On Dreams, Book 1

(1.1) The previous treatise set out our views on the visions sent from heaven that are classed under the first species; on that subject we gave our opinion that the Deity sent the appearances people see in dreams in accordance with the promptings of his own nature. But in this treatise we will describe, as best we can, the dreams that come under the second species. (1.2) The second species is the one in which our mind, moving together with the mind of the universe, has seemed to be carried away by itself and to be under the influence of divine impulses, so that it becomes able to grasp in advance and foreknow some future events. The first dream akin to the species I have been describing is the one that appeared on the ladder reaching up to heaven, and it went like this. (1.3) "And Jacob dreamed, and look, a ladder was firmly planted on the earth, the head of which reached up to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold there was a ladder firmly planted on the earth, and the Lord was standing steadily upon it; and he said, I am the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: do not be afraid. The earth on which you are sleeping I will give to you and to your seed, and your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and it shall be multiplied as the sand on the seashore, and shall spread to the south, and to the north, and to the east; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed, and in your seed also. And, behold, I am with you, keeping you in all your ways, whichever way you go, and I will bring you back to this land; because I will not leave you until I have done everything that I have said to you." (1.4) But the circumstances leading up to this vision need to be examined carefully first, and then perhaps we will be able to understand what the vision indicates. What, then, came before it? The scripture tells us, "And Jacob went up from the well of the oath, and came to Charran, and went into a place and lay down there until the sun arose. And he took one of the stones of the place and placed it at his head, and went to sleep in that place." And the dream came immediately afterwards. (1.5) So it is right at the outset to raise questions on these three points:--First, What was the well of the oath, and why was it called by this name? Secondly, What is Charran, and why did Jacob go straight to Charran after leaving the well just mentioned? Thirdly, What was the place, and why, when he was in it, did the sun set at once, and why did he go to sleep?

(1.6) Let us begin at once, then, with the first of these points. To me the well seems to be an emblem of knowledge, for its nature is not shallow but very deep. Nor does it lie in the open; a well likes to be hidden away somewhere in secret. Nor is it found easily, but only with difficulty and after great labour; and the same is true of the sciences, not only of those with great and indescribable subjects of speculation, but even of the most insignificant. (1.7) Choose, then, whatever art you like; not the most excellent, but even the most obscure of all, one that perhaps no one raised as a free man in the whole city would ever study of his own accord, and that scarcely any servant in the fields would take up, even one enslaved against his will to some morose, ill-tempered master who forced him to do many unpleasant things. (1.8) For the matter will turn out to be no simple one but one of great complexity and variety, not easy to grasp but hard to discover and hard to master, hostile to delay, indolence and indifference, and full of earnestness and striving, sweat and care. This is why "those who dig in this well say that they cannot find even water in it;" because the ends of science are not merely hard to discover but altogether undiscoverable; (1.9) and this is why one man is more thoroughly skilled in grammar or geometry than another: it is impossible to circumscribe any one of them, or to keep its growth and extent within fixed limits; for what is left behind always exceeds what is learnt; and what is left lies in wait for the learner and catches him, so that even someone who imagines he has grasped and mastered the farthest reaches of knowledge would be judged only half complete by anyone assessing him, and before the tribunal of truth would appear to be only beginning to learn; (1.10) for life is short, as someone has said, but art is long; and the man who most fully grasps its magnitude is the one who sincerely and honestly plunges deep into it and digs it out like a well. And such a man, it is said, wept at the point of death, grey-haired and very old, not because he was a coward who feared death, but out of a desire for instruction, feeling that he was only now entering upon it for the first time, just as he was finally departing from life. (1.11) For the soul flourishes in the pursuit of knowledge just when the prime vigour of the body is withering with the passing of time; so before one reaches one's prime and vigour through a more accurate grasp of things, it is easy to be tripped up. But this happens to everyone who loves learning: new subjects of contemplation keep rising up and pressing after the old ones, since the soul itself produces many such subjects when it is not barren and unproductive. And nature, too, unexpectedly and spontaneously displays a great number of them to those gifted with acute and penetrating intellects. So the well of knowledge proves to be of this kind, with no boundary and no end. (1.12) We must now explain why it was called the well of the oath. Matters in doubt are decided by an oath, uncertain matters are confirmed in the same way, and matters that lack certification receive it by an oath; from this we infer that there is nothing anyone can affirm with greater certainty than that the race of wisdom is without limit and without end. (1.13) It is good, then, to enlist under the banner of someone who discusses these matters without an oath; but anyone not much inclined to accept the assertions of others will at least accept them once he has sworn to their correctness. But let no one refuse to take an oath of this kind, knowing well that his name will be inscribed on pillars among those who keep their oaths.

