מי יורש קנייני אלוה נ״אWho is the Heir of Divine Things 51
א׳
1[249] “About sunset” it continues, “an ‘ecstasy’ fell upon Abraham and lo a great dark terror falls upon him” (Gen. 15:12). Now “ecstasy” or “standing out” takes different forms. Sometimes it is a mad fury producing mental delusion due to old age or melancholy or other similar cause. Sometimes it is extreme amazement at the events which so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Sometimes it is passivity of mind, if indeed the mind can ever be at rest; and the best form of all is the divine possession or frenzy to which the prophets as a class are subject.
ב׳
2[250] The first form is mentioned in the curses described in Deuteronomy, where he says that madness and loss of sight and “ecstasy” of mind will overtake the impious, so that they shall differ in nought from blind men groping at noonday as in deep darkness (Deut. 28:28, 29).
ג׳
3[251] The second we have in several places. Isaac was astonished with a great ecstasy and said, “who is it then who has made a hunting and brought to me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest and I blessed him, and let him be blessed” (Gen. 27:33). And again when Jacob disbelieved those who told him that “Joseph lives and is ruler over all Egypt,” he was in an “ecstasy,” we are told, “in his mind, for he did not believe them” (Gen. 45:26). Also in Exodus, in the account of the congregation, it says, “for Mount Sinai was all covered with smoke, because God came down to it in fire and the smoke rose up like vapour of a furnace, and all the people were in a great ‘ecstasy’ ” (Ex. 19:18). Also in Leviticus at the completion of the sacrifices on the eighth day, when “fire came out from heaven and devoured what was on the altar, both the whole burnt offerings and the fats”; for the next words are, “and all the people saw it and were in an ‘ecstasy,’ and fell upon their faces” (Lev. 9:24): a natural consequence, for an “ecstasy” in this sense produces great agitation and terrible consternation.
ד׳
4[252] Incidentally in the story of Jacob and Esau there are thoughts well worthy of our admiration. Esau, though he has the knowledge needed for the chase, is ever hunted and supplanted, because he has acquired his skill not to do good but harm, and moreover is never quick or zealous in his hunting. Jacob hunts passion not through teaching, but moved to it by nature, and brings the game to the tester who will decide whether it will stand the test. For this purpose the tester will eat of all that he brings.
ה׳
5[253] For all the elements of practice are food fit for eating, inquiry, examination, reading, listening to instruction, concentration, perseverance, self-mastery, and power to treat things indifferent as indeed indifferent. Of all these the tester naturally eats samples only, not the whole. For the Practiser must have his proper food left to him, like prizes for his efforts.
ו׳
6[254] Another lesson. The words “before thou camest” are true to nature. For if passion has entered the soul we shall not get enjoyment from self-mastery. Secondly, they convict the bad of sloth and slackness and backwardness to the tasks of instruction, though not to those of incontinence.
ז׳
7[255] And so it is Egypt which has its “task-drivers” (Ex. 5:6) who urge others to the enjoyment of the passions; it is Moses who bids eat the Passover and celebrate the crossing from passion “with haste” (Ex. 12:11). So too Judah, “for if we had not delayed, we should already have returned twice over” (Gen. 43:10). He does not mean “we should have gone down twice to Egypt,” but “we should have come up thence in safety.”
ח׳
8[256] Natural too is the wonder of Jacob that the mind within the body still lives to virtue and rules that body (Gen 45:26), instead of being ruled by it.
ט׳
9In the same way if we went through the other examples we should be able to trace the truth they teach, but the task before us now is not to work these out in detail, and therefore we must turn to the next point.
י׳
10[257] We have the third sort of ecstasy when Moses finds a lesson of wisdom in the story of the creation of woman. God “cast,” he says, “an ecstasy on Adam and he slept” (Gen. 2:21). Here by ecstasy he means passivity and tranquillity of mind. For sleep of mind is waking of sense, since waking of the understanding is inaction of sense.
