Philonis Judaei Opera Omnia (Vol. 3)

PHIL. IUD. ON THE HEIR OF DIVINE THINGS §. 7.

"What will you give me? For if anything remains to be expected beyond this?" For your graces, O lover of gifts, are abundant and indescribable, having no limit or end, gushing forth like perfect fountains that are drawn upon. And it is worthy to observe not only the torrent of your benefits that is always flooding, but also our fields being irrigated. For if the stream were to pour out in excess, the plain would become marshy and swampy instead of fertile land. For the outflowing for me needs to be measured for fertility, and not be immeasurable. For this reason I will ask, "What will you give me?" having given countlessly, and almost all that it was impossible for a mortal nature to contain? For what I seek and desire to possess beyond this is, who could become worthy of your works, and an heir. "I am going on childless," original: "Ἐγὼ ἀπολυθήσομαι ἄτεκνος," (Gen. 15:2) having received a short-lived, ephemeral, and quickly-dying good, praying for the opposite, for something long-lived, lasting, undefiled, and immortal, so as to be able both to cast seeds and to extend roots for the sake of strength, and by raising the stem upward toward heaven, to make it soar. For it is necessary for human virtue to walk on earth, but to reach toward heaven, so that, having feasted there on immortality, it may remain unharmed for all time. For I know that you, who bring things that are not into being and who beget all things, have hated a soul that is childless and barren; since you have also given a special grace to the perceptive race, never to be sterilized or childless, to which I myself, having been assigned, rightly desire an heir. For by observing it as unquenchable, I think it is most shameful to overlook my own nature having been dissolved of the Good. I become, therefore, a suppliant and I beseech you, so that from the seeds and embers that are smoldering, the saving light of virtue may be kindled and inflamed,