על השיכרות י״אOn Drunkenness 11
א׳
1[41] For when he wishes to make a shew of piety and says “now I know that the Lord is great beyond all the gods” (Exod. 18:11), he does but charge himself with impiety in the eyes of men who knew how to judge.
ב׳
2[42] They will say to him “Blasphemer! is it now that you know this, and have you never till now understood the greatness of the ruler of all? Did your past experience shew you anything more ancient or more venerable than God? Are not the excellences of the parents known to the children, before those of any others? Is not the Maker and Father of the Universe He who presided at its beginning? So if you say that you now know, not even now have you true knowledge, since it does not date from the beginning of your own existence.
ג׳
3[43] And you stand no less convicted of mere feigning, when you compare two incomparables, and say that you know that the greatness of the Existent is beyond all the Gods. For if you had true knowledge of that which IS, you would not have supposed that any other god had power of his own.”
ד׳
4[44] The sun when it rises hides from our sight the light of the other stars by pouring upon them the flood of its own beams; even so, when the rays of the Divine Day-star, rays visible to the mind only, pure from all defiling mixture and piercing to the furthest distance, flash upon the eye of the soul, it can descry nothing else. For when the knowledge of the Existent shines, it wraps everything in light, and thus renders invisible even bodies which seemed brightest in themselves.
ה׳
5[45] No one, then, could have the boldness to compare the true God with those falsely so called, if he had any knowledge of Him which was free from falsehood. But your ignorance of the One produced your opinion of the existence of the Many whereas in real truth they had no existence.
