And the heaven and the earth and all their world was completed. Genesis ii. 1. Having previously related the creation of the mind and of sense, Moses now proceeds to describe the perfection which was brought about by them both. And he says that neither the indivisible mind nor the particular sensations received perfection, but only ideas, one the idea of the mind, the other of sensation. And, speaking symbolically, he calls the mind heaven, since the natures which can only be comprehended by the intellect are in heaven. And sensation he calls earth, because it is sensation which has obtained a corporeal and somewhat earthy constitution. The ornaments of the mind are all the incorporeal things, which are perceptible only by the intellect. Those of sensation are the corporeal things, and everything in short which is perceptible by the external senses.

When, therefore, Moses says, God completed his works on the sixth day, we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days, but that he takes six as a perfect number. Since it is the first number which is equal in its parts, in the half, and the third and sixth parts, and since it is produced by the multiplication of two unequal factors, two and three. And the numbers two and three exceed the incorporeality which exists in the unit; because the number two is an image of matter being divided into two parts and dissected like matter. And the number three is an image of a solid body, because a solid can be divided according to a threefold division.

Not but what it is also akin to the motions of organic animals. For an organic body is naturally capable of motion in six directions, forward, backwards, upwards, downwards, to the right, and to the left. And at all events he desires to show that the races of mortal, and also of all the immortal beings, exist according to their appropriate numbers; measuring mortal beings, as I have said, by the number six, and the blessed and immortal beings by the number seven.

First, therefore, having desisted from the creation of mortal creatures on the seventh day, he began the formation of other and more divine beings. For God never ceases from making something or other; but, as it is the property of fire to burn, and of snow to chill, so also it is the property of God to be creating. And much more so, in proportion as he himself is to all other beings the author of their working.

Therefore the expression, he caused to rest, is very appropriately employed here, not he rested. For he makes things to rest which appear to be producing others, but which in reality do not effect anything; but he himself never ceases from creating. On which account Moses says, He caused to rest the things which he had begun. For all the things that are made by our arts when completed stand still and remain; but all those which are accomplished by the knowledge of God are moved at subsequent times. For their ends are the beginnings of other things; as, for instance, the end of day is the beginning of night. And in the same way we must look upon months and years when they come to an end as the beginning of those which are just about to follow them.

And so the generation of other things which are destroyed, and the destruction of others which are generated is completed, so that that is true which is said that— And nought that is created wholly dies; But one thing parted and combined with others Produces a fresh form.

At all events, all mortal things, as I have said before, drawing their more divine nature from the heaven, are moved in a manner which tends to their preservation in accordance with this number seven. For who is there who does not know that those infants who are born at the end of the seventh month are likely to live, but those who have taken a longer time, so as to have abided eight months in the womb, are for the most part abortive births?

And they say that man is a reasoning being in his first seven years, by which time he is a competent interpreter of ordinary nouns and verbs, making himself master of the faculty of speaking. And in his second period of seven years, he arrives at the perfection of his nature; and this perfection is the power of generating a being like himself; for at about the age of fourteen we are able to beget a creature resembling ourselves. Again, the third period of seven years is the termination of his growth; for up to the age of one and twenty years man keeps on increasing in size, and this time is called by many maturity.

Again, the irrational portion of the soul is divisible into seven portions; - the five senses, and the organ of speech, and the power of generation.

Again, the motions of the body are seven; the six organic motions, and the rotatory motion. Also the entrails are seven—the stomach, the heart, the spleen, the liver, the lungs, and the two kidneys. In like manner the limbs of the body amount to an equal number—the head, the neck, the chest, the two hands, the belly, the two feet. Also the most important part of the animal, the face, is divisible according to a sevenfold division—the two eyes, and the two ears, and as many nostrils, and in the seventh place, the mouth.

Again, the secretions are seven—tears, mucus from the nose, saliva, the generative fluid, the two excremental discharges, and the sweat that proceeds from every part of the body. Moreover, in diseases the seventh day is the most critical period—and in women the catamenial purifications extend to the seventh day.

The number seven is also the first number which is compounded of the perfect number, that is to say of six, and of the unit. And in some sense the numbers which are below ten are either generated by, or do themselves generate those numbers which are below ten, and the number ten itself. But the number seven neither generates any of the numbers below ten, nor is it generated by any of them. On which account the Pythagoreans compare this number to the Goddess always a virgin who was born without a mother,i. e. Minerva because it was not generated by any other, and will not generate any other.

Correctly therefore, did Moses say that God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it he caused to rest from all his works which he had begun to make. And this is the reason why he who lives and conducts himself in accordance with the seventh and perfect light is blessed and holy, since it is in accordance with his nature, that the creation of mortal beings was terminated. For the case is thus: when the light of virtue, which is brilliant and really divine, rises up, then the generation of the contrary nature is checked. And we have shown that God never desists from creating something, but that when he appears to do so he is only beginning the creation of something else; as being not only, the Creator, but also the Father of everything which exists.

But, lest you should imagine that the Deity does anything according to definite periods of time, while you should rather think that everything done by him is inscrutable in its nature, uncertain, unknown to, and incomprehensible by the race of mortal men. Moses adds the words, when they were created, not defining the time when by any exact limitation, for what has been made by the Author of all things has no limitation. And in this way the idea is excluded, that the universe was created in six days.

And he likens the idea of mind, and the idea of sensation to two fields; for the mind brings forth fruit, which consists in having intellectual perception; and sensation brings forth other fruits which consist in perceiving by the agency of the external senses. And what he says has the following meaning; —as there was a previously existing idea of the particular mind, and also of the indivisible minds to serve as an archetype and model for either; and also a pre-existent idea of particular sensation, being, so to say, a sort of seal which gave impressions of forms, so before particular things perceptible only by the intellect had any existence, there was a pre-existent abstract idea of what was perceptible only by intellect, by participation in which the other things also received their names; and before particular objects perceptible by the external senses, existed, there was also a generic something perceptible by the external senses, in accordance with a participation in which, the other things perceptible by the external senses were created.

By the green herb of the field, Moses means that portion of the mind which is perceptible only by intellect. For as in the field green things spring up and flourish, so also that which is perceptible only by the intellect is the fruit of the mind. Therefore, before the particular something perceptible only by intellect existed, God created the general something perceptible only by intellect, which also he correctly denominated the universe. For since the particular something perceptible only by intellect is incomplete, that is not the universe; but that which is generic is the universe, as being complete.

For God did not rain upon the earth, and man did not exist to cultivate the earth, speaking in the strictest accordance with natural philosophy. For if God did not shed the perceptions of things subject to them, like rain upon the senses, in that case the mind too would not labour nor employ itself about sensation. For he himself would be unable to effect anything by himself, unless he were to pour forth, like rain or dew, colours upon the sight, and sounds upon the hearing, and flavour on the tastes, and on all the other senses, the things proper to produce the requisite effects.

But when God begins to rain sensation on the things perceptible by the external senses, then also the mind is perceived to act like the cultivator of fertile soil. But the idea of sensation, which he, speaking figuratively, has called the earth, is in no need of nourishment. But the nourishment of the senses, are the particular objects perceptible by the external senses; and these objects are bodies. But an idea is a thing different from bodies. Before, therefore, there existed any individual compound substances, God did not rain upon that idea of sensation to which he gave the name of the earth. And that means that he did not furnish it with any nourishment; for, indeed, it had altogether no need of any object perceptible by the external senses.

But when Moses says, And man did not exist to cultivate the earth, that means that the idea of intellect did not labour upon the idea of the sensations. For my intellect and yours work up the sensations by means of things perceptible by the the external senses: but the idea of mind as must be the case while there is no individual body connected with it does not work upon the idea of sensation. For if it did so work, it would of course work by means of objects, perceptible by the external senses. But there is no such object in ideas.

But the mind is unable to work; that is to say, to energize according to sensation, unless God rains upon and irrigates the object perceptible by the external senses, nor is there any advantage from the object perceptible to the external sense when watered, unless the mind, like a fountain, extending itself as far as the sensation, puts it in motion when it is quiet, and leads it on to a comprehension of the subject. So that the mind, and the object perceptible by the external senses, are always endeavouring to reciprocate with one another, the one the being subject to the sensations as a kind of material would be, and the mind stirring up the sensations towards the external object, as a workman would do, in order to create an appetite.

For a living animal is superior to that which is not a living animal in two points, imagination and appetite. Accordingly, imagination consists in the approach of the external object striking the mind by means of the sensations. And appetite is the brother of imagination, according to the intensive power of the mind, which the mind keeps on the stretch, by means of the sensation, and so touches the subject matter, and comes over to it, being eager to arrive at and comprehend it.

And we must consider that the man who was formed of earth, means the mind which is to be infused into the body, but which has not yet been so infused. And this mind would be really earthly and corruptible, if it were not that God had breathed into it the spirit of genuine life; for then it exists, and is no longer made into a soul; and its soul is not inactive, and incapable of proper formation, but a really intellectual and living one. For man, says Moses, became a living soul.

Now in reply to the first question we must say this one thing; God being very munificent gives his good things to all men, even to those who are not perfect; inviting them to a participation and rivalry in virtue, and at the same time displaying his abundant riches, and showing that it is sufficient for those also who will not be greatly benefited by it; and he also shows this in the most evident manner possible in other cases; for when he rains on the sea, and when he raises up fountains in desert places, and waters shallow and rough and unproductive land, making the rivers to overflow with floods, what else is he doing but displaying the great abundance of his riches and of his goodness? This is the cause why he has created no soul in such a condition as to be wholly barren of good, even if the employment of that good be beyond the reach of some people.

We must also give a second reason, which is this: Moses wished to represent all the actions of the Deity as just—therefore a man who had not had a real life breathed into him, but who was ignorant of virtue, when he was chastised for the sins which he had committed would say that he was punished unjustly, in that it was only through ignorance of what was good that he had erred respecting it; and that he was to blame who had not breathed any proper wisdom into him; and perhaps he will even say, that he has absolutely committed no offence whatever; since some people affirm that actions done involuntarily and in ignorance have not the nature of offences.

Now the expression breathed into is equivalent to inspired, or gave life to things inanimate: for let us take care that we are never filled with such absurdity as to think that God employs the organs of the mouth or nostrils for the purpose of breathing into anything; for God is not only devoid of peculiar qualities, but he is likewise not of the form of man, and the use of these words shows some more secret mystery of nature;

for there must be three things, that which breathes in, that which receives what is breathed in, and that which is breathed in. Now that which breathes in is God, that which receives what is breathed in is the mind, and that which is breathed in is the spirit. What then is collected from these three things? A union of the three takes place, through God extending the power, which proceeds from himself through the spirit, which is the middle term, as far as the subject. Why does he do this, except that we may thus derive a proper notion of him?

Since how could the soul have perceived God if he had not inspired it, and touched it according to his power? For human intellect would not have dared to mount up to such a height as to lay claim to the nature of God, if God himself had not drawn it up to himself, as far as it was possible for the mind of man to be drawn up, and if he had not formed it according to those powers which can be comprehended.

And God breathed into man’s face both physically and morally. Physically, when he placed the senses in the face: and this portion of the body above all others is vivified and inspired; and morally, in this manner, as the face is the dominant portion of the body, so also is the mind the dominant portion of the soul. It is into this alone that God breathes; but the other parts, the sensations, the power of speech, and the power of generation, he does not think worthy of his breath, for they are inferior in power.

By what then were these subordinate parts inspired? beyond all question by the mind; for of the qualities which the mind has received from God, it gives a share to the irrational portion of the soul, so that the mind is vivified by God, and the irrational part of the soul by the mind; for the mind is as it were a god to the irrational part of the soul, for which reason Moses did not hesitate to call it the god of Pharaoh. Exodus vii. 1.

For of all created things some are created by God, and through him: some not indeed by God, but yet through him: and the rest have their existence both by him and through him. At all events Moses as he proceeds says, that God planted a paradise, and among the best things as made both by God and through God, is the mind. But the irrational part of the soul was made indeed by God but not through God, but through the reasoning power which bears rule and sovereignty in the soul;

and Moses has used the word breath, not spirit, as there is a difference between the two words; for spirit is conceived of according to strength, and intensity, and power; but breath is a gentle and moderate kind of breeze and exhalation; therefore the mind, which was created in accordance with the image and idea of God, may be justly said to partake in his spirit, for its reasoning has strength: but that which is derived from matter is only a partaker in a thin and very light air, being as it were a sort of exhalation, such as arises from spices; for they, although they be preserved intact, and are not exposed to fire or fumigation, do nevertheless emit a certain fragrance.

Let not such fabulous nonsense ever enter our minds; for even the whole world would not be a worthy place or habitation for God, since he is a place to himself, and he himself is full of himself, and he himself is sufficient for himself, filling up and surrounding everything else which is deficient in any respect, or deserted, or empty; but he himself is surrounded by nothing else, as being himself one and the universe.

God therefore sows and implants terrestrial virtue in the human race, being an imitation and representation of the heavenly virtue. For, pitying our race, and seeing that it is exposed to abundant and innumerable evils, he firmly planted terrestrial virtue as an assistant against and warder-off of the diseases of the soul; being, as I have said before, an imitation of the heavenly and archetypal wisdom which he calls by various names. Now virtue is called a paradise metaphorically, and the appropriate place for the paradise is Eden; and this means luxury: and the most appropriate field for virtue is peace, and ease, and joy; in which real luxury especially consists.

Moreover, the plantation of this paradise is represented in the east; for right reason never sets, and is never extinguished, but it is its nature to be always rising. And as I imagine, the rising sun fills the darkness of the air with light, so also does virtue when it has arisen in the soul, irradiate its mist and dissipate the dense darkness.

And there, says Moses, he placed the man whom he had formed: for God being good, and having formed our race for virtue, as his work which was most akin to himself, places the mind in virtue, evidently in order that it, like a good husband, may cultivate and attend to nothing else except virtue.

But the selfish and atheistical mind, thinking itself equal with God while it appears to be doing something, is found in reality to be rather suffering. And though God sows and plants good things in the soul, the mind which says, I plant, is acting impiously. You shall not plant therefore where God is planting: but if, O mind, you fix plants in the soul, take care to plant only such trees as bear fruit, and not a grove; for in a grove there are trees of a character to bear cultivation, and also wild trees. But to plant vice, which is unproductive in the soul, along with cultivated and fertile virtue, is the act of a double-natured and confused leprosy.

If, however, you bring into the same place things which ought not to be mingled together, you must separate and disjoin them from the pure and incorrupt nature which is accustomed to make blameless offerings to God; and this is his altar; for it is inconsistent with this to say that there is any such thing as a work of the soul, when all things are referred to God, and to mingle barren things with those which are productive; for this would be faulty: but they are blameless things which are offered to God.

If therefore you transgress any one of these laws, O soul! you will be injuring yourself, not God. On this account God says, You shall not plant for yourself: for no one works for God, and especially what is evil does not. And again, Moses adds: You shall not make for yourself. And in another place he says, You shall not make gods of silver with me, and you shall not make gods of gold for yourselves. For he who conceives either that God has any distinctive quality, or that he is not one, or that he is not uncreated and imperishable, or that he is not unchangeable, injures himself and not God. For you shall not make them for yourselves, is what he says. For we must conceive that God is free from distinctive qualities, and imperishable, and unchangeable; and he who does not conceive thus of him is filling his own soul with false and atheistical opinions.

Do you not see that—even though God were to conduct us to virtue, and though when we had been thus conducted we were to plant no tree which was barren, but only such as produce fruit, he would still command us to purify its impurity, that is to say, the appearing to plant. For he here orders us to cut away vain opinions; and vain opinions are a thing impure by nature.

Therefore, the man modelled after the idea of God, is perceived not only amid the planting of the virtues, but, besides this, he is their cultivator and guardian; that is to say, he is mindful of the things which he has heard and practised. But the man who is factitious, neither cultivates the virtues, nor guards them, but is only introduced into opinions by the abundant liberality of God, being on the point of immediately becoming an exile from virtue.

Therefore, he calls that man whom he only places in Paradise, factitious; but him whom he appoints to be its cultivator and guardian he calls not factitious, but the man whom he had made. And him he takes, but the other he casts out. And him whom he takes he thinks worthy of three things, of which goodness of nature especially consists: namely, expertness, perseverance, and memory. Now, expertness is his position in Paradise; memory is the guarding and preservation of holy opinions; perseverance is the effecting of what is good, the performance of virtuous actions. But the factitious mind neither remembers what is good, nor does it, but is only expert, and nothing more; on which account, after it has been placed in Paradise, in a short time afterwards it runs away, and is cast out.

these are the plants of the Paradise. Nevertheless, he describes the characteristics of these same trees, showing that that which is desirable to be beheld is likewise most excellent to be enjoyed. For of the arts some are theoretical and not practical, such as geometry and astronomy. Some, again, are practical and not theoretical, such as the art of the architect, of the smith, and all those which are called mechanical arts. But virtue is both theoretical and practical; for it takes in theory, since the road which leads to it is philosophy in three of its parts—the reasoning, and the moral, and the physical part. It also includes action; for virtue is art conversant about the whole of life; and in life all actions are exhibited.

Still, although it takes in both theory and practise, nevertheless it is most excellent in each particular. For the theory of virtue is thoroughly excellent, and its practise and observation is a worthy object to contend for. On which account Moses says that the tree was pleasant to the sight, which is a symbol of theoretical excellence; and likewise good for food, which is a token of useful and practical good.

And of this tree Moses expressly says, that it is placed in the middle of the paradise; but as to the other tree, that namely of the knowledge of good and evil, he has not specified whether it is within or outside of the Paradise; but after he has used the following expression, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he says no more, not mentioning where it is placed, in order that any one who is uninitiated in the principles of natural philosophy, may not be made to marvel at his knowledge.

