1 The sacred laws were written in five books, and the first is called and inscribed Genesis, deriving its title from the creation (genesis) of the world, which it contains at the beginning; although it also introduces ten thousand other matters, which refer to peace and to war, or to fertility and barrenness, or to hunger and plenty, or to the terrible destructions which have taken place on earth through fire and water; or, on the contrary, to the birth and rapid propagation of animals and plants in accordance with the admirable arrangement of the atmosphere, and the seasons of the year, and of men, some of whom lived in accordance with virtue, while others were associated with wickedness. 2 But since some of these things are portions of the world, and some are accidents, and since the world is the most perfect and complete of all things, he has naturally assigned the whole book to that subject. In our previous treatises, then, we have examined with all the accuracy in our power how the creation of the world was arranged; 3 but since, to keep to the regular order in which the sacred history proceeds, we must now go on to investigate the laws, we will for the present postpone the particular laws, which are copies, as it were, and first of all examine the more general laws, which are, as it were, the models of the others. 4 These are the men who lived irreproachably and admirably, whose virtues are recorded durably and permanently in the sacred scriptures, as if on pillars, not merely to praise the men themselves, but also to exhort those who read their history and lead them on to emulate their conduct; 5 for these men were living and rational laws; and the lawgiver has magnified them for two reasons; first, because he wanted to show that the injunctions given here are not inconsistent with nature; and, secondly, to prove that it is not very difficult or laborious for those who wish to live according to the laws established in these books, since the earliest men easily and spontaneously obeyed the unwritten principle of legislation before a single one of the particular laws had been written down. So one may very properly say that the written laws are nothing more than a memorial of the life of the ancients, tracing back, in an antiquarian spirit, the actions and reasonings they adopted; 6 for these first men, without ever having been followers or pupils of anyone, and without ever having been taught by teachers what they ought to do or say, but having adopted a way of life consistent with nature by attending to their own natural impulses and following the prompting of an innate virtue, and regarding nature herself as what she in fact is, the most ancient and duly established of laws, in reality spent their whole lives making laws, never deliberately doing anything open to reproach, and propitiating God for their accidental errors, and appeasing him with prayers and supplications, so as to procure for themselves the enjoyment of an entire life of virtue and prosperity, both in their deliberate actions and in those which were not voluntary. 7 Since, then, hope is the beginning of all participation in good things, and since the soul devoted to virtue pioneers this path and opens it up as plain and easy, in its eagerness to attain what is truly honourable, the sacred historian has named the first lover of hope Enos, giving him the common name of the whole race as a special favour. 8 For the Chaldaeans call man Enos; as if the only real man were the one who lives in expectation of good things and is established in good hopes; this makes it evident that they do not regard the man without hope as a man at all, but rather as an animal resembling a man, since he lacks that most distinctive possession of the human soul, namely hope. 9 For this reason, wishing to deliver an admirable panegyric on the hopeful man, the sacred historian tells us, first, that "he hoped in the father and creator of the universe," and adds in a later passage, "This is the book of the generation of men," and of their fathers, and grandfathers who had lived before; but he conceived that they were the ancestors of the mixed race, that is, of the purer and thoroughly sifted race which is the truly rational one; 10 for, as the poet Homer, though the number of poets is beyond all calculation, is called "the poet" by way of distinction, and as the black [ink] with which we write is called "the black," though in fact everything that is not white is black; and as the archon at Athens who is the archon eponymus and the chief of the nine archons, from whom the chronology is dated, is especially called "the archon"; so in the same way the sacred historian calls the one who indulges in hope, "a man," by way of pre-eminence, passing over in silence the rest of the multitude of human beings, as unworthy to receive the same appellation. 11 And he has very properly called the first volume the Book of the Generation of the Real Man, speaking with perfect correctness; because the man who is full of good hope is worthy of being described and remembered, not with the kind of memory a record on paper gives, which bookworms will later destroy, but with the memory that exists in immortal nature, where the virtuous actions are regularly recorded. 12 If, then, anyone reckons the generations from the first man, who was made out of the earth, he will find that the one whom the Chaldaeans call Enos, and the Greek language anthrōpos (the man), is the fourth in succession, 13 and among numbers, the number four is honoured by other philosophers, who have studied and admired the incorporeal essences, perceptible only to the intellect, and especially by the all-wise Moses, who magnifies the number four, and says that it is "holy and praiseworthy;" and the reasons it has been given this character are set out in an earlier treatise. 14 And the man who is full of good hope is likewise holy and praiseworthy; as, on the contrary, the one who has no hope is accursed and blameworthy, being always associated with fear, which is an evil counsellor in any emergency; for they say that nothing is as hostile to anything else as hope is to fear and fear to hope, and perhaps this is correctly said, for both fear and hope are an expectation, but one is an expectation of good things, and the other, on the contrary, an expectation of evil things; and the natures of good and evil are irreconcilable, and can never come together. 15 What has now been said about hope is enough; and nature has placed her at the gates to be a sort of doorkeeper to the royal virtues within, which no one may approach without first paying homage to hope. 16 Therefore the lawgivers, and the laws in every state on earth, labour with great diligence to fill the souls of free men with good hopes; but the one who is nevertheless hopeful without any recommendation and without being enjoined to be so has acquired this virtue by an unwritten, self-taught law, which nature has implanted in him. 17 Next in rank after hope comes repentance for errors committed, and improvement; with reference to this principle Moses mentions, next after Enos, the man who changed from a worse system of life to a better, who is called Enoch among the Hebrews, but, as the Greeks would say, "gracious," and about whom this statement is made, "that Enoch pleased God, and was not found, because God transported him." 18 For transportation shows a change and alteration: and such a change is for the better, because it takes place through the providence of God; for everything that is with God is in every case honourable and advantageous, since whatever lacks divine superintendence is useless and unprofitable. 19 And the expression, "he was not found," is very appropriately used of the one whose place was changed, either because his former blameworthy life was wiped out and effaced and no longer found, just as if it had never existed at all, or else because the one whose place has been changed, and who is enrolled in a better class, is naturally difficult to discover. For wickedness is very multiform and extensive, and so it is known to many people; but virtue is rare, so that not even a few comprehend it. 20 And besides, the bad man runs about through the market-place, and theatres, and courts of justice, and council halls, and assemblies, and every meeting and collection of men whatever, like one who lives with and for curiosity, letting loose his tongue in immoderate, and interminable, and indiscriminate conversation, confusing and disturbing everything, mixing up what is true and what is false, what is unspeakable with what is public, private with public things, things profane with things sacred, what is ridiculous with what is excellent, because he has never been taught the most excellent thing in its season, namely silence. 21 And pricking up his ears, because of the abundance of his leisure, and his superfluous curiosity, and love of interference, he is eager to make himself acquainted with the business of other people, whether good or bad, so as at once to envy those who prosper and to rejoice over those who do not; for the bad man is by nature envious and a hater of all that is good, and a lover of all that is evil. 22 But the good man, on the contrary, loves the way of life that is untroubled by business, and withdraws, and loves solitude, desiring to escape the notice of the many, not out of misanthropy, for he is a lover of mankind, if anyone in the world is, but because he shuns wickedness, which the great majority eagerly embraces, rejoicing at what it ought to mourn over and grieving at what it would be more fitting to rejoice at. 23 For this reason the good man shuts himself up, and remains for the most part at home, scarcely crossing his threshold, or if he does go out, to avoid the crowds who come to visit him, he generally leaves the city and makes his home in some country place, living more pleasantly in the company of the most virtuous of all mankind, whose bodies time has indeed dissolved, but whose virtues are kept alive by the records they left, in poems and in prose, histories by which the soul is naturally improved and led on to perfection. 24 This is why the sacred historian has said that the man whose place was changed was not found, since he is difficult to find and hard to seek out. Therefore, such a man emigrates from ignorance to instruction, and from folly to wisdom and from cowardice to courage, and from impiety to piety; and, again, from devotion to pleasure to temperance, and from vaingloriousness to simplicity, qualities superior to all riches, and more valuable as a possession than any royal or imperial power. 25 For, to speak the plain truth, the wealth which is not blind but clear-sighted is the abundance of virtues, which we must at once conclude is the genuine and legitimate predominance of good compared with all other bastard and falsely named powers, and the just and lawful superior of them all. 26 But we must be aware that repentance occupies only the second place, next after perfection, just as the change from sickness to convalescence is inferior to perfect uninterrupted health. Therefore, what is continuous and perfect in the virtues is very close to divine power, but improvement advancing over time is the special blessing of a well-disposed soul, which does not continue in its childish pursuits, but by more vigorous thoughts and inclinations, such as truly befit a man, seeks a tranquil steadiness of soul and attains it through its conception of what is good. 27 For this reason the sacred historian very naturally ranks the lover of God and the lover of virtue next after the one who repents; and this man is called Noah in the language of the Hebrews, but in the language of the Greeks, "rest," or "the just man," both names very well suited to the wise man. The name "the just man" is most evidently so, for nothing is better than justice, which is the chief among virtues, and which receives the highest honours like the most beautiful member of a company; and the appellation "rest" is likewise appropriate, since the quality opposite to rest is unnatural agitation, the cause of confusion, and tumults, and seditions, and wars, which the wicked pursue; while those who pay due honour to excellence cultivate a tranquil, and quiet, and stable, and peaceful life. 28 And in strict consistency with himself, the lawgiver also calls the seventh day "rest," which the Hebrews call "the sabbath;" not, as some people imagine, because after six days the multitude refrained from its usual occupations, but because in truth the number seven is both in the world and in ourselves free from seditions and from wars, and of all the numbers is the most averse to contention and the greatest lover of peace. 29 And a proof of what I have asserted here can be found in the powers within us; for six of those powers, namely the five outward senses and uttered speech, stir up continued and ceaseless war, both by sea and land, some of them doing so from a desire for the objects of the outward senses, grieving if they cannot obtain them, and the last by divulging with an unbridled mouth many things which ought to be buried in silence. 30 But the seventh power is that which proceeds from the dominant mind, which is more glorious than the other six powers, and which by pre-eminent vigour has gained mastery over them all, and when it retires, choosing solitude and its own company and living by itself, as one that needs no other and is all-sufficient for itself, it is then set free from the cares and troubles found in the human race and embraces a calm and tranquil life. 31 And the lawgiver magnifies the lover of virtue so highly that even when giving his genealogy he does not trace it as he usually does for other people, by giving a catalogue of his grandfathers and great grandfathers, and ancestors who are numbered as men and women, but he gives a list of certain virtues; and almost asserts in express words that a wise man has no other house, or kindred, or country whatever, except the virtues and the actions in accordance with virtues. "For these," he says, "are the generations of Noah; Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation, and one who pleased God." 32 But we must be aware that when he says man here, he does not mean merely to use the common expression for a rational mortal animal, but means to indicate, in an eminent degree, the one who lives up to the name, having driven away all the untameable and furious passions and brutal wickednesses of the soul; 33 and as a proof of this, after the word man he adds as an epithet, "the just," saying, "a just man," as if no unjust person were a man at all, but, more properly speaking, a beast in the likeness of a man, and as if only the admirer of justice were a man; 34 he also says that he was "perfect," indicating by this expression that he possessed not one virtue only but all of them, and that, possessing them, he constantly displayed every one of them according to his power and opportunities; 35 and finally crowning him like a wrestler who has gained a glorious victory, he also honours him with a most noble proclamation, saying that "he pleased God," (and what in nature could be more excellent than this panegyric?) which is the most visible proof of excellence; for if those who displease God are miserable, those who please him are certainly happy. 