על הבריחה והמציאה כ״וOn Flight and Finding 26
א׳
1[143] Having said enough about those who seek and find, let us turn next to our third head, in which there is, we said, seeking, but no finding follows. Laban falls under this head. He searched the whole of the soul-dwelling of the Practiser, and as Moses says “found not the idols” (Gen. 31:33); for it was full of real things, not of dreams and empty phantoms.
ב׳
2[144] The men of Sodom, too, blind in understanding, when madly bent on bringing shame upon the sacred and undefiled Words, did not find the way that leads to this, but, as the sacred passage says, “wearied themselves in seeking the door” (Gen. 19:11), although they ran all round the house and left no stone unturned to carry out their unnatural and unholy lust.
ג׳
3[145] It has happened before now, that men having conceived the desire to become kings instead of gate-keepers and to overthrow order, the most beautiful thing in human life, have not only failed of the success which they had unjustly hoped for, but have been compelled to part with the advantage which they held in their hands. For the Law tells us that the men of Korah’s company, when they aimed at 〈priesthood and were not satisfied with the post of Tabernacle attendants〉, failed of both (Num. 16.).
ד׳
4[146] For just as boys and men do not learn the same things, but either age has its appropriate teachings, so it is the nature of some souls to be always childish even in bodies that have grown old, and, on the other hand, to be full grown in bodies just reaching the prime of youth. All such as are enamoured of things too great for their nature will be convicted of foolishness, since every effort beyond our strength breaks down through over-violent straining.
ה׳
5[147] Pharaoh, again, seeking to destroy Moses (Exod. 2:15), that is, the prophetic nature, will never find him, albeit he has heard a grievous charge against him, namely, that he has attempted to overthrow the entire dominion of the body in two attacks.
ו׳
6[148] The first of these he made against the Egyptian character, which was assailing the soul from the vantage-ground of pleasure; for “after smiting him he covered him with sand” (Exod. 2:12), a drifting, disconnected substance. He evidently regarded both doctrines as having the same author, the doctrine that pleasure is the prime and greatest good, and the doctrine that atoms are the elementary principles of the universe. Another attack (ibid. 13) was directed against him who splits up the nature of good into subdivisions, and assigns one to soul, one to body, one to things outside us. For he would have the good to be a complete whole, apportioned to the best element in us, to understanding alone, and in agreement with nothing lifeless.