The Second Book of the Treatise on The Allegories of the Sacred Laws, after the Work of the Six Days of Creation.

 I. (1) And the Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help meet for him. Why, O prophet, is it not good for man to be

 II. (4) But it is not good for any man to be alone. For there are two kinds of men, the one made according to the image of God, the other fashioned ou

 III. (6) As, according to the most skilful physicians and natural philosophers, the heart appears to be formed before the rest of the body, after the

 IV. (9) Now of assistants there are two kinds, the one consisting in the passions and the other in the sensations. [...][A word or two are lost here.

 V. (14) This therefore he denominated the species of assistants, but the other part of the creation, the description, that is, of the formation of the

 VI. (16) But the moral meaning of this passage is as follows:--We often use the expression ti instead of dia ti (why?) as when we say, why (ti) have

 VII. (19) And God cast a deep trance upon Adam, and sent him to sleep and he took one of his ribs, and so on. The literal statement conveyed in the

 VIII. For immediately after the creation of the mind it was necessary that the external sense should be created, as an assistant and ally of the mind

 IX. (31) After this preface we must now proceed to explain the words: The Lord God, says Moses, cast a deep trance upon Adam, and sent him to sleep

 X. (35) He took one of his ribs. He took one of the many powers of the mind, namely, that power which dwells in the outward senses. And when he uses

 XI. (38) And he filled the space with flesh instead of it. That is to say, he filled up that external sense which exists according to habit, leading

 XII. (40) And he brought her to Adam. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. God leads the external sense, existing acco

 XIII. (44) And she shall be called woman. This is equivalent to saying, On this account the outward sensation shall be called woman, because it is d

 XIV. (49) On this account a man will leave his father and his mother and will cleave to his wife and they two shall become one flesh. On account of

 XV. (53) And they were both naked, both Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed but the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts that were

 XVI. (60) This is the most excellent nakedness, but the other nakedness is of a contrary nature, being a change which involves a deprivation of virtue

 XVII. (65) And the expression, they were not ashamed, we will examine hereafter: for there are three ideas brought forward in this passage. Shameles

 XVIII. (71) Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts which are upon the earth, which the Lord God Made.[Ge 3:1.] Two things having been

 XIX. (76) Why need we enlarge on the pleasures of the belly? For we may almost say that there are as may varieties of pleasure as there are of gentle

 XX. (79) How, then, can there be any remedy for this evil? When another serpent is created, the enemy of the serpent which came to Eve, namely, the wo

 XXI. (82) Do you not see that wisdom when dominant, which is Sarah, says, For whosoever shall hear it shall rejoice with Me.[Ge 21:6.] But suppose t

 XXII. (87) See now the difference between him who turns to sin in the desert and him who sins in Egypt. For the one is bitten by serpents which cause

 XXIII. (90) Well, therefore, does the Godloving Moses answer. For truly the actions of the virtuous man are supported by education as by a rod, tranqu

 XXIV. (94) Such a serpent Jacob boasts that Dan is, and he speaks thus: Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel:[Ge 49:16.] and ag

 XXV. (99) Biting the heel of the horse,--Very consistently the disposition which shakes the stability of the created and perishable being is called

 XXVI. (103) And we must also inquire, what is the reason why Jacob says, that the rider will fall Backward,[Ge 49:17.] and Moses says, that the hor

I. (1) "And the Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help meet for him." Why, O prophet, is it not good for man to be alone? Because, says he, it is good, that he who is alone should be alone. But God is alone, and by himself, being one; and there is nothing like unto God. So that, since it is good that he who only has a real existence should be alone (for that which is about itself alone is good), it cannot be good for man to be alone. (2) But the fact of God being alone one may receive in this sense; that neither before the creation was there anything with God, nor, since the world has been created, is anything placed in the same rank with him; for he is in need of absolutely nothing whatever. But the better way of understanding this passage is the following: God is alone: a single being: not a combination: a single nature: but each of us, and every other animal in the world, are compound beings: for instance, I myself am made up of many things, of soul and body. Again, the soul is made up of a rational part and an irrational part: also of the body, there is one part hot, another cold; one heavy, another light; one dry, another moist. But God is not a compound being, nor one which is made up of many parts, but one which has no mixture with anything else; (3) for whatever could be combined with God must be either superior to him, or inferior to him, or equal to him. But there is nothing equal to God, and nothing superior to him, and nothing is combined with him which is worse than himself; for if it were, he himself would be deteriorated; and if he were to suffer deterioration, he would also become perishable, which it is impious even to imagine. Therefore God exists according to oneness and unity; or we should rather say, that oneness exists according to the one God, for all number is more recent than the world, as is also time. But God is older than the world, and is its Creator.