“And the heaven and the earth and all their world were completed” (Gen. ii. 1). He had already told of the creation of mind and sense-perception; he now sets out in full the completion of both. He does not say that either the individual mind or the particular sense-perception have reached completion, but that the originals have, the original of mind and the original of sense-perception. For, using symbolic language, he calls the mind heaven, since heaven is the home of natures discerned only by the mind, but sense-perception he calls earth, because sense-perception has a more earthly and bodily composition. “World,” in the case of mind, means all incorporeal things, things discerned by the mind alone: in the case of sense-perception it denotes things in bodily form and generally whatever sense perceives. “And God finished on the sixth day His works which He had made” (Gen. ii. 2). It is quite foolish to think that the world was created in six days or in a space of time at all. Why? Because every period of time is a series of days and nights, and these are produced only by the movement of the sun as it goes over and under the earth: but the sun is a part of heaven, so that time is admittedly younger than the world. It would therefore be correct to say that the world was not made in time, but that time was formed by means of the world, for it was the movement of heaven that revealed the nature of time. So when Moses says, “He finished His work on the sixth day,” we must understand him to be citing not a number of days, but a perfect number, namely six, since it is the first that is equal to the sum of its own fractions ½, ⅓, and ⅙, and is produced by the multiplication of two unequal factors, 2×3; and note that the numbers 2 and 3 have left behind the incorporeal character that belongs to 1, 2 being an image of matter, parted and divided as matter is, while 3 is the image of a solid body, for the solid is capable of a threefold division. What is more, the number 6 is akin to the movements of animals provided with instrumental limbs, for the body equipped with such instruments is so constituted by nature that it can move in six directions, forwards and backwards, upwards and downwards, to the right and to the left. Moses wishes, therefore, to show both the mortal things created and the incorruptible ones as formed in a way that corresponds to their proper numbers. As I have just said, he makes mortal things parallel with the number six, the happy and blessed things with the number seven. First of all, then, on the seventh day the Creator, having finished forming mortal things, begins to shape others that are more divine. For God never leaves off making, but even as it is the property of fire to burn and of snow to chill, so it is the property of God to make:⁠a indeed far more so, since He is the source of action for all other things. Moses, moreover, does well to say “caused to rest” and not “rested”; for He causes to rest what appears to be making but is not actually at work, but He Himself never ceases making. For this reason Moses adds after “He caused to rest” the words “from what He had begun.” For while things produced by human arts stand still when finished and remain as they are, the products of divine skill, when completed, begin to move again; for their endings are the beginnings of other things, as the end of day is the beginning of night, and the beginnings of a month and of a year must naturally be regarded as the limits that close the months and years just past: birth, again, comes about through the decay of other things, and decay through fresh births, showing the truth of the saying: Nothing born will ever die, Its severed parts together fly, And yield another shape. Nature takes delight in the number seven. Thus there are seven planets, the counterweight to the uniform movement of the fixed stars. The bear is complete in seven stars, and it gives rise not only to commerce but to fellowship and unity among men. The changes of the moon, too, occur in sevens: the moon is the heavenly light most in sympathy with earthly matters. And the changes that Nature produces in the atmosphere she brings about mainly through the influence of figures governed by seven. Indeed, all that concerns us mortals has a divine origin drawn from heaven and is for our good when its movement is ruled by seven. Who does not know that seven-month infants are born alive, while those that have taken a longer time, remaining in the womb eight months, are as a rule still-born? And they say that man becomes a reasoning being during his first seven years, by which time he is already capable of expressing ordinary nouns and verbs because he has acquired the reasoning faculty; and that during his second period of seven years he reaches full consummation, by which is meant the power to reproduce his like; for at about the age of fourteen we are able to produce offspring like ourselves. The third period of seven years, again, is the end of growth, for until the age of twenty-one men grow in height, and many call this time a man’s prime. Furthermore the unreasoning side of the soul consists of seven parts: the five senses, the organ of speech, and the genital organ. The body, again, has seven movements, six mechanical, the seventh circular. The internal organs are also seven: stomach, heart, spleen, liver, lung, two kidneys. The divisions of the body are the same in number— head, neck, breast, hands, belly, abdomen, feet. And the face, the living creature’s noblest part, is pierced by seven openings: two eyes, two ears, as many nostrils, and the mouth, which make up seven. The excrements are seven—tears, mucus, spittle, seed, the waste discharged by two ducts, and the sweat that oozes from all over the body. Again, in illness the seventh day is the most critical. And women’s monthly purgings last seven days. The power of this number also extends to the most beneficial of the arts: in grammar, for instance, the best and most effective of the letters, namely the vowels, are seven in number: in music we may fairly call the seven-stringed lyre the best of instruments, because the enharmonic genus, which as we know is the most dignified of those used in melodies, is best brought out when played on that instrument. The modulations in pronunciation are sevenfold—acute, grave, circumflex, aspirated and unaspirated, long, short. Further, seven is the first number after the perfect number six, and in some way identical with the number one. While the other numbers within the decade are either produced by or produce those within the decade and the decade itself, the number seven neither produces any of the numbers within the decade nor is produced by any. For this reason the Pythagoreans, indulging in myth, liken seven to the motherless and ever-virgin Maiden, because she was not born of a womb and will never bear a child. “He rested therefore on the seventh day from all His works which He had made” (Gen. ii. 2). This amounts to saying that God stops moulding mortal masses, whenever He begins to make those that are divine and in keeping with the nature of seven. But interpreted for its bearing on human life and character, the statement means this: whenever the holy Reason of which Seven is the keynote comes upon the soul, six comes to a stop, together with all the mortal things