(1.14) However, enough of this. Next we must consider why, when four wells had been dug by the servants of Abraham and Isaac, the fourth and last was called the well of the oath. (1.15) Perhaps the sacred historian here wishes to show figuratively that, just as there are four elements in the universe from which this world is composed, and the same number in ourselves, from which we were fashioned before being moulded into human shape, three of them can be comprehended in one way or another, but the fourth is unintelligible to all who come forward to judge it. (1.16) Accordingly, we find that the four elements in the world are the earth, and the water, and the air, and the heaven, and even if some of these are difficult to find out, they are still not classed among the utterly undiscoverable. (1.17) For we know that the earth, being a heavy, indissoluble and solid substance, is divided into mountains and plains and cut through by rivers and seas, so that some of it consists of islands and some of continents. And again, some of it has a shallow and some a deep soil; and some is rough, and rugged, and strong, and altogether barren; and some is smooth and delicate, and exceedingly fertile; and besides all these facts we know a great many others about the earth. (1.18) And again, there is the water, which we know has many of the qualities mentioned above in common with the earth, and many also peculiar to itself; for some of it is sweet, and some brackish, and some is a mixture of various qualities; and some is good to drink, and some is not drinkable; and, moreover, neither of these last qualities holds for every creature alike: water that is drinkable for some is undrinkable for others, and vice versa. Again, some water is by nature cold, and other water is naturally hot; (1.19) for in all sorts of places there are countless springs pouring out hot water, not only on land but even in the sea: at any rate, veins of warm water have been seen before now welling up in the middle of the sea, and all the enormous outflow of salt water in the sea that encircles the world, pouring over them from all eternity, has never been able to quench them, or even diminish them in the least. (1.20) Again, we know that the air has a yielding nature and gives way to pressure from the bodies around it, being the organ of life, and breath, and sight, and hearing, and all the rest of the external senses, subject to rarification, and condensation, and motion, and tranquillity, and changes, and variations of every kind, by which it is altered and modified, and generating summers and winters, and the seasons of autumn and spring, by which the circle of the year is at last brought to completion.

(1.21) All these things, then, we perceive; but the heaven has an incomprehensible nature, and it has never given us any clear sign by which we can understand it; for what can we say? that it is solid ice, as some people have chosen to claim? or that it is the purest fire? or that it is a fifth body, moving in a circle and sharing in none of the four elements? For what can we say? Does that most remote sphere of the fixed stars have any density extending upward? or is it merely a surface devoid of all depth, something like a plane figure? (1.22) And what are the stars? Are they masses of earth full of fire? For some people have said that they are hills, and valleys, and thickets, men who deserve a prison and a treadmill, or any place equipped with instruments for punishing the impious; or are they, as someone has defined them, a continuous and dense harmony, the closely packed, indissoluble mass of aether? Again, are they animated and intelligent? or are they without both mind and life? Do they move by any choice of their own? or merely under compulsion? (1.23) What, again, are we to say of the moon? Does she show us a light of her own, or a borrowed and illegitimate one, only reflected from the rays of the sun? or is neither of these things true, and does she have a mixed light, as it were, a sort of combination of her own light and the light that belongs to some other body? For all these things and others like them, which belong to the fourth and most excellent of the bodies in the world, namely the heaven, are uncertain and incomprehensible, and are discussed on the basis of conjecture and guesswork rather than the solid, certain reasoning of truth, (1.24) so that one might venture to swear that no mortal will ever be able to comprehend any one of these matters clearly. At any rate, this is why the fourth, dry well was called the well of the oath: the search for the fourth element in the world, that is, the heaven, yields no result and is fruitless in every respect. But let us now see how the fourth element in us is by nature so especially and singularly incomprehensible.

