(2.60) Again, as for drinking, what more could a man really need than the cup of nature, made with the perfection of art? Our own hands supply such a cup: if anyone brings them together and forms them into a hollow, applying them closely to his mouth while another pours in the liquid to drink, he gets not only a remedy for his thirst, but also a most indescribable pleasure. (2.61) Still, if someone absolutely needed something else, would not the ivy cup of the agricultural laborer be sufficient? and why should we need to resort to the arts of other eminent artists? And what can be the use of providing a countless multitude of gold and silver goblets, if not to gratify boastful and vain-glorious arrogance, and vain opinion raising itself to an undue height? (2.62) Again, when men wear crowns, they are not content with fragrant garlands of laurel, or ivy, or violets, or lilies, or roses, or of any tree whatever, or of any flower, neglecting all the gifts of God, which he bestows on us in the various seasons of the year, but they put golden crowns on their heads, which are a very heavy weight, wearing them in the middle of the crowded marketplace without any shame. And what can we think of such men except that they are slaves of vain opinion, even though they claim not only to be free, but even to be rulers over many other persons? (2.63) The day would fail me if I were to go through all the varieties of human life; and in any case, why should I dwell on the subject at length? For who has not heard of, or seen, such men as these? Who does not associate with them and know them well? So the sacred scripture has very appropriately named addition the enemy of simplicity and the companion of pride; (2.64) for just as superfluous shoots grow on trees, which are a great injury to the genuine useful branches, and which the cultivators, with prudent foreknowledge of what is necessary, destroy and cut out: so likewise, the life of falsehood and arrogance often grows up by the side of the true life devoid of pride, and to this day no cultivator has been found who has been able to cut away its injurious superfluous growth by the roots. (2.65) Therefore the practitioners of wisdom, knowing this first through the outward sense, and then pursuing it with the mind, cry out loudly and say, A wicked beast has seized and devoured Joseph. (2.66) But does not that most ferocious beast, the various pride which springs up in the life of men living in irregularity and confusion, whose chief workmen are covetousness and unscrupulous cunning, devour everyone who comes within his reach? So grief will be added to them even while they are alive, as though they were dead, since their life is worthy of lamentation and mourning, just as Jacob mourns for Joseph even while he is alive. (2.67) But Moses will not allow the sacred reasonings about Nadab to be mourned; for they have not been carried off by a savage beast, but have been taken up by inextinguishable violence and imperishable light; because, having discarded all fear and hesitation, they had duly consecrated the fervent and fiery zeal, consuming the flesh, and very easily and vehemently excited towards piety,⁠a which is unconnected with creation, but is akin to God, not going up to the altar by the regular steps, for that was forbidden by law, but proceeding rapidly onwards with a favorable gale, and being led up even to the threshold of heaven, becoming dissolved into ethereal beams like a whole burnt-offering.