that the soul seems to make with it. “And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it” (Gen. ii. 3). God both blesses and at once makes holy the dispositions set in motion in harmony with the seventh and truly Divine light, for the character charged with blessing and the character that is holy are closely akin. That is why, when dealing with the man who has vowed the great vow, he says that, if a change suddenly comes over him and defiles his mind, he shall no longer be holy, but “the preceding days are not counted.” And rightly so, for the character that is not holy is vile, of no account, so that the character well thought of is holy. He was right, then, to say that God both blessed and hallowed the seventh day, “because in it He ceased from all His works which God began to make” (Gen. ii. 3). But the reason the man who guides himself by the seventh and perfect light is both of good understanding and holy is that the formation of mortal things ceases with this day’s advent. For this is how the matter stands: when that most brilliant and truly divine light of virtue has dawned, the creation of what is contrary in nature comes to a stop. But we pointed out that God, when ceasing, or rather causing to cease, does not stop making, but begins the creating of other things, since He is not a mere craftsman, but also Father of the things that are coming into being. “This book is the book of the origin of heaven and earth, when it came into being” (Gen. ii. 4). (That is to say): “This perfect Reason, moving in accord with the number 7, is the first origin both of the mind ordering itself by the original patterns, and of sense-perception in the domain of mind (if the expression is permissible) ordering itself by those originals.” “Book” is Moses’ name for the Reason of God, in which the formation of everything else has been inscribed and engraved. But so that you may not suppose that the Deity makes anything in definite periods of time, but may know that to mortals the process of creation is unobserved, unseen, incomprehensible, he adds, “When it came into being,” not defining “when” by a determining limit, for the things that come into being under the hand of the First Cause come into being with no determining limit. So much, then, for the notion that the universe came into being in six days. “In the day in which God made the heaven and the earth and every green thing of the field before it appeared upon the earth and all grass of the field before it sprang up; for God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth” (Gen. ii. 4, 5). Earlier he called this day a book, for he describes the creation of heaven and earth as taking place in both: for by His own supremely manifest and far-shining Reason God makes both of them, both the original of the mind, which in symbolic language he calls “heaven,” and the original of sense-perception, which he figuratively named “earth.” And he compares the original of the mind and the original of sense-perception to two fields; for they bear fruit, the mind all that is done in thinking, sense-perception all that is done in perceiving. What he means is something like this. Just as before the particular and individual mind there exists a certain original as an archetype and pattern of it, and again before the particular sense-perception, a certain original of sense-perception related to the particular as a seal that makes an impression is to the form it makes; so, before the individual objects of intellectual perception came into being, there existed as a genus the ‘intellectually-perceptible’ itself, by participation in which the members of the genus have received their name; and before the individual objects of sense-perception came into existence, there existed as a genus the ‘sensibly-perceptible’ itself, by sharing in whose being all other objects of sense have become objects of sense. “Green of the field,” then, is his term for the “intellectually-perceptible” of the mind; for just as green things spring up and bloom in a field, so the ‘intellectually-perceptible’ is a growth springing from the mind. Before, then, the particular ‘intellectually-perceptible’ came into being, the Creator produces the solely abstract ‘intellectually-perceptible,’ as a generic existence. He rightly calls this “all,” for the particular ‘intellectually-perceptible,’ being a fragment, is not all, but the generic is, being a complete whole. “And all the grass of the field” he says, “before it sprang up,” that is to say, before the particular objects of sense sprang up, there existed by the Maker’s forethought the generic ‘sensibly-perceptible,’ and it is this that he again calls “all.” His comparison of the ‘sensibly-perceptible’ to grass is natural enough. For as grass is the food of a creature devoid of reason, so the ‘sensibly-perceptible’ has been assigned to the unreasoning part of the soul. Otherwise why, after first saying “green of the field,” does he go on to say, “and all grass,” as if it were impossible for green of the field to come up as grass? The fact is, “the green of the field” is the ‘intellectually-perceptible,’ an outgrowth of the mind, but the “grass” is the ‘sensibly-perceptible,’ itself in turn a growth of the unreasoning part of the soul. He goes on “for God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.” These words reveal a deep knowledge of the laws of being. For if God does not shower upon the senses the means of apprehending objects presented to them, neither will the mind have anything to “work” or take in hand in the field of sense-perception. For the mind by itself is without employment when the Cause of all things does not pour down, like rain and moisture, colours on the sight, sounds on the hearing, savours on the taste, and their proper objects on the other senses. But as soon as God has begun to water sense with objects of sense, at that moment the mind too is found to be a tiller of rich soil, so to speak. The original of ‘sense-perception’ has no need of nourishment; but the nourishment of ‘sense-perception,’ which he figuratively calls “rain,” is the particular objects of sense, which of course are bodies; whereas an original has nothing to do with bodies. Thus before the creation of particular concrete substances, God did not rain on the original idea of sense-perception, which Moses calls “earth,” and this means that He supplied it with no food: for it had absolutely no need of any sensible object of perception. The meaning of the words, “and there was not a man to work the ground,” is this: the original idea of the mind did not work the original idea of sense-perception: for my mind like yours works the sense-perception through the objects of the senses, but the original idea of the mind, since of course no particular body proper to it existed, does not work the original idea of ‘sense-perception’: for if it were working it, it would be doing so by means of the objects of sense, but among original ideas there is no such thing as an object of sense. “And a spring went up out of the earth and watered all the face of the earth” (Gen. ii. 6). He calls the mind a “spring” of the earth, and the senses its “face,” because Nature, exercising forethought in all things, assigned them this place, out of the whole body, as the most suitable for their special activities: and the