(1.25) There are, then, four principal elements in us: the body, the external sense, the speech, and the mind. Three of these are not wholly uncertain or unintelligible; each contains some indication within itself by which it can be comprehended. (1.26) What do I mean by this? We know already that the body is divisible into three parts, and that it is capable of motion in six directions, since it has three dimensions, length, depth and breadth, and twice as many motions, namely six: upward, downward, to the right, to the left, forward and backward. Moreover, we know that it is the vessel of the soul, and that it is subject to the changes of youth, decay, old age, death and dissolution. (1.27) As for the outward senses, we are not utterly dull and mutilated here either; we can say that sense too is divided into five, and that nature has formed an appropriate organ for the working of each sense; for instance, the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nostrils for smelling, and the other organs for the exercise of the respective senses to which they are adapted, and also that we may call these outward senses messengers of the mind, which inform it of colours and shapes and sounds, of the particular differences of vapours and flavours, and in short describe to it all bodies and all the qualities that distinguish them. They may also be regarded as bodyguards of the soul, reporting to it all that they see or hear; and if anything harmful attacks it from outside, they foresee it and guard against it, so that it does not slip in by chance and unawares and cause irreparable disaster to their mistress. (1.28) Again, the voice does not entirely escape our comprehension; but we know that one voice is shrill and another deep; that one is tuneful and harmonious, and another dissonant and very unmusical; and again, one voice is more powerful, and another less so. And they also differ in ten thousand other particulars: in kind, in complexion, in distance, in combined and separate tension of the tones, in the symphonies of fourths, of fifths, and of the diapason. (1.29) Moreover, we also know some things about the articulate voice, which has been given to man alone of all animals: we know, for instance, that it is sent out by the mind, that it receives its articulate distinctness in the mouth, that the striking of the tongue stamps articulation on the tones of the voice and makes the uttered sound more than a bare, naked, useless noise void of all character, and that it serves as herald or interpreter for the mind that prompts it.

(1.30) Is the fourth element within us, then, the dominant mind, comprehensible to us in the same way as these other divisions? Certainly not; for what do we think it is in its essence? Do we regard it as spirit, or blood, or, in short, any bodily substance? But it is not a substance; it must be pronounced incorporeal. Is it then a limit, or a species, or a number, or a continued act, or a harmony, or any existing thing at all? (1.31) Is it infused into us from outside at the very moment we are born, or is it some warm nature in us that is cooled by the air spread around us, like a piece of iron heated in a forge and then plunged into cold water, which tempers and hardens it? (And perhaps the soul [hē psychē] takes its name from the cooling process [psyxis] it undergoes in this way.) What more shall we say? When we die, is it extinguished and destroyed together with our bodies? or does it live on for a long time? or, thirdly, is it wholly incorruptible and immortal? (1.32) Again, where, in what part of us, does this mind lie hidden? Has it been given any fixed dwelling? For some have assigned it to our head, as the principal citadel, around which all the outward senses have their lairs, thinking it natural for its bodyguards to be stationed near it, as near the palace of a mighty king. Others argue earnestly for the place they assign it, believing that it is enshrined like a statue in the heart. (1.33) So the fourth element is incomprehensible: in the world, the heaven, compared with the nature of the earth, the water and the air; and in man, the mind, compared with the body, the outward sense and speech, which is the interpreter of the mind. Is this not also why the fourth year is described as holy and praiseworthy in the sacred scriptures? (1.34) For among created things, in the world the heaven is holy, the body in which the imperishable and indestructible natures revolve; and in man the mind is holy, being a sort of fragment of the Deity, as Moses especially affirms when he says, "God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." (1.35) And it seems to me that both these things are called praiseworthy with good reason; for these two, the heaven and the mind, are the ones able to utter, with all fitting dignity, the praises, and hymns, and glory, and beatitude of the Father who created them: for man has received a special honour beyond all other animals, the honour of ministering to the living God. And the heaven is always singing melodies, perfecting an all-musical harmony, in keeping with the motions of all the bodies in it; (1.36) and if its sound ever reached our ears, it would kindle unrestrainable love, frantic desires and a furious impetuosity that could be neither ended nor calmed, and would compel us to give up even what is necessary, no longer nourishing ourselves like ordinary mortals on food and drink taken in through the throat, but on the inspired songs of music in its highest perfection, like people about to be made immortal through their ears: and it is said that Moses was an incorporeal hearer of these melodies, when he went forty days and as many nights without touching any bread or water at all.