What then must we say? That this tree is both in the Paradise and also out of it. As to its essence, indeed, in it; but as to its power, out of it. How so? The dominant portion of us is capable of receiving everything, and resembles wax, which is capable of receiving every impression, whether good or bad. In reference to which fact, that supplanter Jacob makes a confession where he says, all these things were made for me. Genesis xlii. 36. For the unspeakable formations and impressions of all the things in the universe, are all borne forward into, and comprehended by the soul, which is only one. When, therefore that receives the impression of perfect virtue, it has become the tree of life; but when it has received the impression of vice, it has then become the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and vice and all evil have been banished from the divine company. Therefore the dominant power which has received it is in the Paradise according to its essence; for there is in it that characteristic of virtue, which is akin to the Paradise. But again, according to its power it is not in it, because the form of virtue is inconsistent with the divine operations;

and what I here say, any one may understand in this manner. At this moment, the dominant part is in my body, according to its essence, but according to its power it is in Italy, or Sicily, when it applies its consideration to those countries, and in heaven when it is contemplating the heaven. On which principle it often happens that some persons who are in profane places, according to their essence, are in the most sacred places, thinking of those things which relate to virtue. And again, others who are in the temples of the gods, are profane in their minds, from the fact of their minds receiving a change for the worse, and evil impressions; so that vice is neither in the Paradise, nor not in it. For it is possible that it may be in it according to its essence, but it is not possible that it should be according to its power.

Generic virtue, therefore, derives its beginning from Eden, which is the wisdom of God; which rejoices and exults, and triumphs, being delighted at and honoured on account of nothing else, except its Father, God, and the four particular virtues, are branches from the generic virtue, which like a river waters all the good actions of each, with an abundant stream of benefits.

Let us examine the expressions of the writer: A river, says he, goes forth out of Eden, to water the Paradise. This river is generic goodness; and this issues forth out of the Eden of the wisdom of God, and that is the word of God. For it is according to the word of God, that generic virtue was created. And generic virtue waters the Paradise: that is to say, it waters the particular virtues. But it does not derive its beginnings from any principle of locality, but from a principle of pre-eminence. For each of the virtues is really and truly a ruler and a queen. And the expression, is separated, is equivalent to is marked off by fixed boundaries; since wisdom appoints them settled limits with reference to what is to be done. Courage with respect to what is to be endured; temperance with reference to what is to be chosen; and justice in respect of what is to be distributed.

And when he uses the expression, that is the country where there is gold, he is not speaking geographically, that is, where gold exists, but that is the country in which that valuable possession exists, brilliant as gold, tried in the fire, and valuable, namely, prudence. And this is confessed to be the most valuable possession of God. But with reference to the geographical position of virtue, there are two personages, each invested with distinctive qualities. One, the being who has prudence, the other, the being who exerts it; and these he likens to the carbuncle and the emerald.

And the third river is the Tigris; this is that which flows in front of Assyria. The third virtue is temperance, which resolutely opposes that kind of pleasure which appears to be the directress of human infirmity. For the translation of the name Assyrians in the Greek tongue is εὑθύνοντες, (directors). And he has likened desire to a tiger, which is the most untameable of beasts; it being desire about which temperance is conversant.

For as the head is the principle and uppermost part of the animal, and the chest the next highest, and the liver the third, in point both of importance and of position; so in the soul again, the first is the rational part, the second the passionate part, and the third the appetitive part. In the same way again of the virtues; the first is that which is conversant about the first portion of the soul, which is the reasoning portion, and which at the same time has its abode in the head of the body; in short it is prudence. And the second of the virtues is courage, because it is conversant about the second portion of the soul, namely, about passion, and has its abode in the second portion of the body, namely, in the chest. And the third virtue is temperance, which is placed in the stomach which is the third portion of the body, and it is conversant about the appetitive part, which has been allotted the third part of the soul, as being its subject matter.

But when, on the contrary, passion and appetite get riotous and disobey the reins, and by the violence of their impetuosity throw off and disregard the charioteer, that is to say reason, and when each of these passions get hold of the reins themselves, then there is injustice. For it is inevitable, that through any ignorance or vice of the charioteer, the chariot must be borne down over precipices, and must fall into the abyss; just as it must be saved when the charioteer is endowed with skill and virtue.

And prudence surrounds Evilat, which is in travail, as it were with a wall, in order to besiege it and destroy it. And bringing forth, is an especially appropriate name for folly, because the foolish mind, being always desirous of what is unattainable, is at all times in travail. When it is desirous of money it is in labour, also when it thirsts for glory, or when it is covetous of pleasure, or of any thing else.

But, though always in labour, it never brings forth. For the soul of the worthless man is not calculated by nature to bring any thing to perfection which is likely to live. But every thing which it appears to bring forth is found to be abortive and immature. Eating up the half of its flesh, and being like a death of the soul. Numbers xii. 12. On which account that holy word Aaron entreats the pious Moses, who was beloved by God, to heal the leprosy of Miriam, in order that her soul might not be occupied in the labour of bringing forth evil things. And in consequence he says: Let her not become like unto death, as an abortion proceeding out of the womb of her mother, and let her not devour the half of her own flesh. Numbers xii. 13.

And the gold of that land is good. Is there, then, any other gold which is not good? Beyond all doubt; for the nature of prudence is twofold, there being one prudence general, and another particular. Therefore, the prudence that is in me, being particular prudence, is not good; for when I perish that also will perish together with me; but general or universal prudence, the abode of which is the wisdom of God and the house of God, is good; for it is imperishable itself, and dwells in an imperishable habitation.

And may not they be Judah and Issachar? For the man who puts in practise the prudence of God confesses himself to be bound to feel gratitude, and to feel it towards him who has given him what is good without grudging; and he also does honourable and virtuous actions. Accordingly Judah is the symbol of a man who makes this confession in respect of whom Leah ceased from child-bearing. Genesis xxix. 35. But Issachar is the symbol of the man who does good actions, For he put forthGenesis xlix. 15. his shoulder to labour and became a man tilling the earth. With respect to whom Moses says, hire is in his soul after he has been sown and planted, so that his labour is not imperfect, but is rather crowned and honoured with a reward by God.

And that he is making mention of these things, he shows when speaking on other subjects; when describing the garment, which reached to the feet he says, And thou shalt weave in it sets of stones in four rows. The row of stones shall be the sardine stone, the topaz, and the emerald are the first row. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi are here meant. And the second row, he says, are the carbuncle and the sapphire. Exodus xxviii. 17. And the sapphire is the same as the green stone. And in the carbuncle was inscribed the name of Judah, for he was the fourth son: and in the sapphire the name of Issachar.

Why then as he had called the sapphire the green stone, did he not also speak of the red stone? Because Judah, as the type of a disposition inclined to confession, is a being immaterial and incorporeal. For the very name of confession (ἐξομολογήσεως) shows that it is a thing external to (ἐϰτὸς) himself. For when the mind is beside itself, and bears itself upwards to God, as the laughter of Isaac did, then it makes a confession to him who alone has a real being. But as long as it considers itself as the cause of something, it is a long way from yielding to God, and confession to him. For this very act of confessing ought to be considered as being the work not of the soul, but of God who teaches it this feeling of gratitude. Accordingly Judah, who practises confession, is an immaterial being.

But Issachar who came forth out of labour is in need of corporeal matter; since if it were otherwise how could a studious man read without his eyes? And how could any one hear words exhorting him to any cause, if he were not endowed with hearing? And how could he obtain meat and drink without a belly, and without a wonder working art exercised towards it? And it is on this account that he was likened to a precious stone.

Moreover the colours of the two are different. For the colour of a coal when on fire is akin to that of the man who is inclined to confession: for he is inflamed by gratitude to God, and he is intoxicated with a certain sober intoxication: but the colour of the green stone is more appropriate to the man who is still labouring: for those who are devoted to constant labour are pale on account of the wearing nature of toil, and also by reason of their fear that perhaps they may not attain to such an end of their wish as is desired in their prayers.

It is necessary therefore to say that prudence and courage are able to raise a wall and a circle of fortification against the opposite evils, folly, and cowardice; and to take them captives: for both of them are powerless and easy to be taken. For the foolish man is easily to be defeated by the prudent one; and the coward falls before the valiant man. But temperance is unable to surround appetite and pleasure; for they are formidable adversaries and hard to be subdued. Do you not see that even the most temperate men are compelled by the necessities of their mortal body to seek meat and drink; and it is in those things that the pleasures of the belly have their existence. We must be content therefore to oppose and contend with the genus appetite.

And it is on this account that the river Tigris is represented as flowing in front of the Assyrians, that is to say temperance is in front of or arrayed against pleasure. But justice, according to which the river Euphrates is represented, neither besieges any one, nor draws lines of circumvallation round any one, nor opposes any one; —why so? Because justice is conversant about the distribution of things according to merit, and does not take the part either of accuser or of defendant, but acts as a judge. As therefore a judge does not desire beforehand to defeat any one, nor to oppose and make war upon any one; but delivers his own opinion and judges, deciding for the right, so also justice, not being the adversary of any one, distributes its due to every thing.

Accordingly God takes this pure mind, not permitting it to proceed out of itself, and after he has taken it, he places it among the virtues which are firmly rooted and budding well, that it may cultivate and guard them. For many men who were originally practisers of virtue, when they come to the end fall off; but he to whom God gives lasting knowledge is also endowed by him with both qualities, namely with the disposition to cultivate the virtues, and the resolution never to desert them, but always to minister to and guard every one of them. So Moses here uses the expression cultivate as equivalent to act, and the word guard instead of remember.

But we must inquire how it was that after he had given names to all the other animals, he did not give one also to himself. What then are we to say about this? The mind which is in each of us is able to comprehend all other things, but has not the capability of understanding itself. For as the eye sees all other things, but cannot see itself, so also the mind perceives the nature of other things but cannot understand itself. For if it does, let it tell us what it is, or what kind of thing it is, whether it is a spirit, or blood, or fire, or air, or any other substance: or even only so much whether it is a substance at all, or something incorporeal. Are not those men then simple who speculate on the essence of God? For how can they who are ignorant of the nature of the essence of their own soul, have any accurate knowledge of the soul of the universe? For the soul of the universe is according to our definition, —God.

and these three things are different, command, prohibition, and recommendation. For prohibition is conversant about errors, and is directed to bad men, but command is conversant about things rightly done; recommendation again is addressed to men of intermediate character, neither bad nor good. For such a one does not sin so that any one has any need to direct prohibition to him, nor does he do right in every case in accordance with the injunction of right reason. But he is in need of recommendation, which teaches him to abstain from what is evil, and exhorts him to aim at what is good.

Therefore there is no need of addressing either command, or prohibition, or recommendation to the man who is perfect, and made according to the image of God; For the perfect man requires none of these things; but there is a necessity of addressing both command and prohibition to the wicked man, and recommendation and instruction to the ignorant man. Just as the perfect grammarian or perfect musician has need of no instruction in the matters which belong to his art, but the man whose theories on such subjects are imperfect stands in need of certain rules, as it were, which contain in themselves commands and prohibitions, and he who is only learning the art requires instruction.

Very naturally, therefore, does God at present address commands and recommendations to the earthly mind, which is neither bad nor good, but of an intermediate character. And recommendation is employed in the two names, in that of the Lord and of God. For the Lord God commanded that if man obeyed his recommendations, he should be thought worthy of receiving benefits from God; but if he rejected his warnings, he should then be cast out to destruction by the Lord, as his Master and one who had authority over him.

On which account, when he is driven out of Paradise, Moses repeats the same names; for he says, And the Lord God sent him forth out of the Paradise of happiness, to till the ground from which he had been taken. Genesis iii. 23. That, since the Lord had laid his commands on him as his Master, and God as his Benefactor, he might now, in both these characters, chastise him for having disobeyed them; for thus, by the same power by which he had exhorted him does he also banish him, now that he is disobedient.

And Moses not only says, thou mayest eat, but he adds freely, also; that is to say, having ground and prepared your food, not like an ordinary individual, but like a wrestler, you shall thus acquire strength and vigour. For the trainers recommend the wrestlers not to cut up their food by biting large pieces off, but to masticate it slowly, in order that it may contribute to their strength; for I and an athlete are fed in different manners. For I feed merely for the purpose of living, but the wrestler feeds for the purpose of acquiring flesh and deriving strength from it; on which account one of his rules of training and exercise is to masticate his food. This is the meaning of the expression, Thou mayest freely eat.

Again let us endeavour to give a still more accurate explanation of it. To honour one’s parents is a nourishing and cherishing thing. But the good and the wicked honour them in different manners. For the one does it out of habit, as men eat who do not eat freely, but who merely eat. When, then, do they also eat freely? When having investigated and developed the causes of things they form a voluntary judgment that this is good, and the causes of their eating freely, that is to say, of their honouring their parents in a proper spirit, is—they became our parents; they nourished us; they instructed us; they have been the causes of all good things to us. Again, to honour the living God is spoken of symbolically as to eat. But to eat freely, is when it is done with a proper explanation of the whole matter, and a correct assignment of the causes of it.

Again, this, also, may be made the subject of a question. When God recommends men to eat of every tree in the Paradise, he is addressing his exhortation to one individual: but when he forbids him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he is speaking to him as to many. For in the one case he says, Thou mayest freely eat of all; but in the second instance, Ye shall not eat; and In the day in which ye shall eat, not thou shalt eat; and Ye shall die, not Thou shalt die.

We must, therefore, say this, —that the first good is rare, imparted to but few; but the evil is comprehensive. On this account it is a hard matter to find one single man wise and faithful, but the number of bad men is beyond all computation. Very appropriately, therefore, God does not address his exhortation to nourish one’s self amid the virtues, to one individual, but he encourages many to abstain from extravagant wickedness; for innumerable men are addicted to it.

In the second place, for the due comprehension and adoption of virtue man requires one thing alone, namely reason. But the body not only does not co-operate in it at all, but rather impedes the progress of the reason towards it. For it may be almost called the peculiar task of wisdom to alienate itself from the body and from the corporeal appetites. But for the enjoyment of evil it is not only necessary for a man to have mind in some degree, but also senses, and reason, and a body.

For the bad man has need of all these things for the completion of his own wickedness. Since how will he be able to divulge the sacred mysteries unless he has the organ of voice? And how will he be able to indulge in pleasures if he be deprived of the belly and the organs of sensation? Very properly, therefore, does Moses address reason alone on the subject of the acquisition of virtue, for reason is, as I have said before, the only thing of which there is need for the establishment of virtue. But for indulgence in vice a man requires many things—soul, and reason, and the external senses of the body; for it is through all these organs that vice is exhibited.

and consequently God calls that not merely to die, but to die the death; showing that he is speaking not of common death, but of that peculiar and especial death which is the death of the soul, buried in its passions and in all kinds of evil. And we may almost say that one kind of death is opposed to the other kind. For the one is the separation of what was previously existing in combination, namely, of body and soul. But this other death, on the contrary, is a combination of them both, the inferior one, the body, having the predominance, and the superior one, the soul, being made subject to it.

When, therefore, God says, to die the death, you must remark that he is speaking of that death which is inflicted as punishment, and not of that which exists by the original ordinance of nature. The natural death is that one by which the soul is separated from the body. But the one which is inflicted as a punishment, is when the soul dies according to the life of virtue, and lives only according to the life of vice.

Well, therefore, did Heraclitus say this, following the doctrine of Moses; for he says, We are living according to the death of those men; and we have died according to their life. As if he had said, Now, when we are alive, we are so though our soul is dead and buried in our body, as if in a tomb. But if it were to die, then our soul would live according to its proper life, being released from the evil and dead body to which it is bound.

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.

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 ammade 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;

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.

But the second kind of man has a help-meet for him, who, in the first place, is created; For I will make him, says God, a help-meet for him. And, in the second place, is younger than the object to be helped; for, first of all, God created the mind, and subsequently he prepares to make its helper. But all this is spoken allegorically, in accordance with the principles of natural philosophy; for external sensation and the passions of the soul are all younger than the soul, and how they help it we shall see hereafter, but at present we will consider the fact of their being helpers younger than the object helped.

But now let us see how that part, which was postponed before, acts as an assistant: how does our mind comprehend that such and such a thing is black or white, unless it employs sight as its assistant? and how does it know that the voice of the man who is singing to his harp is sweet, or, on the contrary, out of tune, if it has not the assistance of the faculty of hearing to guide it? And how can it tell that exhalations are fragrant or foul-smelling, unless it makes use of the sense of smell as its ally? How again does it judge of the different flavours, except through the instrumentality of its assistant, taste?

How can it distinguish between what is rough and what is smooth, except by touch? There is also another class of assistants, as I have already said, namely, the passions: for pleasure also is an assistant, co-operating towards the durability of our race, and in like manner concupiscence, and pain, and fear, biting the soul, lead it to treat nothing with indifference. Anger, again, is a defensive weapon, which has been of great service to many people, and so too have the other passions in the same manner. On which account Moses has said, with great felicity, that he was an assistant to himself: for he is in reality an assistant to the mind, as if he were its brother and near kinsman: for the external sensations and the passions are parts of one soul, and are its offspring.

But these are not, properly speaking, assistants, but are called so only in a catachrestic manner, by a kind of abuse of language, for they are found in reality to be enemies to man. As also in the case of cities, the allies turn out at times to be traitors and deserters; and in the case of friendship, flatterers are found to be enemies instead of companions; and Moses here speaks of the heaven and the field synonymously, describing the mind in this allegorical manner; for the mind, like the field, has innumerable periods of rising and budding forth; and, like the heaven, has brilliant, and divine, and happy characteristics of nature.

But the passions he compares to beasts and birds, because they injure the mind, being untamed and wild, and because, after the manner of birds, they descend upon the intellect; for their onset is swift and difficult to withstand; and the word besides, as attached to he made, is not superfluous. Why so? because he has previously said, that the beasts were formed before the creation of man, and he shows it in the following words, which are an account of what was done on the sixth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, four-footed animals, and creeping things, and wild beasts.

Why, then, is it that he makes other animals now, not being content with those already existing? now this must be stated according to the principles of moral philosophy. The species of evil are abundant in created man, so that the most evil things are continually produced in him; and this other thing must be affirmed on principles of natural philosophy. First of all, in the six days he created the different kinds of passions, and the ideas, but now, in addition to them, he is creating the species.

On which account Moses says, And besides he made ... and that what had been previously created were genera is plain from what he says, Let the earth bring forth living souls, not according to species but according to genus. And this is found to be the course taken by God in all cases; for before making the species he completes the genera, as he did in the case of man: for having first modelled the generic man, in whom they say that the male and female sexes are contained, he afterwards created the specific man Adam.

for those also among the Greeks, who study philosophy, say that they were wise men who first gave names to things: but Moses speaks more correctly in the first place, because he attributes this giving of names, not to some of those men who lived in early times, but to the first man who was created upon the earth; so that, just as he himself was created to be the beginning of creation to all other animals, he might also be considered the beginning of conversation and language: for if there were no such things as names there could be no such thing as language: and, secondly, because, if many different persons gave names, they must have been different and devoid of all connexion, since different persons would have given different names: but if only one person did so, the name given by one was sure to be adapted to the thing: and the same name was likely to be a token to every one of the existing things signified by it.

as for instance, is it necessary for every created thing to enjoy pleasure? But the bad man flies to pleasure as to a perfect good, but the good man seeks it only as a necessary; for without pleasure nothing whatever is done among the human race. Again, the bad man considers the acquisition of riches as the most perfect good possible; but the good man looks upon riches only as a necessary and useful thing.