mind like a spring waters the senses, sending to each of them the streams suitable to it. See then, how, like links in a chain, the powers of the living creature hold on to each other; for of the three, mind, ‘sense-perception’ and object of sense, ‘sense-perception’ is in the middle, while mind and object of sense occupy each extreme. But neither does the mind have the power to work, that is, to put forth its energies by way of ‘sense-perception,’ unless God sends the object of sense as rain upon it; nor is any benefit gained from the object of sense when it is rained down in this way, unless, like a spring, the mind, extending itself to reach the ‘sense-perception,’ stirs it out of its repose to grasp the object presented to it. Thus the mind and the object of sense are always practising a reciprocity of giving, the one lying ready for sense-perception as its material, the other, like a craftsman, moving sense-perception in the direction of the external object, to produce an impulse towards it. For the living creature excels the non-living in two respects, in the power of receiving impressions and in the active impulse towards the object producing them. The impression is produced by the drawing near of the external object, as it stamps the mind through sense-perception; while the active impulse, closely akin to the power already mentioned, comes about by way of the mind’s power of self-extension, which it exercises through sense-perception, and so comes into touch with the object presented to it, and goes towards it, striving to reach and seize it. “And God formed the man by taking clay from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (Gen. ii. 7). There are two types of men; one a heavenly man, the other an earthly⁠b one. The heavenly man, being made after the image of God, has no share at all in corruptible and terrestrial substance; but the earthly one was put together out of the matter scattered here and there, which Moses calls “clay.” For this reason he says that the heavenly man was not moulded, but was stamped with the image of God; while the earthly is a moulded work of the Craftsman, but not His offspring. We must regard the man made out of the earth as mind mingling with, but not yet blended with, body. But this earthlike mind would in reality also be corruptible if God did not breathe into it a power of real life; when He does so, it no longer undergoes moulding, but becomes a soul, not an inefficient and imperfectly formed soul, but one endowed with mind and actually alive; for he says, “man became a living soul.” One might ask why God thought the earthly and body-loving mind worthy of divine breath at all, but not the mind which had been created after the original, and after His own image; in the second place, what “breathed in” means; thirdly, why the breathing is “into the face”; fourthly, why, though he shows his knowledge of the word ‘spirit’ when he says “and the Spirit of God was borne above the water” (Gen. i. 2), he now says “breath” not “spirit.” In answer to the first question, one thing to say is that God loves to give, and so bestows good things on all, even those who are not perfect, at the same time encouraging them to a zeal for virtue, and a participation in it, by displaying His own overflowing wealth, and how there is abundance even for those who will derive no great benefit from it. This characteristic He shows very clearly in other instances also. For when He rains upon the sea, and causes springs to gush forth in the depths of the desert, and waters the poor and rough and barren soil, pouring on it rivers with their overflowings, what else does He prove but the exceeding greatness of His own wealth and goodness? This is why He created no soul barren of virtue, even if the exercise of it is to some impossible. A second thing to say is this. It is His will to make compliance with positive ordinances part of duty. Someone, then, into whom real life had not been breathed, and who had no experience of virtue, would have said when punished for his transgressions that he was being unjustly punished, since it was through inexperience of the good that he failed in it, and that the blame lay with Him who had failed to breathe into him any conception of it. More than that, he will perhaps say that he does not sin at all, if (as some say) involuntary acts and acts done in ignorance do not count as wrong deeds. “Breathed into,” we note, is equivalent to “inspired” or “be-souled” the soulless; for God forbid that we should be infected with such monstrous folly as to think that God uses organs such as a mouth or nostrils for inbreathing; for God is not only not in the form of man, but belongs to no class or kind. Yet the expression clearly brings out something that accords with nature. For it necessarily implies three things, what inbreathes, what receives, and what is inbreathed: what inbreathes is God, what receives is the mind, and what is inbreathed is the spirit or breath. What, then, do we infer from these premises? A union of the three comes about, as God projects the power that proceeds from Himself through the intermediate breath until it reaches the subject. And for what purpose, if not so that we may form a conception of Him? For how could the soul have conceived of God, if He had not breathed into it and mightily laid hold of it? For the mind of man would never have ventured to soar so high as to grasp 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 stamped it with the impress of the powers that are within the scope of its understanding. The breathing “into the face” is to be understood both physically and ethically: physically, because it is in the face that He set the senses; for this part of the body is endowed with soul beyond the other parts: but ethically, in this way. As the face is the dominant element in the body, so the mind is the dominant element of the soul:⁠c God breathes into this alone, while He does not see fit to do so with the other parts, whether senses or organs of utterance and of reproduction; for these are secondary in capacity. What, then, inspired these too? By the mind, evidently. For the mind imparts to the portion of the soul that is devoid of reason a share of that which it has received from God, so that the mind was be-souled by God, but the unreasoning part by the mind. For the mind is, so to speak, God of the unreasoning part. In the same way he does not hesitate to speak of Moses as “a God to Pharaoh” (Exod. vii. 1). For of the things which come into being some come into being both by God’s power and through God’s agency, while others come into being by God’s power but not by His agency. The most excellent things were made both by God and through God. For example, he will shortly say, “God planted a garden” (Gen. ii. 8): the mind belongs to these; but the part devoid of reason was made by God’s power but not by God’s agency, but by the agency of the reasonable power which rules and holds dominion in the soul. He uses the word ‘breath’ not ‘spirit,’ implying a difference between them; for ‘spirit’ is conceived of as connoting strength and vigour and power, while a ‘breath’ is like an air or a peaceful and gentle vapour. The mind that was made after the image and original might be said to partake of spirit, for its reasoning faculty possesses robustness; but