(1.37) So the heaven, the archetypal organ of music, seems to have been arranged most perfectly for no other purpose than that the hymns sung in honour of the Father of the universe might be musically attuned; and we hear that virtue, that is to say, Leah, after the birth of her fourth son, could bear no more, but restrained, or perhaps I should say was restrained, in her generative powers; for she found, I think, all her generative power dry and barren, after she had brought forth Judah, that is to say, "confession," the perfect fruit: (1.38) and the phrase, "Leah desisted from bearing children," is no different from the statement that "the children of Isaac found no water in the fourth well." For both these figurative expressions show that every creature thirsts for God, by whom all their births come about and from whom they receive nourishment once they are born. (1.39) Perhaps, then, some petty, quibbling critics will think that this whole account of the digging of the wells is superfluous long-windedness on the part of the lawgiver: but those who deserve a higher rank, citizens not of some petty state but of the wide world and men of more perfect wisdom, will know well that the real question is not about the four wells but about the parts of the universe on which men gifted with sight and fond of contemplation exercise their powers of investigation, namely the earth, the water, the air and the heaven. (1.40) And examining each of these with the most precise and refined thought, they have found in three of them some things within reach of their comprehension; this is why they have given the names injustice, enmity and latitude to what they discovered. But in the fourth, that is, in heaven, they have found absolutely nothing they could comprehend, as we explained a little while ago: for the fourth proves to be a well without water, and dry; and for the reason given above it is called a well.

(1.41) We will now investigate what comes next, and inquire what Charran is, and why the man who went up from the well came to it. Charran, then, seems to me to be a sort of metropolis of the outward senses; it is interpreted sometimes as a dug pit and sometimes as holes, and both these names point to one fact; (1.42) for our bodies are in a way dug out to provide the organs of the outward senses, and each organ is a sort of hole in which its corresponding outward sense shelters as in a cave: so when anyone goes up from the well called the well of the oath, as if leaving a harbour, he necessarily comes at once to Charran: for the outward senses must necessarily receive anyone who emigrates without a guide from that most excellent country of knowledge, boundless as it is. (1.43) For our soul is very often set in motion by itself once it has put off the whole burden of the body and escaped the crowd of the outward senses; and very often, too, even while it is still clothed in them. So by its own simple motion it has come to comprehend the things perceptible only to the intellect, and by the motion of the body it has come to understand the things perceptible to the outward senses; (1.44) so if anyone is wholly unable to keep company with the mind alone, he finds himself a second refuge, namely the external senses; and whoever fails to comprehend the things intelligible only to the intellect is at once drawn over to the objects of the outward senses; those who cannot make a successful voyage under the sails of the dominant mind can always fall back on the oars of the outward senses. (1.45) But it is good for people not to grow old or spend all their time on this course either, but rather, like sojourners straying in a foreign country, always to seek a second migration and a return to their native land. So Laban, who knows absolutely nothing of species or genus, form or conception, or anything else grasped by the intellect alone, and who relies solely on what is outwardly visible and what comes to the notice of the eyes, the ears and the other kindred faculties, is thought fit to have Charran as his country, which Jacob, the lover of virtue, lives in as a foreign land for a short time, always keeping in mind his return home; (1.46) so his mother, perseverance, that is, Rebecca, says to him, "Rise up and flee to Laban, my brother, to Charran, and stay with him for some days." Do you not see, then, that the practitioner of virtue will not consent to live permanently in the country of the outward senses, but only to stay there a few days, a short time, because of the needs of the body to which he is bound? But a longer time, a whole life, is allotted to him in the city perceptible only to the intellect.