Very naturally, therefore, God desires to see and to learn how the mind denominates and appreciates each of these things, whether it looks upon them as good, or as things indifferent, or as evil in themselves, but nevertheless in some respects necessary. On which account, thinking that everything which he invited towards himself, and embraced as a living soul, was of equal value and importance with the soul, this became the name, not only of the thing which was thus invited, but also of him who invited it: as for instance, if the man embraced pleasure, he was called a man devoted to pleasure; if he embraced appetite, he was called a man of appetite; if he invited intemperance, he himself also acquired the name of intemperate; if he admitted cowardice, he was called cowardly; and so on in the case of the other passions. For as he who has any distinctive qualities according to the virtues, is called from that virtue with which he is especially endowed, prudent, or temperate, or just, or courageous, as the case may be; so too in respect of the vices, a man is called unjust, or foolish, or unmanly, when he has invited and embraced these habits of mind and conduct.

Again, if he filled up the place of the other with flesh, was not the one which he left also made of flesh? and indeed our ribs are like sisters, and akin in all their parts, and they consist of flesh. What then are we to say?

ordinary custom calls the ribs the strength of a man; for we say that a man has ribs, which is equivalent to saying that he has vigour; and we say that a wrestler is a man with strong ribs, when we mean to express that he is strong: and we say that a harpplayer has ribs, instead of saying that he has energy and power in his singing.

Now that this has been premised we must also say, that the mind, while naked and free from the entanglement of the body (for our present discussion is about the mind, while it is as yet entangled in nothing) has many powers, namely, the possessive power, the progenitive power, the power of the soul, the power of reason, the power of comprehension, and part of others innumerable both in their genus and species. Now the possessive power is common to it with other inanimate things, with stocks and stones, and it is shared by the things in us, which are like stones, namely, by our bones. And natural power extends also over plants: and there are parts in us which have some resemblance to plants, namely, our nails and our hair:

and nature is a habit already put in motion, but the soul is a habit which has taken to itself, in addition, imagination and impetuosity; and this power also is possessed by man in common with the irrational animals; and our mind has something analogous to the soul of an irrational animal. • Again, the power of comprehension is a peculiar property of the mind; and the reasoning power is perhaps common to the more divine natures, but is especially the property of the mortal nature of man: and this is a twofold power, one kind being that in accordance with which we are rational creatures, partaking of mind; and the other kind being that faculty by which we converse.

There is also another power in the soul akin to these, the power of sensation, of which we are now speaking; for Moses is describing nothing else on this occasion except the formation of the external sense, according to energy and according to reason. 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; therefore God having entirely perfected the first, proceeded to make the second, both in rank and power, being a certain created form, an external sense according to energy, created for the perfection and completion of the whole soul, and for the proper comprehension of such subject matter as might be brought before it.

How then was this second thing created? As Moses himself says in a subsequent passage, when the mind was gone to sleep: for, in real fact, the external sense then comes forward when the mind is asleep. And again, when the mind is awake the outward sense is extinguished; and the proof of this is, that when we desire to form an accurate conception of anything, we retreat to a desert place, we shut our eyes, we stop up our ears, we discard the exercise of our senses; and so, when the mind rises up again and awakens, the outward sense is put an end to.

Let us now consider another point, namely, how the mind goes to sleep: for when the outward sense is awakened and has become excited, when the sight beholds any works of painting or of sculpture beautifully wrought, is not the mind then without anything on which to exercise its functions, contemplating nothing which is a proper subject for the intellect? What more? When the faculty of hearing is attending to some melodious combination of sound, can the mind turn itself to the contemplation of its proper objects? by no means. And it is much more destitute of occupation, when taste rises up and eagerly devotes itself to the pleasures of the belly;

on which account Moses, being alarmed lest some day or other the mind might not merely go to sleep, but might become absolutely dead, says in another place, And it shall be to you a peg in your girdle; and it shall be, that when you sit down you shall dig in it, and, heaping up earth, shall cover your shame. Deuteronomy xxiii. 13. Speaking symbolically, and giving the name of peg to reason which digs up secret affairs;

and he bids him to bear it upon the affection with which he ought to be girded, and not to allow it to slacken and become loosened; and this must be done when the mind, departing from the intense consideration of objects perceptible by the intellect, is brought down to the passions, and sits down, yielding to, and being guided by, the necessities of the body:

and this is the case when the mind, being absorbed in luxurious associations, forgets itself, being subdued by the things which conduct it to pleasure, and so we become enslaved, and yield ourselves up to unconcealed impurity. But if reason be able to purify the passion, then neither when we drink do we become intoxicated, nor when we eat do we become indolent through satiety, but we feast soberly without indulging in folly.

Therefore, the awakening of the outward senses is the sleep of the mind; and the awakening of the mind is the discharge of the outward senses from all occupation. Just as when the sun arises the brightness of all the rest of the stars becomes invisible; but when the sun sets, they are seen. And so, like the sun, the mind, when it is awakened, overshadows the outward senses, but when it goes to sleep it permits them to shine.

For the case is this:—if it were in my own power to be changed, then whenever I chose I should exercise this power, and whenever I did not choose I should continue as I am, without any change. But now change attacks me from an opposite direction, and very often when I am desirous to turn my intellect to some fitting subject, I am swallowed up by an influx contrary to what is fitting: and on the other hand, when I conceive an idea respecting something unseemly, I discard it by means of pleasant notions while God by his own grace pours into my soul a sweet stream instead of the salt flood.

It is necessary therefore, that every created thing should at times be changed. For this is a property of every created thing, just as it is an attribute of God to be unchangeable. But of these beings who have been changed, some remain in their altered state till their final and complete destruction, though others are only exposed to the ordinary vicissitudes of human nature; and they are immediately preserved.

On which account Moses says that God will not suffer the destroyer to enter into your houses to smite them. Exodus xii. 23. For he does permit the destroyer (and change is the destruction of the soul) to enter into the soul, in order to exhibit the peculiar characteristic of the created being. But God will not permit the offspring of the seeing Israel to be changed in such a manner as to be stricken down by the change; but he will compel it to emerge and rise up again like one who rises up from the deep, and so he will cause it to be saved.

Sensation is spoken of in a twofold manner; —the one kind being according to habit, which exists even when we are asleep, and the other being according to energy. Now, in the former kind, the one according to habit, there is no use: for we do not comprehend any one of the objects presented to our view by its means. But there is use in the second, in that which exists according to energy; for it is by means of this that we arrive at a comprehension of the objects perceptible by the outward senses.

Accordingly, God, having created the former kind of sensation, that existing according to habit, when he was creating the mind (for he was furnishing that with many faculties in a state of rest), desires now to complete the other kind which exists according to energy. And this one according to energy is perfected when the one which exists according to habit is put in motion, and extended as far as the flesh and the organs of sense. For as nature is perfected when the seed is put in motion, so, also, energy is perfected when the habit is put in motion.

And it is easy to learn this from the way in which it is affected in practise. Thus the sight is affected by these objects of sight which put it in motion, such as white and black, and the other colours. Again, hearing is affected by sounds, and taste is disposed in such or such a way by flavours; the sense of smell by scents; and that of touch by hardness or softness. And, on the other hand all the outward senses are in a state of tranquillity until each is approached from without by that which is to put it in motion.

For Adam says, This now is bone of my bone; that is to say, This is power of my power; for bone is here to be understood as a symbol of strength and power. And it is, he adds, suffering of my sufferings; that is, it is flesh of my flesh. For every thing which the external sense suffers, it endures not without the support of the mind; for the mind is its fountain, and the foundation on which it is supported.

It is also worth while to consider why Adam added the word now, for he says, This now is bone of my bone. The explanation is, external sensation exists now, having its existence solely with reference to the present moment. For the mind touches three separate points of time; for it perceives present circumstances, and it remembers past events, and it anticipates the future.

But the external sensations have neither any anticipation of future events, nor are they subject to any feeling resembling expectation or hope, nor have they any recollection of past circumstances; but are by nature capable only of being affected by that which moves them at the moment, and is actually present. As, for example, the eye is made white by a white appearance presented to it at the moment, but it is not affected in any manner by that which is not present to it. But the mind is agitated also by that which is not actually present, but which may be past; in which case it is affected by its recollection of it; or it may be future, in which case it is, indeed, the influence of hope and expectation.

Now, the kind existing according to habit is not derived from the man, that is to say from the mind, but is created at the same time with him. For the mind, as I have already shown, when it was created was created with many faculties and habits; namely, with the faculty and habit of reasoning, and of existing, and of promoting what is like itself, as also with that of receiving impressions from the outward senses. But the outward sensation, which exists according to energy, is derived from the mind. For it is extended from the outward sensation which exists in it according to habit, so as to become the same outward sense according to energy. So that this second kind of outward sense is derived from the mind, and exists according to motion.

And he is but a foolish person who thinks that any thing is in true reality made out of the mind, or out of itself. Do you not see that even in the case of Rachel (that is to say of outward sensation) sitting upon the images, while she thought that her motions came from the mind, he who saw her reproved her. For she says, Give me my children, and if you give them not to me I shall die. Gen. xxx. 1. And he replied: Because, O mistaken woman, the mind is not the cause of any thing, but he which existed before the mind; namely God. On which account he adds: Am I equal to God who has deprived you of the fruit of your womb?

But that it is God who creates men, he will testify in the case of Leah, when he says, But the Lord, when he saw that Leah was hated, opened her womb. But Rachel was barren. Gen. xxix. 31. But it is the especial property of man to open the womb. Now naturally virtue is hated by men. On which account God has honoured it, and gives the honour of bearing the first child to her who is hated.

And in another passage he says: But if a man has two wives, one of them being loved and one of them being hated, and if they bear him children, and if the first-born son be the child of her who is hated; he will not be able to give the honours of the birthright to the child of the wife whom he loves, overlooking the first-born son the child of her who is hated. Deut. xxi. 15. For the productions of virtue which is hated, are the first and the most perfect, but those of pleasure, which is loved, are the last.

And here you must observe that it is not the woman who cleaves to the man, but on the contrary, the man who cleaves to the woman; that is to say, the mind cleaves to the external sensations. For when that which is the better, namely, the mind, is united to that which is the worse, namely, the external sensation, it is then dissolved into the nature offlesh, which is worse, and into outward sensation, which is the cause of the passions. But when that which is the inferior, namely, the outward sensation, follows the better part, that is the mind, then there will no longer be flesh, but both will become one, namely, mind. And this is a thing of such a nature that it prefers the affections to piety.

There is also another being called by an opposite name, Levi; he who says to his father and mother: He saw you not, and he did not recognize his brethren, and repudiated his children. Deut. xxxiii. 9. This man leaves his father and mother; that is to say, his mind and the material of his body, in order to have as his inheritance the one God; For the Lord himself is his inheritance. Deut. x. 9.

And, indeed, suffering is the inheritance of him who is fond of suffering; but the inheritance of Levi is God. Do you not see that he bids him on the tenth day of the month bring two goats as his share, one lot for the Lord and one lot for the scape-goat. Lev. xvi. 7. For the sufferings inflicted on the scape goat are in real truth the lot of him who is fond of suffering.

And the soul is made naked in these ways. Once, when it is in an unchangeable state, and is entirely free from all vices, and has discarded and laid aside the covering of all the passions. With reference to this Moses also pitches his tabernacle outside of the camp, a long way from the camp, and it was called the tabernacle of testimony. Ex. xxxiii. 7.

And this has some such meaning as this: the soul which loves God, having put off the body and the affections which are dear to it, and having fled a long way from them, chooses a foundation and a sure ground for its abode, and a lasting settlement in the perfect doctrines of virtue; on which account testimony is borne to it by God, that it loves what is good, for it was called the tabernacle of testimony, says Moses, and he has passed over in silence the giverof the name, in order that the soul, being excited, might consider who it is who thus beareth witness to the dispositions which love virtue.

On this account the high priest will not come into the holy of holies clad in a garment reaching to the feet; Lev. xvi. 1. but having put off the robe of opinion and vain fancy of the soul, and having left that for those who love the things which are without, and who honour opinion in preference to truth, will come forward naked, without colours or any sounds, to make an offering of the blood of the soul, and to sacrifice the whole mind to God the Saviour and Benefactor;

and certainly Nadab and Abihu,Lev. x. 1. who came near to God, and left this mortal life and received a share of immortal life, are seen to be naked, that is, free from all new and mortal opinion; for they would not have carried it in their garments and borne it about, if they had not been naked, having broken to pieces every bond of passion and of corporeal necessity, in order that their nakedness and absence of corporeality might not be adulterated by the accession of atheistical reasonings; for it may not be permitted to all men to behold the secret mysteries of God, but only to those who are able to cover them up and guard them;

on which account Mishael and his partisans concealed them not in their own garments, but in those of Nadab and Abihu, who had been burnt with fire and taken upwards; for having stripped off all the garments that covered them, they brought their nakedness before God, and left their tunics about Mishael. But clothes belong to the irrational part of the animal, which overshadow the rational part. Abraham also was naked when he heard,

Come forth out of thy land and from thy kindred; Gen. xiii. 1. and as for Isaac, he indeed was not stripped, but was at all times naked and incorporeal; for a commandment was given to him not to go down into Egypt, Gen. xxvi 2. that is to say, into the body. Jacob also was fond of the nakedness of the soul, for his smoothness is nakedness, for Esau was a hairy man, but Jacob, says Moses, was a smooth man, Gen. xxv. 25. on which account he was also the husband of Leah.

But let us now more accurately examine the statement, that the stripping of him naked took place in his house. When the soul, being changed, only conceives some evil thing and does not put it in execution, so as to accomplish it in deed, then the sin is only in the private domain and abode of the soul. But if, in addition to thinking some wickedness it proceeds also to accomplish it and carry it into execution, then the wickedness is diffused over the parts beyond his house:

and on this account he curses Canaan also, because he related the change of his soul abroad, that is to say, he extended it into the parts out of doors, and gave it notoriety, adding to his evil intention an evil consummation by means of his actions: but Shem and Japhet are praised, because they did not attack his soul, but rather concealed its deterioration.

On this account also the prayers and vows of the soul are invalidated when they are made in the house of one’s father or one’s husband, Num. xxx. 4. while the reasoning powers are in a state of quiescence, and do not attack the alteration which has taken place in the soul, but conceal the delinquency; for then also the master of all things will purify it: but he hears the prayer of the widow and of her who is divorced without revoking it; for whatever, says he, she has vowed against her own soul shall abide to her, and very reasonably; for if, after she has been put away, she has advanced as far as the parts out of the house, so that notonly is her place changed, but that she also sins in respect of deeds that she has perfected, she remains incurable, having no communion of conversation with her husband, and being deprived also of the advocacy and consolation of her father.

The third description of stripping naked is the middle one, according to which the mind is destitute of reason, having no share in either virtue or vice; and it is with reference to this kind of nakedness which an infant also is partaker of, that the expression is used which says, And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife; and the meaning of it is this, neither did their intellect understand, nor did their outward senses perceive this nakedness; but the former was devoid of all power of understanding, and naked; and the latter was destitute of all perception.

therefore the examples of shamelessness are all the unseemly pieces of conduct, when the mind reveals disgraceful things, while it ought rather to cover them in the shade, instead of which it boasts of and glories in them. It is said also in the case of Miriam, when she was speaking against Moses, If her father had spit in her face, ought she not to keep herself retired for seven days? Numbers xii. 14.

For the external sense, being really shameless and impudent, though considered as nothing by God the father, in comparison of him who was faithful in all his house, to whom God himself united the Ethiopian woman, that is to say, unchangeable and well-satisfied opinion, dared to speak against Moses and to accuse him, for the very actions for which he deserved to be praised; for this is his greatest praise, that he received the Ethiopian woman, the unchangeable nature, tried in the fire and found honest; for as in the eye, the part which sees is black, so also the part of the soul which sees is what is meant by the Ethiopian woman.

Why then, as there are many works of wickedness, does he mention one only, namely, that which is conversant about what is shameful, saying, they were not ashamed: but were they not doing wrong, or were they not sinning, or were they not acting indecorously? But the cause is at hand. No, by the only true God, I think nothing so shameful as to suppose that I comprehend with my intellect, or perceive by my outward sense.

Is my mind the cause of my comprehending? How so? for does it even comprehend itself, and know what it is, or how it came to exist? And are the outward senses the cause of man’s perceiving anything? How can it be said to be so, when it is neither understood by itself nor by the mind? Do you not see, that he who fancies that he comprehends is often found to be foolish in his acts of covetousness, in his drunkenness, in his deeds of folly? Where then is his intellectual capacity shown in these actions? Again, is not the outward sensation often deprived of the power of exercising itself? Are there not times when seeing we do not see, and hearing we do not hear, when the mind has its attention ever so little drawn off to some other object of the intellect, and is applied to the consideration of that?

As long as they are both naked, the mind naked of its power of exciting the intellect, and the outward sense of its power of sensation, they have nothing disgraceful in them; but the moment that they begin to display any comprehension, they become masked in shame and insolence: for they will often be found behaving with simplicity and folly rather than with any sound knowledge, and this not only in particular acts of covetousness, or spleen, or folly, but also in the general conduct of life: for when the outward sense has the dominion the mind is enslaved, giving its attention to no one proper object of its intellect, and when the mind is predominant, the untoward sense is seen to be without employment, having no comprehension of any proper object for its own exercise.

Since, therefore, it was necessary for both these things to come together for the due comprehension of these objects, what was it which brought them together except a third something which acted as a bond between them, the two first representing love and desire, and pleasure not obtaining the dominion and mastery, which pleasure Moses here speaks of symbolically, under the emblem of the serpent.

