על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב כ״דThat the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 24
א׳
1[86] Let not us then, the pupils of Moses, be any longer at a loss as to how man came to have a conception of the invisible God. For Moses himself learnt it by a divine communication, and has taught us how it was. He stated it thus. The Creator wrought for the body no soul capable by itself of seeing its Maker, but, accounting that it would be greatly to the advantage of the thing wrought should it obtain a conception of Him who wrought it, since this is what determines happiness and blessedness, He breathed into him from above of His own Deity. The invisible Deity stamped on the invisible soul the impress of Itself, to the end that not even the terrestrial region should be without a share in the image of God.
ב׳
2[87] But the Archetype is, of course, so devoid of visible form that even His image could not be seen. Having been struck in accord with the Pattern, it entertained ideas not now mortal but immortal. For how could a mortal nature at one and the same time have stayed at home and been abroad, or have seen what is here and what is elsewhere, or have sailed round every sea and traversed earth to its furthest bounds, or have grasped laws and customs, or, to say all in one word, circumstances and substances? Or, going beyond earthly things, how could it have apprehended also things on high, air and its changes, characteristics of special times, and all that is brought to pass by the seasons of the year, whether unexpectedly or in keeping with the usual course of things? How, again, would it have been possible for him to fly up from the earth through the air into the sky and to examine the condition and movement of the heavenly bodies, discovering how the beginning of their movement and its cessation is determined, in what manner they are, in accordance with some law of congruity, adjusted both to one another and to the universe?
ג׳
3[88] How would it have been possible for him to devise arts and sciences, which produce material objects, or deal with the betterment of soul and body, and to do a thousand other things, the number and nature of which are almost beyond telling?
ד׳
4[89] For the mind, alone of all our endowments, being swifter than all things, outruns and leaves behind the time in which it seems to find itself, and, by virtue of invisible faculties, comes timelessly into contact with both the whole and its parts, and with the causes which give rise to both. And now, having come not only as far as the bounds of earth and sea but of air and sky also, not even there did it stay its steps, deeming the limit of the universe to be too narrow for its constant and unceasing course, and aiming at proceeding further, and at apprehending if possible the nature of God, which, beyond the bare fact that He is, is inapprehensible.
ה׳
5[90] How, then, was it likely that the mind of man being so small, contained in such small bulks as a brain or a heart, should have room for all the vastness of sky and universe, had it not been an inseparable portion of that divine and blessed soul? For no part of that which is divine cuts itself off and becomes separate, but does but extend itself. The mind, then, having obtained a share of the perfection which is in the whole, when it conceives of the universe, reaches out as widely as the bounds of the whole, and undergoes no severance; for its force is expansive.