על הכרובים ט״וOn the Cherubim 15
א׳
1[51] Again even a virgin soul may perchance be dishonoured through the defilement of licentious passions. Therefore the oracle makes itself safe by speaking of God as the husband not of a virgin, for a virgin is liable to change and death, but of virginity, the idea which is unchangeable and eternal. For particulars within a class are of their nature such as to come into being and pass out of it again, but to the potencies which give their form to these particulars is allotted an existence indestructible.
ב׳
2[52] It is meet and right therefore that God the uncreated, the unchanging, should sow the ideas of the immortal and virgin virtues in virginity which changes not into the form of woman.
ג׳
3Why then, soul of man, when thou shouldst live the virgin life in the house of God and cling to knowledge, dost thou stand aloof from them and embrace outward sense, which unmans and defiles thee? For this thou shalt bring forth that thing of ruin and confusion, Cain, the fratricide, the accursed, the possession which is no possession. For the meaning of Cain is “possession.”