God, who created all the animals on the earth, arranged this order very admirably, for he placed the mind first, that is to say, man, for the mind is the most important part in man; then outward sense, that is the woman; and then proceeding in regular order he came to the third, pleasure. But the powers of these three, and their ages, are different only in the night, for in point of time they are equal; for the soul brings forward everything at the same moment with itself: but some things it brings forward in their actuality, and others in their power of existing, even if they have not yet arrived at the end.

And pleasure has been represented under the form of the serpent, for this reason, as the motion of the serpent is full of many windings and varied, so also is the motion of pleasure. At first it folds itself round a man in five ways, for the pleasures consist both in seeing, and in hearing, and in taste, and in smell, and in touch. But the most vehement and intense are those which arise from connection with woman, through which the generation of similar beings is appointed by nature to be effected.

And yet this is not the only reason why we say that pleasure is various in appearance, namely, because it folds itself around all the divisions of the irrational part of the soul, but because it also folds itself with many windings around each separate part. For instance, the pleasures derived from sight are various, there is all the pleasure which arises from the contemplation of pictures or statues; and all other works which are made by art delight the sight. So also do the different stages through which plants go while budding and flowering and bearing fruit; and likewise the diversified beauty of the different animals. In the same manner the flute gives pleasure to the sense of hearing, as does the harp, and every kind of instrument, and the harmonious voices of the irrational animals, of swallows, of nightingales; and likewise the melody of such rational beings as nature has made musical, the tuneful voice of the harp-players, and of those who represent comedy, or tragedy, or any other histrionic performance.

On this account, too, that part in us which is analogous to the people, and which acts the part of a multitude, when it seeks the houses in Egypt, Numbers xxi. 5. that is to say, in its corporeal habitation, becomes entangled in pleasures which bring on death; not that death which is a separation of soul and body, but that which is the destruction of the soul by vice. For Moses says, And the Lord God sent among the people deadly serpents, and they bit the people, and a great multitude of the children of Israel died. Numbers xxi. 6. For in real truth there is nothing which so much bringeth death upon the soul as an immoderate indulgence in pleasures.

And that which perishes is not the dominant portion in us but the subject one, that which acts the part of the multitude; and it receives death up to this point, namely, until it turns to repentance, and confesses its sin, for the Israelites, coming to Moses, say, We have sinned in that we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray, therefore, for us to the Lord, and let him take away the serpents from us. It is well put here, not we have sinned because we have spoken against the Lord, but because we were inclined to sin we have spoken against the Lord, for when the mind sins and departs from virtue, it blames divine things, imputing its own sins to God.

And we must consider why Moses makes a brazen serpent, when no command was given to him respecting the material of which it was to be formed. May it not have been for this reason? In the first place, the graces of God are immaterial, being themselves only ideas, and destitute of any distinctive quality; but the graces of mortal men are only beheld in connection with matter. In the second place, not only does Moses love the incorporeal virtues, but our own souls, not being able to put off their bodies, do likewise aim at corporeal virtue,

and reason, in accordance with temperance, is likened to the strong and solid substance of brass, inasmuch as it is form and not easily cut through. And perhaps brass may also have been selected inasmuch as temperance in the man who loves God is a most honourable thing, and like gold; though it has only a secondary place in a man who has received wisdom and improved in it. And whomsoever the one serpent bites, if he looks upon the brazen serpent shall live: in which Moses speaks truly, for if the mind that has been bitten by pleasure, that is by the serpent which was sent to Eve, shall have strength to behold the beauty of temperance, that is to say, the serpent made by Moses in a manner affecting the soul, and to behold God himself through the medium of the serpent, it shall live. Only let it see and contemplate it intellectually.

But many souls that have been in love with perseverance and temperance, when removed to a distance from the passions, have nevertheless withstood the power of God, and have undergone a change for the worse, while their Master has made a display of himself and of the work of creation; of himself, that he is always immovable, and of the work of creation, that it vibrates as if in a scale, and inclines opposite ways at different times.

For Moses speaks to the Israelites of God, Who led ye then through that great and terrible wilderness, where there were biting serpents, and scorpions, and thirst; where there was no water? who brought forth for thee out of the hard rock a fountain of water? who fed thee with manna in the desert, which thy fathers knew not? Deuteronomy viii. 14. Do you not see that not only did the soul, while longing for the passions which prevailed in Egypt, fall under the power of the serpents, but that, also, while it was in the wilderness, it was bitten by pleasure, that affection of varied and serpent-like appearance? And the work of pleasure has received a most appropriate name, for it is called a biting.

Moreover, not only they who were in the desert were bitten by serpents, but also they who were scattered abroad, for I, also, often having left the men who were my kinsmen and my friends, and my country, and having gone into the desert in order that I might perceive some of those things which are worthy of being beheld, have profited nothing. But my mind, being separated from me, or being bitten by passion, has withdrawn towards the things opposite to them. And there are times when in the midst of a multitude composed of infinite numbers of men, I can bring my mind into solitude, God having scattered for me the crowd which perplexes my soul, and having taught me that it is not the difference of place that is the cause of good and devil, but rather God, who moves and drives this vehicle of the soul wherever he pleases.

Moreover, the soul falls in with a scorpion, that is to say, with dispersion in the wilderness; and the thirst, which is that of the passions, seizes on it until God sends forth upon it the stream of his own accurate wisdom, and causes the changed soul to drink of unchangeable health; for the abrupt rock is the wisdom of God, which being both sublime and the first of things he quarried out of his own powers, and of it he gives drink to the souls that love God; and they, when they have drunk, are also filled with the most universal manna; for manna is called something which is the primary genus of every thing. But the most universal of all things is God; and in the second place the word of God. But other things have an existence only in word, but in deed they are at times equivalent to that which has no existence.

Nor, indeed, does the pleasure which is in the form of a serpent, abstain from attacking that most sincere lover of God, Moses, for we read as follows; If, therefore, they will not obey me, nor listen to my voice—for they will say, God has not been seen by you—what shall I say to them? And the Lord said unto Moses, What is that which is in thy hand? And he said, A rod. And God said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch forth thy hand, and take hold of it by the tail. And having stretched forth his hand, he took hold of it by the tail, and it became a rod in his hand. And the Lord said unto him, That they may believe thee. Exodus iv. 3.

How can any one believe God? If he has learnt that all other things are changed, but that he alone is unchangeable. Therefore, God asks of the wise Moses what there is in the practical life of his soul; for the hand is thesymbol of action. And he answers, Instruction, which he calls a rod. On which account Jacob the supplanter of the passions, says, For in my staff did I pass over this Jordan. Genesis xxxii. 10. But Jordan being interpreted means descent. And of the lower, and earthly, and perishable nature, vice and passion are component parts; and the mind of the ascetic passes over them in the course of its education. For it is too low a notion to explain his saying literally; as if it meant that he crossed the river, holding his staff in his hand.

But God did not praise his flight. For it is fitting, indeed, for your mind, before you are made perfect, to meditate flight and escape from the passions; but Moses, that perfect man, ought rather to persevere in his war against them, and to resist them, and to strive against them, otherwise they, relying on their freedom from danger and on their power, will ascend up I to the citadel of the soul, and take it by storm, and will plunder it entirely, like a tyrant.

On which account God commanded Moses to take hold of it by the tail, that is to say, let not the hostile and untameable spirit of pleasure terrify you, but with all your power take hold of it, and seize it firmly, and master it. For it will again become a rod instead of a serpent, that is to say, instead of pleasure it will become instruction in your hand;

but it will be in your hand, that is in the action of a wise man, which, indeed, is true. But it is impossible to take hold of and to master pleasure, unless the hand be first stretched out, that is to say, unless the soul confesses that all actions and all progress is derived from God; and attributes nothing to himself. Accordingly he, when he saw this serpent, decided to flee from it? But he prepared another principle, that of temperance, which is the brazen serpent: that whosoever was bitten by pleasure, when he looked on temperance, might live a real life.

The soul produces two kinds, the one divine and the other perishable; that which is the better kind it has already conceived, and ends in it; for when the soul was able to confess to God and to yield everything to him, it was not after that capable of receiving any more valuable possession; on this account she ceased to bring forth, after she had borne Judah, the emblem of the disposition of confessing—

and now she begins to form the mortal race—now the mortal race subsists by imbibing; for, like a foundation, the sense of taste is the cause of the duration of animals; but the name Billah, being interpreted, means imbibing. From her was born Dan, which name being interpreted means judgment, for this kind distinguishes between and separates immortal from mortal things, therefore he prays that he may become a workman of temperance. But he will not pray for Judah, for Judah already has the capacity of praying to and pleasing God:

Therefore let Dan, says he, be a serpent in the path.—One path is the soul. For as in the roads one may behold a great variety of living beings, inanimate and animate, irrational and rational, good and bad, slaves and free, young and old, male and female, strangers and natural citizens, sick and healthy, mutilated and perfect; so also in the soul there are motions inanimate, and imperfect, and diseased, and slavish, and female, and innumerable others of the class of evils; and on the other hand, there are motions which are living, and perfect, and masculine, and free, and healthy, and ripe, and virtuous, and genuine, and really legitimate.

Let then the principle of temperance be a serpent in the soul, which makes its advance through all the circumstances of life, and let it sit in the path. But what is the meaning of this expression?—The field of virtue is not trodden down; for they are few who walk along it, but that of vice is trodden and worn? And he recommends him here to occupy and to fill, with ambush and stratagem, the well-trodden path of passion and vice, in which the thoughts which are deserters from virtue pass their life.

and it is well figured, that the soul does not fall forward, for it must not go before the passions, but rather advance behind them, and behave with moderation. And there is sound learning in what he says here. If the mind, though desirous to act unjustly, comes too late and falls backward, it will not act unjustly; but if, when it is moved onwards to some irrational passion it does not run forward but remains behind, it will then receive freedom from the dominion of the passions, which is a most excellent thing.

On which account Moses, approving of this backward fall from off the vices, adds further, waiting for the salvation of the Lord, for, in good truth, he who falls from the passions is saved by God, and remains safe after their operation. May my soul meet with such a fall as this, and may it never afterwards remount upon that horselike and restive passion, in order that it may await the salvation of God, and attain to happiness!

On this account also it was that Moses praised God in his hymn, because the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea, Exodus xv. 1. meaning that he has thrown the four passions, and the miserable mind which is mounted on them, down into ruin as to its affairs, and into the bottomless pit, and this is almost the burden of the whole hymn, to which every other part of it is referred, and indeed that is the truth; for if once a freedom from the passions occupies the soul, it will become perfectly happy.

Now it is the business of the horseman to subdue the horse, and when he resists the rein to make him tractable; but it is the part of the rider to be conveyed wherever the animal carries him, and in the sea it is the office of the pilot to guide the ship, and to keep it straight, and to preserve it in the right course; but it is the part of the sailor to endure all that happens to the ship. And in reference to this the horseman who subdues the passions is not drowned in the sea, but dismounting from them awaits the salvation of the master.

Accordingly, the word of God in Leviticus recommends men to feed on those creeping things which go on four feet, and which have legs above their feet, so that they are able to leap with them; Leviticus xi. 22. among which are the locust, and the attacus, and the acris,These are different kinds of locusts. and in the fourth place the serpent-fighter; and very properly; for if pleasure, like a serpent, is an unprofitable and pernicious thing, then the nature which contends against pleasure must be a most profitable and saving thing, and this is temperance.

Fight thou then, O my mind, against every passion, and especially against pleasure, for the serpent is the most subtle of all the beasts that are upon the earth, which the Lord God has made.

And of all the passions the most mischievous is pleasure. Why so? Because all things are the slaves of pleasure; and because the life of the wicked is governed by pleasure as by a master. Accordingly, the things which are the efficient causes of pleasure are found to be full of all wickedness: gold and silver, and glory and honours, and powers and the objects of the outward senses, and the mechanical arts, and all other things which cause pleasure, being very various, and all injurious to the soul; and there are no sins without extreme wickedness;

therefore do thou array against it the wisdom which contends with serpents; and struggle in this most glorious struggle, and labour to win the crown in the contest against pleasure, which subdues every one else; winning a noble and glorious crown, such as no assembly of men can confer.

And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the Paradise. Genesis viii. 8. A doctrine is introduced here which teaches us that the wicked man is inclined to run away. For the proper city of wise men is virtue, and he who is incapable of becoming a partaker in that is driven from his city; and no bad man is capable of becoming a partaker of it; therefore the bad man alone is driven away and becomes a banished man. But he who is banished from virtue is at once concealed from the face of God, for if the wise men are visible to God, inasmuch as they are dear to him, it follows plainly that the wicked are all concealed from him, and enveloped in darkness, as being enemies and adversaries to right reason.

Now that the wicked man is destitute of a city and destitute of a home, Moses testifies in speaking of that hairy man who was also a man of varied wickedness, Esau, when he says, But Esau was skilful in hunting, and a rude man. Genesis xxv. 27. For it is not natural for vice which is inclined to be subservient to the passions to inhabit the city of virtue, inasmuch as it is devoted to the pursuit of rudeness and ignorance, with great folly. But Jacob, who is full of wisdom, is both a citizen and one who dwells in a house, that is to say, in virtue. Accordingly Moses says of him, But Jacob is a man without guile, dwelling in a house;

On which account also the midwives, since they feared God made themselves houses. Exodus L 21. For they, being inclined to seek out the secret mysteries of God, one of which was that the male children should be preserved alive, build up the actions of virtue, in which they had previously determined to dwell. Accordingly, in this account it is shown how the wicked man is destitute of a city and destitute of a home: inasmuch as he is an exile from virtue, but that the virtuous man has a city and is allotted a home, namely wisdom.

For even if any thing were to happen to us we should not be able to escape the notice of, and to conceal ourselves from the most elementary of created things; for instance, let any one try to flee from the earth, or the water, or the air, or the heaven, or the entire universe, and he will fail; for it is impossible but what he must be contained in these things, for no one will be able to flee out of the world.

Again how could any man who is unable to conceal himself from the parts of the world, and from the whole world itself, be able to escape the notice of God? He never could do so. What then is the meaning of the expression, they hid themselves? The bad man thinks that God is in a certain place, not surrounding it, but being surrounded by it. On which account also he thinks that he can conceal himselffrom him, as if God were without any prevailing reason at a distance form that part of the world in which he has determined to lurk.

In reference to which the Holy Scripture says Let them send forth from the holy soul every leper, and every one afflicted with foul disease, and every one who is impure in his soul, both male and female, and all mutilated persons, and all these who are emasculated, and all whoremongers, Numbers v. 2. men who flee from the authority of one God, and who are expressly forbidden to come into the assembly of God; Deuteronomy xxiii. 2.

but wise reasons are not only not concealed, but are even eager to manifest themselves. Do you not see that Abraham was still standing in the place of the Lord, and coming near to him said do not then destroy the righteous with the impious, Genesis xviii. 23. him who is manifest to you and well known by you, with him who flees from you and seeks to escape your notice, for he indeed is impious, but the righteous man is one who stands before you and does not flee. For it is right indeed master that you alone should be honoured,

but it does not follow that as an impious man is discovered so also is a pious man; but it is sufficient if he is just. On which account he says do not then destroy the righteous with the wicked. For not even one single man on earth honours God in a worthy manner, but only according to righteousness. For when it is not possible for a man to exhibit due gratitude even to his parents, for it is impossible for him to become their parents in his turn; how can it be anything but absolutely impossible adequately to requite God, or worthily to praise him who created the whole universe out of things that had no previous existence. For God made all virtue.

On this account Moses when he appears to God in visible form, flees from the dispersing disposition, that is from Pharaoh, who boasts, saying, that he does not know the Lord, for Moses, says he, retreated from the presence of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian Exodus ii. 15. that is to say, being interpreted, in the judgment of the nature of things; and sat down upon a well, waiting to see what good which might be drank in God would rain upon his thirsting and eager soul.

Accordingly he retreats from the impious opinion which is the mistress of the passions, namely from Pharaoh; and he retreats into Midian, that is to say into judgment, considering anxiously whether he ought to live in tranquil inactivity or whether he ought again to contend with that wicked man to his own destruction. And he considers whether if he attacks him he shall be able to gain the victory, from which consideration he restrains himself waiting, as I have already said, to see if God will give to his deep and not frivolous consideration, a fountain sufficient to wash away the impetuosity of the king of Egypt, that is to say of his own passions.

And he is thought worthy of grace, for having fought the good fight in behalf of virtue he never ceases from warring till he sees the pleasures overthrown and baulked of their object. And with this view Moses does not flee from Pharaoh, for if he had done so he would have fled without returning; but withdraws for a time, that is to say he makes a truce from the war, after the fashion ofa wrestler who seeks a respite and collects his breath again, until, having aroused the alliance of prudence and the other virtues he attacks his enemy once more, by divine reason, with the most vigorous power.

But Jacob, for he is a supplanter, having acquired virtue by regular system and discipline, not without hard labour, for his name had not as yet been changed to Israel, fled from the affairs of labour Genesis xxxi. 20. that is to say from colours and figures, and in short from bodies the nature of which is to wound the soul through the objects of outward sense; for since, when he was present, he could not entirely and utterly subdue them, he fled, fearing to be subdued by them. And he is very worthy of praise for so doing; for says Moses you will make the children of Israel cautious, Leviticus xv. 31. but not bold, or covetous of those things, which do not belong to them.

And the same reasoning applies to all temptations which arise in respect of any one of the external senses, for in all such cases secret flight is the preserver from danger. But to keep recalling the temptation to one’s mind, and to talk of it and dwell upon it subdues and enslaves the reason by force. Do not these then ever, O my mind, report to yourself any object of outward sense that has been seen by you, if you are likely to be led away captive by it, and do not dwell on it, in order that you may not become miserable by being subdued by it, but rather, while you are still free, rise up and flee, preferring untamed liberty to slavery and subjection to a master.

for he proceeded towards the Mount of Gilead; and Gilead being interpreted means the migration of testimony, since God caused the soul to migrate from the passions which surrounded Laban, and bore witness to it, that it should migrate and receive another settlement, because it was profitable and expedient, and conducted it onwards from the evils calculated to render the soul base, and seeking the things that are on the earth, to the height and magnitude of virtue.