the mind that was made out of matter must be said to partake of the light and less substantial air, as of some exhalation, like those that rise from spices: for even if they are kept and not burned as incense, they still give off a sweet perfume. “And God planted a garden in Eden toward the sun-rising, and placed there the man whom He had formed” (Gen. ii. 8). By using many words for it Moses has already made it clear that the sublime and heavenly wisdom has many names; for he calls it “beginning” and “image” and “vision of God”; and now by the planting of the garden he brings out the fact that earthly wisdom is a copy of this as its archetype. May human reasoning never fall victim to so great an impiety as to suppose that God tills the soil and plants gardens. We would at once be at a loss to say what motive He could have for doing so. It could not be to provide Himself with pleasant refreshment and comfort. Let such fables not even enter our mind. For not even the whole world would be a place fit for God to make His abode, since God is His own place, and He is filled by Himself, and sufficient for Himself, filling and containing all other things in their destitution and barrenness and emptiness, but Himself contained by nothing else, since He is Himself One and the Whole. Well then, God sows and plants earthly excellence for the race of mortals as a copy and reproduction of the heavenly. For, pitying our race and noting that it is made up of a rich abundance of ills, He caused earthly excellence to strike root, to bring relief and aid to the diseases of the soul. It is, as I said before, a copy of the heavenly and archetypal excellence, to which Moses gives many names. Virtue is figuratively called “garden,” and the locality specially suited to the garden “Eden,” which means “luxury”; excellence of course has peace and welfare and joy as its fitting companions, in which true luxury consists. Again the planting of the garden is “towards the sun-rising,” for right reason neither sets nor is quenched, but its nature is always to rise, and, I take it, just as the sun when it has risen fills the gloom of the atmosphere with light, so virtue also, when it has risen in the soul, illumines its mist and disperses its deep darkness. “And He placed there” it says, “the man whom He had formed.” For God, being good and training our race to virtue as the operation most proper to it, places the mind amid virtue, evidently so that as a good gardener it may spend its care on nothing else but this. Now one might ask, “Why, since imitating God’s works is a pious act, am I forbidden to plant a grove by the altar, while God plants the garden?” For it says, “You shall not plant yourself a grove: you shall not make to yourself any wood by the side of the altar of the Lord your God” (Deut. xvi. 21). What then are we to say? That it is fitting for God to plant and to build virtues in the soul, but that the mind shows itself to be without God and full of self-love, when it considers itself on a par with God; and, though passivity is its true part, regards itself as an agent. When God sows and plants noble qualities in the soul, the mind that says “I plant” is guilty of impiety. You shall not plant, therefore, whenever God is tending His plants. But if you do set plants in the soul, mind, set only fruit-bearing plants. Do not set a grove, for in a grove there are both wild and cultivated trees. And to plant in the soul barren wickedness by the side of cultivated and fruit-yielding virtue is like leprosy with its twofold growths and blending of discordant hues. If, however, you do bring into the same place things that are heterogeneous and cannot be mixed, let them be separate and distinct from the pure and unsullied growth that offers up fruits free from blemish to God. And it is such a growth that is meant by the altar of sacrifice: for it is a violation of this to say that anything is the (independent) work of the soul, since there is nothing there that does not refer to God. To say that is to mingle the barren with the fruit-bearing. And this is a blemish, whereas only things without blemish are offered to God. If then you transgress in any of these respects, soul, you will injure yourself, not God; that is why it says “you shall not plant to yourself”; for no one does such tillage for God, above all when the plants are bad ones; and it goes on to say, “you shall not make to yourself.” It also says in another case, “You shall not make together with Me gods of silver, and gods of gold you shall not make to yourselves” (Exod. xx. 23). For whoever thinks either that God belongs to a type, or that He is not one, or that He is not unoriginate and incorruptible, or that He is not incapable of change, wrongs himself, not God; for it says, “to yourselves you shall not make”; for we must hold that He belongs to no type, and that He is One and incorruptible and unchangeable. Whoever does not conceive of Him in this way infects his own soul with a false and godless opinion. Do you not see that, even if He brings us into virtue and even if, when brought in, we plant no fruitless thing but “every tree good for food,” He still commands us “thoroughly to cleanse its uncleanness” (Lev. xix. 23)? And this means the notion that we are planting, for it is the cutting away of self-conceit that He demands, and self-conceit is in its nature unclean. Speaking here of the man whom God moulded, it merely says that He “placed him in the garden.” Who, then, is the man of whom it says later on “The Lord God took the man whom He had made, and placed him in the garden to till it and to guard it” (Gen. ii. 15)? It would seem then that this is a different man, the one that was made after the image and archetype, so that two men are introduced into the garden, the one a moulded being, the other “after the image.” The one made according to the original, then, has his sphere not only in the planting of virtues but is also their tiller and guardian, and that means that he is mindful of all that he heard and practised in his training; but the “moulded” man neither tills the virtues nor guards them, but is only introduced to the truths by the rich bounty of God, soon to be an exile from virtue. For this reason in describing the man whom God only places in the garden, Moses uses the word “moulded,” but he does not speak of the man whom He appoints both tiller and guardian as “moulded,” but says “whom He had made”; and the one He receives, and the other He casts out. And He confers on the one He receives three gifts, which constitute natural ability, facility in apprehending, persistence in doing, tenacity in keeping. Facility in apprehending is the placing in the garden, persistence in doing is the practice of noble deeds, and tenacity in keeping is guarding the holy precepts and retaining them in memory. But the “moulded” mind neither keeps in mind nor carries out in action the things that are noble, but has facility in apprehending them and no more than this. Accordingly after being placed in the garden he soon runs away and is cast out. “And God caused to spring out of the ground every tree beautiful to see and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. ii. 9). Moses now indicates what trees of virtue God plants in the soul. These are the several particular virtues, and the corresponding