אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג ל״הAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 35
א׳
1[107] “And the Lord God said to the serpent, Cursed art thou from among all cattle and from among all the beasts of the earth” (Gen. 3:14). Just as joy, being a good condition of soul, deserves prayer, so pleasure, the passion par excellence, deserves cursing; it shifts the standards of the soul and renders it a lover of passion instead of a lover of virtue:—“Accursed,” says Moses in the Curses, “is he who removes his neighbour’s landmarks” (Deut. 27:17):—for God set as a landmark and law for the soul virtue, the tree of life. This is removed by the man who has fixed as landmark in its stead wickedness, the tree of death.
ב׳
2[108] “Cursed again is he who causes a blind man to go astray in the way” (Deut. 27:18), “and he that smiteth his neighbour craftily” (ibid. 24). And these also are acts of pleasure, the utterly godless one; for sense by itself is a blind thing, inasmuch as it is irrational, for it is the reasoning faculty that confers sight. Accordingly it is with the reason only that we apprehend matters; sense does not carry us so far; for by means of sense we gain impressions only of the material forms of things.
ג׳
3[109] Pleasure, then, has cheated poor maimed sense of the power of apprehending matters, inasmuch as, when it could have had recourse to mind and have secured it for its charioteer, it has prevented it, leading it to what can be perceived externally only, and by giving it a craving for that which produces pleasure, to the end that sense, being a maimed thing, may follow a blind guide, namely that which sense can perceive, and that the mind, led by this pair of blind guides, may be brought to the ground and robbed of self-control.
ד׳
4[110] For if there had been any correspondence with what nature prescribes, it would have been incumbent upon the maimed faculties to follow the reasoning faculty which has eyes, for in this way the damage incurred would have been diminished. As it is, pleasure has organized such a shrewd device against the soul, that it has compelled it to employ blind guides, inducing it by delusive wiles to change virtue for evil things, and to surrender its innocence and receive wickedness in lieu of it.