On this account Laban, the friend of the outward senses, and one who energised according to them and not according to his mind, is indignant, and pursues after him and says, why did you flee from me secretly, and not remain for the enjoyment of your soul, and for the opinions which judge concerning the body and the external good things of the world? But in fleeing from this opinion you have despoiled me also of my prudence, Leah and Rachel; for they, when they remained in the soul created, prudence in it, but now that they have departed they have left it ignorance and inexperience. On which account he adds, You have stripped me, that is to say, you have robbed me of my prudence.

for it is not you then only from whom we are fleeing, O Laban, thou companion of bodies and colours, but we are also escaping from everything that is thine, in which the voices of the outward senses sound in harmony with the energies of the passions. For we, if at least we are practisers of virtue, have meditated a very necessary meditation, which Jacob also meditated, namely, to overthrow and destroy those gods who are hostile to the soul, gods made by hands, gods whom Moses forbade the people to make;Leviticus xix. 4. and these gods are the destruction of virtue and of a good state of the passions, but the consolidation and confirmation of vice and the appetites; for that metal which is cast, after it has been fused, is soon consolidated again.

Just as Abraham tells the king of Sodom, when he was proposing to give him things of irrational nature in exchange for rational animals, namely, horses in exchange for men, that he would take nothing that belonged to him, but that he would stretch out the action of his soul, which, speaking symbolically, he called his hand, to the most high God;Genesis xiv. 21. for that he had not taken from a thread even to a shoe-latchet of all that was his (the king of Sodom’s), in order that the king might never say that he had made the discerning man, namely Abraham, rich, exchanging poverty for wealthy virtue.

The passions are always concealed and guarded in Shechem; and the name Shechem being interpreted means the shoulder; for he who labours concerning pleasures is inclined to preserve them. But the passions are concealed and destroyed by the wise man, and that too not for a brief space of time, but up to this present day, that is to say, for ever, for all time is measured by the present day, for the cycle of one day is the measure of all time.

On which account Jacob gives Joseph Shechem,Genesis xlviii. 22. as an especial portion beyond the rest of his brethren, meaning thereby the bodily things which are the objects of the outward senses, since he had gone through labour in respect of them; but to Judah the confessor he gave not presents but praise, and hymns and divine songs, in which he should be celebrated by his brethren. And Jacob did not receive Shechem as a gift from God, but he took it with his sword and with his bow, that is to say, by words, which had the power of cutting and repelling; for the wise man subjects all secondary things to himself, and when he has so subjected them he does not retain them, but makes a present of them to him who is by nature adapted to them.

Do you not see that also, when he appeared to take the gods, he did not take them, but concealed them and put them out of the way, and destroyed them out of his sight for ever. Now to what soul could it have happened to conceal vice and to put it out of the way, except to that soul to which God was revealed, and which he considered worthy to receive the revelation of his unspeakable mysteries? For he says, shall I hide from Abraham my son that thing which I am doing? Genesis. xviii. 17. Well done, O Saviour, in that thou showest thy works to the soul which desires good things, and has concealed from it no one of thy works: and by reason of this conduct of thine he is able to avoid evil, and to conceal it and keep it out of sight, and to destroy for ever the passions which are injurious.

for, since there are two things, the mind of the universe, which is God, and also the separate mind of each individual, he who escapes from the mind which is in himself flees to the mind of the universe; and conversely, he who forsakes his own individual mind, confesses that all the things of the human mind are of no value, and attributes everything to God; again, he who seeks to escape from God asserts, by so doing, that God is not the cause of anything, but looks upon himself as the cause of everything that exists.

At all events it is affirmed by many people, that everything in the world is borne on spontaneously without any guide or governor, and that the human mind, by its own single power, has invented arts and pursuits, and laws and customs, and all the principles of political and individual, and common justice, with reference both to men and to irrational animals.

But dost thou not see, O soul, the unreasonable character of these opinions? For one of them having the particular mind, which was created and which is mortal, does in reality ascribe it to the mind of the universe, which is uncreated and immortal: and the other again, repudiating God, most inconsistently drags forward, as an ally, that mind which is unable even to assist itself.

for all things belong to God; so he who attributes anything to himself is taking away what belongs to another, and receives a very severe blow and one difficult to heal, namely, arrogance, a thing nearly akin to imprudence and ignorance. But he says nothing as to the name of him who has smitten him, for the smiter is not a different person from him who is smitten. But as a man who rubs himself is likewise a person who is rubbed, and as he who stretches himself out is also the person who is stretched out, for he himself both exerts the power of the agent, and also fills the part of the patient. In like manner is he, who steals the things which belong to God, and attributes them to himself, subjected to the tortures of his own impiety and arrogance.

Would that the man so stricken might die, that is to say might perish before he had succeeded in his objects, for then he will appear to be less sinful, for of vice one kind is discerned in habit, and another kind in motion; but the one which is discerned in motion has an inclination towards the perfecting of its operation, on which account it is more mischievous than the one which is discerned only in habit.

If therefore the mind, which imagines itself and not God to be the cause of things, dies, that is to say, becomes inactive and contracts itself, then there is no cause of death in it; it has not absolutely destroyed the living opinion, which attributes all power, and all exertion of power to God, but if the Sun rises, that is to say the mind which appears brilliant in us, and if it appears to see through everything and to judge everything, and not to flee from itself, it then becomes liable to death, and shall die in retaliation for the living doctrine which it has destroyed; according to which God alone is the cause of everything, being found to be wholly unable to effect any good purpose, and to be truly dead in as much as it has shown itself the interpreter of a lifeless and dead and departed doctrine.

For when he had comprehended the labour of him who beholds God, which the king of Egypt had imposed on him, (and by the king of Egypt is meant vice, which is the guide of the passions) he sees an Egyptian man, that is to say human passions operating at a seasonable moment, beating and insulting the man who beholds God, and looking round upon the whole soul on this side and on that side, and seeing no one standing by except the true God, and everything else in a state of confusion and disorder, having stricken down and convicted the lover of pleasure, he hides him in the dispersed and agitated mind, which is deprived of all kindred with and comprehension of what is good.

This man then is hidden in himself, but the man who is opposite to him escapes from himself, and flees to the God of all existing things. On which account Moses says moreover, He led him forth out of doors and said to him, look up to heaven, and count the stars, Genesis xv. 5. which we should be glad indeed to see thoroughly and to comprehend; since we are insatiable in our love for notice, but nevertheless we are unable to measure the riches of God.

Nevertheless thanks be to that magnificent and bounteous God because he says that he has implanted in the soul seeds as brilliant, as visible at a distance, and as eternally new as the stars in heaven. And it is not a superfluous addition when after having said he led him forth, he subjoins out of doors, for who is ever led forth in doors? But perhaps what he says here has some such meaning as this; he led him forth into the outermost place, not into some place or other out of doors, which might be surrounded by other places. For as in dwelling houses the man’s character is outside the woman’s chamber, and the inner chamber is within, and the vestibule is outside of the hall but within the doorway, so also in the case of the soul that which is within one thing may be outside of some other thing.

This then is the sense in which we must understand this passage; he led the mind forth into the outermost place, for what was the use of his leaving the body and fleeing to the outward senses; and what would have been the use of his discarding the outward senses, and subjecting that which exists to the voice? For it is fitting that the mind which is about to be led forth, and to be dismissed in freedom should be emancipated from all corporeal necessities, from all the organs of the outward senses, from all sophistical ratiocinations, and plausible persuasions, and last of all from itself.

On which account also, that joy of the soul, Isaac, when he is conversing and discoursing privately with God, comes forth forsaking himself and his own mind, for he says, Come forth, O Isaac, to converse in the plain towards evening, Genesis xxiv. 62. and Moses, that word of prophecy, says, When I go forth from the city, that is from my soul, (for the soul is the city of the living creature, in as much as it is the soul which gives it its laws and customs), I will stretch forth my hands, Exodus ix. 29. and I will reveal and unfold all my actions to God, invoking him as a witness and inspector of every one of them, from whom it is impossible by its own nature that vice should be hidden, but to whom it must be unfolded and by whom it must be clearly discerned.

When therefore the soul is made manifest in all its sayings and doings, and is made a partaker of the divine nature, the voices of the external senses are reduced to silence, and so likewise are all troublesome and ill-omened sounds, for the objects of sight often speak loudly and invite the sense of sight to themselves; and sodo voices invite the sense of hearing; scents invite the smell, and altogether each varied object of sense invites its appropriate sense. But all these things are put at rest when the mind going forth out of the city of the soul, attributes all its own actions and conceptions to God.

Do you not see that also when he received the tabernacle from God, and this tabernacle is wisdom, in which the wise man tabernacles and, dwells, he fixed it firmly and founded and built it up strongly, not in the body but out of it; for he likens this to an encampment, to a camp I say full of wars and of all the evils which war causes, and which has no portion with peace. And it was called the tabernacle of testimony; Exodus xxxiii. 7. that is to say wisdom was borne witness to by God. For every one who seeks the Lord went forth out of his house. And this is well said.

For if you seek God, O my mind, go forth out of yourself, and so seek for him; but if you remain in the substance of the body, or in the vain opinions of the mind, you are then without any real wish to search into divine things, even if you do put on the appearance and pretence of seeking them. If when you search you will find God, is uncertain; for there have been many persons to whom he has not revealed himself, but they have expended a vain labour all their time. But the mere act of seeking for him is sufficient to entitle you to a participation in good things, for the desire for what is good, even if it fails in attaining the end which it seeks, does at all events always gladden the heart of those who cherish it.

Thus the wicked man who flees from virtue, and who seeks to conceal himself from God, flees to a powerless ally, that is his own mind, but the good man on the contrary seeking to escape from himself turns to the knowledge of the one God, and is victorious in the honourable race, and in that contest which is of all the most excellent.

The woman therefore, that is the outward sense is also summoned together with Adam, that is the mind, but separately God does not summon her. Why not? Because being destitute of reason she is incapable of being convicted by herself. For neither can sight, nor hearing, nor any one of the other external senses be taught, and moreover none of them are capable of receiving the comprehension of things; for the Creator has not made them capable of distinguishing anything but bodies only. But the mind is able to receive teaching: on account of which fact God calls that, but not the external senses.

In the second place, that which is said is equivalent to this, Where hast thou been, O soul? What evils hast thou chosen instead of what good things? When God invited you to a participation in virtue, have you pursued vice? And when he offered to you for your enjoyment the tree of life, that is to say the tree of wisdom by which you might live, have you hastened into ignorance and to destruction, preferring misery, the death of the soul to the happiness of eternal life?

The third interpretation is the interrogative one; to which there may be two answers given. The one, if the answer be given to the inquirer, Where art thou? is, Nowhere. For the soul of the wicked man has no place to which it can go, or in which it can be situated. In respect of which fact the wicked man is said to be destitute of place; but an evil destitute of place is one which is difficult to manage. And such is the man who is void of good qualities, being always agitated and in a state of confusion, and wavering about after the fashion of an unsteady breeze being altogether the companion of no single steady opinion.

The other answer may be of this kind; that which Adam himself uses. Hear where I am, where those are who are unable to see God; where those are who do not listen to God; where those are who endeavour to conceal themselves from him who is the author of all things: where those are who flee from virtue, where those are who are destitute of wisdom, where those are who are alarmed and tremble because of the unmanliness and cowardice of their souls. For when Adam says, I heard thy voice in the paradise and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself, he exhibits all the qualities enumerated above, as I have shown, more at length, in the former books of this treatise.

The woman, says Adam, whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. The expression here is very accurate, inasmuch as he does not say, The woman whom you gave to me, but The woman whom you gave to be with me. For you did not give me the outward senses as a possession, but you left them free and unimpeded, and in some sort not at all yielding to the injunctions of my intellect. If therefore the mind were to be inclined to command the sight not to see, it nevertheless would see any subject which came before it. And the hearing also will in every case apprehend any sound which falls upon it, even if the mind in its jealousy were to command it not to hear. And again the smell will smell every scent which reaches it, even if the mind were to forbid it to apprehend it.

On this account it is that God did not give the outward sense to the creature, but to be with the creature. And the meaning of this is, the inward sense in conjunction with our mind knows every thing, and does so too at the same moments with the mind. As for instance the sense of sight in conjunction and simultaneously with the mind strikes upon the subject of sight; for the eye sees the substance, and immediately the mind comprehends the thing seen, that is black or white, or pale, or red, or triangular, or quadrangular, or round, or that is of any other colour or shape as the case may be. And so again the sense of hearing is affected by a sound, and with the sense of hearing the mind is also affected; and the proof of it is this; the mind immediately distinguishes the character of the voice, that it is thin, or that it has substance, or that it is melodious and tuneful; or, on the other hand, that it is out of tune and inharmonious. And the same is found to be the case in respect of the rest of the inward senses.

And very appropriately do we see that Adam adds this assertion, She gave me of the tree; but he gives an habitation made of wood and perceptible by the outward senses to the mind except that outward sense itself. For what gave to the mind to be able to distinguish body, or whiteness? Was it not the sight? And what enabled it to distinguish sounds? Was it not the hearing? What, again, endowed it with the faculty of judging of smells? Was it not the sense of smell? What enabled it to decide upon flavours? Was it not the taste? What invested it with the power of distinguishing between rough and smooth? Was it not the touch?Correctly, therefore, and with complete truth was it said by the mind, that it was the outward sense alone which gave me the power to comprehend the corporeal substance.

May we then by the use of allegory solve the question which was here put, and show that the woman gave a felicitous and correct answer to the question? For it follows of necessity that when she had eaten, her husband did also eat, for when the outward sense striking upon its object is filled with its appearance, then immediately the mind joins it and takes its share of it, and is in a manner made perfect by the nourishment which it receives from it. This therefore is what she says, I unintentionally gave it to my husband, for while I was applying myself to what was presented to me, he, being very easily and quickly moved, impressed its appearance and image upon himself.

For as we may at times see ill-looking courtezans dyeing and painting their faces in order to conceal the plainness of their countenances, so also may we see the intemperate man acting who is inclined to the pleasures of the belly. He looks upon great abundance of wine and a luxurious store of food as a good thing, though he is injured by them both in his body and in his soul.

Again, we may often see lovers madly eager to be loved by the ugliest of women, because pleasure deceives them and all but affirms positively to them that beauty of form, and delicacy of complexion, and healthiness of flesh, and symmetry of limb, exists in those who have the exact contraries to all these qualifications. Accordingly, they overlook those who are truly possessed of perfectly irreproachable beauty, and waste away with love for such creatures as I have mentioned.

Every kind of deceit therefore is closely connected with pleasure; and every kind of gift with the outward sense: for the one bewilders the mind with sophistry and misleads it, representing to it anything that comes before it, not in the character which really belongs to it, but in one that does not. But the outward sense presents bodies, plainly as they are according to their real nature, without any device or artifice.

And indeed in this case you see that he did not give a prejudged belief to Adam’s statement against his wife; but he gave her also an opportunity of defending herself, when he asked her, Why hast thou done this? But she confessed that she had erred through the deceitfulness of serpent-like and diversified pleasure. Why, therefore, when the woman had said, The serpent deceived me, Genesis ii. 13. did he forbid the putting of the question to the serpent whether it was he who had thus deceived her; and why did he thus appoint him to be condemned without trial and without defence?

We must say, therefore, that the external senses are not a a peculiar property of either bad or good men, but that they are of an intermediate nature, and common to both the wise man and the fool, and when they are found in the fool, they are bad; but when they are found in the wise man, they are good. Very naturally therefore, since it has a nature which is not necessarily and intrinsically evil, but one which being capable of either character, inclines at different times and under different circumstances towards either extremity, it is not condemned till it has itself confessed that it followed the worse inclination.

But the serpent, that is pleasure, is of itself evil. On this account it is absolutely not found at all in the virtuous man; but the wicked man alone enjoys it. Very properly therefore does God curse it before it has time to make any defence, inasmuch as it has no seed of virtue within it, but is at all times and in all places blameable and polluting.

for the most vigorous athlete would not be able to carry about a statue of himself for even a short time; but the soul, without any exertion and without any fatigue, carries about the statue of a man occasionally even for as long a time as a hundred years; for even at the end of that period it does not kill it, but only gets rid of a body which was dead from the beginning.

And it is evil by nature, as I have said before, and a thing which plots against the soul, but which is not visible to all men, but only to God, and to such men as are friends to God. For the wicked Er, says Moses, was an enemy of the Lord. For when the mind busies itself with sublime contemplations, and becomes initiated into the mysteries of the Lord, it judges the body tobe a wicked and hostile thing; but when it abandons its investigations of divine things, it then looks upon the body as something friendly, and belonging to and nearly akin to itself; and accordingly it flies to the things which are dear to it.

On this account the soul of the athlete and the soul of the philosopher differ; for the athlete attributes all his importance to the good condition of his body, and would throw away his soul itself in the cause of his body, as being a man devoted to his body; but the philosopher, being a lover of what is virtuous, cares for that which is alive within him, namely his soul, and disregards his body which is dead, having no other object but to prevent the most excellent portion of him, namely his soul, from being injured by the evil and dead thing which is connected with it.

When, then, O Soul! shall you most especially consider that you have gained a victory? Will it not be when you are made perfect, and when you have been thought worthy of decisions in your favour and of crowns? For then you will be a lover of God, not of the body, and you will receive prizes, inasmuch as your wife shall be Thamar the bride of Judah, and Thamar being interpreted means the palm-tree, the symbol of victory. And a proof of this is, that when Er married her, he was at once discovered to be a wicked man, and was slain; for Moses says, And Judah took a wife for Er, his first-born son, whose name was Thamar; and immediately afterwards he adds, And Er was a wicked man before the Lord, and God slew him; for when the mind has carried off the prize of virtue, it condemns the dead body to death.

You see that God also curses the serpent without allowing it to make any defence, for it is pleasure: and so also he slays Er without any visible cause being alleged, for Er is the body. And if you consider, O good friend, you will find that God has created in the soul some natural qualities which are in themselves faulty and blameless, and also in every soul some which are virtuous and praiseworthy, as is the case likewise with plants and animals.

Do you not see that the Creator has made some plants capable of cultivation and useful and salutary, and others incapable of cultivation, wild, pernicious, the causes of diseases and destruction; and animals too of similar variety of character, as beyond all question is the serpent, of which we are now speaking; for he is a destructive and deadly animal by his intrinsic nature. And as the serpent affects man, so does pleasure too affect the soul; in reference to which fact the serpent has been compared to pleasure.

and to find grace, is not only, as some call it, equivalent to the expression pleasing God, but it has some such meaning as this. The just man seeking to understand the nature of all existing things, makes this one most excellent discovery, that everything which exists, does so according to the grace of God, and that there is nothing ever given by, just as there is nothing possessed by, the things of creation. On which account also it is proper to acknowledge gratitude to the Creator alone. Accordingly, to those persons who seek to investigate what is the origin of creation, we may most correctly make answer, that it is the goodness and the grace of God, which he has bestowed on the human race; for all the things which are in the world, and the world itself, are the gift and benefaction and free grace of God.