activities, and the complete moral victories, and what philosophers call καθήκοντα or common duties. These are the plants of the garden. He describes the character of these very plants, showing that what is good is also most fair to be seen and enjoyed. For some of the arts and sciences are indeed theoretical but not practical, such as geometry and astronomy, and some are practical, but not theoretical, as the arts of the carpenter and coppersmith, and all that are called mechanical; but virtue is both theoretical and practical; for clearly it involves theory, since philosophy, the road that leads to it, involves it through its three parts, logic, ethics, physics; and it involves conduct, for virtue is the art of the whole of life, and life includes all kinds of conduct. But while virtue involves theory and practice, it is also of surpassing excellence in each respect; for indeed the theory of virtue is perfect in beauty, and the practice and exercise of it a prize to be striven for. Therefore he says that it is both “beautiful to look upon,” an expression signifying its aspect as theory, and “good to eat,” words which point to its excellence in exercise and practice. The tree of life is virtue in the most comprehensive sense, which some call goodness. From it the particular virtues derive their existence. That is why it is also set in the middle of the garden, occupying the central, all-embracing position, so that, like a king, it may be attended by those on either side as by bodyguards. But some say that it is the heart that is called the tree of life, since it is the cause of life and has been allotted the central place in the body, as it naturally would, being in their view the dominating principle. But these people should remember that they are putting forward a view worthy of a physician rather than a philosopher, while we, as we have said, maintain that virtue in its most generic aspect is called the tree of life. He expressly says that this tree is in the middle of the garden, but as for the other tree, the tree of knowing good and evil, he has not made it clear whether it is inside or outside the garden, but immediately after the words, “and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” he comes to a stop without making it clear where it was. He is silent because he wants to keep the man untrained in natural philosophy from marvelling at the spot where that knowledge dwells. What, then, must we say? That this tree is both in the garden and outside it: literally in it, virtually outside it. How so? Our dominant part is all-receptive and resembles wax that receives every impression, beautiful and ugly; so Jacob the supplanter acknowledges this, saying, “Upon me came all these things” (Gen. xlii. 36); for the countless impressions of all things in the universe are borne upon the soul, though it is only one. Whenever, then, it has received the stamp of perfect virtue, it at once becomes the tree of life, but when it receives the stamp of wickedness, it at once becomes the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But wickedness has been exiled from the divine choir. So the ruling part in us that has received it is actually in the garden, for it also has in it the stamp of virtue, which properly belongs to the garden; but on the other hand it is virtually not in it, because the impress of wickedness is alien to a place of divine sun-rising. You may grasp what I mean in this way. At this moment my ruling part is literally in my body, but virtually in Italy or Sicily when it is thinking about these countries, and in heaven, when it is considering heaven. Accordingly it often happens that people who are actually in unconsecrated spots are really in most sacred ones, when they are forming images of everything that belongs to virtue. Others, on the other hand, who are in consecrated spots are profane in mind, because their mind admits bad impressions and inclinations toward what is unworthy. So wickedness is neither in the garden nor not in it, for it can be there actually, but virtually it cannot. “A river goes forth from Eden to water the garden: from there it is separated into four heads; the name of the one is Pheison; this is the one that encircles all the land of Evilat, there where the gold is; and the gold of that land is good; and there is the ruby and the emerald. And the name of the second river is Geon; this encompasses all the land of Aethiopia. And the third river is Tigris; this is the one whose course runs in front of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates” (Gen. ii. 10-14). By these rivers he means to indicate the particular virtues. There are four of them: prudence, self-mastery, courage and justice. The largest river, of which the four are effluxes, is generic virtue, which we have called “goodness.” The four effluxes are the four virtues. Generic virtue takes its start from Eden, the wisdom of God, which is full of joy, and brightness, and exultation, glorying and taking pride only in God its Father; but the specific virtues, four in number, are derived from generic virtue, which like a river waters the perfect achievements of each of them with an abundant flow of noble doings. Let us also look at the particular words used. “A river,” it says “issues forth from Eden to water the garden.” “River” is generic virtue, goodness. This issues forth out of Eden, the wisdom of God, and this is the Reason of God; for generic virtue has been made after that. And generic virtue waters the garden, that is, it waters the particular virtues. He takes “Heads” in the sense not of locality but of sovereignty. For each of the virtues is truly a sovereign and a queen. “Is separated” means the same as “has boundaries to define it.” Prudence, concerned with things to be done, sets boundaries around them; courage around things to be endured; self-mastery around things to be chosen; justice around things to be awarded. “The name of the one is Pheison. This is the one that encompasses all the land of Evilat, there where the gold is; and the gold of that land is good; and there is the ruby and the emerald.” One species of the four virtues is prudence, which he has called “Pheison” because it is “sparing” and guards the soul from wrongdoing. And it encircles the land of Evilat in its ring; that is to say, it carefully cherishes the kindly, gentle and gracious disposition; and just as gold is the most excellent and most approved of all smelted substances, so prudence is the most approved virtue of the soul. And the words, “there where (or ‘whose’) the gold is” are not a mere piece of local information, there where the gold is, but mean there (is He) whose the treasure is, namely prudence, gleaming like gold, tried by the fire, and precious; and prudence is acknowledged to be God’s fairest treasure. And where prudence dwells there are two corresponding concrete embodiments: the man who is prudent and the man who exercises prudence. He likens these to the ruby and the emerald. “And the name of the second river is Geon; this encircles all the land of Ethiopia.” This river figuratively represents courage; for the word Geon means ‘breast’ or ‘butting’; and each of these indicates courage; for it dwells in men's breasts, where the heart also is, and it is fully equipped for self-defence; for it is the knowledge of things that we ought to endure and not to endure, and of things that fall under neither heading. And it encompasses and beleaguers Ethiopia, whose name, when interpreted, means ‘lowness’; and cowardice is a low thing, while courage is an enemy to lowness and cowardice. “And the third river is Tigris; this is the one whose course runs opposite the Assyrians.” Self-mastery is the third virtue, and takes its stand against pleasure, which thinks that it can direct the course of human weakness; for in the Greek language “Assyrians” means ‘directing.’ He further compares desire, with which self-mastery is occupied, to a tiger, the animal least capable of being tamed. It is worth inquiring why courage is mentioned in the second place, self-mastery in the third, and prudence in the first, and why he has not given the virtues in a different order. We must observe, then, that our soul is threefold, and has one part that is the seat of reason, another that is the seat of high spirit, and another that is the seat of desire. And we discover that the head is the place and abode of the reasonable part, the breast of the passionate part, the abdomen of the lustful part; and that to each of the parts a virtue proper to it has been attached; prudence to the reasonable part, for it belongs to reason to know the things we ought to do and the things we ought not to do; courage to the passionate part; and self-mastery to the lustful part. For it is by self-mastery that we heal and cure our desires. As, then, the head is the first and highest part of the living creature, the breast the second, and the abdomen the third, and again in the soul the reasoning faculty is first, the high-spirited second, the lustful third: so too among the virtues prudence is first, since it has its sphere in the first part of the soul which is the domain of reason, and in the first part of the body, namely the head; courage is second, for it has its seat in high spirit, the second part of the soul, and in the breast, the corresponding part of the body; and self-mastery is third, for its sphere of action is the abdomen, which is of course the third part of the body, and the lustful faculty, which has been assigned the third place in the soul. “The fourth river,” he says, “is Euphrates.” “Euphrates” means ‘fruitfulness,’ and is a figurative name for the fourth virtue, justice, a truly fruitful virtue that brings gladness to the mind. When, then, does it appear? When the three parts of the soul are in harmony. For them, harmony is the dominance of the more excellent part; for instance, when the two, the high-spirited and the lustful, are guided by the reasoning faculty as horses by their driver, then justice emerges; for it is justice for the better to rule always and everywhere, and for the worse to be ruled: and the reasoning faculty is better, the lustful and the high-spirited are inferior. Whenever, on the other hand, high spirit and desire turn restive and get out of hand, and by the violence of their momentum drag the driver, that is, the reason, down from his seat and put him under the yoke, and each of these passions gets hold of the reins, injustice prevails. For when the driver is bad and unskilled, the team cannot help being swept down precipices and gullies, just as experience and skill must necessarily bring it safely through. Let us go on to look at our subject in this way. “Pheison” signifies ‘alteration of mouth,’ and “Evilat” ‘in labour’: and these plainly indicate prudence. For while most people consider a man prudent if he can find sophistical arguments and is clever at expressing his ideas, Moses knows that such a man is indeed a lover of words, but by no means a prudent man. For prudence is discerned in “alteration of the mouth,” that is, in the word of utterance undergoing a transformation. This comes to the same thing as saying that prudence is not seen in speech but in action and earnest doings. And prudence surrounds Evilat, or “folly in labour,” with an encircling wall, to besiege and overthrow it. “Labouring” is a name strictly appropriate to folly, because the foolish mind, being enamoured of things out of its reach, is always in labour pangs. This is so whether it is enamoured of money, of glory, of pleasure or of anything else. But, though in labour, it never brings to birth, for the soul of the worthless man does not by nature have the power to bring forth any offspring. What it seems to produce turns out to be wretched abortions and miscarriages, devouring half of its flesh, an evil tantamount to the death of the soul. Accordingly Aaron, the sacred word, begs Moses, the beloved of God, to heal the change in Miriam, so that her soul may not be in labour with evils; and so he says “Let her not become as one dead, as an abortion coming forth from the womb of a mother; consuming half of her flesh” (Num. xii. 12). To resume. “There,” it says, “where (or ‘whose’) the gold is” (Gen. ii. 11). It does not merely say that the gold is there, but “there (is He) ‘whose’ it is.” For prudence, which he has likened to gold, a substance free from alloy and pure and cleansed by fire and tested and precious, is there in the wisdom of God, but, being there, is not a possession of wisdom, but of Him to whom wisdom itself also belongs, namely God, Who created it and makes it His. “Now the gold of that land is good.” “Is there, then, other gold that is not good?” Yes, indeed, for there are two kinds of prudence, one universal, the other particular. The prudence that is in me, being particular, is not good, for when I perish, it perishes together with me. But the universal prudence, whose abode is the wisdom of God and His dwelling-place, is good, for, being imperishable itself, it abides in an imperishable dwelling-place. “And there is the ruby and the greenstone” (ibid.), the two concrete embodiments of this virtue, the man who has good sense, and the man who exercises good sense: in the one the determining quality is potential good sense, in the other it is good sense exercised. For it was for the sake of these concretes that God sowed in the earth-born man good sense (in particular) and virtue (in general). For what benefit would there have been in virtue if the activities of reason had not been ready to welcome it and receive its impressions? So, naturally, where good sense is, there are both the man who has good sense and the man who exercises good sense, the two precious stones. Judah and Issachar seem to be these. For the man who exercises himself in the practical wisdom of God gratefully acknowledges Him who gave good things without limit; while the representative of the other aspect is furthermore engaged in noble and worthy works. Judah is the symbol of the man who makes confession of thankfulness, with whose birth Leah leaves off bearing (Gen. xxix. 35); but Issachar is the figure of him who is engaged in noble deeds, “for he submitted his shoulder to labour and became a tiller of the soil” (Gen. xlix. 15). In his case, as Moses says, when he has been sown and planted in the soul “there is a reward” (Gen. xxx. 18), that is to say his labour is not in vain, but crowned by God and awarded a recompense. He shows elsewhere that he is referring to these patriarchs, when he says of the high-priestly garment, “And you shall weave together in it precious stones in fourfold order: there shall be a row of precious stones, sardius, topaz, smaragdus, making the one row”—Reuben, Simeon, Levi—“and the second row” it says “ruby and sapphire” (Exod. xxviii. 