And the soul—when it is joined to the body—undergoes change; its attributes and states are transformed, and it acquires qualities and actions it never possessed apart from the body. When it departs from the body, its attributes and actions change once more.

If, therefore, their analogy were correct, it would necessarily follow that the Lord’s attributes and deeds changed when He became mingled with the Messiah, just as the soul’s attributes and deeds change; and that before this mingling the Lord was like a disembodied soul that had never been attached to a body.

Moreover, soul and body are partners in good and evil deeds alike; to both belongs reward and upon both falls punishment, though reward and punishment apply to the soul more perfectly than to the body. Were the Lord truly in such a relation, every voluntary act the Messiah performed would be an act of the Lord, just as every voluntary act performed by the body is in reality the act of the soul—the very soul that is addressed with commandments and prohibitions,

so it is told: “Eat, drink, marry,” and likewise: “Do not eat, do not drink, do not marry.”

If, then, the Lord were with the human nature (nasut) in this way, the Lord Himself would be the one commanded and forbidden by whatever the Messiah commands, and the Lord would be the one praying, fasting, worshipping, and supplicating. Consequently, their statement, “He creates and provides by His divinity (lahut), while He eats and worships by His humanity,” would be nullified.

For once soul and body have united, all voluntary actions belong to them both. Thus, when a person prays, fasts, or supplicates, both soul and body are described as doing so—indeed, the soul more particularly. Likewise, when he commands or forbids, both are so described; and when he is struck, the pain of the blow reaches—