על הענקים ה׳On the Giants 5
א׳
1[19] Among such as these then it is impossible that the spirit of God should dwell and make for ever its habitation, as also the Lawgiver himself shows clearly. For (so it runs) “the Lord God said, My spirit shall not abide for ever among men, because they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3).
ב׳
2[20] The spirit sometimes stays awhile, but it does not abide for ever among us, the mass of men. Who indeed is so lacking in reason or soul that he never either with or without his will receives a conception of the best? Nay, even over the reprobate hovers often of a sudden the vision of the excellent, but to grasp it and keep it for their own they have not the strength.
ג׳
3[21] In a moment it is gone and passed to some other place, and from the habitation of those who have come into its presence after wandering from the life of law and justice it turns away its steps.
ד׳
4[22] Nay, never would it have come to them save to convict those who choose the base instead of the noble. Now the name of the “spirit of God” is used in one sense for the air which flows up from the land, the third element which rides upon the water, and thus we find in the Creation-story “the spirit of God was moving above the water” (Gen. 1:2), since the air through its lightness is lifted and rises upwards, having the water for its base.
ה׳
5[23] In another sense it is the pure knowledge in which every wise man naturally shares. The prophet shows this in speaking of the craftsman and artificer of the sacred works. God called up Bezaleel, he says, and “filled him with the divine spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to devise in every work” (Exod. 31:2 f.). In these words we have suggested to us a definition of what the spirit of God is.