על הגירת אברהם כ״הOn the Migration of Abraham 25
א׳
1[139] This being the case, the Mind, when he has reached the summit, will render the sum of his tribute to God the consummator, in accordance with the all-holy writ, for there is a law that the sum is the Lord’s (Num. 31:28 ff.). When, then, does he render it? When he has arrived “on the third day at the place which God had told him of” (Gen. 22:3), having passed the greater number of the divisions of time, and already quitting them for the existence that is timeless:
ב׳
2[140] for then too he will sacrifice his only son, no human being (for the wise man is not a slayer of his offspring), but the male progeny of the rich and fertile soul, the fruit that blossomed upon it. How the soul bore it she does not know: it is a Divine growth; and when it appeared she that seemed to have given birth to it acknowledges her ignorance of the good thing that had occurred in the words “who shall announce to Abraham” (for she assumed that he did not believe in the rising up of the breed that learns without a teacher), “who shall tell Abraham that Sarah is suckling a child” (Gen. 21:7)? It does not say “a child is being suckled by Sarah,” for the kind that is taught without a teacher is nourished by no one, but is a source of nourishment to others, being capable of teaching and not needing to learn.
ג׳
3[141] “For I bare a son,” she continues, not as Egyptian women do in their bodily prime (Ex. 1:19), but as the Hebrew souls do, “in my old age” (Gen. 21:7), at a time, that is, when all things that are mortal and objects of sense-perception have decayed, while things immortal and intellectually discerned have grown young again, meet recipients of honour and esteem.
ד׳
4[142] Furthermore, “I gave birth” without requiring extraneous aid from the midwife’s skill: for we give birth even before there come in to us any imaginations of man’s knowledge, without the co-operation that custom supplies, for God begets and sows the seed of those goodly births, which, as is meet and right, are rendered to Him Who gave them, in fulfilment of the law laid down for thanksgiving: “My gifts, My endowments, My fruits” He says, “be careful to offer unto Me” (Num. 28:2).