so that those who hold this office, might be able to learn how to govern a commonwealth; and if Xenophon, the disciple of Plato, wished to give the character of a wise man in those