36 So it is very correctly that, after praising the man for possessing such great virtues, he adds, "and he was perfect in his generation." This shows that he was not absolutely perfect, but that he was good in comparison with the others who lived at that time; 37 for shortly he will also speak of other wise men who possessed unconquerable and incomparable virtue, not merely when contrasted with the wicked, nor because they were better than the other men of their age, and as such were considered worthy of acceptance and pre-eminence, but because having received a well-disposed nature, they preserved it without any error or change for the worse; not escaping from evil habits, but never once having fallen into them, and deliberately practising all virtuous actions and words, by which practice they had adorned their life. 38 The most admirable of all men, then, are those who have adopted free and noble inclinations, not in imitation of others or by way of contrast with them, but from an inclination to genuine virtue and justice for its own sake; the one who is superior to his own generation and his own age, and who is overcome by none of the things the multitude follows, is also to be admired; and he will be classed in the second rank, and nature will give to such men the best of her prizes; 39 and the second prize is in itself a great thing; for what that God offers and bestows on men is not great and most desirable? And the greatest proof of this lies in the exceptional graces this man attained; 40 for as that time bore an abundant crop of injustice and impiety, and so every country, and nation, and city, and house, and every separate individual was full of wicked practices, all men, of their own free will and deliberate purpose, as if in an arena, vied with one another for the first rank in iniquity, and strove with all possible zeal and rivalry, everyone seeking to surpass his neighbour in the magnitude of his wickedness, and omitting nothing that might make life blameworthy and accursed. 41 God, naturally indignant at them and angry that the creature which appeared to be the most excellent of animals, and which had been thought worthy of being reckoned akin to himself because of his share in reason, had devoted himself to wickedness and to every species of vice when he ought to have practised virtue, appointed a fitting punishment for them, and determined to destroy by a deluge the whole race then existing; and not only those who lived in the open country and in the lower districts, 42 but also those who lived on the loftiest mountains, for the great deep, being raised to a height which it had never reached before, burst through its mouths with all its combined force into our seas, and they overflowed and inundated all the islands and continents; and incessant floods from everlasting fountains and from native rivers and torrents combined and mingled with one another, rising to a vast height, so as to surmount everything. 43 Nor indeed was the air tranquil, for a deep and unbroken cloud overspread the whole heaven, and there were fearful storms of wind, and roarings of thunder, and flashes of lightning, and rapid hurlings of thunderbolts, while ceaseless storms of rain poured down, so that one might have thought that all the parts of the universe were hastening to dissolve themselves into the single element of water, until, while the water from above kept pouring down, and that below kept bursting up, the streams were raised to a height above everything, so that they not only overwhelmed and hid from sight all the plains and all the level ground, but even the tops of the highest mountains, 44 for every part of the earth was under water, so that it was wholly buried and carried away, and huge portions of the world were cut away, and the world in all its wholeness and integrity appeared, fearful as it is to say or even to imagine such a thing, to be utterly crippled and destroyed. And likewise the air, except for the small portion around the moon, was wholly obscured, overcast by the violence and force of the water, which overran its whole region with irresistible might. 45 Then all the crops and all the trees were quickly destroyed, for an unlimited quantity of water is as destructive to them as a scarcity, and innumerable flocks of animals, both tame and wild, perished at the same time; for it was natural, when the most excellent race of all, the human race, had been destroyed, that none of the inferior races should be left, since they were only created to be slaves to his necessities, and to be in a sense subject to his authoritative commands as their master. 46 That time, then, poured out such numbers of such mighty evils, which burst forth--for all the portions of the world, except the heaven itself, were moved in an unnatural manner--as if they were stricken with a terrible and deadly disease. And one house alone, that of the above-mentioned just and God-loving man who had received the two highest of all gifts, was preserved; one gift being, as I have already said, that he was not destroyed with all the rest of mankind, the other that he himself became, at a later time, the founder of a new generation of mankind; for God thought him worthy to be both the end of our race and the beginning of it, the end of those men who lived before the deluge, and the beginning of those who lived after the deluge. 47 Such was the most virtuous of all the men of his age, and such were the rewards allotted to him, which the holy scriptures enumerate; and the arrangement and classification of the three mentioned above, whether you call them men or dispositions of the soul, is very symmetrical, for the perfect man is entire from the beginning; but the one whose place is changed is only half entire, having appropriated the earlier period of his life to wickedness, and the later period to virtue, to which he afterwards came over and with which he lived from then on. But the one who hopes, as his very name shows, still has a defect, for though he is always wishing for what is good, he is not yet able to attain it, but is like people on a voyage who, though eager to reach the harbour, are still kept at sea without being able to anchor in port. 48 I have now, then, explained the character of the first triad of those who desire virtue. There is also another, more important company, of which we must now go on to speak, for the former resembles the branches of instruction allotted to childhood, but this one rather resembles the gymnastic exercises of athletic men, who are really preparing themselves for the sacred contests, who, scorning all care for getting their bodies into proper condition, labour to bring about a healthy state of the soul, desiring the victory to be won over the hostile passions. 49 We will later examine more minutely, then, the particulars in which each individual differs from the others, though all are hastening to one and the same end; but we must not pass over in silence what it seems right to say first about all three taken together. 50 All three of them, then, belong to one household and one family, for the last of the three is the son of the middle one, and the grandson of the first; and they are all lovers of God, and beloved by God, loving the only God, and being loved in return by him, who has chosen, as the holy scriptures tell us, because of the surpassing virtues in which they lived, to give them a share of his own name as well; 51 for by adding his own name to theirs he has united them, taking for himself a title composed of the three names: "For," says God, "this is my everlasting name: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," using there the relative term instead of the absolute one; and this is very natural, for God stands in no need of a name. But though he has no such need, he nevertheless bestows his own title on the human race so that they may have a refuge to which to turn in supplications and prayers, and so may not be without good hope. 52 This, then, is what seems to be said of these holy men; and it points to a nature more remote from our knowledge than, and much superior to, the nature found in the objects of the outward senses; for the sacred word seems to investigate thoroughly and describe the different dispositions of the soul, all of them good, the first aiming at what is good by means of instruction, the second by nature, the last by practice; for the first, who is named Abraham, is a symbol of that virtue which is derived from instruction; the intermediate Isaac is an emblem of natural virtue; the third, Jacob, of that virtue which is devoted to and derived from practice. 53 But we must be aware that each of these men was endowed with all these powers, but that each derived his name from the one which predominated in him and mastered the others; for neither is it possible for instruction to be made perfect without natural endowments and practice, nor is nature able to arrive at the goal without instruction and practice, nor can practice reach the goal unless it is founded on natural gifts and sound instruction. 54 Very appropriately, therefore, he has represented these three as united by kinship, three who are indeed men in name, but in reality, as I have said before, virtues, nature, instruction, and practice, which people also call by another name, the three graces (charites), either because God has bestowed (kecharisthai) these three powers on our race, in order to produce the perfection of life, or because they themselves have bestowed themselves on the rational soul as the most glorious of gifts, so that the eternal name, as set forth in the scriptures, may not be used in conjunction with three men, but rather with the powers mentioned above; 55 for the nature of mankind is mortal, but the nature of the virtues is immortal; and it is more reasonable that the name of the everlasting God should be conjoined with what is immortal than with what is mortal, since what is immortal is akin to what is imperishable, but death is hostile to it. 56 We must, however, be aware that the sacred historian has represented the first man, the one who was formed out of the earth, as the father of all those who existed before the deluge; and the one who, with his whole family, was the only person to survive so universal a destruction, because of his justice and his other excellencies and virtues, as the founder of the new race of men which was to flourish hereafter. And that venerable, and estimable, and glorious triad is comprehended by the sacred scriptures under one class, and called, "A royal priesthood, and a holy nation." 57 And its name shows its power; for the nation is further called, in the language of the Hebrews, Israel, a name which, interpreted, means, "seeing God." But sight exercised through the eyes is the most excellent of all the outward senses, since by it alone all the most beautiful of existing things are comprehended, the sun and the moon, and the whole heaven, and the whole world; but the sight of the soul, which is exercised through its dominant part, excels all other powers of the soul, as much as the powers of the soul excel all other powers; and this is prudence, which is the sight of the mind. 58 But the one whose lot it is not only to comprehend, through his knowledge, all the other things which exist in nature, but also to behold the Father and Creator of the universe, has advanced to the very summit of happiness. For there is nothing above God; and if anyone, directing the eye of the soul towards him, has reached up to him, let him then pray for the ability to remain and to stand firm before him; 59 for the roads which lead upwards to him are laborious and slow, but the descent down the slope, more like being dragged rapidly down than a gradual descent, is swift and easy. And the many things urging it downwards are of no use whatever when God, having made the soul depend on his own powers, drags it up towards himself with a more vigorous attraction. 60 Let this much, then, be said generally about the three persons, since it was absolutely necessary; but we must now proceed in regular order to speak of the qualities in which each separate individual surpasses the others, beginning with the one mentioned first. He, being an admirer of piety, the highest and greatest of all virtues, laboured earnestly to follow God, and to obey the injunctions he delivered, regarding as his commands not only those things which were signified to him by words and facts, but those also which were indicated by more express signs through the medium of nature, and which the truest of the outward senses comprehends before the uncertain and untrustworthy sense of hearing can; 61 for if anyone observes the arrangement which exists in nature, and the constitution according to which the world goes on, which is more excellent than any kind of reasoning, he learns, even though no one speaks to him, to study a course of life consistent with law and peace, looking to the example of good men. But the most manifest demonstrations of his piety are those which the scriptures contain; and we must mention first the one that also comes first in the order in which they are set down. 62 Impressed by an oracle which commanded him to leave his country, and his kindred, and his father's house, and to emigrate like a man returning from a foreign land to his own country, and not like one who was about to set out from his own land to settle in a foreign district, he hastened eagerly on, thinking that doing promptly what he was commanded was equivalent to completing the matter. 63 And yet who else was likely to be so undeviating and unchangeable as not to be won over by, and yield to, the charms of his relations and his country? For the love of them has in a way-- "Grown with the growth and strengthened with the strength," of every individual, even more than, or at any rate no less than, the limbs united to the body have done. 64 And the lawgivers bear witness to this, having enacted the punishment next after death, namely, banishment, against those who are convicted of the most atrocious crimes: a punishment which, it seems to me, is in fact second to none, if truth is the judge, but which is, in fact, much more grievous than death, since death is the end of all misfortunes, but banishment is not the end but the beginning of new calamities, inflicting, instead of one painless death, ten thousand deaths felt acutely. 65 Some men also, being engaged in trade, sail over the sea out of desire for gain, or being employed in some embassy, or being led by a desire to see the sights of foreign countries, or by a love for instruction, having various motives which attract them outwards and keep them from remaining where they are, some being led by a love of gain, others by the idea of being able to benefit their native city at its time of need in the most necessary and important particulars, others seeking to gain knowledge of matters of which they were previously ignorant, a knowledge which brings, at the same time, both delight and advantage to the soul. For men who have never travelled are like blind men compared with travellers who see clearly; yet those who travel are nevertheless anxious to behold their father's threshold and to greet it, and to embrace their acquaintances, and to enjoy the most delightful and wished-for sight of their relations and friends; and very often, seeing the affairs for which they left their country drag on, they have abandoned them, moved by that most powerful feeling of longing to be reunited with their kindred. 