על צאצאי קין ב׳On the Posterity of Cain and his Exile 2
א׳
1[5] And whence does Cain “go out”? From the palace of the Lord of all? But what dwelling apparent to the senses could God have, save this world, for the quitting of which no power or device avails? For all created things are enclosed and kept within itself by the circle of the sky. Indeed the particles of the deceased break up into their original elements and are again distributed to the various forces of the universe out of which they were constituted, and the loan which was lent to each man is repaid, after longer or shorter terms, to Nature his creditor, at such time as she may choose to recover what she herself had lent.
ב׳
2[6] Again he that goes out from someone is in a different place from him whom he leaves behind. (If, then, Cain goes out from God), it follows that some portions of the universe are bereft of God. Yet God has left nothing empty or destitute of Himself, but has completely filled all things.
ג׳
3[7] Well, if God has not a face, transcending as He does the peculiarities that mark all created things; if He is to be found not in some particular part only, seeing that He contains all and is not Himself contained by anything; if it is impossible for some part of this world to remove from it as from a city, seeing that nothing has been left over outside it; the only thing left for us to do is to make up our minds that none of the propositions put forward is literally intended and to take the path of figurative interpretation so dear to philosophical souls.
ד׳
4[8] Our argument must start in this way. If it is a difficult thing to remove out of sight of a mortal monarch, must it not be a thousandfold more difficult to quit the vision of God and be gone, resolved henceforth to shun the sight of Him; in other words to become incapable of receiving a mental picture of Him through having lost the sight of the soul’s eye?
ה׳
5[9] Men who have suffered this loss under compulsion, overwhelmed by the force of an inexorable power, deserve pity rather than hatred. But those who have of their own free choice turned away and departed from the Existent Being, transcending the utmost limit of wickedness itself—for no evil could be found equivalent to it—these must pay no ordinary penalties, but such as are specially devised and far beyond the ordinary. Now no effort of thought could hit upon a penalty greater and more unheard of than to go forth into banishment from the Ruler of the Universe.