על הבריחה והמציאה ז׳On Flight and Finding 7
א׳
1[39] Such is the substance of the advice which Patience gives to the Man of Practice, but the actual words need detailed treatment. “Behold,” she says, “Esau thy brother is threatening thee.” Is it not the case that the character which is hard and wooden, whose ignorance makes it disobedient, the character called “Esau,” nurses a grudge, and, offering the baits of this mortal life to destroy thee, money, fame, pleasures, and the like, is bent on killing thee? “But do thou, my child, flee from the present contest: for not yet has thy strength reached its full development, but, as is natural in a boy, the sinews of thy soul lack firmness.”
ב׳
2[40] This is why she addressed him as “child,” a title at the same time expressive of kindly feeling and suited to a tender age; for we regard the character of the Practiser both as young compared with the fully developed and as lovable. Such a one is quite capable of winning the prizes that are offered to boys, but is not as yet able to carry off those offered to men; and the best prize that men can obtain, is to minister to the only God.
ג׳
3[41] So, when we present ourselves at the courts in which we are to minister not yet thoroughly purified, but having just washed off, as we think, the spots which smirch our life, we hurry away from that ministry more quickly than we came to it, not brooking its severe way of living, and the unsleeping observance and the continuous and unflagging toil which it demands.
ד׳
4[42] Flee, then, at present both that which is worst, and that which is best. Worst is the fabulous fiction, the poem without metre or melody, the conception and persuasion which ignorance has rendered hard and wooden in very deed. From this Esau derives his name. Best is the dedicated offering; for the ministering kind is a sacred offering to God, consecrated for the great high priesthood to Him alone.
ה׳
5[43] To spend one’s days with evil is most hurtful: to do so with perfect goodness most dangerous. So Jacob both flees from Esau and moves away from his parents; for being bent on practice and still engaged in a contest, he flies from evil, but is incapable of sharing the life of perfect virtue that learns untaught.