על שהאל הוא ללא שינוי א׳On the Unchangeableness of God 1
א׳
1[1] “And after that,” says Moses, “when the angels of God went in unto the daughters of men and begat for themselves” (Gen. 6:4). It is worth our while to consider what is meant by the word “after that.” The answer is that it is a reference back, bringing out more clearly something of what has been already stated.
ב׳
2[2] That something is his words about the divine spirit, that nothing is harder than that it should abide for ever in the soul with its manifold forms and divisions—the soul which has fastened on it the grievous burden of this fleshly coil. It is after that spirit that the angels or messengers go in to the daughters of men.
ג׳
3[3] For while the soul is illumined by the bright and pure rays of wisdom, through which the sage sees God and His potencies, none of the messengers of falsehood has access to the reason, but all are barred from passing the bounds which the lustral water has consecrated. But when the light of the understanding is dimmed and clouded, they who are of the fellowship of darkness win the day, and mating with the nerveless and emasculated passions, which he has called the daughters of men, beget offspring for themselves and not for God.
ד׳
4[4] For the offspring of God’s parentage are the perfect virtues, but the family of evil are the vices, whose note is discord.
ה׳
5If thou wilt know, my mind, what it is to beget not for thyself, learn the lesson from the perfect Abraham. He brings to God the dearly loved, the only trueborn offspring of the soul, that clearest image of self-learned wisdom, named Isaac, and without a murmur renders, as in duty bound, this fitting thank-offering. But first he bound, as the law tells us, the feet of the new strange victim (Gen. 22:9), either because having once received God’s inspiration he judged it right to tread no more on aught that was mortal, or it may be that he was taught to see how changeable and inconstant was creation, through his knowledge of the unwavering steadfastness that belongs to the Existent; for in this we are told he had put his trust (Gen. 15:6).