(1.47) This also seems to me to be why his grandfather, Abraham by name, so called from his knowledge, would not stay long in Charran, for it is said in the scriptures that "Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed from Charran;" although his father Terah, whose name, interpreted, means "the investigation of a smell," lived there until the day he died. (1.48) That is why the sacred scriptures state expressly that "Terah died in Charran," for he was only a reconnoitrer of virtue, not a citizen. And he made use of smells, not of the enjoyment of food, since he was not yet able to fill himself with wisdom, or even to get a taste of it, but only to smell it; (1.49) for just as hunting dogs, it is said, can use their faculty of smell to find the lurking places of their game at a great distance, since nature has made their outward sense of smell wonderfully acute; so in the same way the lover of instruction tracks the sweet breeze given off by justice and by every other virtue, and is eager to see the qualities from which this most admirable source of delight comes, and while he cannot do so he turns his head all around in a circle, sniffing out nothing else and seeking only that most sacred scent of excellence and food, for he does not deny that he is eager for knowledge and wisdom. (1.50) Blessed, then, are those who have been able to enjoy the delights of wisdom and to feast on its speculations and doctrines, and who, even while cheered by them, still thirst for more, feeling an insatiable and growing desire for knowledge. (1.51) And second place will go to those who are not allowed to enjoy the sacred table but who still refresh their souls with its odours; for they will be roused by the fragrances of virtue, like languid invalids who cannot yet take solid food but still feed on the smell of the foods the sons of the physicians prepare as a sort of remedy for their weakness.

