אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג כ״גAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 23
א׳
1[73] You see that Er is slain not by the Lord, but by God. For it is not as Ruler and Governor employing the absolute power of sovereignty that He destroys the body, but in the exercise of goodness and kindness. For “God” is the name of the goodness pertaining to the First Cause, and is so used that thou mayest know that He hath made the inanimate things also not by exercising authority but goodness, even as by goodness He hath made the living creatures. For it was necessary with a view to the clear manifestation of the superior beings that there should be in existence an inferior creation also, due to the same power, even the goodness of the First Cause. And that goodness is God.
ב׳
2[74] When, then, O soul, wilt thou in fullest measure realize thyself to be a corpse-bearer? Will it not be when thou art perfected, and accounted worthy of prizes and crowns? For then shalt thou be no lover of the body, but a lover of God. And thou shalt win the rewards if Judah’s daughter-in-law become thy wife, even Tamar, which means a palm-tree, the sign of victory. Here is a proof of it. When Er has married her, he is immediately found to be wicked and slain. For we read, “And Judah took for Er his firstborn a wife whose name was Tamar” (Gen. 38:6), and the next words are, “And Er was wicked before the Lord, and God slew him” (ibid. 7). For when the mind has carried off the rewards of victory, it condemns the corpse-body to death.
ג׳
3[75] Thou seest that God both curses the serpent without allowing him to defend himself—for he is pleasure—and slays Er without bringing an open charge against him; for he is the body. And if thou wilt consider, my friend, thou wilt find that God has made in the soul some natures faulty and blameworthy of themselves, and others in all respects excellent and praiseworthy, just as is the case with plants and animals.
ד׳
4[76] Seest thou not that among the plants the Creator has made some repaying cultivation and useful and wholesome, and others wild and injurious and productive of disease and destruction, and the same with animals? As, doubtless, He has made the serpent, our present subject, for the creature is of itself destructive of health and life. What a serpent does to a man, that pleasure does to the soul, and therefore the serpent was taken to represent pleasure.