מי יורש קנייני אלוה ס״אWho is the Heir of Divine Things 61
א׳
1[307] He continues, “but when the sun was at its setting a flame arose” (Gen. 15:17). Thus he shews that virtue is a late birth and indeed, as some have said, established firmly only at the very close of life’s day. He likens virtue to a flame, for just as the flame consumes the fuel which lies at hand but gives light to the air in its neighbourhood, so virtue burns up the sins but fills the whole mind with its beam.
ב׳
2[308] But while those unanalysed and unclassified ways of thinking, which he calls Amorites, govern us with their plausibilities, we cannot see the rays in their full unshadowed brightness. We are in the same plight as the furnace which has no clear fire, but to use his own word (Gen. 15:17) is “smoking.” The flickerings of knowledge are smouldering within us, but we cannot as yet bear the strengthening test of pure fire.
ג׳
3[309] Yet great thanks are due to Him who sowed these flickering sparks, to the end that the mind should not be chilled by passion like dead bodies, but, warmed and heated by the glowing coals of virtue, be quickened into flame, till it finds its full conversion into sacred fire, like Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10:2).
ד׳
4[310] Now smoke comes before fire and forces those who approach it to shed tears. Both these, in the moral sphere, are a common experience. When we draw near to the forerunners of virtue we hope for its consummation, and if we cannot yet attain it our days are spent in sorrow and tears. For when some strong absorbing yearning has sunk into us, it urges us on to the quest of the desired object and forces us to be heavy of heart, until it is within our grasp.
ה׳
5[311] Again in this passage he compares the soul of him who loves learning and hopes for its consummation to a furnace or oven, because each serves as a vessel wherein is prepared nourishing food, in the one case the food of corruptible meats, in the other that of incorruptible virtues.
ו׳
6Again the torches of fire borne as in the mystic torch-rite are the judgements of God the torch-bearer, judgements bright and radiant, whose wont it is to range between the half-pieces, that is between the opposites of which the whole world is composed.
ז׳
7[312] For we read “torches of fire which passed through between the half-pieces” (Gen. 15:17). Thus you may know how highly excellent is the work of the Potencies of God as they pass through the midst of material and immaterial things. They destroy nothing—for the half-pieces remain unharmed—but divide and distinguish the nature of each.