(1.52) So Terah is said to have left the land of the Chaldaeans and migrated to Charran, bringing with him his son Abraham and the rest of his household who shared his opinions, not so that we might read in historical chronicles that some men became emigrants, leaving their native country and becoming inhabitants of a foreign land as if it were their own country, but so that a lesson full of wisdom, of the greatest importance to life and suited to man alone, would not be neglected. (1.53) And what is the lesson? The Chaldaeans are great astronomers, and the inhabitants of Charran occupy themselves with the external senses. So the sacred account says to the investigator of nature, Why are you inquiring about the sun, and asking whether he is a foot broad, whether he is greater than the whole earth put together, or whether he is even many times as large? And why are you investigating the causes of the light of the moon, and whether it has a borrowed light, or one that comes from itself alone? Why, again, do you seek to understand the nature of the other stars, their motion, and their sympathy with one another and even with earthly things? (1.54) And why, while walking on the earth, do you soar above the clouds? And why, while rooted in the solid land, do you affirm that you can reach the things in the sky? And why do you try to form conjectures about matters that conjecture cannot settle? And why do you busy yourself with sublime subjects you should not meddle with? And why do you stretch your desire for discoveries in mathematical science as far as the heaven? And why do you devote yourself to astronomy, and talk about nothing but high subjects? My good man, do not trouble your head about things beyond the ocean, but attend only to what is near you; and be content instead to examine yourself without flattery. (1.55) How, then, will you find out what you want, even if you are successful? Go to Charran with your whole intellect at work, that is, to the trench which is dug, into the holes and caverns of the body, and investigate the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, and the other organs of the external senses; and if you wish to be a philosopher, study as a philosopher the branch that is most indispensable and also most fitting for a man, and inquire what the faculty of sight is, what hearing is, what taste, what smell, what touch is, in a word, what external sense is; then seek to understand what it is to see, and how you see; what it is to hear, and how you hear; what it is to smell, or to taste, or to touch, and how each of these operations normally works. (1.56) But is it not the height of insane folly to seek to comprehend the dwelling of the universe before you know your own private dwelling accurately? But I am not yet laying on you the more important and broader command to get to know your own soul and mind, which you are so proud of knowing; for in reality you will never be able to comprehend it. (1.57) Mount up to heaven, then, and talk arrogantly about the things there, before you are even able to comprehend, in the words of the poet, "All the good and all the evil Which your own abode contains;" and bring that messenger of yours down from heaven, dragging him away from his search into what is there; get to know yourself, and labour carefully and diligently to reach whatever happiness is permitted to man. (1.58) The Hebrews called this disposition Terah, and the Greeks called it Socrates; for they also say that Socrates grew old in the most exacting study of how he might know himself, never once turning his philosophical speculations to subjects beyond himself. But Socrates was an actual man, whereas Terah is the principle itself, set before everyone, by which each man should know himself, like a tree full of good branches, so that those who love virtue might easily gather the fruit of pure morality and so be filled with the most delightful and saving food. (1.59) Such, then, are the men who reconnoitre the quarters of wisdom for us; but those who are actually her athletes and practise her exercises are more perfect. For these men see fit to learn the whole subject of the external senses with complete accuracy, and then to move on to another and more important speculation, leaving behind all consideration of the holes of the body, which they call Charran. (1.60) Abraham is one of these men; he made great progress and improvement in the comprehension of complete knowledge; for when he knew most, he renounced himself most completely, in order to reach accurate knowledge of him who was the truly living God. And this is indeed very natural; for whoever fully understands himself also, because he appreciates it thoroughly, utterly renounces the universal nothingness of the creature; and he who renounces himself learns to comprehend the living God.

(1.61) We have now explained, then, what Charran is, and why the man who left the well of the oath came there. We must now consider the third point, which comes next: what the place is to which this man came; for it is said, "He met him in the place." (1.62) Place is considered in three ways: firstly, as a situation filled by a body; secondly, as a divine word which God himself has filled wholly and entirely with incorporeal powers; for the scripture says, "I have seen the place in which the God of Israel stood," the only place in which he permitted his prophet to offer sacrifice to him, forbidding him to do so anywhere else. For he is ordered to go up into the place which the Lord God shall choose, and there to sacrifice burnt offerings and sacrifices for salvation, and also to bring other victims without spot. (1.63) According to the third signification, God himself is called a place, because he surrounds the universe and is himself surrounded by nothing whatever,⁠a because he is the refuge of all people, and because he is his own district, containing himself and resembling himself alone. (1.64) I am not a place, but I am in a place, and so is every existing being. So what is surrounded differs from what surrounds it; but the Deity, being surrounded by nothing, is necessarily itself its own place. And there is evidence for my view of the matter in the following sacred oracle about Abraham: "He came to the place of which the Lord God had told him: and having looked up with his eyes, he saw the place far off." (1.65) Tell me, then, did the one who had come to the place see it far off? Or perhaps it is a single expression used for two different things, one of which is the divine word, and the other, God, who existed before the world. (1.66) But the one guided by wisdom comes to the first place, having found that the main part and end of propitiation is the divine word, and whoever is fixed in it does not yet rise high enough to penetrate to the essence of God, but sees him far off; or rather, he cannot even behold him far off, and discerns only this fact, that God is at a distance from every creature, and that any comprehension of him is far removed from all human intellect. (1.67) Perhaps, however, the historian, in this allegorical expression, does not mean the Cause of all things by the word "place,"; but the idea he intends to convey may be something like this: --he came to the place, and looking up with his eyes he saw the very place to which he had come, which was a very long way from the God who may not be named or spoken of, and who is in every way incomprehensible.