Therefore the tyrannical mind imposes violent and mischievous commands on both soul and body, and such as have a tendency to cause violent suffering, being commands to act according to vice, and to indulge the passions with enjoyment. But the other, the kingly mind, in the first place, does not command, but rather persuades, since it gives recommendations of such a character, that if guided by them, life, like a vessel, will enjoy a fair voyage through life, being directed in its course by a good governor and pilot; and this good pilot is right reason.

We may therefore call the tyrannical mind the ruler of war, and the kingly mind the guide to peace, that is Salem. And this kingly mind shall bring forth food full of cheerfulness and joy; for he brought forth bread and wine, which the Ammonites and Moabites were not willing to give to the beholder, that is Israel; by reason of such unwillingness they are shut out from the companionship and assembly of God. For the Ammonites being they who are sprung from the outward sense of the mother, and the Moabites, who originate in the mind of the father, are two different dispositions, which look upon the mind and the outward sense as the efficient causes of all existing things, but take no notice of God. Therefore they shall not come, says Moses, into the assembly of the Lord, because they did not come to meet you with bread and water when you came out of Egypt, Deuteronomy xxiii. 4. that is, out of the passions.

For when the mind does not, like a master, threaten the soul, but rather guides it, like a father, not indulging it in the pleasant things, but giving it what is expedient for it, even against its will, and also turning it away from all lowly things and such as lead it to mortal paths, it leads it to sublime contemplations and makes it dwell amid speculations on the world and its constituent parts. And, moreover, mounting up higher, it investigates the Deity itself, and his nature, through an unspeakable lore of knowledge, in consequence of which it cannot be content to abide in the original decrees, but, being improved I itself, becomes also desirous of removing to a better habitation.

What then is the reason which caused this man, also, to be praised before his birth? There are some good things which are an advantage to a man both when they are past, and when they are present, such as good health, a sound condition of the outward senses, riches, if he be endowed with them, a good reputation; for all these things may, by a slight perversion of words, be called good things. But some are so not merely when they have been given to us, but even when it is predicted that they shall be so given, as joy is a good affection of the soul; for this does not cheer a man only when it is present and energises actively in him, but it delights him also by anticipations when it is hoped for—for it has this especial quality; all other good qualities have their own separate operation and effect, but joy is both a separate good and a common good, for it comes as a crowning one after all the rest—for we feel joy at good health, and we feel joy at liberty and at honour, and at all other such things, so that one may say with propriety that there is not one single good thing which has not the additional good of joy.

But not only do we rejoice at other good things which are already previously past and also at those which are present, but we rejoice also at good things when about to happen to us and expected; as for instance, when we hope that we shall become rich, or that we shall obtain power, or that we shall receive praise, or that we shall find a means to get rid of an illness, or that we shall acquire vigour and strength, or that we shall become learned instead of ignorant, in all these cases we are rejoiced in no slight degree. Since, then, joy diffuses itself over and cheers the soul, not only while it is present but also even when it is expected, it was very consistent and natural for God to think Isaac worthy of a good name and of a great gift before he was born, for the name of Isaac, being interpreted, means laughter of soul, and delight, and joy.

For that which is wicked and void of reason is, by its own nature, a slave in the eye of God; but that which is good and endowed with reason and better, is looked upon as powerful and free by him. And this is the case not only when each of these two different characters is perfect in the soul, but when there is a doubt on the subject; for, altogether, a slight breeze of virtue shows power and supremacy, and not freedom only, and on the other hand, the existence of even an ordinary degree of vice enslaves the reason, even though not by any means as yet come to maturity.

What, then, must we say but this? That two natures, both utterly necessary, were created in the soul by God, one memory and the other recollection, of which memory is the best and recollection the worst. For the one has its perceptions fresh and harmonious and clear, so that it never errs through ignorance. But forgetfulness does, in every case, precede recollection, which is but a mutilated and blind thing.

And, although recollection is worse, it is nevertheless older than memory, which is better than it, and is also conjoined with and inseparable from it; for when we are first introduced to any art we are unable at once to make ourselves masters of all the speculations which bear upon it. Being, therefore, affected with forgetfulness at first, we subsequently recollect, until from a frequent recurrence of forgetfulness and a frequent recurrence of recollection, memory at last prevails in us in a lasting manner. On which account it is younger than recollection, for it is later in its existence.

And Ephraim is a symbolical name, being, to be interpreted, memory. For, being interpreted, it means the fertility of the soul of the man fond of learning, which brings forth its appropriate fruit when it has confirmed its speculations, and preserves them in its memory. But Manasses, being interpreted, means recollection, for he is spoken of as one who has been translated from forgetfulness, and he who escapes from forgetfulness does unquestionably recollect. Most correctly, therefore, does that supplanter of the passions and practiser of virtue, Jacob, give his right hand to that prolific memory, Ephraim, while he places Manasses, or recollection, in the second rank.

And, Moses, also, of all those who sacrificed the passover, praised those who sacrificed first most, because they having crossed over from the passions, that is to say, from Egypt, remained by the passage, and did not hasten any more to the passions which they had quitted; and the others he also thinks worthy to be placed in the second rank, for, having turned back, they retraced their steps, and, as if they had forgotten what it became them to do, they again hastened to do the same things; but the former men continued in their course without turning back. Therefore, Manasses, who is born of forgetfulness, resembles those who were the second party to sacrifice the passover; but the fertile Ephraim is like those who had sacrificed previously.

Now, Bezaleel, being interpreted, means God in his shadow. But the shadow of God is his word, which he used like an instrument when he was making the world. And this shadow, and, as it were, model, is the archetype of other things. For, as God is himself the model of that image which he has now called a shadow, so also that image is the model of other things, as he showed when he commenced giving the law to the Israelites, and said, And God made man according to the image of God, Genesis i. 26. as the image was modelled according to God, and as man was modelled according to the image, which thus received the power and character of the model.

For as, if a man were to see a house carefully built and well provided with outer courts and porticoes, and men’s chambers and women’s chambers, and all other necessary apartments, he would form a notion of the architect; for he would never suppose that the house had been completed without skill and without a builder;

and, as he would argue in the same manner respecting any city, or any ship, or anything whatever that is made, whether it be great or small, so likewise any one entering this world, as an exceedingly large house or large city, and seeing the heaven revolving round it in a circle and comprehending everything within it, and all the planets and fixed stars moving onwards in the same manner and on the same principles, all in regular order and in due harmony and in such a manner as is most advantageous for the whole created universe, and the earth stationed in the central situation, and the effusions of air and water affixed on the boundaries, and, moreover, all the animals, both mortal and immortal, and the different kinds of plants and fruits, he will surely consider that undoubtedly all these things were not made without skill, but that God both was and is the creator of this whole universe. They, then, who draw their conclusions in this manner perceive God in his shadow, arriving at a due comprehension of the artist through his works.

This kind is that Moses, who speaks thus, Show thyself to me; let me see thee so as to know thee. Exodus xxxiii. 13. for do not thou be manifested to me through the medium of the heaven, or of the earth, or of water, or of air, or, in short, of anything whatever of created things, and let me not see thy appearance in any other thing, as in a looking-glass, except in thee thyself, the true God. For the images which are presented to the sight in executed things are subject to dissolution; but those which are presented in the One uncreate may last for ever, being durable, eternal, and unchangeable. On this account God called Moses to him and conversed with him, Exodus xxxv. 30.

and he also called Bezaleel to him, though not in the same way as he had called Moses, but he called the one so that he might receive an idea of the appearance of God from the Creator himself, but the other so that he might by calculation form an idea of the Creator as if from the shadow of the things created. On this account you will find the tabernacle and all its furniture to have been made in the first instance by Moses, and again subsequently by Bezaleel. For Moses fashioned the archetypal forms, and Bezaleel made the imitations of them. For Moses had God himself for an instructor, as he tells us, when he represents God as saying to him, Thou shall make every thing according to the example which was shown thee in the Mount. Exodus xxv. 40.

And Bezaleel had Moses for his instructor; and this was very natural. For Aaron the word, and Miriam the outward sense, when they rose up against Moses were expressly told that If there shall arise a prophet to the Lord, God shall be made known to him in a vision, and in a shadow, but not clearly. Numbers xii. 6. But with Moses, who is faithful in all his house, God will speak mouth to mouth in his own form, and not by riddles.

For, just as there are storehouses of good things so are there also storehouses of evil things with God; as he says in his great song, Behold are not these things collected with me, and sealed up in my treasurehouses, against the day of vengeance when their foot shall be tripped up? Deuteronomy xxxii. 34. You see then that there are several storehouses of evil things, and only one of good things. For since God is One, so also is his storehouse of good things one likewise. But there are many storehouses of evil things because the wicked are infinite in number. And in this observe the goodness of the true God, He opens the treasurehouse of his good things freely, but he binds fast that which contains the evil things. For it is an especial property of God to offer his good things freely and to be beforehand with men in bestowing gifts upon them, but to be slow in bringing evil on them,

and Moses dwelling at length upon the munificent and gracious nature of God, says that not only have his storehouses of evil things been sealed up in all other times, but also when the soul is tripped up in the path of right reason, when it is especially fair that it should be considered worthy of punishment; for he says that, In the day of vengeance the storehouses of evil things have been sealed up, the sacred word of scripture showing that God does not visit with his vengeance even those who sin against him, immediately, but that he gives them time for repentance, and to remedy and correct their evil conduct.

Cursed indeed is he who causeth the blind man to wander in the road. This also is done by that most impious thing pleasure, for the outward sense, inasmuch as it is destitute of reason, is a thing blinded by nature, since the eyes of its reason are put out. In reference to which we may say that it is by reason alone that we attain to a comprehension of things, and no longer by the outward sense; for they are bodies alone that we acquire a conception of by means of the outward senses.

Pleasure therefore has deceived the outward sense which is destitute of any proper comprehension of things, inasmuch as though it might have been turned to the mind, and have been guided by it, it has hindered it from being so, leading it to the external objects of outward sense, and making it desirous of every thing which can call it into operation, in order that the outward sense being defective may follow a blind guide, namely the object of the outward sense, and then the mind being guided by the two things, which are themselves both blind, may plunge headlong to destruction and become utterly unable to restrain itself.

For if it were to follow its natural guide then it would be proper for defective things to follow reason which sees clearly, for in that way mischievous things would be less formidable in their attacks. But now, pleasure has put such great artifices in operation to injure the soul, that it has compelled it to use them as guides, cheating it, and persuading it to exchange virtue for evil habits, and to give good habits in exchange for vice. But the holy scripture has prohibited such an exchange as this when it says, Thou shalt not exchange good for evil. Leviticus xxvii. 33.

On this account therefore pleasure is accursed, and let us now see how well adapted to it are the curses which the scripture denounces against it, Thou shalt be cursed says God, above all creatures. Therefore, the whole race of animals is irrational andunder the guidance only of theexternal senses; but every one of the outward senses curses pleasure as a most inimical and hostile thing to it; for it is in reality hostile to the outward senses. And the proof of this is that, when we are sated with an immoderate indulgence in pleasure, we are not able either to see, or to hear, or to smell, or to taste, or to touch with any clearness of our faculties, but we make all our essays and approaches in an obscure and imbecile manner.

And this happens to us when we are for a moment at a distance from its infection; but at the exact moment of the enjoyment of pleasure we are completely deprived of all such perception as can arise from the operation of the outward senses, so that we seem to be mutilated. How then can it be anything but natural for the outward sense to denounce curses upon pleasure which thus deprives it of its faculties?

But let us see what is shown by this sentence with greater accuracy. It so happens that our soul is divisible into three parts, and that one of its parts is the seat of reason, the second, the seat of courage, the third, the seat of the appetites. Some therefore of the philosophers have separated these parts from one another only in respect of their operations, and some have distinguished them also by their places. And then they have assigned the parts about the head to the residing part, saying where the king is, there also are his guards, and the guards of the mind are the external senses, which are seated about the head, so that the king may very naturally have his abode there too, as if he had been assigned the highest part of the city to dwell in. The chest is assigned to the courageous part, and they say, it is on this account, that nature has fortified that part with a dense and strong defence of closely conjoined bones, as though she had been arming a valiant soldier with a breastplate and shield to defend himself against his enemies. To the appetitive part they have assigned a situation about the liver and the belly, for there it is that appetite dwells, being an irrational desire.

Therefore, the mind is not hindered by any external force from abandoning the legitimate objects of its attention, which can only be perceived by the intellect, and surrendering itself to those which are worse; but still this never happens except when there is a war in the soul, for then indeed it follows of necessity that reason must fall under the power of the inferior part of man, inasmuch as it is not of a warlike character, but is fond of peace.

And you shall put manifestation and truth (the Urim and the Thummim), in the oracle of judgment, and it shall be on the breast of Aaron when he comes into the holy place before the Lord. Exodus xxviii. 30. Now by the oracle is here meant the organs of speech which exist in us, which is in fact the power of language. Now language is either inconsiderate, and such as will not stand examination, or else it is judicious and well approved, and it brings us to form a notion of discreet speech. For Moses here speaks not of a random spurious oracle, but of the oracle of the judgment, which is equivalent to saying, a well-judged and carefully examined oracle;

and of this well approved kind of language he says that there are two supreme virtues, namely, distinctness and truth, and he says well. For it is language which has in the first place enabled one man to make affairs plain and evident to his neighbour, when without it we should not be able to give any intimation of the impression produced on our soul by outward circumstances, nor to show of what kind they are. On which account we have been compelled to have recourse to such signs as are given by the voices, that is nouns and verbs, which ought by all means to be universally known, in order that our neighbours might clearly and evidently comprehend our meaning; and, in the next place, to utter them at all times with truth.

For of what advantage would it be to make our assertions clear and distinct, but nevertheless false? For it follows inevitably that if this were allowed the hearer would be deceived, and would reap the greatest possible injury with ignorance and delusion. For what would be the advantage of my speaking to a boy distinctly and clearly, and telling him, when I show him the letter A, that it is G, or that the letter E is O? Or what would be the good of a musician pointing out to a pupil who comes to him to learn the rudiments of his art that the harmonic scale was the chromatic; or the chromatic, the diatonic; or that the highest string was the middle one; or that conjoined sounds were separated; or that the highest tone in the tetrachord scale was a supernumerary note?

No doubt, a man who said this might speak clearly and distinctly, but he would not be speaking truly, but by such assertions he would be implanting wickedness in language. But when he joins both distinctness and truth, then he makes his language profitable to him who is seeking information, employing both its virtues, which in fact are nearly the only ones of which language is capable.

and, in addition, by truth; for, among other things, anger has also this particular property of being inclined to misrepresent the truth. At all events, of all those who give way to this disposition scarcely any one speaks the strict truth, as if it were his soul and not his body that is under the influence of its intoxication. These, then, are the chief remedies suitable for that part of the soul which is influenced by anger, namely, reason, disinterestedness of language, and truth of language, for the three things are in power only one, namely, reason, curing anger, which is a pernicious disease of the soul, by means of the virtues truth and perspicuity.

But it often happens that the mind is at the same time entering into sacred and holy and purified opinions, but still such as are only human; such, for instance, as opinions on what is expedient; opinions on successful actions; opinions on what is in accordance with established law; opinions concerning virtue as it exists among men. Nor is the mind, when disposed in this way, competent to bear the oracle on its breast together with the virtues, but only that one which is going in before the Lord, that is to say, that one which doeth everything for the sake of God, and which estimates nothing as superior to the things of God; but attributes to them also their due rank, not indeed dwelling on them, but ascending upwards to the knowledge and understanding of an appreciation of the honour due to the one God.

For, in a mind which is thus disposed, anger will be directed by purified reason, which takes away its irrational part, and remedies what there is confused and disorderly in it by the application of distinctness, and eradicates its falsehood by truth.

Speaking very accurately, for it was the conduct of one who was both a lover of virtue and a lover of God, after having contemplated the whole soul, to take hold of the breast, which is the seat of the angry passions, and to take it away and eradicate it, that so when the warlike part had been wholly removed, the remainder might enjoy peace. And he removes this part not from any chance animal, but from the ram of consecration, although, indeed, a young heifer had been sacrificed; but, passing by the heifer, he came to the ram, because that is by nature an animal inclined to pushing and full of anger and impetuosity, in reference to which fact the makers of military engines call many of their warlike machines rams.

This ramlike and impetuous and undistinguishing character in us, therefore, is something fond of contention, and contention is the mother of anger. In reference to which fact, they who are somewhat quarrelsome are very easily made angry in investigations and other discussions. Moses, therefore, does very properly endeavour to eradicate anger, that pernicious offspring of a contentious and quarrelsome soul, in order that the soul may become barren of such offspring and may cease from bringing forth mischievous things, and may become a portion consistent with the character of a lover of virtue, not being identical with either the breast or with anger, but with the absence of those qualities, for God has endowed the wise man with the best of all qualities, the power, namely, of eradicating his passions. You see, then, how the perfect man is always endeavouring to attain to a complete emancipation from the power of the passions. But he who eradicates them being next to him, that is Aaron, labours to arrive at a state in which the passions have only a moderate power, as I have said before;

for he is unable to eradicate the breast and the angry passions. But he bears the oracle, on which is distinctness and truth even beyond the guide himself, together with the appropriate and kindred virtues of language.

You see here that they are not able to take the breast alone, but they must take it with the shoulder; but Moses can take it without the shoulder. Why is this? Because he, being perfect, has no inadequate or lowly ideas, nor is he willing to remain in a state in which the passions have even a moderate influence; but he, by his exceeding power, does utterly extirpate the whole of the passions, root and branch. But the others, who go with faint endeavours and with but slight strength to war against the passions, are inclined to a reconciliation with them, and make terms with them, proposing terms of accommodation, thinking thatthus, like a charioteer, they may be able to bridle their extravagant impetuosity.

