על שהאל הוא ללא שינוי ל״זOn the Unchangeableness of God 37
א׳
1[177] So then in all wherewith men concern themselves there is no solid work, no “matter,” only a shadow or a breath which flits past, before it has real existence. It comes and goes as in the ebb and flow of the sea. For the tides sometimes race violently, roaring as they sweep along, and in their wide-spread rush make a lake of what till now was dry land, and then again they retreat and turn into land what was a great tract of sea.
ב׳
2[178] Even so the good fortune which has flooded a great and populous nation sometimes turns the stream of its current elsewhere and leaves not even a tiny trickle behind it, that no trace of the old richness may remain.
ג׳
3[179] But it is not all who can estimate these truths justly and fully. Only they can do so who are wont to follow the rule of definition and reason which is straight and constant. The two sayings, “the matter of creation is all of it nothing” and “we will journey along the mountain country,” come from the mouths of the same speakers.
ד׳
4[180] For it cannot be that he who does not walk in the upland paths of definition should renounce mortal things and turn aside therefrom and make his new home with things indestructible.
ה׳
5So then the earthly Edom purposes to bar the heavenly and royal road of virtue, but the divine reason on the other hand would bar the road of Edom and his associates.
ו׳
6[181] In the list of these associates we must write the name of Balaam. For he too is no heavenly growth, but a creature of earth. And here we have the proof. He followed omens and false soothsayings, and not even when the closed eye of his soul received its sight and “beheld the angel of God standing in his way” (Num. 22:31) did he turn aside and refrain from evil-doing, but let the stream of his folly run full course and was overwhelmed by it and swallowed up.
ז׳
7[182] For it is then that the ailments of the soul become not only hard to tend, but even utterly beyond healing, when though Conviction fronts us, Conviction, the divine reason, the angel who guides our feet and removes the obstacles before them, that we may walk without stumbling along the high road (Psalm 90 [91] 11, 12), we yet set our ill-judged purposes before those counsels of his which he is wont to give without ceasing for our admonishing and chastening and the reformation of our whole life.
ח׳
8[183] Therefore he who listens not, who is not turned from his course by the Conviction which stands in his path, will in time receive destruction “with the wounded” (Num. 31:8) whom their passions stabbed and wounded with a fatal stroke. His fate will be to those who are not hopelessly impure a lesson which heeds no confirmation, that they should seek to have the favour of the inward judge. And have it they shall, if they do not remove or repeal aught of the righteous judgements which he has given.