על הנטיעה ט׳Concerning Noah's Work as a Planter 9
א׳
1[36] So we must turn to allegory, the method dear to men with their eyes opened. Indeed the sacred oracles most evidently afford us the clues for the use of this method. For they say that in the garden there are trees in no way resembling those with which we are familiar, but trees of Life, of Immortality, of Knowledge, of Apprehension, of Understanding, of the conception of good and evil.
ב׳
2[37] And these can be no growths of earthly soil, but must be those of the reasonable soul, namely its path according to virtue with life and immortality as its end, and its path according to evil ending in the shunning of these and in death. We must conceive therefore that the bountiful God plants in the soul as it were a garden of virtues and of the modes of conduct corresponding to each of them, a garden that brings the soul to perfect happiness.
ג׳
3[38] Because of this He assigned to the garden a site most suitable, bearing the name of “Eden,” which means “luxuriance,” symbol of a soul whose eyesight is perfect, disporting itself in virtues, leaping and skipping by reason of abundance of great joy, having set before it, as an enjoyment outweighing thousands of those that men deem sweetest, the worship and service of the Only Wise.
ד׳
4[39] One, after taking a sheer draught of this bright joy, a member indeed of Moses’ fellowship, not found among the indifferent, spake aloud in hymns of praise, and addressing his own mind cried, “Delight in the Lord” (Psalm 36:4), moved by the utterance to an ecstasy of the love that is heavenly and Divine, filled with loathing for those interminable bouts of softness and debauchery amid the seeming and so-called good things of mankind, while his whole mind is snatched up in holy frenzy by a Divine possession, and he finds his gladness in God alone.