17 f.): but the sapphire is a green stone. Now Judah is engraved in the ruby, for he is fourth in order, and Issachar on the sapphire. Why then, while saying “a green stone,” does he not also say, “a ruby stone”? Because Judah, the disposition prone to make confession of praise, is exempt from body and matter. For indeed the very word denoting confession (of praise) vividly portrays the acknowledgement that takes a man out of himself. For whenever the mind goes out from itself and offers itself up to God, as Isaac or “laughter,” does, then it makes confession of acknowledgement to the Existent One. But so long as the mind supposes itself to be the author of anything, it is far away from making room for God and from confessing or making acknowledgement to Him. For we must take note that the very confession of praise itself is the work not of the soul but of God who gives it thankfulness. Judah with his confession of praise is certainly incorporeal. But Issachar, who has advanced through labour, accordingly needs a material body. For how can the keen endeavourer read without eyes? How can he hear the words of encouragement without ears? How can he eat food and drink without a stomach and its wonderful processes? That is why he is likened to a stone. Yes, and the colours differ. The hue of the ruby belongs to him who makes confession of praise, for he is permeated by fire in giving thanks to God, and is drunk with a sober drunkenness. But the hue of the green stone suits him who is still labouring, for men in exercise and training are pale, both because of the wearing labour and because of the fear that they might not obtain the result they pray for. It is worth inquiring why, while the two rivers Pheison and Geon encompass countries, the one Evilat, the other Ethiopia, neither of the others does so; but the Tigris is said to be opposite the Assyrians, and the Euphrates is not said to be opposite anything; and yet as a matter of fact the Euphrates both flows around many countries and has many facing it. But the subject of the passage is not the river, but amendment of character. We must observe, then, that prudence and courage are able to construct an enclosing wall against the opposite vices, folly and cowardice, and capture them; for they are both of them weak and easy to take, for the foolish man falls easy victim to the prudent man, and the coward is at the mercy of the brave man; self-mastery on the contrary is powerless to encircle desire and pleasure; for they are hard to wrestle with and difficult to overthrow. Do you not notice that even the most self-controlled men, compelled by the mortal element in them, resort to food and drink, out of which the pleasures of the appetite develop? So we must be content to face and fight lust as a principle. That is why the river Tigris is opposite the Assyrians: self-mastery is opposite pleasure. Justice, however, the characteristic of the river Euphrates, neither besieges and encircles anyone with a palisade, nor withstands anyone in conflict. Why? Because it is the function of justice to assign to each what he deserves, and justice plays the part not of prosecutor or defendant but of judge. Just as the judge, therefore, makes it his business neither to conquer anyone nor to wage war on anyone and oppose them, but pronounces a judgement and awards what is just, so too justice, being nobody’s opponent, accords to each matter what it merits. “And the Lord God took the man whom He had made, and placed him in the garden to till and to guard it” (Gen. ii. 15). “The man whom God made” differs, as I have said before, from the one that “was moulded”: for the one that was moulded is the more earthly mind, the one that was made is the less material, having no part in perishable matter, endowed with a constitution of a purer and clearer kind. This pure mind, then, God takes, not allowing it to go outside of Himself, and, having taken it, sets it among the virtues that have roots and put forth shoots, so that he may till them and guard them. For many, after beginning to practise virtue, have changed in the end: but on the man to whom God affords secure knowledge, He grants both advantages: tilling the virtues, and never giving them up but always tending and guarding each one of them. So “tilling” represents practising, while “guarding” represents remembering. “And the Lord God commanded Adam saying: From every tree that is in the garden you shall feedingly eat, but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it: and in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. ii. 16, 17). We must ask which Adam He is commanding and who he is; for the writer has not mentioned him before, but has named him now for the first time. Perhaps, then, he means to give us the name of the man that was moulded. “Call him earth” he says, for that is the meaning of “Adam,” so that when you hear the word “Adam,” you must understand that it is the earthly and perishable mind; for the mind that was made after the image is not earthly but heavenly. And we must ask why, when Adam assigned names to all the other creatures, he did not assign one to himself. What, then, are we to say? The mind that is in each one of us can apprehend other objects, but is incapable of knowing itself. For just as the eye sees other objects but does not see itself, so the mind too perceives other objects, but does not apprehend itself. Can it say what it is and what kind of thing it is: breath or blood or fire or air or anything else? Can it even say whether it is a body or incorporeal? Are they not simpletons, then, who inquire about God’s substance? For how could those who do not know the substance of their own soul have accurate ideas about the soul of the universe? For we may conceive of God as the soul of the universe. Quite naturally, therefore, Adam, that is, the Mind, though he names and apprehends other things, gives no name to himself, since he is ignorant of himself and his own nature. It is to this being, and not to the being created after His image and after the original idea, that God gives the command. For the latter, even without urging, possesses virtue instinctively; but the former, without instruction, could have no part in wisdom. There is a difference between these three—injunction, prohibition, command accompanied by exhortation. For prohibition deals with wrongdoings and is addressed to the bad man, injunction concerns duties rightly done, and exhortation is addressed to the neutral man, the man who is neither bad nor good: for he is neither sinning, so that anyone should forbid him, nor doing right as right reason commands, but needs exhortation, which teaches him to refrain from evil things, and incites him to aim at things noble. There is no need, then, to give injunctions or prohibitions or exhortations to the perfect man formed after the (Divine) image, for the perfect man requires none of these. The bad man needs injunction and prohibition, and the child of exhortation and teaching. In the same way the perfect master of music or letters requires none of the directions that apply to those arts, whereas the man who stumbles over the subjects