66 But this man with a few companions, or perhaps I might say by himself, as soon as he was commanded to do so, left his home, and set out on an expedition to a foreign country in his soul even before he started with his body, for his love for heavenly things overpowered his regard for mortal things. 67 So, giving no thought to anything at all, neither to the men of his tribe, nor to those of his borough, nor to his fellow disciples, nor to his companions, nor to his blood relations sprung from the same father or the same mother, nor to his country, nor to his ancient habits, nor to the customs in which he had been brought up, nor to his way of life and his comrades, each of which has a seductive and almost irresistible attraction and power, he departed as quickly as possible, yielding to a free and unrestrained impulse, and first of all he left the land of the Chaldaeans, a prosperous district, which was flourishing greatly at that time, and went into the land of Charran, and from there, not long afterwards, he departed to another place, which we will speak of later, when we have first discussed the country of Charran. 68 If one goes by the literal wording of the scripture, the emigrations mentioned above were made by a wise man; but if we look to the laws of allegory, they were made by a soul devoted to virtue and occupied in the search for the true God. 69 For the Chaldaeans were devoted, more than any other nation, to the study of astronomy, and attributed all events to the motions of the stars, which they imagined regulated everything in the world, and accordingly they magnified the visible essence by the powers which numbers and the analogies of numbers contain, taking no account of the invisible essence perceptible only to the intellect. But while they were busy investigating the arrangement in them with reference to the periodical revolutions of the sun, and moon, and the other planets, and fixed-stars, and the changes of the seasons of the year, and the sympathy of the heavenly bodies with the things of the earth, they were led to imagine that the world itself was God, in their impious philosophy comparing the creature to the Creator. 70 The man who had been brought up in this doctrine, and who for a long time had studied the philosophy of the Chaldaeans, as if suddenly awakening from a deep slumber and opening the eye of the soul, and beginning to perceive a pure ray of light instead of profound darkness, followed the light,⁠a and saw what he had never seen before, a certain governor and director of the world standing above it, and guiding his own work for its good, and exerting his care and power on behalf of all those parts of it which are worthy of divine oversight. 71 So, in order that he may establish more firmly the sight presented in this way to his mind, the sacred word says to him, My good friend, great things are often made known by slight outlines, and whoever looks at them enlarges his imagination without limit; so dismiss those who bend all their attention to the heavenly bodies, discard the Chaldaean science, and rise up and depart for a short time from the greatest of cities, this world, to one which is smaller; for in this way you will be better able to comprehend the nature of the Ruler of the universe. 72 It is for this reason that Abraham is said to have made this first migration from the country of the Chaldaeans into the land of Charran. But Charran, in the Greek language, means "holes," a figure for the regions of our outward senses, through which, as through holes, each of those senses can look out and comprehend the objects that belong to it. 73 But, someone may say, what use are these holes, unless the invisible mind, like the operator of a puppet show, prompts its own powers from within, at one time loosing them and letting them roam, and at another holding them back and restraining them by force? Sometimes he gives his puppets harmonious motion, and sometimes perfect quiet. And having this example at home, you will easily comprehend that being whom you are so anxious to understand; 74 unless, indeed, you imagine that the mind is situated in you as your dominant part, which all the common powers of the body obey, and which each of the outward senses follows; but that the world, the most beautiful, and greatest, and most perfect of works, of which everything else is but a part, has no king to hold it together, and to regulate it, and govern it in accordance with justice. And if it is invisible, do not be surprised at that, for the mind in you cannot be perceived by sight either. 75 Anyone who considers this, drawing his proofs not from a distance but close at hand, both from himself and from the circumstances around him, will clearly see that the world is not the first God, but that it is the work of the first God and Father of all things, who, being himself invisible, displays everything, showing the nature of all things both small and great. 76 For he has not chosen to be seen by the eyes of the body, perhaps because it was not consistent with holiness for what is mortal to touch what is everlasting, or perhaps because of the weakness of our sight; for it would never have been able to stand the rays that pour out from the living God, since it cannot even look straight at the rays of the sun. 77 And the clearest proof of this migration, in which the mind left astronomy and the doctrines of the Chaldaeans, is this. For the scriptures say that the very moment the wise man left his home, "God appeared to Abraham," so it is plain that God was not visible to him before, when he clung to the studies of the Chaldaeans, and attending to the motions of the stars, and did not properly comprehend any nature at all that was well ordered and perceptible only to the intellect, apart from the world and the essence perceptible by the outward senses. 78 But after he changed his abode and went into another country he necessarily learnt that the world was subject, and not independent; not an absolute ruler, but governed by the great cause of all things who had created it, whom the mind then looked up and saw for the first time; 79 for previously the objects of the external senses had shed a great mist over it; when she had scattered this mist by fervent and vivid doctrines, she was barely able, as if in clear fine weather, to perceive him who had until then been concealed and invisible. But he, because of his love for mankind, did not reject the soul which came to him, but went forward to meet it, and showed it his own nature as far as the one looking was able to see it. 80 This is why it is said, not that the wise man saw God but that God appeared to the wise man; for it was impossible for anyone to comprehend by his own unassisted power the true living God, unless he himself displayed and revealed himself to him. 81 And evidence for what has been said here can be drawn from the change and alteration of his name: for he was formerly called Abram, but afterwards he was named Abraham: the alteration in sound comes only from one single letter, alpha, being doubled, but in effect the alteration reveals an important fact and doctrine; 82 for the name Abram, when interpreted, means "sublime father;" but Abraham signifies, "the elect father of sound." The first name expresses the man who is called an astronomer, one devoted to contemplating the sublime bodies in the sky, and who was versed in the doctrines of the Chaldaeans, and who took care of them as a father might take care of his children. 83 But the later name indicates the truly wise man; for by the word sound the later name indicates uttered speech, and by the word father, the dominant mind. For the speech conceived within is naturally the father of the speech that is uttered, since it is older than uttered speech and also suggests what is to be said. And the added word elect indicates his goodness. For the evil disposition is random and confused, but the elect disposition is good, having been selected from all others because of its excellence. 84 So to the man devoted to contemplating the sublime bodies of the sky, nothing at all appears greater than the world; and so he attributes the causes of all things that exist to the world. But the wise man, beholding with more accurate eyes that more perfect being that rules and governs all things, and is perceptible only to the intellect, to whom all things are subject as to their master, and by whom everything is directed, very often reproaches himself for his former way of life, as if he had lived the life of a blind man, leaning upon objects perceptible by the outward senses, on things by their very nature worthless and unstable. 85 The second migration is again undertaken by the virtuous man under the influence of a sacred oracle, but this one is no longer from one city to another; it is to a desolate country, in which he wandered about for a long time without being discontented at his wandering and at the unsettled condition that necessarily came from it. 86 And yet, what other man would not have been grieved, not only at departing from his own country but also at being driven away from every city into an inaccessible and impassable district? And what other man would not have turned back and returned to his former home, paying little attention to his former hopes, but desiring to escape from his present perplexity, thinking it folly to undergo admitted evils for the sake of uncertain advantages? 87 But this man alone appears to have behaved in the opposite way, thinking a life remote from the fellowship of many companions the most pleasant of all. And this is only natural; for those who seek and desire to find God love the solitude that is dear to him, labouring for this as their dearest and first object: to become like his blessed and happy nature. 88 So, having now given both explanations, the literal one concerning the man and the allegorical one concerning the soul, we have shown that both the man and the mind are deserving of love; since the man obeys the sacred oracles and, under their influence, submits to being torn away from things it is hard to part from; and the mind deserves to be loved because it has not submitted to being deceived forever and to staying permanently with the essences perceptible by the outward senses, thinking the visible world the greatest and first of gods, but, soaring upward with its reason, it has seen another nature better than the visible one, namely the nature perceptible only to the intellect, and also the being who is at once the Creator and ruler of both. 89 These, then, are the first principles of the man who loves God, and they are followed by actions that do not deserve to be taken lightly. But their greatness is not evident to everyone, but only to those who have tasted of virtue, and who are used to ridiculing the objects the multitude admires, because of the greatness of the good things of the soul. 90 So God, having approved of the conduct I have mentioned, immediately rewarded the virtuous man with a great gift, for he preserved his marriage sound and free from all pollution when it was in danger of being plotted against by a powerful and incontinent man. 91 And this man's design on it began in this way: there had been barrenness and a scarcity of crops for a long time, owing first to a long and immoderate period of rain, and then to a great drought and heat that followed. The cities of Syria, oppressed by a long-continued famine, were emptied of inhabitants, since they had all scattered in different directions to seek food and provide themselves with necessities. 92 So Abraham, hearing that there was unlimited abundance and plenty in Egypt, since the river there irrigated the fields with its inundations at the proper season, and since the winds, with their healthy temperature, brought up and nourished rich and heavy crops of grain, rose up with all his household to leave Syria and go there. 93 And he had a wife of a most excellent disposition, who was also the most beautiful of all the women of her time. The Egyptian magistrates, seeing her and admiring her exquisite form, for nothing ever escapes the notice of men in authority, informed the king. 94 And the king, sending for the woman and beholding her extreme beauty, paid little heed to the dictates of modesty or to the established laws on the honour due to strangers, but yielding to his incontinent desires, formed the intention to marry her in lawful wedlock in name, but in fact to seduce and defile her. 95 But she, without any help, since she was in a foreign land before an incontinent and cruel-minded ruler (for her husband had no power to protect her, fearing the danger which threatened him from princes mightier than he), at last took refuge, together with him, in the only alliance left to her, the protection of God. 96 And the merciful and gracious God, who takes compassion on the stranger, and who fights on behalf of those who are unjustly oppressed, inflicted in a moment painful sufferings and terrible chastisements on the king, filling his body and soul with all kinds of miseries hard to escape or remedy, so that all his inclinations toward pleasure were cut short, and instead he was occupied with nothing but cares, seeking relief from the endless and intolerable torments that harassed and tortured him day and night; 97 and his whole household also received their share of his punishment, because none of them had felt any indignation at his lawless conduct, but had all consented to it, and had all but co-operated actively in his iniquity. 98 In this way the woman's chastity was preserved, and God condescended to display the excellence and piety of her husband, giving him the noblest reward, namely, his marriage free from all injury, and even from all insult, so that it was no longer in danger of being violated; a marriage, however, that was not intended to produce any limited number of sons and daughters--the most God-loving of all nations--and one that, it seems to me, received the offices of priesthood and prophecy on behalf of the whole human race. 99 I have heard men versed in natural philosophy interpret this passage allegorically with considerable ingenuity and propriety; and their idea is that the man here is a symbol of the virtuous mind, for they infer from the meaning of his name that what is meant is the virtuous disposition in the soul, and that his wife stands for virtue, for the name of his wife is, in the Chaldaean language, Sarah, but in Greek "princess," because there is nothing more royal or more worthy of pre-eminence than virtue. 100 And the marriage in which pleasure unites people involves the union of bodies, but the marriage brought about by wisdom is the union of reasonings that desire purification, and of the perfect virtues; and the two kinds of marriage here described are complete opposites of one another; 101 for in the marriage of the bodies it is the male partner who sows the seed and the female who receives it, but in the union of the soul it is quite the reverse: virtue, which seems to stand there in the place of the woman, sows good counsels, and virtuous speeches, and expositions of doctrines profitable to life; while reason, which is classed as the man, receives the sacred and divine seed, unless, indeed, the names usually given are in error; for grammatically, certainly, the word reason is masculine and the word virtue is feminine. 