על הגירת אברהם ח׳On the Migration of Abraham 8
א׳
1[36] Now the thing shewn is the thing worthy to be seen, contemplated, loved, the perfect good, whose nature it is to change all that is bitter in the soul and make it sweet, fairest seasoning of all spices, turning into salutary nourishment even foods that do not nourish. So we read “The Lord shewed him a tree, and he cast it into the water” (Ex. 15:25), that is into the flabby, flaccid mind teeming with bitterness, that its savagery might be sweetened away.
ב׳
2[37] This tree offers not nourishment only but immortality also, for we are told that the Tree of Life has been planted in the midst of the Garden (Gen. 2:9), even Goodness with the particular virtues and the doings which accord with them to be its bodyguard. For it is Virtue that has obtained as its own the central and most honourable place in the soul.
ג׳
3[38] Such is that which is shewn, and he that sees it is the wise man, for fools are blind or dim-sighted. That is why in former times they called the prophets seers(1 Sam. 9:9); and the Trainer of self was eager to exchange ears for eyes, and to see what before he heard, and, going beyond the inheritance which has hearing as its source, he obtains that of which sight is the ruling principle.
ד׳
4[39] For the current coin of learning and teaching from which Jacob took his title is reminted into the seeing Israel. Hereby comes to pass even the seeing of the Divine light, identical with knowledge, which opens wide the soul’s eye, and leads it to apprehensions distinct and brilliant beyond those gained by the ears. For as the application of the principles of music is apprehended through the science of music, and the practice of each science through that science, even so only through wisdom comes discernment of what is wise.
ה׳
5[40] But wisdom is not only, after the manner of light, an instrument of sight, but is able to see its own self besides. Wisdom is God’s archetypal luminary and the sun is a copy and image of it.
ו׳
6But he that shews each several object is God, who alone is possessed of perfect knowledge. For men are only said to have knowledge because they seem to know; whereas God is so called because He is the possessor of knowledge though the phrase does not adequately express this nature; for all things whatever that can be said regarding Him that IS fall far short of the reality of His powers.
ז׳
7[41] He gives clear proof of His wisdom not only from His having been the Artificer of the universe, but also from His having made the knowledge of the things that had been brought into existence His sure possession.
ח׳
8[42] For we read “God saw all things that He had made” (Gen. 1:31). This does not just mean that He set His eyes on each of them, but that He had insight and knowledge and apprehension of the things which He had made. It follows then that to give teaching and guidance on each several thing, in fact to “shew” them, to the ignorant is proper only for the One who knows, seeing that He has not, as a man has, been profited by science and its lore, but is acknowledged to be Himself the Source and Fountain-head of science and knowledge in all their forms.