And the shoulder is a symbol of labour and of the endurance of hardship; and such a person is he who has the charge of and the care of administering the holy things, being occupied with constant exercise and labour. But he has no labour to whom God has given his perfect good things in great abundance, and he who attains to virtue by labour will be found to be less vigorous and less perfect than Moses, who received it as a gift from God without any labour or difficulty. For the mere fact of labouring is of itself inferior to and worse than the condition of being exempt from labour, so, also, what is imperfect is inferior to that which is perfect, and that which learns anything to that which has knowledge spontaneously and naturally. On this account it is that Aaron can only take the breast with the shoulder, but Moses can take it without the shoulder.

And he calls it the heave-shoulder for this reason, because reason ought to be set over and to be predominant above the violence of anger, as a charioteer who is driving a hard-mouthed and restiff horse. And then the shoulder is no longer called the heave-shoulder, but the shoulder of removal, on this account, because it is fitting that the soul should not attribute to itself labour in the cause of virtue, but should remove it from itself and attribute it to God, confessing that it is not its own strength or its own power which has thus acquired what is good, but He who gave it a love for goodness.

And so neither the breast nor the shoulder is taken, except from the virtue which bringeth salvation, as is natural, for then the soul is sacred when the angry passions are under the guidance of reason, and when labour does not bring conceit to the labourer, but when he owns his inferiority to God, his benefactor.

On which account Moses says, in another place, Every animal that goeth upon its belly, every animal which goeth on four legs at all times, and that has a multitude of feet, is unclean. Leviticus xi. 42. And such a creature is the lover of pleasure, inasmuch as he is always going upon his belly and pursuing the pleasures which relate to it. And God unites the animal which goes on four legs with him that crawls upon his belly, naturally; for the passions of those who are absorbed in pleasure are four, as one most egregious account teaches. Therefore he who devotes himself as a slave to one of them, namely, to pleasure, is impure as much as he who lives in the indulgence of the whole four.

This much having been premised, behold again the difference between the perfect man and him who is still advancing towards perfection. As, therefore, the perfect man was, just now, found to be competent to eradicate the whole of the angry feelings from the contentious soul and to make it submissive and manageable, and peaceable and gentle to every one, both in word and deed; and as he who is still advancing towards perfection is not able wholly to eradicate passion, for he bears the breast about with him, though he does educate it by the aid of judicious language, which is invested with two virtues perspicuity and truth. So, also, now he who is perfectly wise, that is, Moses, will be found to have utterly shaken off and discarded the pleasures. But he who is only advancing towards perfection will be found to have escaped not from every pleasure, but to cling still to such as are desirable and simple, and to deprecate those which are superfluous and extravagant as unnecessary additions,

for, in the case of Moses, God speaks thus: And he washed his belly and his feet, with the blood of the entire burnt offering. Leviticus ix. 14. Speaking very truly, for the wise man consecrates his entire soul as what is worthy to be offered to God, because it is free from all reproach, whether wilfully or unintentionally incorrect, and being thus disposed, he washes his whole belly and all the pleasures which it knows, and all which pursue it, and cleanses them and purifies them from all uncleanliness, not being content with any partial cleansing. But he is disposed to regard pleasure so contemptuously that he has no desire for even the necessary meat or drink, but nourishes himself wholly on the contemplation of divine things.

On which account in another passage, he bears witness to himself, For forty-eight years he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water, Exodus xxxiv. 28. because he was in the holy mount listening to the oracular voice of God, who was giving him the law. But not only does he repudiate the whole belly, but he also at the same time washes off all the dirt from his feet, that is to say, to the supports in which pleasure proceeds. And the supports of pleasure are the efficient causes of it.

For he who is advancing onwards to perfection is said to wash his bowels and his feet, Leviticus i. 9. and not his whole belly. For he is not capable of rejecting the whole of pleasure, but he is content if he can purify his bowels, that is to say, his inmost parts from it, which the lovers of pleasure say are certain additions to preceding pleasures, and which originate in the superfluous ingenuity of cooks and makers of delicacies and laborious gourmands.

But we ought not to be ignorant that Moses repudiates the whole of the belly, that is to say, the filling and indulging the belly, and almost renounces all the other passions likewise; the lawgiver giving a lively representation of the whole from one part, starting from a universal example, and discussing, potentially at least, the other points as to which he was silent. The filling of the belly is a most enduring and universal thing; and, as it were, a kind of foundation of the other passions. At all events, there is not one of them which can find any existence if it is not supported by the belly, on which nature has made everything to depend.

On this account, when the goods of the soul had previously been born of Leah, and had ended in Judah,Genesis xxix. 35. that is to say, in confession, God being about to create also the improvements of the body, prepared Bilhah, the hand-maid of Rachel, to bear children on behalf of and before her mistress. And the name Bilhah, being interpreted, means deglutition. For he knew that not one of the corporeal faculties can exist without imbibing moisture and without the belly; but the belly is predominant over and the ruler of the whole body, and the preserver of this corporeal mass in a state of existence.

And observe the subtle way in which all this is expressed; for you will not find a single word used superfluously. Moses indeed takes away the breast, but as for the belly he does not take that away, but he washes it.Numbers v. 27. Why so? Because the perfectly wise man is able to repudiate and to eradicate all the angry passions, making them rise up and abandon anger; but he is unable to cut out and discard the belly, for nature is compelled to use the necessary meats and drinks, even if a man, being content with the scantiest possible supply of necessaries should despise it, and purpose to himself to abjure eating. Let him therefore wash and purify it from all superfluous and unclean preparations; for to be able to do even this is a very sufficient gift from God to the lover of virtue.

Now I know many people who have fallen into error in respect of the appetites of the belly, that while still devoting themselves to their gratifications, they have again rushed with eagerness to wine and other luxuries; for the appetites of the intemperate soul bear no analogy to the mass of the body. But some men, like vessels made to hold a certain measure, desire nothing extravagant, but discard everything that is superfluous; but appetite on the other hand is never satisfied, but remains always in want and thirsty.

In reference to which the expression, that the thigh shall fall away, is added in immediate connexion with the denunciation that her belly shall swell; for then right reason, which has the seeds and originating principles of good, falls from the soul. If therefore, says Moses, she has not been corrupted, then she shall be pure, and free from all infliction from generation to generation; that is to say, if she has not been polluted by passion, but has kept herself pure in respect of her legitimate husband, sound reason, her proper guide, she shall have a productive and fertile soul, bearing the offspring of prudence and justice and all virtue.

After that he says, And you shall go out there. Why so? Because the soul, which is abiding in companionship with prudence and dwelling in the house of wisdom, cannot indulge in any of the delights of the body, for it is at that time nourished on a diviner food in the sciences, in consequence of which it neglects the flesh, for when it has gone forth beyond the sacred thresholds of virtue, then it turns to the material substances, which disarrange and oppress the soul. How then am I to deal with them?

It shall be a peg, says Moses, upon thy girdle, and thou shalt dig with it; Deuteronomy xxiii. 12. that is to say, reason shall be close to you in the case of the passion, which digs out and equips and clothes it properly; for he desires that we should be girded up in respect of the passions, and not to have them about us in a loose and dissolute state.

On which account, at the time of the passage through them, which is called the passover, he enjoins us all to have our loins girded, Exodus xii. 11. that is to say, to have our appetites under restraint. Let the peg, therefore, that is to say reason, follow the passion, preventing it from becoming dissolute; for in this way we shall be able to content ourselves with only so much as is necessary, and to abstain from what is superfluous.

I myself, at all events, know that it has done so with regard to many of the passions, for when I have gone to entertainments where no respect was paid to discipline, and to sumptuous banquets, whenever I went without taking Reason with me as a guide, I became a slave to the luxuries that lay before me, being under the guidance of masters who could not be tamed, with sights and sounds of temptation, and all other such things also as work pleasure in a man by the agency of his senses of smell and taste. But when I approach such scenes in the company of reason, I then become a master instead of a slave: and without being subdued myself win a glorious victory of self-denial and temperance; opposing and contending against all the appetites which subdue the intemperate.

Thou shalt be armed, Moses therefore says, with a peg. Deuteronomy xxiii. 12. That is to say, you, by the aid of reason, shall lay bare the nature which each of the separate passions has, eating, and drinking, and indulging in the pleasures of the belly, and you shall distinguish between them, that when you have so distinguished you may know the truth. For then you shall know that there is no good in any of these things, but only what is necessary and useful.

And bringing it over, you shall cover what is indecorous, Deuteronomy xxiii. 14. speaking very appropriately. For come to me, O my soul, bring reason to everything by which all unseemliness of flesh and of passion is concealed, and overshadowed and hidden. For all the things which are not in combination with reason are disgraceful, just as those which are done in union with reason are seemly.

Therefore the man who is devoted to pleasure goes on his belly, but the perfect man washes his whole belly, and he who is only advancing towards perfection washes the things in his belly. But he who is now beginning to be instructed proceeds out of doors when he is intent upon curbing the passions of the belly by bringing reason to work upon the necessities of the belly, and reason is called symbolically a peg.

Let the people indeed go forth and the whole system of the soul likewise, and let it collect science and begin knowledge, not in large quantities but from day to day. For, in the first place, in that way it will not exhaust all at once the abundant riches of the grace of God: but it will overflow like a torrent with their superfluity. Secondly, it will happen that when they have taken such good things as are sufficient for them and duly measured, they will think God the dispenser of the rest.

But he who endeavours to collect everything at once is only acquiring for himself despair with great sorrow,It seems that for ἀνίας, sorrow, we ought rather to read ἀπιστίας, infidelity, as it is ἄπιστος which is afterwards joined with δύσελπις. for he becomes full of despair if he expects that God will only rain good things upon him at the present moment, and that he will not do so hereafter. And he becomes inclined to infidelity if he does not believe that the graces of God will be both at present and in all time abundantly poured upon those who are worthy of them. And he is foolish, moreover, if he thinks that he shall be a competent • guardian of what he has collected contrary to God’s will. For a very slight inclination is sufficient to make the mind, which in its boastfulness attributes safety and stability to itself, an impotent and unsure keeper of those things of which it fancied itself a safe guardian.

And in the case of the manna therefore, and of every gift which God gives to the race of mankind, the principle being guided by numbering and by measure, and of not taking what is more than is necessary for us, is good; for the opposite conduct is covetousness. Let therefore one soul collect what is sufficient for it from day to day,Exodus xii. 4. that it may show that it is not itself which is the guardian of good things, but the bounteous giver, God.

Accordingly, right reason tests those who practise virtue as one might test a coin, to see whether they have contracted any stain, referring the good things of the soul to any of the external things; or whether they decide upon it as good money, preserving it in the intellect alone. These men are nourished not on earthly things, but on heavenly knowledge.

And this word is not apparent in every place, but wherever there is a vacant space, void of passions and vice; and it is subtle both to understand and to be understood, and it is exceedingly transparent and clear to be distinguished, and it is like coriander seed. And agriculturists say that the seed of the coriander is capable of being cut up and divided into innumerable pieces, and if sown in each separate piece and fragment, it shoots up just as much as the whole seed could do. Such also is the word of God, being profitable both in its entirety and also in every part, even if it be ever so small.

May it not be also likened to the pupil of the eye? For as that, being the smallest portion of the eye, does nevertheless behold the entire orbs of existing things and the boundless sea, and the vastness of the air, and the whole immeasurable space of heaven, which the sun, whether rising in the east or setting in the west, can bound; so also is the word of God, very sharp-sighted, so as to be capable of beholding every thing, and by which all things that are worth seeing can be beheld, in reference to which fact it is white. For what can be more brilliant or visible at a greater distance than the divine word, by participation in which all other things can repel mists and darkness, being eager to share in the light of the soul?

Therefore the souls inquire of one another, those, that is, that have clearly felt the influence of the word, but which are not able to say what it is. For very often, when sensible of a sweet taste, we are nevertheless ignorant of the flavour which has caused it, and when we smell sweet scents, we still do not know what they are. And in the same manner also the soul very often, when it is delighted, is yet unable to explain what it is that has delighted it; but it is taught by the hierophant and prophet Moses, who tells it, This is the bread, the food which God has given for the soul, Exodus xvi. 15. explaining that God has brought it, his own word and his own reason; for this bread which he has given us to eat is this word of his.

And God also causes us hunger, not that which proceeds from virtue, but that which is engendered by passion and vice. And the proof of this is, that he nourishes us with his own word, which is the most universal of all things, for manna being interpreted, means what? and what is the most universal of all things; for the word of God is over all the world, and is the most ancient, and the most universal of all the things that are created. This word our fathers knew not; I speak not of those who are so in truth, but of those who are grey with age, who say, Let us give them a guide, and let us turn back Numbers xiv. 1. unto passion, that is to say, to Egypt.

Therefore, let God enjoin the soul, saying to it that, Man shall not live by bread alone, speaking in a figure, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, that is to say, he shall be nourished by the whole word of God, and by every portion of it. For the mouth is the symbol of the language, and a word is a portion of it. Accordingly the soul of the more perfect man is nourished by the whole word; but we must be contented if we are nourished by a portion of it.

On this account I think it is that God gives men pure good health, which is not preceded by any disease in the body, by himself alone, but that health which is an escape from disease he gives through the medium of skill and medical science, attributing it to science, and to him who can apply it skilfully, though in truth, it is God himself who heals both by these means, and without these means. And the same is the case with regard to the soul, the good things, namely food, he gives to men by his power alone; but those which contain in them a deliverance from evil, he gives by means of his angels and his word.

Joseph therefore was treated in the same way with his mother Rachel, for she also thought that the creature had some power; on which account she used the expression, Give me children, but the supplanter, adhering to his proper character, says to her, You have used a great error; for I am not in the peace of God, who alone is able to open the womb of the soul,Genesis xxx 1. and to implant virtues in it, and to cause it to be pregnant, and to bring forth what is good. Consider also the history of thy sister Leah, and you will find that she did not receive seed or fertility from any creature—but from God himself. For the Lord, seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Genesis xxix. 31.

And consider, now, in this sentence, again, the subtlety of the writer spoken of. God opens the wombs, implanting good actions in them, and the womb, when it has received virtue from God, does not bring forth to God, for the living and true God is not in need of any thing, but she brings forth sons to me, Jacob, for it was for my sake, probably, that God sowed seed in virtue, and not for his own. Therefore, another husband of Leah is found to be passed over in silence, and another father of Leah’s children, for he is the husband who openeth the womb, and he is the father of the children to whom the mother is said to bear them.

When we are sated with pleasure, then we find that the organs of the external senses in us lose their tone. Or do not you perceive the state of those men who from love of wine get drunk?—that seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear; and, in the same way, they are deprived of the accurate energies of the other external senses? And, at times, through immoderate indulgence in food, all the vigourof the external senses is relaxed when sleep overtakes them, which has derived its name from the relaxation of them.Philo here supposed that ὔπνος, sleep, is derived from ὕφεσις, relaxation, or from ὑφίημι, to relax. For, at that time, the organs of the external senses are relaxed, just as they are on the stretch in our waking hours, when they no longer receive unintelligible blows from external things, but such as speak loudly and are evident, and which transmit their impressions to the mind. For the mind, when stricken, must recognize the external thing, and receive a visible impression from it.

And again, the expression, between thy seed and between her seed, is uttered with strict natural propriety, for all seed is the beginning of generation. But the beginning of pleasure is not passion, but an emotional impulse of the outward sense, set in motion by the mind. For from this, as from a fountain, the faculties of the outward senses are derived, especially, according to the most sacred Moses, who says that the woman was formed out of Adam, that is to say, the outward sense was formed out of the mind. The part, therefore, that pleasure acts towards the outward sense, passion also acts towards the mind. So that, since the two former are at enmity with one another, the two latter must likewise be in a state of hostility.

in reference to which it is said, Amalek is the beginning of nations; Numbers xxiv. 20. because passion governs, and is the absolute lord of nations, all mingled and confused and jumbled in disorder, without any settled plan; and, through passion, all the war of the soul is fanned and kept alive. For God makes a promise to the same minds to which he grants peace, that he will efface the memorial of Amalek from all the lands beneath the heaven.

But, nevertheless, though pleasure appears to trip up and to deceive the good man, it will in reality be tripped up itself by that experienced wrestler, Jacob; and that, too, not in the wrestling of the body, but in that struggle which the soul carries on against the dispositions which are antagonistic to it, and which attack it through the agency of the passions and vices; and it will not let go the heel of its antagonist, passion, before it surrenders, and confesses that it has been twice tripped up and defeated, both in the matter of the birthright, and also in that of the blessing.

For rightly, says Esau, is his name called Jacob, for now has he supplanted me for the second time; the first time he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing. Genesis xxvii. 36. But the bad man thinks the things of the body the more important, while the good man assigns the preference to the things of the soul, which are in truth and reality the more important and the first, not, indeed, in point of time, but in power and dignity, as is a ruler in a city. But the mistress of the concrete being is the soul.

And if you are content to become the slave of the wise man, you shall receive your share of reproof and of correction, and so you shall discard ignorance and folly which are the destruction of the soul. For thy father, when praying, says to you, You shall serve your brother, Genesis xxvii. 40. but not now; for he will not be able to endure your endeavouring to throw off the yoke. But when you have loosed his yoke from off your neck, that is to say, when you have cast off the boastfulness and arrogance which you had, after you had yoked yourself to the chariot of the passions, under the guidance of the charioteer, Folly.

Now, indeed, you are the slave of cruel and intolerable masters, who are within yourself, and who look upon it as a law never to set any one free; but if you run away and escape from them, then the master who loves slaves will receive you in a good hope of freedom, and will not surrender you any more to your former companions, having learnt from Moses that necessary doctrine and lesson, Not to give up a servant to his master who has escaped from his master unto him; for he shall dwell with him in any place which shall please him. Deuteronomy xxiii. 16.

And to this he will himself bear witness when he says, My gifts, my offerings, my first fruits. Numbers xxviii. 2. You must take notice here that gifts are spoken of in contradistinction to offerings. For the former display the manifestation of the vastness of the perfect good things which God gives to those men who are perfect, but the latter are only prepared to last a very short time, and are partaken of by well-disposed practisers of virtue who are making progress towards perfection.

On which account Abraham also, when following the will of God, retained those things which had been given to him by God: but sends back the horses of the king of Sodom Genesis xiv. 21. as the wages of harlots. And Moses also condescends to administer justice in most important points, and with reference to things of the greatest value. But the more unimportant causes and trials he commits to judges of inferior rank to investigate.

