XIII. (63) We have now explained what it was necessary for you to be apprised of as a preliminary. For the first part of the argument had a sort of enigmatical obscurity. But we must examine with more accurate particularity what the man who is fond of learning seeks. Perhaps then it is something of this sort: to know whether any one who is desirous of that life which is dependent on blood and who claims an interest in the objects of the outward sense, can become an inheritor of incorporeal and divine things? (64) for of such only he who is inspired from above is thought worthy, having received a portion of heavenly and divine inheritance, being in fact the most pure mind, disregarding not merely the body but also the other fragment of the soul, which being devoid of reason is mixed up with blood, kindling the fervid passions and excited appetites. (65) Accordingly, it pushes its inquiries in this manner: since you have not given to me a seed which is capable of becoming its own instructor, namely, that seed which is able to be comprehended by the intellect, “Shall the slave born in my house be my heir?” the offspring of that life which is dependent upon blood. (66) Then God, making haste, anticipated the speaker, sending, as one may say, instruction on in advance of speech. “For immediately,” says the scripture, “the voice of God came to him, saying, He shall not be thy Heir;”{27}{#ge 15:3.} nor any one else of those who come to an exhibition of the outward senses. For the incorporeal natures are the inheritors of those things which can only be appreciated by the intellect. (67) And it has been especially observed here, that the scripture does not say he spoke to him or conversed with him, but the expression is, “The voice of God came to him;” as if God uttering a loud and unceasing sound, in order that the voice being thus distributed into every soul, might leave no part destitute of proper instruction, but that all parts might every where be filled, with healthy learning.
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