על בריאת העולם נ״דOn the Account of the World's Creation 54
א׳
1[153] While the man was still leading a life of solitude, the woman not having been yet formed, a park or pleasaunce, we are told, was planted by God, quite unlike the pleasaunces with which we are familiar (Gen. 2:8 f.): for in them the wood is soulless; they are full of trees of all sorts, some ever-blooming to give uninterrupted joy to the eye, some bursting forth with young life every spring: some again bearing cultivated fruit for man, not only for use by way of necessary nourishment, but also for his superfluities, for the enjoyment of a life of luxury; while others yield a different kind of fruit, supplied to the wild beasts to satisfy their actual needs. But in the divine park or pleasaunce all plants are endowed with soul or reason, bearing the virtues for fruit, and beside these insight and discernment that never fail, by which things fair and ugly are recognized, and life free from disease, and incorruption, and all that is of a like nature.
ב׳
2[154] This description is, I think, intended symbolically rather than literally; for never yet have trees of life or of understanding appeared on earth, nor is it likely that they will appear hereafter. No, Moses evidently signifies by the pleasaunce the ruling power of the soul which is full of countless opinions, as it might be of plants; and by the tree of life he signifies reverence toward God, the greatest of the virtues, by means of which the soul attains to immortality; while by the tree that is cognisant of good and evil things he signifies moral prudence, the virtue that occupies the middle position, and enables us to distinguish things by nature contrary the one to the other.