102 But if anyone, setting aside the names, which tend to throw darkness over the subject, chooses to look at the plain facts without any disguise, he will know that virtue is masculine by nature, since it puts things in motion, and arranges them, and suggests good conceptions of noble actions and speeches; but reason is feminine, since it is put in motion by another, and is instructed and benefited, and, in short, is wholly the one acted upon, since its passive state is its own safety. 103 So all men, even the vilest, honour and admire virtue in word, as far as appearance goes; but only the virtuous obey its commands; this is why the king of Egypt, who is a figurative representation of the mind devoted to the body, as if he were acting in a theatre, assumes the pretended character of one who shares in temperance though he is an intemperate man, in continence though he is an incontinent man, and in justice though he is an unjust man, and he invites justice to himself, being eager to obtain a good report from the multitude; 104 and the governor of the universe, seeing this (for God alone has power to look into the soul), hates and rejects him, and by the most cruel tests and powers convicts him of an utterly false disposition. But by what instruments are these tests carried out? Surely entirely by the parts of virtue, which inflict great pain and severe wounds whenever they enter; for lack of supply is torture to what is insatiable, and the torture of greediness is temperance; moreover, the lover of glory is tortured when simplicity and humility prevail, and so is the unjust man when justice is extolled; 105 for it is impossible for two hostile natures, wickedness and virtue, to inhabit one soul, and so, when they do come together, endless and irreconcilable seditions and wars are kindled between them; and this is so even though virtue has a most peaceful disposition and, as they say, whenever it is about to enter a contest of strength, is anxious to test its own powers first, so as to contend only if it has a prospect of gaining the victory; but if it finds its power unequal to the conflict, then it will never dare to descend into the arena at all, 106 for defeat is no disgrace to wickedness, since lack of glory is akin to it; but it would be shameful for virtue, to which glory belongs more fittingly and more properly than anything else; this is why it is natural for virtue either to secure the victory, or else to keep itself unconquered. 107 It has been said then that the disposition of the Egyptians is inhospitable and intemperate; and the humanity of the man who was exposed to their conduct deserves admiration, for in the middle of the day, beholding what seemed to be three men travelling (and he did not perceive that they were in reality of a more divine nature), ran up and pleaded with them persistently not to pass by his tent, but, as was fitting, to go in and receive the rites of hospitality: and they, knowing the man's truthfulness not so much from what he said as from his mind, which they could look into, assented to his request without hesitation; 108 and, his soul filled with joy, he went to every possible effort to make their impromptu reception worthy of them; and he said to his wife, "Hasten now, and make ready quickly three measures of fine meal," and he himself went out among the herds of oxen, and brought out a tender and well-fed heifer, and gave it to his servant; 109 and the servant killed it and prepared it with all speed. For no one in the house of a wise man is ever slow to perform the duties of hospitality, but both women and men, and slaves and freemen, are most eager to perform all those duties towards strangers; 110 so, having feasted and been delighted, not so much with what was set before them as with the good will of their host, and with his excessive and unbounded zeal to please them, they bestow on him a reward beyond his expectation, the birth of a legitimate son in a short time, making him a promise to be confirmed by the most excellent of the three; for it would have been inconsistent with philosophy for them all to speak together at the same moment, but it was desirable for all the rest to assent while one spoke. 111 Nevertheless he did not completely believe them even when they made him this promise, because of the incredible nature of the thing promised; for both he and his wife, through extreme old age, were so old that they had utterly abandoned all hope of offspring; 112 therefore the scriptures record that Abraham's wife, when she first heard what they were saying, laughed; and when they said afterwards, "Is anything impossible to God?" they were so ashamed that they denied that they had laughed; for Abraham knew that everything was possible to God, having learnt this doctrine almost from his cradle, so to speak; 113 it was then, it seems to me, that he first began to hold a different opinion of his guests from the one he had formed at first, and to have imagined that they were either some of the prophets or of the angels who had changed their spiritual and soul-like essence, and assumed the appearance of men. 114 We have now then described the hospitable temper of the man, which was as it were a sort of addition to set off his greater virtue; but his virtue was piety towards God, of which we have spoken before, and of which the clearest instance is his conduct, now recorded, towards the strangers; 115 but if any people have thought that house happy and blessed in which wise men happened to stop and stay, they should consider that they would not have done so, and would not even have looked into it at all, if they had seen any incurable disease in the souls of those who were in it, but I do not know how to describe the excess of happiness and blessedness that existed in that house in which angels condescended to stay and to receive the rites of hospitality from men, angels, those sacred and divine natures, the ministers and lieutenants of the mighty God, through whom, as through ambassadors, he announces whatever predictions he condescends to reveal to our race. 116 For how could they ever have endured to enter a human habitation at all, unless they had been certain that all the inhabitants within, like the well-managed and orderly crew of a ship, obeyed one signal only, namely, their master's, as the sailors obey the command of the captain? And how would they ever have condescended to assume the appearance of guests and men hospitably feasted, if they had not thought that their host was akin to them, and a fellow servant with them, bound to the service of the same master as themselves? We must indeed think that when they entered, every part of the house was improved and advanced in goodness, breathed upon by a certain breeze of the most perfect virtue. 117 And the entertainment was just as it should have been, the guests displaying at the banquet their own simplicity towards their host, and addressing him guilelessly, and all of them holding conversation suited to the occasion. 118 And it deserves to be regarded as a prodigy that though they did not drink they seemed to drink, and that though they did not eat they appeared to eat. But this was all natural and consistent with what was going on. And the most miraculous circumstance of all was, that these incorporeal beings took on the appearance of a body in human form because of their favour towards the virtuous man; for what other need was there of all these miracles, except to give the wise man the evidence of his external senses through a more distinct sight, because his character had not escaped the knowledge of the Father of the universe. 119 This, then, is enough by way of a literal explanation of this account; we must now give the explanation that applies if the story is read as figurative and symbolic. The things expressed by the voice are signs of things conceived in the mind alone; so when God shines on the soul as if at noonday, and when it is wholly and entirely filled with the light perceptible only to the intellect, and, wholly surrounded by its brilliance, is free from all shade or darkness, it then perceives a threefold image of one subject, one image of the living God, and others of the other two, as if they were shadows irradiated by it. And something like this happens to those who dwell in the light perceptible to the outward senses, for whether people are standing still or in motion, a double shadow often falls from them. 120 So let no one imagine that the word shadow is applied to God with complete accuracy. It is merely a catachrestical misuse of the word, meant to bring before our eyes a more vivid representation of what it points to. 121 This is not the actual truth, but so that one may keep as close to the truth as possible when speaking: the one in the middle is the Father of the universe, who in the sacred scriptures is called by his proper name, I am that I am; and the beings on each side are those most ancient powers which are always close to the living God, one of which is called his creative power, and the other his royal power. And the creative power is God, for it is by this that he made and arranged the universe; and the royal power is the Lord, for it is fitting that the Creator should lord it over and govern the creature. 122 So the middle person of the three, attended by each of his powers as by bodyguards, presents to the mind, which has the faculty of sight, a vision at one time of one being and at another of three: of one when the soul, completely purified and having surmounted not only the multitudes of numbers, but also the number two, which is the neighbour of the unit, hastens onward to that idea which is devoid of all mixture, free from all combination, and in itself needing nothing else at all; and of three when, not yet perfected in the important virtues, it is still seeking initiation in the lesser ones, and cannot attain to a comprehension of the living God by its own unassisted faculties without the aid of something else, but can do so only by judging from his deeds, whether as creator or as governor. 123 This then, as they say, is the second best thing; and it no less shares in the opinion that is dear to God and devoted to him. But the first-mentioned disposition does not merely share in it; it is itself the very God-loving and God-beloved opinion, or rather it is truth which is older than opinion, and more valuable than any seeming. But we must now explain more clearly what this statement indicates. 124 There are three different classes of human dispositions, each of which has received as its portion one of the visions mentioned above. The best of them has received the vision in the centre, the sight of the truly living God. The next best has received the one on the right hand, the sight of the beneficent power which has the name of God. And the third has the sight of the one on the left hand, the governing power, which is called lord. 125 So the best dispositions serve the being who exists of himself, without the aid of anyone else, and they are drawn by nothing else, because their whole attention is directed to honouring that one being. But of the other dispositions, some owe their existence, and their being recognized by the father, to his beneficent power; and others, again, owe it to his governing power. 126 What I mean is this:--When men perceive that some people come to them under the pretext of friendship, though in reality they only want to get what they can from them, they look on them with suspicion, and turn away from them, fearing their insincere, flattering and caressing behaviour as very harmful. 127 But God, since he cannot be injured, gladly invites to himself all who choose to honour him in any way at all, not choosing to reject anyone entirely; and indeed he all but says in so many words to those who have ears in the soul, "The most valuable prizes shall be offered to those who worship me for my own sake: 128 the second best to those who hope through their own efforts to attain good or to escape punishments. For even if the service of this latter class is mercenary and not wholly incorrupt, it still revolves within the divine circumference, and does not stray beyond it. 129 But the rewards which shall be laid up for those who honour me for my own sake are rewards of affection; while those given to people who honour me for their own advantage are given not out of affection, but because those people are not regarded as aliens. For whoever wishes to partake of my beneficent power I admit to a share in my good things, and whoever out of fear seeks to propitiate my governing and despotic power I receive so far as to avert punishment from him. For I am well aware that, far from becoming worse, these men will become better, by gradually arriving at a sincere and pure piety by their constant perseverance in serving me. 130 For even if the dispositions from which they first tried to please me differ widely, they still must not be blamed, because as a result they have only one aim and object: serving me." 131 But it is plain that what is seen is in reality a threefold appearance of one subject, not only from contemplating the allegory, but also from the express words in which the allegory is couched. 132 For when the wise man entreats the three persons who appear in the guise of travellers to come and stay in his house, he speaks to them not as three persons, but as one, and says, "My lord, if I have found favour with you, do not pass by your servant." For the expressions, "my lord," and "with you," and "do not pass by," and others of the same kind, are all naturally addressed to a single individual, not to many. And when those persons, having been entertained in his house, speak affectionately to their host, it is again one of them who promises that he alone will be present and will give him the seed of a child of his own, in these words: "I will return again and visit you again, according to the time of life, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." 133 And what this signifies is shown most clearly and carefully by the events that followed. The country of the Sodomites was a district of the land of Canaan, which the Syrians afterwards called Palestine, a country full of innumerable iniquities, and especially of gluttony and debauchery, and all the great and numerous pleasures of other kinds which men had built up like a fortress, and for this reason it had already been condemned by the Judge of the whole world. 134 And the cause of its excessive and immoderate intemperance was the unlimited abundance of supplies of every kind that its inhabitants enjoyed. For the land had deep soil and was well watered, and so produced abundant crops of every kind of fruit every year. And the man who said this was wise and spoke truly-- "The greatest cause of all iniquity Is found in too much prosperity." 