על שהאל הוא ללא שינוי ל״דOn the Unchangeableness of God 34
א׳
1[156] Or shall we draw up with ropes the drink which has been stored by the devices of men and accept as our haven and refuge a task which argues our lack of true hope; we to whom the Saviour of all has opened His celestial treasure for our use and enjoyment? For Moses the revealer prays that the Lord may open to us His good treasure, the heaven, to give us rain (Deut. 28:12), and the prayers of him whom God loves are always heard.
ב׳
2[157] Or again, what of that Israel who thought that neither heaven nor rainfall or well, or any created thing at all, was able to nourish him, but passed over all these and told his experience in the words “God who doth nourish me from my youth up”? (Gen. 48:15). Think you that all the waters which are gathered beneath the earth would seem to him worthy even of a glance?
ג׳
3[158] Nay, he will not drink of a well on whom God bestows the undiluted rapture-giving draughts, sometimes through the ministry of some angel whom He has held worthy to act as cupbearer, sometimes by His own agency, setting none to intervene between Him who gives and him who takes.
ד׳
4[159] So then brooking no delay should we essay to march by the king’s high road, we who hold it our duty to pass by earthly things. And that is the king’s road of which the lordship rests with no common citizen, but with Him alone who alone is king in real truth.
ה׳
5[160] This road is, as I said but now, wisdom, by which alone suppliant souls can make their escape to the Uncreated. For we may well believe that he who walks unimpeded along the king’s way will never flag or faint, till he comes into the presence of the king.
ו׳
6[161] And then they that have come to Him recognize His blessedness and their own meanness; for Abraham when he drew nigh to God straightway knew himself to be earth and ashes (Gen. 18:27).
ז׳
7[162] And let them not turn aside to the right or to the left of the king’s way, but advance along the midmost line. For deviations in either direction whether of excess or of deficiency, whether they tend to strain or to laxity, are in fault, for in this matter the right is no less blameworthy than the left.
ח׳
8[163] In the case of those who lead a reckless life, rashness is the right and cowardice the left. To those who are churlish in money matters, parsimony is the right and extravagance the left. And all who are oversharp and calculating in business count the knave’s qualities worthy of their choice, but the simpleton’s of their avoidance. And others pursue superstition as their right-hand path, but flee from impiety as a thing to be shunned.