על שהאל הוא ללא שינוי ג׳On the Unchangeableness of God 3
א׳
1[10] Indeed of the nature of the soul beloved of God no clearer evidence can we have than that psalm of Hannah which contains the words “the barren hath borne seven, but she that had many children hath languished” (1 Sam. 2:5).
ב׳
2[11] And yet it is the mother of one child—Samuel—who is speaking. How then can she say that she has borne seven? It can only be that in full accordance with the truth of things, she holds the One to be the same as the Seven, not only in the lore of numbers, but also in the harmony of the universe and in the thoughts of the virtuous soul. For Samuel who is appointed to God alone and holds no company with any other has his being ordered in accordance with the One and the Monad, the truly existent.
ג׳
3[12] But this condition of his implies the Seven, that is a soul which rests in God and toils no more at any mortal task, and has thus left behind the Six, which God has assigned to those who could not win the first place, but must needs limit their claims to the second.
ד׳
4[13] We might well expect, then, that the barren woman, not meaning the childless, but the “firm” or solid who still abounds in power, who with endurance and courage perseveres to the finish in the contest, where the prize is the acquisition of the Best, should bring forth the Monad which is of equal value with the Seven; for her nature is that of a happy and goodly motherhood.
ה׳
5[14] And when she says that she who had many children languishes, her words are as clear as they are true. For when the soul that is one departs from the one and is in travail with many, she naturally is multiplied a thousand-fold, and then weighed down and sore pressed by the multitude of children that cling to her—most of them abortions born out of due time—she languishes utterly.
ו׳
6[15] She brings forth the desires of which the eyes and the ears are the channels, these for shapes and colours, those for sounds; she is pregnant with the lusts of the belly and those which have their seat below it, and thus, under the crushing load of the many children that hang upon her, she grows faint and dropping her hands in weakness sinks in prostration. This manner of defeat is the lot of all who engender things corruptible for their corruptible selves.