135 Unable to bear such a surfeit of these things discreetly, the men grew restive like cattle, became stiff-necked and discarded the laws of nature, pursuing a great and intemperate indulgence of gluttony, and drinking, and unlawful connections; for not only did they go mad after women, and defile the marriage bed of others, but also those who were men lusted after one another, doing improper things and neither regarding nor respecting their common nature, and though eager for children, they were convicted by having only abortive offspring; but the conviction did them no good, since they were overcome by violent desire; 136 and so, by degrees, the men became accustomed to being treated like women, and in this way engendered among themselves the disease of females, an intolerable evil; for not only did they become like women in their persons, in effeminacy and delicacy, but they also made their souls most ignoble, and in this way corrupted the whole human race, as far as it depended on them. Indeed, if the Greeks and barbarians had agreed together and adopted the sexual practices of the citizens of this city, their cities one after another would have become desolate, as if they had been emptied by a pestilence. 137 But God, having taken pity on mankind, since he is a Saviour and full of love for mankind, increased, as far as possible, the natural desire of men and women for union with each other, for the sake of producing children, and, detesting the unnatural and unlawful intercourse of the people of Sodom, he extinguished it, and destroyed those who were inclined to these things, and not with any ordinary chastisement: he inflicted on them a vengeance of astonishing novelty and unheard-of rarity; 138 for, suddenly, he commanded the sky to become overclouded and to pour forth a mighty shower, not of rain but of fire; and as the flame poured down, with irresistible and unceasing violence, the fields were burnt up, and the meadows, and all the dense groves, and the thick marshes, and the impenetrable thickets; the plain too was consumed, and all the crop of wheat, and of everything else that was sown; and all the trees of the mountain district were burnt up, the trunks and the very roots being consumed. 139 And the folds for the cattle, and the houses of the men, and the walls, and all that was in any building, whether private or public property, was burnt. And in one day these populous cities became the tomb of their inhabitants, and the vast edifices of stone and timber became thin dust and ashes. 140 And when the flames had consumed everything that was visible and that existed on the face of the earth, they proceeded to burn even the earth itself, penetrating into its lowest recesses, and destroying all the vivifying powers which existed within it producing a complete and everlasting barrenness, so that it would never again be able to bear fruit or put forth any green growth; and to this very day it is scorched up. For the fire of lightning is the hardest of all to extinguish; it creeps on, pervading everything and smouldering. 141 And the clearest proof of this is what can be seen to this day: for the smoke which is still emitted, and the sulphur which men dig up there, are a proof of the calamity which happened to that country; while one city and the land around it remain as a most conspicuous proof of the land's ancient fertility. For the city is very populous, and the land is fertile in grass and in grain, and in every kind of fruit, as constant evidence of the punishment inflicted by the divine will on the rest of the country. 142 But I have not gone through all these particulars to show the magnitude of that vast and novel calamity, but because I wanted to prove that of the three beings who appeared to the wise Abraham in the guise of men, the scriptures represent only two as coming, to destroy its inhabitants, to the country that was later destroyed, since the third did not think it fit to come for that purpose. 143 For in my view he was the true and living God, who thought it fitting to be present in person to bestow good gifts by his own power, but to bring about the opposite through the agency and service of his subordinate powers, so that he might be regarded as the prior cause of good only, and of no evil whatever. 144 And kings too seem to me to imitate the divine nature in this respect, and to act in the same way, giving their favours in person, but inflicting their chastisements through others. 145 But since, of the two powers of God, one is a beneficent power and the other a chastising one, each of them, naturally, appears to the country of the people of Sodom. For four of the five finest cities in it were about to be destroyed by fire, and one was destined to be left unhurt and safe from every evil. For it was necessary that the calamities should be inflicted by the chastising power, and that the one to be saved should be saved by the beneficent power. 146 But since the part that was saved was not endowed with entire and complete virtues, but was blessed with kindness by the power of the living God, it was deliberately judged unworthy of being granted the sight of his presence. 147 This, then, is the open explanation to be given of this account, addressed to the multitude. But there is another, esoteric explanation, reserved for the few who choose to investigate the dispositions of the soul and not the forms of bodies; and I will now give it. The five cities of the land of Sodom figuratively represent the five outward senses in us, the organs of the pleasures, through which all the pleasures, great or small, are brought to perfection; 148 for we are pleased either when we behold the varieties of colours and forms, both in inanimate things and in living ones, or when we hear melodious sounds, or again, we are delighted by the exercise of the faculty of taste in eating and drinking, or by the exercise of the sense of smell in fragrant flavours and vapours, or through our faculty of touch when it deals with soft, hot or smooth things. 149 Of these five outward senses, three bear the greatest resemblance to the brute beasts and to slaves, namely the senses of taste, smell, and touch: since it is through these that the species of beasts and cattle that are greediest and most strongly inclined to sexual intercourse are most vehemently excited. For all day and all night they are either glutting themselves insatiably with food, or else eager for sexual intercourse. 150 But two of these outward senses have something philosophical and preeminent in them, namely, sight and hearing. But the ears are somewhat slower and more effeminate than the eyes, since the latter go with promptness and courage to what is to be seen, and do not wait until the objects themselves are in motion, but go forward to meet them, and desire to move themselves so as to face them.⁠b But the sense of hearing, since it is slower and more effeminate, may be ranked second, and the sense of seeing may be allowed a special pre-eminence and privilege: for God has made this sense a sort of queen of the rest, placing it above them all, and, stationing it as it were on a citadel, has made it of all the senses the most closely connected with the soul; 151 and anyone may conjecture this from the common changes that take place in its essential organs; for when there is grief in a person's soul, the eyes are full of concern and melancholy; and on the other hand, when joy is in our heart the eyes smile and rejoice; and when fear gets the upper hand they are full of turbulent and disorderly confusion, and are subject to all kinds of irregular motions, and quiverings, and distortions. 152 Again, if anger occupies us, the sight becomes more fierce and bloodshot; and when we are considering or deliberating, the eyes are tranquil and motionless, and almost as intent as the mind itself; just as, when the mind is relaxed and indifferent, the eyes are relaxed and indifferent; 153 when a friend approaches, a calm and serene look proclaims our goodwill towards him; on the other hand, if we meet an enemy, the eyes give an early indication of the displeasure of the soul; when our mind is inspired by boldness, our eyes bound forward and are ready to start from our heads; when we are oppressed with feelings of shame or modesty, they are gentle and repressed. And, in short, we may say that the sight has been created to be an exact image of the soul, which the sight thus beautifully represents through the perfection of the Creator's skill, the eyes showing a visible representation of it, as in a mirror, since the soul has no visible nature in itself; 154 but the beauty of the eyes exceeds the rest of the outward senses not in this respect alone, but also because the use of the other senses is interrupted even while we are awake; for we must not count here the inactivity that comes from sleep; for they are at rest whenever there is not some external object to put them in motion; but the energies of the eyes when they are open are continuous and uninterrupted, as the eyes are never satiated or wearied, but continue to operate in keeping with their connection with the soul; 155 and the soul itself is everlastingly awake, and is in perpetual motion both night and day; but the eyes, since they share to a great degree in the fleshly nature, were given a self-sufficient gift: the ability to keep exercising their proper energies for half of the entire span of life. 156 But we must now go on to speak of the most necessary part of all, the advantage we derive from the eyes. For it is for sight alone, of all the external senses, that God has caused light to arise, which is the most beautiful of all existing things and also the first thing the sacred scriptures pronounce good. 157 Now the nature of light is twofold: for there is one light that comes from the fire we use, a perishable light from a perishable material, and one that can be extinguished. But the other kind is inextinguishable and imperishable, descending to us from above heaven, as if each of the stars were pouring down its beams upon us from an everlasting spring. And the sense of sight associates with each of these kinds of light, and through both of them it approaches the objects of sight so as to arrive at a most accurate comprehension of them. 158 Why then should we try to praise the eyes further in a speech, when God has engraved their true praises on pillars erected in heaven, namely, the stars? For what purpose were the rays of the sun, and the beams of the moon, and the light of all the other planets and fixed stars called into existence, except as fields for the energies of the eyes in their service of seeing? 159 And so men, using the most excellent of all gifts, contemplate the things which exist in the world, the earth, the plants, the animals, the fruits of the earth, the seas, the outpouring of waters springing from the earth and gushing forth in torrents and floods, and the varieties of fountains, some of which give forth cold and others hot water, and the nature of all things that exist in the air; and all the different species we come to know in this way are innumerable and indescribable, and cannot be contained in speech. And above all these things, the eyes can behold the heaven, which is truly a world created in another world, and they can also survey the beauties and divine images existing in heaven. Which of the other external senses can boast of having reached such a pitch of power? 160 But now, setting aside those outward senses that are, as it were, in the stables, fattening up an animal born with us, namely, appetite, let us investigate the nature of that sense which receives speech, namely, hearing; whose continuous, vigorous and most perfect course is in the atmosphere surrounding the earth, when the violence of the winds and the noise of thunder sound with a great dragging noise and terrible crash. 161 But the eyes in a single moment can reach from earth to heaven, and, taking in the farthest boundaries of the universe, reaching at the same moment to the east and to the west, and to the north and to the south, so as to survey them all at once, drag the mind towards what is visible. 162 And the mind, at once receiving a similar impression, does not stay quiet, but being in perpetual motion, and never slumbering, receiving from the sight the power of observing the objects perceptible to the intellect, comes to consider whether the things brought visibly before it are uncreated or had their origin in creation; also, whether they are bounded or infinite. It considers, again, whether there are many worlds or only one; also, whether there are five elements of the whole universe, or whether heaven and the heavenly bodies have a peculiar and separate nature of their own, having received a more divine conformation, differing from the form of the rest of the world. 163 Again, by these means it considers whether the world was created, who created it, and what the creator is in essence or quality, and with what design he made it, and what he is doing now, and what his mode of existence or cause of life is; and all the other such questions that the excellently endowed mind, living in union with wisdom, is accustomed to examine. 164 These, and similar subjects, belong to philosophers, and from this it is plain that wisdom and philosophy derive their origin from nothing else in us but that queen of the outward senses, the sight, which alone of the region of the body God saved when he destroyed the other four, because those four were slaves to the flesh and to the passions of the flesh; but the sight alone was able to raise its head and to look up, and to find other sources of delight far superior to those proceeding from the bodily pleasures, namely, those derived from the contemplation of the world and the things in it. 165 Therefore it was appropriate for one of the five outward senses, namely, the sight, like one city in the Pentapolis, to receive a special reward and honour, and to remain while the others were destroyed, because it not only deals with mortal objects as they are, but is able to leave them behind, and to depart to the imperishable natures, and to rejoice in the sight of them. 166 That is why the holy scriptures very beautifully represent it as "a little city, and yet not a little One," describing the power of sight under this figure. For it is said to be little because it is only a small portion of the faculties in us, and yet great because it desires great things, being eager to behold the entire heaven and the whole world. 167 We have now, then, given a full explanation concerning the vision which appeared to Abraham, and concerning his celebrated and all-glorious hospitality, in which the host, who thought he was entertaining others, was himself entertained; and we have expounded every part of the passage as accurately as we could. But we must not pass over in silence the most important action of all, which deserves a hearing. For I would almost say that it is more important than all the actions of piety and religion put together. So we must say what seems reasonable about it. 168 The wise man's wedded wife bears him a legitimate son, a beloved and only son, very beautiful in his person, and very excellent in his disposition. For he was already beginning to display the more perfect exercises of his age, so that his father felt the strongest and most vehement affection for him, not only from the impulse of natural regard, but also from deliberate opinion, being, as it were, a judge of his character. 