על הנטיעה ד׳Concerning Noah's Work as a Planter 4
א׳
1[14] Of twofold kind were the beings which the great Maker made as well in the earth as in the air. In the air He made the winged creatures perceived by our senses, and other mighty beings besides which are wholly beyond apprehension by sense. This is the host of the bodiless souls. Their array is made up of companies that differ in kind. We are told that some enter into mortal bodies, and quit them again at certain fixed periods, while others, endowed with a diviner constitution, have no regard for any earthly quarter, but exist on high nigh to the ethereal region itself. These are the purest spirits of all, whom Greek philosophers call heroes, but whom Moses, employing a well-chosen name, entitles “angels,” for they go on embassies bearing tidings from the great Ruler to His subjects of the boons which He sends them, and reporting to the Monarch what His subjects are in need of. Two kinds again did He assign to earth, land animals and plants. For He willed her to be at once both mother and nurse.
ב׳
2[15] For, even as in woman and all female kind there well up springs of milk when the time of delivery draws near, that they may furnish necessary drink of a suitable kind to their offspring; even so in like manner did the Creator bestow on earth, the mother of land animals, plants of all sorts, to the end that the new-born might have the benefit of nourishment not foreign but akin to them.
ג׳
3[16] Furthermore, while He fashioned the plants head downwards, fixing their heads in the portions of the earth where the soil lay deepest, He raised from the earth the heads of the animals that are without reason and set them on the top of a long neck, placing the fore feet as a support for the neck.
ד׳
4[17] But the build allotted to man was distinguished above that of other living creatures. For by turning the eyes of the others downwards He made them incline to the earth beneath them. The eyes of man, on the contrary, He set high up, that he might gaze on heaven, for man, as the old saying is, is a plant not earthly but heavenly.