And whoever ventures to assert that any thing is his own shall be set down as a slave for ever and ever; as he who says, I have loved my master, and my wife, and my children; I will not depart and be free. Genesis xxi. 5. He does well in confessing that slavery is proper for him; for can he be any thing but a slave who says, Mine is mind, which is the master, being its own master, and possessed of absolute power; mine, also are the outward senses, the sufficient judges of corporeal substances; mine, also are the offspring of these objects of intellect which are the offspring of the mind, and the objects of the outward senses, which are the offspring of those same outward senses; for it is in my power to exert both the mind and the outward senses?

But it is not sufficient for such a man only to bear witness against himself, but, being also condemned by God, who sentences him to most durable and everlasting slavery, he shall undergo his sentence: and be bored in the ear, that he may not receive the language of virtue, but that he may be a slave for ever, both in his mind and in his outward senses, which are bad and pitiless masters.

For as an athlete and a slave are beaten in two different manners, the one in an abject manner, giving himself up to the ill-treatment, and yielding to it submissively; but the athlete opposing, and resisting, and parrying the blows which are aimed at him. And as you shave a man in one way, and a pillow in another; for the one is seen only in its suffering the shaving, but the man does himself do something likewise, and as one may say, aids the infliction, placing himself in a posture to be shaved;

so the irrational man, like a slave, submits himself to another, and surrenders himself to the endurance of pains as to intolerable mistresses, being unable to look them in the face, and wholly incapable of conceiving any masculine or free thoughts. On which account a countless number of painful things are endured by him through the medium of the outward senses. But the man of experience, valiantly resisting like a brave athlete with strength and vigour, opposes himself resolutely to all painful things, so as not to be wounded by them; but so as to keep all their blows at a distance. And it seems to me that he might with great spirit utter the verses of the tragedian against pain in this manner:— Now scorch and burn my flesh, and fill yourself With ample draughts of my life’s purpled blood; For sooner shall the stars’ bright orbs descend Beneath the darkened earth, the earth uprise Above the sky, and all things be confounded, Than you shall wrench one flattering word from me. This is a fragment of the Syleus of Euripides. The lines are put in the mouth of Hercules.

But some men have said that it is inconsistent with the character of God to swear at all; for that an oath is received for the sake of the confirmation which it supplies; but God is the only faithful being, and if any one else who is dear to God; as Moses is said to have been faithful in all his house.Numbers xii. 7. And besides, the mere words of God are the most sacred and holy of oaths, and laws, and institutions. And it is a proof of his exceeding power, that whatever he says is sure to take place; and this is the most especial characteristic of an oath. So that it would be quite natural to say that all the words of God are oaths confirmed by the accomplishment of the acts to which they relate.There is a remarkable coincidence between Philo’s argument here, and that employed by St. Paul in reference to the same event. St. Paul, Hebrews vi. 13, says, For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, saying, ..... For man verily swears by the greater; and an oath for confirmation is to them the end of strife.

Besides, if we only receive the expression, By myself have I sworn, in the manner in which we ought, we shall be in no danger from sophistry. May we not, then, say, that the truth is something of this sort? None of those beings which are capable of entertaining belief, can entertain a firm belief respecting God. For he has not displayed his nature to any one; but keeps it invisible to every kind of creature. Who can venture to affirm of him who is the cause of all things either that he is a body, or that he is incorporeal, or that he has such and such distinctive qualities, or that he has no such qualities? or who, in short, can venture to affirm any thing positively about his essence, or his character, or his constitution, or his movements? But He alone can utter a positive assertion respecting himself, since he alone has an accurate knowledge of his own nature, without the possibility of mistake.

His positive assertion, therefore, is one which may be thoroughly trusted in the first place, since he alone has any knowledge respecting his actions; so that he very appropriately swore by himself, adding himself confirmation to his assertion, which it was not possible for any one else to do. On which account men who say that they swear by God may well be considered impious. For no man can rightly swear by himself, because he is not able to have any certain knowledge respecting his own nature, but we must be content if we are able to understand even his name, that is to say, his word, which is the interpreter of his will. For that must be God to us imperfect beings, but the first mentioned, or true God, is so only to wise and perfect men.

And Moses, too, admiring the exceeding excellency of the great uncreated God, says, And thou shalt swear by his name, Deuteronomy vi. 13. not by himself. For it is sufficient for the creature to receive confirmation and testimony from the word of God. But God is his own confirmation and most unerring testimony.

For some persons do many acts worthy of a blessing, but yet not in such a way as to obtain a blessing. Since even a wicked man does some actions that are proper, but he does not do them from being of a proper disposition. And sometimes a drunken man or a mad man speaks and acts in a sober manner, but still he is not speaking or acting from a sober mind. And children, who are actually infants, both do and say many things which reasonable men do also do and say; but they, of course, do it not in consequence of any rational disposition, for nature has not yet endowed them with a capacity of reasoning. But the law giver wishes the wise man to appear deserving of blessing not occasionally, accidentally, and, as it were, by chance, but in consequence of habits and a disposition deserving of blessing.

But this kind of groaning does not exist unless the king of Egypt, that is to say, the impious disposition wholly devoted to pleasure, has perished and departed from our soul, For, after many days, the king of Egypt died. Exodus ii. 23. Then immediately, as soon as vice is dead, the man who has become alive to the perception of God and of his own sin, groans, For the children of Israel groaned at the corporeal and Egyptian works; since the reigning disposition devoted to pleasure, while it is alive within us, persuades the soul to rejoice at the sins which it commits; but, when that disposition is dead, it groans over them;

on which account it cries out to its master, beseeching him that it may not again be perverted, and that it may not arrive at only an imperfect sort of perfection. For many souls who have wished to turn to repentance have not been allowed to do so by God, but, been dragged back, as it were by the ebbing tide, having returned to their original courses; in the manner in which Lot’s wife did, who was turned into stone because she loved Sodom, and who reverted to the disposition and habits which had been condemned by God.

Very beautifully here does Moses represent that their supplications have reached God, but they would not have reached him if he who was working him had not been a good man. But there are some souls which God even goes forward to meet: I will come to you and bless you. You see here how great is the kindness of the Creator of all things, when he even anticipates our delay and our intentions, and comes forward to meet us to the perfect benefiting of our souls. And the expression used here is an oracle full of instruction. For, if a thought of God enters the mind, it immediately blesses it and heals all its diseases.

But the outward sense is always grieved and groans, and brings forth the perception of its objects with pain and intolerable anguish. As also God himself says, In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. Now, the sense of sight brings forth the operation of seeing, the sense of hearing is the parent of the operation of hearing, so is the sense of taste of tasting; and, in short, each outward sense is respectively the parent of its corresponding operation; but still it does not produce all these effects in the foolish man without severe pain. For such a man is affected by pain when he sees, and when he hears, and when he tastes, and when he smells, and, in fact, when he exerts any one of these outward senses.

Abraham, therefore, appears here to be in a state of joy, and to be laughing because he is about to become the father of happiness, that is to say, of Isaac; and virtue, that is to say, Sarah, laughs also. And the same prophet will further bear witness, speaking thus, And it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women, and she laughed in her mind and said, such happiness has never yet happened to me to this time, and my lord, that is to say, the divine Lord, is older than I; in whose power, however, this thing must inevitably be, and in whose power it is becoming to place confidence. For the offspring is laughter and joy. For this is the meaning and interpretation of the name of Isaac. Therefore, let the outward sense be grieved, but let virtue be always rejoicing.

For, also, when happiness, that is Isaac, was born, she says, in the pious exaltation, The Lord has caused me laughter, and whoever shall hear of it shall rejoice with me. Genesis xxi. 7. Open your ears, therefore, O ye initiated, and receive the most sacred mysteries. Laughter is joy; and the expression, has caused, is equivalent to has begotten. So that what is here said has some such meaning as this, The Lord has begotten Isaac. For he is the father of perfect nature, sowing and begetting happiness in the soul.

See the glutton, what a slave he is to all the preparations which cooks and confectioners devise. Behold the man who is devoted to the study of music, how he is governed by the harp, or the flute, or by any one who is able to sing. But the sense which turns itself to its legitimate husband, that is to say, to the mind, derives the greatest possible advantage from that object.

And the mind is better than the outward senses. As, therefore, when the charioteer has his horses under command and guides the animals with the rein, the chariot is guided wherever he pleases; but if they become restiff, and get the better of the charioteer, he is often dragged out of his road, and sometimes it even happens that the beasts themselves are borne by the impetuosity of their course into a pit, and everything is carried away in a ruinous manner. And, as a ship holds on her right course when the pilot has the helm in his hand and steers her, and she is obedient to her rudder, but the vessel is upset when some contrary wind descends upon the waves and the whole sea is occupied by billows;

so when the mind, which is the charioteer or pilot of the soul, retains the mastery over the entire animal, as a ruler does over a city, the life of the man proceeds rightly. But when the outward sense, which is devoid of reason, obtains the supremacy, then a terrible confusion overtakes the man, as might happen if a household of slaves were to conspire and to set upon their master. For then, if one must tell the truth, the mind is set fire to and burnt, the outward senses handling the flame and placing the objects of their operation beneath, as fuel. And Moses, indeed, speaks of and describes such a conflagration of the mind as this which arises in consequence of the operation of the outward senses, when he says,

And the women still burnt additional fires in Moab. Numbers xxi. 27. For this expression being interpreted means, from the father, because the mind is our father. For then, says Moses, the expounders of riddles will say, Come to Heshbon, that the city of Sihon may be built and furnished. Because fire has gone forth out of Heshbon, and a flame out of the city of Sihon, and has devoured as far as Moab, and has consumed the high places of Arnon. Woe unto thee, Moab, Chemosh is destroyed: their sons who had sought to escape have been given up, and their daughters have become captive to Sihon, king of the Amorites. And the seed of them shall perish, from Heshbon even to Dibon. Moreover, the women still burnt additional fire in Moab.

Heshbon being interpreted means reasonings; and these must here mean enigmas, full of indistinctness. Behold the reasoning of the physician:—I will purge the sick man, I will nourish him, I will heal him with medicines and with diet, I will extirpate his diseased parts, I will cauterise him. But very often nature has healed the man without these remedies; and very often too has suffered him to die though they were applied: so that the reasonings of the physician have been utterly found out to be dreams, full of all indistinctness and of riddles. Again, the husbandman says,

I will scatter seed, I will plant; the plants shall grow, they shall bear fruit, which shall not only be useful for necessary enjoyment, but which shall also be abundant for superfluity; and then, on a sudden, fire, or a storm, or continued rains, have destroyed everything. But at times man has brought his labours to their due accomplishment, and yet he who formed all these plans has derived no advantage from their being accomplished, but has died before they were accomplished, and has in vain promised himself the enjoyment of the fruits of his labours.

In reference to which he who had dreamed, waking up, found that all the motions and all the advances of the foolish man are merely dreams that have no portion of truth in them, for the very mind is found to be a dream; and the only true doctrine is to believe in God, and to trust to vain reasonings is a mere delusion.Numbers xii. 7. But irrational impulse goes forth and proceeds to each extremity, while both the reasonings and the mind corrupt the truth. On which account, Moses says that fire went out of Heshbon, and flame out of the city of Sihon. So absurd is it to trust either to plausible reasonings, or to the mind which corrupts the truth.

Accordingly, Moses begins presently to lament over the self-satisfied and arrogant mind in this manner: Woe unto thee, O city of Moab! For, if you give attention to the riddles which arise out of the perception of what is probable, you have destroyed the truth by so doing. The people of Chemosh, that is to say, thy people and thy power, have been found to be mutilated and blinded. For Chemosh, being interpreted, means feeling with the hand. And this action is the especial characteristic of one who does not see.

Now, their sons are particular reasonings—exiles; and their opinions are in the place of daughters, being captives to the king of the Amorites, that is to say, of those who converse with the sophist. For the name Amorites, being interpreted, means talkers, being a symbol of the people who talk much; and their guide and leader is the sophist, and he who is skilful in reasoning and clever in investigating arts; a man by whom all those are deceived who once overpass the boundary of truth.

But it was not sufficient for the mind to have its own peculiar evils, which were perceptible only to the intellect; but still the women burnt additional fire, that is to say, the outward senses excited a great conflagration to have an effect upon it. See, now, what the meaning is of what is here said. We who very often by night desist from energizing according to any one of the outward senses, receive absurd impressions respecting many different things, since our souls exist in a state of perpetual motion and are capable of an infinite variety of changes. There were, therefore, things quite sufficient for its destruction which it brought forth out of itself.

But now, as it is, the multitude of the outward senses has brought against it a most incalculable multitude of evils, partly from objects of sight and partly from sounds; and besides that, from flavours and from such essences as affect the sense of smell. And one may almost say that the flavour which arises from them has a more pernicious influence on the disposition of the soul than that which is engendered in the soul itself, without any co-operation or agency of the organs of sense.

On which account Joseph, that is to say, the disposition of continence, says to Pleasure, who accosts him with, Lie with me, and being a man behave as a man, and enjoy the pleasant things which life can afford. He, I say, refuses her, saying, I shall be sinning against God, who loves virtue, if I become a votary of pleasure; for this is a wicked action.

The house, therefore, is the soul, to which he runs, leaving all external affairs, in order that what is spoken of may there be done. But may we not say that the conduct of the temperate man is what it is, and is directed by the will of God? For there was not present any inconsistent idea of all those which are accustomed to find their place within the soul. Moreover, pleasure never ceases from struggling against the yoke, but, seizing hold of his clothes, she cries, Lie with me. Now, clothes are, as it were, the covering of the body, just as life is protected by meat and drink. And she says here, Why do you renounce pleasure, without which you cannot live?

Behold, I take hold of the things which cause it; and I say that you could not possibly exist unless you also made use of some of the things which cause it. What, then, says the temperate man? Shall I, says he, become a slave to passion, on account of the material which causes passion? Nay, I will depart out of reach of the passion. For, leaving his garment in her hand, he fled, and escaped out of doors.

But Joseph, for he is a young man, and because as such he was unable to struggle with the Egyptian body and to subdue pleasure, runs away. But Phineas the priest, who was zealous with a great zeal for God’s service, did not provide for his own safety by flight; but having taken to himself a yoke horse, that is to say, zeal combined with reason, would never desist till he had wounded the Midianitish woman (that is to say the nature which was concealed in the divine company), through her belly,Numbers xxv. 7. in order that no plant or seed of wickedness might ever be able to shoot out from it. On which account after folly has been utterly eradicated, the soul receives a two-fold prize, and a double inheritance, peace and holiness, two kindred and sister-like virtues.

We must therefore refuse to listen to such a woman, that is to say to a wicked temptation of the outward senses, since God gave a good reward to the midwives, Exodus i. 20. because they disregarded the commands of the wasteful Pharaoh, saving the male children of the soul alive, which he wished to destroy, being a lover of the female offspring alone, and rejecting all knowledge of the Cause of all things, and saying, I know him not. Exodus iii. 17.

But we must give our belief to another woman, such as it was ordained that Sarah should be, Sarah being in a figure the governing virtue; and the wise Abraham was guided by her, when she recommended him such actions as were good. Genesis xxi. 12. For before this time, when he was not yet perfect, but even before his name was changed, he gave his attention to subjects of lofty philosophical speculation; and she, knowing that he could not produce anything out of perfect virtue, counselled him to raise children out of her handmaid, that is to say out of encyclical instruction, out of Agar, Genesis xvi. 2. which name being interpreted means a dwelling near; for he who meditates dwelling in perfect virtue, before his name is enrolled among the citizens of that state, dwells among the encyclical studies, in order that through their instrumentality he may make his approaches at liberty towards perfect virtue.

After that, when he saw that he was now become perfect, and was now able to become a father, although he himself was full of gratitude towards those studies, by means of which he had been recommended to virtue, and thought it hard to renounce them; he was well inclined to be appeased by an oracle from God which laid this command on him. In everything which Sarah says, do thou obey her voice. Genesis xxi. 11. Let that be a law to every one of us to do whatever seems good to virtue; for if we are willing to submit to everything which virtue recommends we shall be happy.

therefore it very naturally is not accursed of its own nature, as neither being itself wickedness nor acting according to wickedness, but the earth is accursed in its works: for the actions which proceed from the entire soul, which he calls the earth, are open to blame and devoid of innocence, inasmuch as he does everything in accordance withvice. In reference to which fact God adds, that In sorrow thou shalt eat of it. Which is equivalent to saying, you shall enjoy your soul in sorrow; for the wicked man does enjoy his own soul with great pain the whole of his life, having no legitimate cause for joy; for such cause is only produced by justice and prudence, and by the virtues which are enthroned as companions with them.

You see therefore when it has gone forth, that is to say, irrational impetuosity, it does not only burn the thorns, but finds them: for being inclined to seek out the passions, it attains to what it has been desiring to find; but when it has found it, it consumes these three things, —perfect virtue, improvement, and goodness of disposition. Moses therefore here compares virtue to a threshing-floor; for as the crops when collected are brought to the threshing-floor, so also are the good things which exist in the soul of the wise man brought to virtue; and improvement he likens to the crop of wheat, inasmuch as both the one and the other are imperfect, aiming at the end; and goodness of disposition he compares to a field of corn, because it is well adapted to receive the seeds of virtue;

and each of the passions he calls thistles (τριβόλια), because they are divisible into three parts: the passion itself, the efficient cause, and the effect which arises from the combined operation of the two. As for instance pleasure, what is pleasant, and the being pleased; appetite, the object of appetite, and the indulgence of appetite; pain, what is painful, and the suffering pain; fear, what is fearful, and the being in a state of fear.

And how long shall this last? Until, says God, you return to the dust from which you were taken. For is he not now ranked among the things of the earth, and among things which have no consistency, ever since he deserted the wisdom which is from heaven? We must consider therefore to what point he is coming back; but may we not consider whether what he says has not some such meaning as this, that the foolish mind is at all times averted from right reason, and that it has been originally taken not from any sublime nature, but from some more earthly material, and whether it is stationary, or whether it is in motion, it is always the same, and desirous of the same objects.

On which account, God adds that, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And this is equivalent to what has been said before. Moreover this sentence also signifies, the beginning and the end are one and the same thing. For there hadst thou beginning in the perishable bodies of the earth; and again, thou shalt end in them, during the interval of your life, between its beginning and its end, passing along a road which is not plain and easy, but rough, full of briars and thorns, the nature of which is to tear and wound thee.