169 Then to him, conscious of such a disposition, there suddenly comes an oracular command he had never expected, ordering him to sacrifice this son on a certain very lofty hill, distant three days' journey from the city. 170 And he, although attached to his child by an indescribable fondness, neither changed colour, nor wavered in his soul, but remained firm in an unyielding and unalterable purpose, as he was at first. And, wholly ruled by love for God, he forcibly repressed all the names and charms of the natural relationship: and without mentioning the oracular command to anyone in his household, among all his many servants, he took with him the two eldest, who were most thoroughly attached to their master, as if he meant to celebrate some ordinary divine rite, and set out with his son, making four in all. 171 And when, looking as it were from a watch-tower, he saw the appointed place far off, he told his servants to remain there, and he gave his son the fire and the wood to carry, thinking it proper for the victim himself to be burdened with the materials for the sacrifice, a very light burden, for nothing is less troublesome than piety. 172 And as they went on with equal speed, not marching more rapidly with their bodies than with their minds along that short road whose end is holiness, they at last arrive at the appointed place. 173 And the father collected stones with which to build the altar; and when his son saw everything else prepared for the celebration of the sacrifice, but no animal, he looked to his father and said, "My father, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the victim for the burnt sacrifice?" 174 Therefore, any other father, knowing what he was about to do, and depressed in his soul, would have been thrown into confusion by his son's words, and, filled with tears, would out of his excessive affliction have betrayed by his silence what was about to be done; 175 but Abraham, betraying no change of voice, expression or intention, and looking at his son with a steady eye, answered his question with an even steadier resolve, "My child," he said, "God will provide himself a victim for the burnt offering," although we are in a vast desert where perhaps you despair of finding such a thing; but all things are possible to God, even all things that are impossible and unintelligible to men. 176 And even while saying this, he quickly seizes his son, and places him on the altar, and having taken his knife in his right hand, he raised it over him as if to kill him; but God the Saviour stopped the deed midway, interrupting him by a voice from heaven, by which he ordered him to stay his hand, and not to touch the child: calling the father by name twice, so as to turn him and divert him from his purpose, and forbid him to complete the sacrifice. 177 And so Isaac is saved, God supplying a gift instead of him, and honouring the one who was willing to make the offering, in return for the piety he had shown. But the father's action, even though it was not finally carried out, is nevertheless recorded and engraved as a complete and perfect sacrifice, not only in the sacred scriptures, but also in the minds of those who read them. 178 But to those who are fond of reviling and disparaging everything, and whose invariable habit is to prefer blame to praise, the action which Abraham was commanded to perform will not appear a great and admirable deed, as we imagine it to have been. 179 For such persons say that many other men, who have been very affectionate to their relations and very fond of their children, have given up their sons; some so that they might be sacrificed for their country to deliver it either from war, or from drought, or from excessive rain, or from disease and pestilence; and others to satisfy the demands of some customary religious observance, even though there may be no real piety in them. 180 Indeed, they say that some of the most celebrated men of the Greeks, not merely private individuals but kings also, caring little for the children they have fathered, have by their destruction secured the safety of mighty and numerous forces and armies, joined together in alliance, and have voluntarily killed them as if they had been enemies. 181 They also say that barbarous nations have for many ages practised the sacrifice of their children as if it were a holy work, looked upon with favour by God; the holy Moses mentions their wickedness. For he blames them for this pollution, saying, "They burn their sons and their daughters to their gods." 182 And they say that to this very day the Gymnosophists among the Indians, when that long or incurable disease, old age, begins to attack them, before it has got a firm hold of them, and while they might still last for many years, kindle a fire and burn themselves. Moreover, they say that when the husbands have died, their wives rush cheerfully to the same funeral pyre and endure being burnt alive along with their husbands' bodies. 183 One may well admire the extraordinary courage of these women, who look on death so contemptuously and disdain it so utterly that they hasten and run impetuously towards it as if they were grasping immortality. But why, they say, should one praise Abraham for attempting a wholly novel kind of conduct, when he only did what private men and kings, and even whole nations, do at appropriate times? 184 But I will make the following reply to the envy and ill-temper of these men. Of those who sacrifice their children, some do so out of habit, as they say some of the barbarians do; others do it because they are unable by any other means to set right some grave and desperate dangers threatening their cities and countries. And of these men, some have given up their children because they were compelled by those more powerful than themselves: and others, out of a thirst for glory, and honour, and for renown in the present, and celebrity in all future ages. 185 Those who sacrifice their children out of deference to custom perform, in my opinion, no great exploit; for an inveterate custom is often as powerful as nature itself; so that it diminishes the terrible impression made by the action to be done, and makes even the most miserable and intolerable evils light to bear. 186 Again, surely those who offer up their children out of fear deserve no praise; for praise is only given to voluntary good actions, but what is involuntary is ascribed to causes other than the immediate actors--to the occasion, or to chance, or to compulsion from men. 187 Again, if anyone abandons his son or his daughter out of a desire for glory, he would justly be blamed rather than praised, for he seeks to acquire honour by the death of his dearest relations, when, even if he had glory, he ought rather to have risked losing it to secure the safety of his children. 188 We must investigate, therefore, whether Abraham was under the influence of any one of the motives already mentioned, custom, or love of glory, or fear, when he was about to sacrifice his son. Now Babylon and Mesopotamia, and the nation of the Chaldaeans, do not accept the custom of sacrificing their children; and these are the countries in which Abraham had been brought up and had lived most of his life; so that we cannot imagine that his sense of the misfortune that he was commanded to inflict upon himself was blunted by the frequency of such events. 189 Again, no fear of men pressed upon him, for no one knew of this oracular command which had been given to him alone, nor was there any common calamity pressing upon the land in which he was living, such as could only be remedied by the destruction of his most excellent son. 190 Could it, however, have been a desire for praise from the multitude that led him to this action? But what praise could be obtained in the desert, when there was no one likely to be present who could possibly say anything in his favour, and when even his two servants were left at a distance precisely so that he would not seem to be hunting for praise, or to be making a display by bringing witnesses with him to see the greatness of his devotion? 191 So let them put a barrier on their unbridled and evil-speaking mouths, moderate the envy in themselves that hates everything good, and refrain from attacking the virtues of men who have lived excellently, which they ought rather to reward and decorate with panegyric. And it is easy to see from many circumstances that this action of Abraham's truly deserved praise and all love. 192 In the first place, then, he laboured more than anyone to obey God, which all right-minded persons consider an excellent thing and a special object of every man's desire, and he did so to such a degree that he never failed to perform anything God commanded him, not even if it was full of arrogance and ingloriousness, or even of positive pain and misery; for which reason he also bore, in a most noble manner, and with the most unshaken fortitude, the command given to him concerning his son. 193 In the second place, though it was not the custom in the land in which he was living, as perhaps it is among some nations, to offer human sacrifices, and custom, by its frequency, often removes the horror felt at the first appearance of evils, he himself was about to be the first to set the example of a novel and most extraordinary deed, which I do not think any human being could have brought himself to submit to, even if his soul had been made of iron or of adamant; for as someone has said, -- "It is a hard task with nature to contend." 194 In the third place, after he had become the father of this, his only legitimate son, he cherished towards him from the moment of his birth all the genuine feelings of affection, which exceed all modest love, and all the ties of friendship which have ever been celebrated in the world. 195 Added to this was the most powerful charm of all: he had become the father of this son not in the prime of his life, but in his old age. For parents become to a certain degree insane in their affection for their children of their old age, either because they have long wished for their birth, or else because they no longer have any hope of having more; nature having taken her stand there as at the extreme and furthest limit. 196 Now there is nothing unnatural or extraordinary in devoting one child to God out of a numerous family, as a sort of first fruits of all one's children, while one still has pleasure in those who remain alive, who are no small comfort and alleviation of the grief felt for the one who is sacrificed. But the man who gives the only beloved son he has performs an action beyond all powers of language to praise, as he is giving nothing to his own natural affection, but inclining with his whole will and heart to show his devotion to God. 197 Accordingly, what Abraham did is an extraordinary and almost unprecedented action. For other men, even if they have yielded up their children to be sacrificed on behalf of the safety of their native land or of their armies, have either remained at home themselves, or have kept at a distance from the altar of sacrifice; or at least, if they have been present they have averted their eyes, and left others to strike the blow which they could not bear to witness. 198 But this man, like a sacrificing priest, himself began to perform the sacred rite, although he was a most affectionate father of a son who was in all respects most excellent. And, perhaps, according to the usual law and custom of burnt offerings he was intending to solemnise the rite by dividing his son limb by limb. And so he did not divide his feelings and allot one part of his regard to his son and another part to piety to God: but he devoted the whole soul, entire and undivided, to holiness; thinking little of the kindred blood which flowed in the victim. 199 Of all the circumstances we have enumerated, what do others have in common with Abraham? What is there that is not peculiar to him, and excellent beyond all power of language to praise? So everyone who is not by nature envious and a lover of evil must be struck with amazement and admiration for his excessive piety, even if he does not call to mind at once all the particulars I have been dwelling on, but only some one of them; for the conception of any one of these particulars is sufficient by a brief and faint outline to display the greatness and loftiness of the father's soul; though there is nothing petty in the action of the wise man. 200 But the things which we have here been saying do not appear only in the plain and explicit language of the text of the holy scriptures; they also seem to reveal a nature which is not so evident to the multitude, but which is recognised by those who place the objects of the intellect above those perceived by the outward senses and who are able to appreciate them. And this nature is as follows. 201 The victim who was about to be sacrificed is called Isaac in the Chaldaean language; but if this name is translated into Greek, it means "laughter;" and this laughter is not to be understood as the bodily laughter so frequent in children's play, but as the result of settled happiness and rejoicing of the mind. 202 The wise man is appropriately said to offer this kind of laughter as a sacrifice to God, showing thus, by a figure, that rejoicing properly belongs to God alone. For the human race is subject to sorrow and to excessive fear, from evils which are either present or expected, so that men are either grieved at unexpected evils actually pressing upon them, or are kept in suspense, and disquiet, and fear about those which are still to come. But the nature of God is free from grief, and exempt from fear, and enjoys immunity from every kind of suffering, and is the only nature which possesses complete happiness and blessedness. 203 To the disposition that makes this confession sincerely, God is merciful, and compassionate, and kind, driving envy far from him; and he gives it a gift in return, as fully as the person benefited is able to receive it, and he all but gives such a person this oracular warning, saying, "I know well that the whole species of joy and rejoicing is the possession of no other being but me, the Father of the universe; 204 nevertheless, though it belongs to me, I do not object to those who deserve it having a share of it. But who can deserve it, except one who obeys me and my will? for this man will be granted to feel as little grief and as little fear as possible, as he travels along the road which passions and vices cannot reach, but which excellence of soul and virtue frequent." 205 And let no one imagine that unmixed joy, without any alloy of sorrow, descends from heaven to earth; what descends is rather a combination of the two, with the better predominating in the mixture, just as the light in heaven is unalloyed and free from any admixture of darkness, but in the sublunary atmosphere it is mingled with dark air. 206 It was for this reason, it seems to me, that Sarah, the namesake of virtue, who had previously laughed, denied her laughter to the person who asked her the cause of it, fearing that she might be deprived of her rejoicing, since it belongs to no created being but to God alone; for this reason the holy Word encouraged her, and said, "Do not be afraid," you have laughed a genuine laugh, and you have a share in real joy; 207 for the Father has not permitted the race of mankind to be wholly devoured by griefs, and sorrows, and incurable anguish, but has mingled something of a better nature into their existence, thinking it fitting that the soul should sometimes enjoy rest and tranquillity; and he has also arranged for the souls of wise men to be pleased and delighted by the contemplation of the world for most of their existence. 