of his study does require what we may call laws or rules with their injunctions and prohibitions, while one who is now beginning to learn requires teaching. Quite naturally, then, God gives the commandments and exhortations before us to the earthly man who is neither bad nor good but midway between these. To enforce the exhortation, both Divine titles are employed, both “Lord” and “God,” for it says “God the Lord commanded him.” This is so that, if he obeys the exhortations, he may be judged worthy by God of His benefactions; but that, if he rebels, he may be driven from the presence of the Lord who has a Master’s authority over him. For this reason again, when he is being cast out of the garden, the sacred writer has introduced the same titles, for he says, “And the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of delight, to till the ground, out of which he was taken” (Gen. iii. 23). This is to show that, since “the Lord” as Master and “God” as Benefactor had issued the commands, so in both capacities He inflicts punishment on the one who had disobeyed them. For he dismisses the disobedient by exercising the very powers He had exercised in urging him to obedience. The charge which he gives is this: “From every tree that is in the garden you shall eat feedingly on it” (Gen. ii. 16). He moves the soul of the man to benefit, not from a single tree or from a single virtue but from all the virtues: for eating is a figure of soul-nourishment: and the soul is nourished by the acquisition of things noble, and the practice of right things. And He does not merely say “shall eat,” but also “feedingly,” that is, chewing and masticating the nourishment, not like an ordinary person, but like an athlete, so that you may gain strength and power: for, as we know, the trainers charge the athletes not to bolt their food, but to masticate it slowly, in order that they may grow stronger. For the athlete and I take nourishment with different aims: I just to sustain life, the athlete also to grow brawny and strong; and so mastication of food is a special point in training. Such is the meaning of “you shall eat feedingly on it.” Let us try to form a yet more precise conception of it. To honour our parents is something eatable and nutritious: but good and bad sons honour them differently, the bad ones in compliance with custom, and these do not “eat feedingly,” but simply eat. When, then, do they eat feedingly too? When, after exploring the precept and searching for the grounds on which it rests, they freely determine that such conduct is noble. The grounds for it are such as these: they gave us birth, nurtured us, educated us, have been authors of all good things to us. Again, honour shown to the Existent One is something eatable; it is shown “feedingly,” when the honour we show is coupled with close search into the precept, and with a due appreciation of its motives. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. ii. 17). Therefore this tree is not in the garden: for if He tells them to eat of every tree in the garden, but not to eat of this one, it is evident that it is not in the garden: and this is quite naturally so: for actually, as I have said, it is there, and virtually it is not. For as all the impressions are virtually in the wax, but actually only the one that has been made, so in the soul, whose nature is waxlike, all the types are contained virtually, but not in actual execution, and the single one engraved in it holds possession as long as it has not been obliterated by another seal which has made over it a clearer and bolder impression. Next, there is a further question to raise. When He is giving the charge to eat of every tree of the garden, He addresses the command to a single person, but when He issues the prohibition against making any use of what causes evil and good, He speaks to more than one: for in the former case He says, “You shall eat from every tree” [singular]; but in the latter, “you shall not eat, and in the day that you eat” [plural] not “that you eat,” [singular] and “you shall die” [plural] not “you shall die.” [singular]. We must accordingly remark in the first place that the good is scarce, the evil abundant. Hence it is hard to find a single wise man, while inferior men are a countless multitude. Quite fittingly, therefore, He tells a single man to find nourishment in the virtues, but many to abstain from evil-doing, for myriads practise this. In the second place, for the acquisition and practice of virtue a single thing only, namely our understanding, is required: but the body not only fails to co-operate to this end, but is an actual hindrance; for we may almost make it an axiom that the business of wisdom is to become estranged from the body and its cravings: but for the enjoyment of evil it is necessary not only that the mind be in a certain condition, but also the power of perception and of speech, in fact the body; for the inferior man requires all these for the full satisfaction of his particular form of wickedness. For how can he divulge sacred and hidden truths unless he has an organ of speech? And how is he to indulge in pleasures, if he lacks a stomach and the organs of taste? So it is in accordance with the necessities of the case that He addresses the understanding alone about gaining virtue; for, as I said, it alone is needed for its acquisition; whereas in the pursuit of evil several faculties are needed, soul, speech, senses, body, for wickedness employs all these in displaying itself. And further he says, “In the day that you eat of it, you shall die the death” (Gen. ii. 17). And yet after they have eaten, they not only do not die, but they beget children and become authors of life to others. What, then, can we say to this? That death is of two kinds, one the death of the man in general, the other the death of the soul in particular. The death of the man is the separation of the soul from the body, but the death of the soul is the decay of virtue and the bringing in of wickedness.⁠d It is for this reason that God says not only “die” but “die the death,” indicating not the death common to us all, but that special death properly so called, which is the death of the soul as it becomes entombed in passions and wickedness of all kinds. And this death is practically the antithesis of the death which awaits us all. The latter is a separation of combatants that had been pitted against one another, that is, body and soul. The former, on the other hand, is a meeting of the two in conflict. And in this conflict the worse, the body, overcomes, and the better, the soul, is overcome. But observe that wherever Moses speaks of “dying the death,” he means the penalty-death, not the death that takes place in the course of nature. Death in the course of nature is the one in which the soul is parted from the body; but the penalty-death takes place when the soul dies to the life of virtue, and is alive only to the life of wickedness. Heracleitus, who on this point followed Moses’ teaching, has an excellent saying: “We live,” he says, “their death, and are dead to their life.” He means that now, when we are living, the soul is dead and has been entombed in the body as in a sepulchre; whereas, if we die, the soul at once lives its own proper life, and is released from the body, the baneful corpse to which it was tied.