מי יורש קנייני אלוה נ״דWho is the Heir of Divine Things 54
א׳
1[267] It is well to hear what these predictions were, which were thus said to him. First that God does not grant as a gift to the lover of virtue that he should dwell in the body as in homeland, but only permits him to sojourn there, as in a foreign country. For “knowing thou shalt know,” he says, “that thy seed shall be sojourners in a land which is not their own” (Gen. 15:3). But every fool takes the body for the place of his nativity and studies to dwell there, not to sojourn.
ב׳
2[268] This is one lesson. Another is that the things of earth which bring slavery and ill-treatment and dire humiliation, to use his own words, are “not our own.” For the passions of the body are truly bastards, outlanders to the understanding, growths of the flesh in which they have their roots.
ג׳
3[269] “And the slavery is for four hundred years”; thus he shews the powers exercised by the four passions. When pleasure rules, the temper is high flown and inflated, uplifted with empty levity. When desire is master, a yearning for what is not arises and suspends the soul on unfulfilled hope as on a noose. For the soul is ever athirst yet never able to drink, suffering the torments of a Tantalus.
ד׳
4[270] Under the sovereignty of grief it is pinched and shrinks, like trees which shed their leaves and wither; for its bloom and richness turn into leanness. Finally when fear has made itself lord no one thinks it good to stand his ground, but abandons himself to flight, expecting that in this alone will safety be found. For while desire has a power of attraction and forces us to the pursuit of the desired object even though it flee from our grasp, fear on the other hand creates a sense of estrangement and sunders and removes us far from the sight we dread.