208 This is enough to say about the man's piety, though a great many other things might be brought forward in its praise. We must also investigate the skill and wisdom he showed towards his fellow men; for it belongs to the same character to be pious towards God and affectionate towards man; and both these qualities, of holiness towards God and justice towards man, are commonly seen in the same individual. It would take a long time to go through all the instances and actions that show this, but it is not out of place to record two or three. 209 Abraham, being rich above most men in abundance of gold and silver, and having numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and being equal in affluence and abundance to the wealthiest men of the country, or of the original inhabitants, and being, in fact, richer than any sojourner could be expected to be, was never unpopular with any of the people he lived among, but was continually praised and loved by all who knew him; 210 and if, as is often the case, any contention or quarrel arose between his servants and retinue and those of others, he always tried to end it quietly through his gentle disposition, discarding and driving far from his soul everything quarrelsome, and turbulent, and disorderly. 211 And it is no wonder that he behaved this way towards strangers, who might have joined together and repelled him with a heavy and powerful hand if he had begun acts of violence, since he behaved with moderation even towards those who were closely related to him in blood, but very far removed from him in disposition, and who were desolate and isolated, and far inferior to him in wealth, willingly allowing himself to be inferior to them in the very things in which he might have been superior; 212 for there was his brother's son, who went out with him when he departed from his country, an inconstant, variable, whimsical man, inclining now to one side and now to another; at one time greeting him with friendly affection, and at another being restive and obstinate, because of his uneven disposition; 213 for this reason his household was also quarrelsome and turbulent, since it had no one to correct it, and his shepherds were especially so, because they were far away from their master. Accordingly, being self-willed and behaving as if they claimed complete liberty, they were always quarreling with the managers of the flocks of the wise Abraham, who gave way on a great many points because of their master's gentle disposition; as a result, the shepherds of his nephew turned to folly and to shameless audacity, and gave way to anger, nursing ill-temper, and stirring up a spirit of irreconcilable enmity in their hearts, until they compelled those whom they injured to turn to their own defence; 214 and when a fairly violent battle had broken out, the good Abraham, hearing of the attack his servants had made on the others, though only in self-defence, and knowing that his own household was superior in both numbers and power, would not let the contest drag on until victory went to his side, so as not to grieve his nephew by the defeat of his men; but, standing between the two bands of combatants, he reconciled the contending parties with peaceable words, not only for the moment but for all time to come; 215 for he knew that if they continued to live together and stay in the same place, they would always be disagreeing and quarrelling with one another, and continually stirring up quarrels and wars with one another. To prevent this, he thought it best to give up the practice of living together and to separate his home from his nephew's. So he sent for his nephew and gave him the choice of the better country, cheerfully agreeing to give up whatever portion the other chose, since he would thus acquire the greatest of all gains, namely peace; 216 and yet what other man, being the stronger, would ever have yielded on any point at all to one weaker than himself? and who, able to win the victory, would ever have been willing to be defeated rather than use his power? But this man alone set his desire not on strength and superiority, but on a life free from dissension and blessed with tranquillity, as far as it depended on himself; and for this reason he appears the most admirable of all men. 217 Since, then, this panegyric, taken literally, applies to Abraham as a man, and since the disposition of the soul is also hinted at here, we would do well to investigate that too, in the manner of those who go from the letter of a statement to its spirit. 218 There is an infinite variety of dispositions, arising from different circumstances and opportunities in every kind of action and event; but in this instance, we must distinguish between two characters, one of which is the elder and the other the younger. The elder of the two is the disposition that honours the things which are by nature principal and dominant; the younger is the one that values the things which are subject to others and are ranked lowest. 219 The principal and more dominant things are wisdom, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and every kind of virtue, and the actions in accordance with virtue; the younger things are wealth, and authority, and glory, and nobility, not real nobility, but what the multitude think nobility, and all the other things belonging to the third class, which comes after the things of the soul and the things of the body and is in fact the last. 220 Each of these dispositions, then, has flocks and herds, as it were. The one which desires external things has as its flocks gold and silver, and everything that makes up the materials and furniture of wealth; and, moreover, arms, engines, triremes, armies of infantry and cavalry, and fleets of ships, and every kind of provision for gaining domination, by which firm authority is secured. But the lover of excellence has as his flock the doctrines of each individual virtue, and its speculations about wisdom. 221 Moreover, there are overseers and superintendents of each of these flocks, just as there are shepherds to flocks of sheep. The superintendents of the flock of external things are those who are fond of money, those who are fond of glory, those who are eager for war, and all those who love authority over multitudes. And the managers of the flocks of the things of the soul are all those who love virtue and what is honourable, and who do not prefer spurious good things to genuine ones, but genuine good things to spurious ones. 222 There is therefore a certain natural contest between them, since they share no opinions with one another, but are always at variance and in disagreement about the matter that has the greatest influence of all on living life as it should be lived, that is, the judgment of what things are truly good. 223 For some time the soul was attacked by some enemy and was full of this quarrelsome principle, since it had not yet been completely pacified, but was still troubled by some passions and diseases which prevailed over sound reason. But once it began to grow more powerful and, with its superior force, to destroy the fortification of the opposing opinions, it became elated and puffed up with pride, and in a most marvellous way began to separate and detach the disposition within itself that admires external materials, and, as if speaking with a man, says to him, You are unable to dwell with-- 224 it is impossible for you to be joined in alliance with--a lover of wisdom and virtue. Come, then, leave your present home and go far away, since you have no fellowship with me, and indeed cannot possibly have any. For whatever you think is on the right he imagines is on the left; and, conversely, whatever you think is on the left he regards as on the right. 225 Therefore the virtuous man was not only peaceful and a lover of justice, but also a man of courage and of a warlike disposition; not for the sake of making war, since he was not contentious or quarrelsome by nature, but for the sake of a lasting peace in the future, which his adversaries had until then destroyed. 226 And the most convincing proof of this lies in what he did. Four great kings had received as their inheritance the eastern portion of the inhabited world; and they were obeyed by all the eastern nations, both on this and on the other side of the Euphrates. All the other parts remained untroubled by strife, obeying the commands of these kings and paying their yearly taxes and tribute without looking for any excuses; but the land of the inhabitants of Sodom alone, before it was destroyed by the fire, began to break the peace, having been planning to revolt for a long time. 227 For since it was a very rich country, it was ruled by five kings, who had divided the cities and the land among them, though the district was not large, but fertile in grain and trees, and abounding in all kinds of fruit. What their size gives to other cities, the excellence of its soil gives to Sodom; and so it had many princes as lovers, who admired its beauty. 228 On every previous occasion these had paid the appointed revenues to the tax collector, both honouring and fearing the more powerful sovereigns whose viceroys they were. But when they were completely sated with good things, and when satiety, as it usually does, had bred insolence, they began, with a pride beyond their power, first to lift up their heads and grow restive. Then, like wicked servants, they set upon their masters, trusting more to their factious spirit than to their strength. 229 But their sovereigns, mindful of their own nobility and strengthened by superior power, marched against them with great disdain, as if they could defeat them with the mere battle cry. And when they engaged them in battle, they instantly put some of them to flight and killed others as they fled, and so they destroyed their army to a man. They also led away a vast multitude as captives, which they distributed among themselves with much other booty. Moreover, they took captive the wise Abraham's brother's son, who had shortly before emigrated into one of the cities of the Pentapolis. 230 One of those who escaped from the defeat of his countrymen told this to Abraham, and it grieved him exceedingly, and he could no longer stay quiet, being deeply concerned at what had happened, and mourning more for him alive and in captivity than if he had heard that he had been killed. For he knew that death (teleutē), as its very name implies, was the end (telos) of all living beings, and especially of the wicked, and that there are innumerable unexpected evils which lie, as it were, in ambush for the living. 231 But as he prepared to pursue them to rescue his brother's son, he found himself in need of allies, since he was himself a stranger and a sojourner and no one would dare to oppose the irresistible power of such mighty monarchs flushed with recent victory. 232 And he devised a most novel alliance for himself. For necessity is the mother of invention, and expedients are found in the most difficult circumstances when a man has set his heart on just and humane objects. For, having collected all his servants and ordered the slaves he had purchased to stay at home (for he was afraid they would desert), he assembled all his household servants, divided them into centuries, and marched forward with them in battalions; not that he trusted in them, for his force was still a very small one compared with the kings', but he placed his confidence in the champion and defender of the just, namely God. 233 Therefore, exerting himself to the utmost, he pressed on without slackening his speed until, seizing his opportunity, he fell upon the enemy by night, after they had eaten supper and were just about to go to sleep. And he killed some in their beds, and those who were drawn up against him he utterly destroyed, and with great vigour he defeated them all, more by the courage of his soul than by the adequacy of his means. 234 And he did not stop attacking them until he had utterly destroyed the hostile army with their kings, and killed them all to a man in front of their camp, and had brought back his brother's son after this splendid and most glorious victory, also bringing back as fair booty all their cavalry, and all the multitude of their beasts of burden, and a most enormous quantity of spoil. 235 And when the great high priest of the most high God saw him returning loaded with trophies, himself safe and his whole force unharmed, for he had not lost a single man of all those who went out with him; marvelling at the greatness of the exploit, and, quite naturally, considering that he could never have met with this success except through the favour of the divine wisdom and its alliance, he raised his hands to heaven, and honoured him with prayers on his behalf, and offered up sacrifices of thanksgiving for his victory, and splendidly feasted all those who had had a share in the expedition;⁠c rejoicing and sympathising with him as if the success had been his own, and in fact it did greatly concern him. For as the proverb says:-- "All that comes from friends we call common." And much more is all good fortune common to those whose main aim is to please God. 236 This, then, is what the plain words of the scriptures contain. But all who are able to contemplate the facts they relate in their incorporeal and naked state, living rather in the soul than in the body, will say that of the nine kings, four are the powers of the four passions which exist within us, the passion of pleasure, of desire, of fear, and of grief; and that the other five kings are the outward senses, which are equal to them in number, the sense of sight, of hearing, of smell, of taste, and of touch. 237 For these are in some degree sovereigns and rulers, having acquired a certain power over us, but not all to an equal extent; for the five are subordinate to the four, and are compelled to pay them taxes and tribute, as appointed by nature. 238 For it is from the things which we see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch, that pleasures, and pains, and fears, and desires arise; since none of the passions has any power to exist by itself unless it is supplied with the materials furnished by the outward senses. 239 For it is in these things that their powers consist, either in figures and in colours, or in the faculty of speaking or hearing which depends on the voice, or in the flavours, or in odours, or in the objects of touch, whether they are soft or hard, or rough, or smooth, or hot, or cold. For all these things are supplied to each of the passions by means of the outward senses. 