“The first kind of evil is that which is caused to man by the circumstance that he is subject to genesis and destruction, or that he possesses a body.”

— Maimónides , book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

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Maimónides 180

rabbi, physician, philosopher 1138–1204

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“May we not say, perhaps, that the evil man is annihilated because he wished to be annihilated, or that he did not wish strongly enough to eternalize himself because he was evil? May we say that it is not believing in the other life which causes a man to be good, but rather that being good causes him believe in it? And what is being good and being evil? These states belong to the sphere of ethics, not of religion; or rather, does not the doing good though being evil pertain to ethics, and the being good [forgivable] though doing evil, to religion?”

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“The first kind of evil is that which is caused to man by the circumstance that he is subject to genesis and destruction, or that he possesses a body.”

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Maimónides 180

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