MOSES has shown that we should all confess our gratitude for the powers we possess. The wise man should dedicate his sagacity, the eloquent man should devote his excellence of speech, to the praise of God in prose and verse; and, in general, the natural philosopher should offer his physics, the moralist his ethics, the artist and the man of science the arts and sciences they know. So, too, the sailor and the pilot will dedicate their favourable voyage, the husbandman his fruitful harvest, the herdsman the increase of his cattle, the doctor the recovery of his patients, the general his victory in fight, and the statesman or the monarch his legal chieftaincy or kingly rule. Let no one, however humble and insignificant he be, despairing of a better fortune, scruple to become a suppliant of God. Even if he can expect nothing more, let him give thanks to the best of his power for what he has already received. Infinite are the gifts he has: birth, life, nature, soul, sensation, imagination, desire, reason. Reason is a small word, but a most perfect thing, a fragment of the world-soul, or, as for the disciples of the Mosaic philosophy it is more pious to say, a true impression of the Divine Image.
PHILO JUDAEUS, 1st cent.
GOD AND MAN
RABBI AKIBA[81] said: Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God; but it was by a special love that it was made known to him that he was created in the image of God.
Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given; and the world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the amount of the work.
BEN AZZAI[82] said: Despise not any man, and carp not at anything; for there is not a man that has not his hour, and there is not a thing that has not its place.
HILLEL[83] said: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being for myself only, what am I? and, if not now, when?