240 And as long as the taxes mentioned above are paid, the alliance among the kings remains; but when they are no longer paid as they were before, quarrels and wars immediately arise. And this appears to happen when painful old age sets in, when none of the passions grows weaker, but each perhaps becomes stronger than it was before; but the sight becomes dim, and the ears hard of hearing, and every one of the other outward senses more blunt, being no longer as able as before to judge and decide accurately on every subject put to them, nor any longer to pay a tribute equal to the number of the passions. So it very naturally happened that, being thoroughly exhausted and laid prostrate by them, they were easily put to flight by the adverse passions; 241 and the statement that follows is entirely consistent with what one would naturally expect, namely, that of the five kings two fell into wells, and three took to flight. For touch and taste reach the very deepest parts of the body, sending down into the entrails those things which are suitable for digestion; but the eyes and ears and the sense of smell, which roam abroad for the most part, escape the slavery of the body. 242 The good man--threatening to attack all of these, when he saw that those who had lately been friends and confederates were now torn by dissension, and that there was war instead of peace arising among the nine kingdoms, as the four kings were contending with the five for sovereignty and dominion--suddenly seized his opportunity and attacked them, wishing to establish in the soul democracy, the most excellent of constitutions, in place of tyrannies and absolute sovereignties, and also to introduce law and justice in place of the lawlessness and injustice that had prevailed until then. 243 And what is said here is not a cunningly devised fable, but rather one of the truest of facts, which can be seen to be true in ourselves. For it very often happens that the outward senses keep a sort of confederacy which they have formed with the passions, supplying them with objects perceptible by the outward senses; and very often, too, they stir up disputes, no longer choosing to pay the tribute fairly due from them, or else unable to do so because corrective reason is present; and when this reason has taken up its complete armour, namely the virtues and their doctrines and contemplations, which form an irresistible power, it conquers all things most vigorously. For it is not lawful for perishable things to dwell with what is immortal. 244 Therefore the nine sovereignties of the four passions and the five outward senses are both perishable themselves and causes of mortality. But the truly sacred and divine word, which takes the virtues as its starting point and is placed in the number ten, that perfect number, subdues by main force all the powers already mentioned when it descends into the contest and exerts the more vigorous power it has in accordance with God. 245 And later his wife dies, she who was most dear to his mind and most excellent in every respect, having given innumerable proofs of her affection for her husband by leaving all her relations along with him; and in her unhesitating migration from her own country, and in her continued and uninterrupted wanderings in a foreign land, and in her endurance of want and scarcity, and in accompanying him on his military expeditions. 246 For she was with him at all times and in all places, never absent from any spot or failing to share any of his fortune, being truly the partner of his life, and of all the circumstances of his life; thinking it right to share equally with him in all his good and evil fortune. For she did not, as some do, shun any share in his misfortunes and lie in wait only for his prosperity, but cheerfully took her share in both, as was fitting and proper for a wedded wife. 247 And though I could find many topics for a panegyric on this woman, I will mention only one, which will be the clearest possible proof of all the others. For she, being barren and childless, and fearing that her husband's God-loving house might be left entirely destitute of offspring, came to her husband and spoke as follows:-- 248 "We have now lived together a long time mutually pleasing each other; but we have no children, though they are the reason we came together, and the reason nature designed the original union of husband and wife; nor can there be any hope of your having any offspring by me, since I am now past the age of childbearing; 249 do not, then, suffer for my barrenness, and do not, out of your affection for me, let yourself be prevented from becoming a father while you are still able to. For I will not feel any jealousy towards another woman whom you may marry, not to gratify irrational appetite, but to satisfy a necessary law of nature. 250 For this reason I will not delay in adorning a new bride for you, so that she may supply what is lacking on my part. And if the prayers we offer up for the birth of children are blessed with success, the children born will be your own legitimate children, but by adoption they will certainly be mine. 251 "And so that you may have no suspicion of any jealousy on my part, take, if you will, my own handmaid as your wife; she is a slave in body, but free and noble in mind, and I have long tested and known her good qualities, from the day she was first brought into my house, an Egyptian by blood and a Hebrew by deliberate choice. 252 We have great property and abundant wealth, unlike people who are sojourners. For we already surpass even the natives themselves in the brilliance of our prosperity, yet we have no heir or successor, even though there could be one if you would take my advice." 253 But Abraham, marvelling more and more at his wife's love for her husband, which was continually renewed and gaining fresh strength, and also at her foresight, so eager to provide for the future, takes the handmaid she had approved, so far as to have a son by her; though, according to those who give the clearest and most probable account, he lived with her only until she became pregnant; and when she conceived, which happened before long, he ceased all relations with her, because of his natural continence and the honour in which he held his wife. 254 So he soon had a son by this handmaid, but long afterwards he also had a legitimate son, after he and his wife had both given up hope of any offspring from one another. The bountiful God thus bestowed on them a reward for their excellence more perfect than their highest hopes. 255 It is enough to mention this as proof of the virtue of Abraham's wife. But the grounds for praising the wise man himself are more numerous, and I have just listed some of them. I will also mention one circumstance connected with his wife's death, which ought not to be buried in silence. 256 For when Abraham had lost such a partner of his whole life as our account has shown her to be, and as the scriptures testify she was, he still, like a wrestler, prevailed over the grief which attacked him and threatened to overwhelm his soul; with great virtue and resolution he strengthened and encouraged reason, the natural adversary of the passions, which he had always taken as his counsellor throughout his life; but now above all he thought fit to be guided by it, since it was giving him the best and most expedient advice. 257 And the advice was this: not to afflict himself beyond all measure, as if he had been struck down by a novel and unprecedented calamity, nor, on the other hand, to give way to indifference, as if nothing had happened that could cause him sorrow. Rather, it was to choose the middle way over either extreme and to try to grieve moderately, not resenting nature for reclaiming what belonged to her by right, and bearing what had happened to him with a mild and gentle spirit. 258 And evidence for these assertions can be seen in the holy scriptures, which cannot possibly be convicted of false witness; they tell us that Abraham, having wept a short time over his wife's body, soon rose up from the corpse; thinking, it seems, that to mourn any longer would be inconsistent with the wisdom that had taught him to regard death not as the extinction of the soul, but as its separation and detachment from the body, as it returns to the region from which it came; and it came, as the history of the creation of the world fully shows, from God. 259 But just as no man of moderation or sense would resent having to repay a debt to a lender or return a deposit to the man who had deposited it, so he did not think it proper to show impatience when nature reclaimed what belonged to her, but preferred to bear the inevitable cheerfully. 260 And when the magistrates of that country came to sympathise with him in his sorrow and saw none of the customary signs of woe usually displayed by mourners in their land, no loud wailing or howling, no beating of the breast, no loud cries of men or women, but a steady, sober depression of spirits on the part of the whole household, they marvelled exceedingly, even though they had already been full of astonishment and admiration at all the rest of the man's way of life. 261 And then, not keeping to themselves what they thought of the greatness and beauty of his virtue, for it was all admirable, they approached him and addressed him thus:--"You are a king from God among us." And they spoke most truly, for all other kingdoms are established by man by means of wars, and military expeditions, and indescribable evils, which those who aim at power inflict on one another, killing one another, and raising up vast forces of infantry, and cavalry, and fleets. But the kingdom of the wise man is bestowed upon him by God; and the virtuous man who receives it causes no evil to anyone, but rather brings all his subjects both the acquisition and the use of good things, proclaiming to them peace and obedience to the law. 262 There is also another praise of him, recorded in his honour and testified to in the holy scriptures which Moses wrote, where it is said of him that he believed in God; a statement brief in words, but of great magnitude and importance when confirmed in fact. 263 For in whom else can we believe? Are we to trust in authorities, or in glory and honour, or in abundance of wealth and noble birth, or in good health and a good condition of the senses and the mind, or in vigour of body and beauty of person? But in fact every kind of authority is unstable, since it has innumerable enemies lying in wait to attack it. And if in any instance it is firmly established, it is secured only through innumerable evils and calamities which those in authority both inflict and suffer. 264 Again, honours and glory are most unstable, being tossed about by the indiscriminate inclinations and feeble words of careless and imprudent men; and even if they endure, they are by nature unable to produce any genuine good. 265 And as for riches and illustrious birth, they sometimes fall to the lot of the most worthless men. And even if they belonged only to the virtuous, they would still be praise of their ancestors and of fortune, not of those who now possess them. 266 Nor, again, is it right for a man to pride himself on his personal advantages, in which other animals are superior to him. For what man is stronger or more vigorous than a bull among domestic animals, or than a lion among wild beasts? And what man is more sharp-sighted than a falcon or an eagle? And what man has such keen hearing as the ass, the stupidest of all animals? And what man has a more accurate sense of smell than a hound, which, huntsmen say, can track by its nose animals lying at a distance, run straight to them and give chase, though it has not seen them? For the sense of smell is to hounds, and to all the dogs that hunt game, what sight is to other animals. 267 Moreover, most of the irrational animals enjoy excellent health and are as nearly as possible free from disease. And in any contest of beauty, some things that are not even alive seem to me to surpass the elegance of men and women alike: images, for instance, and statues, and pictures, and in a word every work of painting or sculpture that reaches excellence in its branch, works that Greeks and barbarians alike study and desire, and set up in the most conspicuous places to adorn their cities. 268 Therefore, the only real, true and lasting good is trust in God: the comfort of life, the fulfillment of all good hopes, the absence of all evils and the source of the blessings that come with it, the repudiation of all unhappiness, the recognition of piety, the inheritance of all happiness, and the improvement of the soul in every respect, since the soul then relies for support on the cause of all things, who can do everything but wills to do only what is best. 269 For just as men walking along a slippery road stumble and fall, while those who take a dry, level and even path travel on without stumbling, so those who lead their soul along the road of bodily and external goods are only training it to fall, for these things are full of stumbling blocks and the most insecure of all. But those who hasten towards God through the contemplations that accord with virtue are guiding their souls along a safe and untroubled path. So we may say with absolute truth that the man who trusts in the good things of the body disbelieves in God, and the man who distrusts them believes in him. 270 The holy scriptures not only bear witness to Abraham's faith in the living God, a faith that is the queen of all the virtues; he is also the first man they call an elder, though men before him had lived three times as many years as he had (or even more), and not one of them has come down to us as worthy of the title. And is this not strictly in keeping with the truth of nature? For a true elder is counted as one not by his length of years but by how praiseworthy his life has been. 271 We must therefore call those men who have spent a long life living by the body, apart from all virtue, only long-lived children, since they were never taught the branches of education that befit grey hairs. But the man who has loved prudence, wisdom and faith in God may justly be called an elder, a name formed by a slight change from the word first. 272 In truth the wise man is the first man in the human race; he is what a pilot is in a ship, a governor in a city, a general in war, the soul in the body, or the mind in the soul; or again, what the heaven is in the world, and what God is in the heaven. 273 And God, admiring this man for his faith (pistis) in him, gave him a pledge (pistis) in return, namely, an oath confirming the gifts he had promised him, and no longer spoke with him as God might with man, but as one friend with another.⁠d For he says, "By myself I have sworn," that is, by him whose word is an oath, so that Abraham's mind may be established still more firmly and immovably than before. 274 The virtuous man is and should be called the elder and the first; the foolish man is the younger and the last, since he pursues only objects that belong to rebellious youth and that are placed in the lowest rank. 275 That is enough to say on this subject. But God, adding one single thing as a crowning point to the number and greatness of the wise man's praises, says that "this man fulfilled the divine law, and all the commandments of God," not because written books had taught him to do so, but in keeping with the unwritten law of his nature, eager as he was to obey every healthy and wholesome impulse. And what is man's duty except to believe most firmly what God asserts? 276 Such is the life of the first author and founder of our nation: a man who lived by the law, as some think, but, as my argument has shown, one who is himself the unwritten law and justice of God.