(1.68) With these things defined as a necessary preliminary, when the practitioner of virtue comes to Charran, the outward sense, he does not "meet" the place, nor the place that is filled by a mortal body either; for all those who are born of the dust, and who occupy any place whatever, and who necessarily fill some position, share in that; nor the third and most excellent kind of place, of which even the man who made his home at the well called the "well of the oath" could scarcely form an idea, the well where the self-taught race, Isaac, lives, who never abandons his faith in God and his invisible comprehension of him, but who keeps to the intermediate divine word, which affords him the best suggestions, and teaches him everything that suits the times. (1.69) For God, not condescending to come down to the external senses, sends his own words or angels for the sake of giving assistance to those who love virtue. But they attend like physicians to the diseases of the soul, and set about healing them, offering sacred recommendations like sacred laws, and urging men to practice the duties they teach, and, like the trainers of wrestlers, implanting in their pupils strength, and power, and irresistible vigour. (1.70) It is right, therefore, that when he has arrived at the external sense, he is no longer represented as meeting God, but only the divine word, just as his grandfather Abraham, the model of wisdom, did; for the scripture tells us, "The Lord departed when he had finished conversing with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place." From this expression it is inferred that he also met with the sacred words from which God, the father of the universe, had previously departed, no longer displaying visions from himself but only those that proceed from his subordinate powers. (1.71) And it is very beautifully and fittingly said, not that he came to the place, but that he met the place: for to come is voluntary, but to meet is very often involuntary; so that the divine Word appearing on a sudden, supplies an unexpected joy, greater than could have been hoped, since it is about to travel in company with the solitary soul; for Moses also "brings forward the people to a meeting with God," knowing well that he comes invisibly to those souls who long to meet him.

(1.72) And he then gives a reason why he "met the place;" for, he says, "the sun was set." He does not mean the sun that appears to us, but the most brilliant and radiant light of the invisible and Almighty God. When this light shines upon the mind, the inferior beams of words (that is of angels) set. And all the places perceptible by the external senses are overshadowed even more; but when he departs in a different direction, then they all rise and shine. (1.73) And do not be surprised if, according to the rules of allegorical description, the sun is likened to the Father and Governor of the universe; for in reality nothing is like God; but the vain opinion of men thinks only two things are like him, one invisible and the other visible; the soul being the invisible thing, and the sun the visible one. (1.74) He has shown the likeness of the soul in another passage, where he says, "God made man, in the image of God he created him." And again, in the law enacted against homicides, he says, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed in requital for that blood, because in the image of God I made Him." But he indicates the likeness of the sun only by symbols. (1.75) And it is easy to see this by argument in other ways too, since God is the first light, "For the Lord is my light and my Saviour," is how the Psalms put it; and not only the light, but he is also the archetypal pattern of every other light, or rather he is more ancient and more sublime than even the archetypal model, though he is spoken of as the model; for the real model was his own most perfect word, the light, and he himself is like no created thing. (1.76) For just as the sun divides day and night, so Moses says that God divided the light from the darkness; for "God made a division between the light and between the darkness." And besides all this, as the sun, when he arises, reveals hidden things, so God, who created all things, not only brings them all to light, but has even created what had no existence before, not being their only maker, but also their founder.

(1.77) And in many passages of holy writ the sun is also spoken of figuratively. Once it stands for the human mind, which men who are compelled to serve the creature in preference to the uncreated God build up as a City and furnish; of these men it is said that, "They built strong cities for Pharaoh and Peitho," that is, for discourse; to which persuasion (to peithein) is attributed, and Rameses, or the outward sense, by which the soul is devoured as if by moths; for the name Rameses, when interpreted, means, "the shaking of a moth;" and On, the mind, which they called Heliopolis, since the mind, like the sun, has dominance over the whole mass of our body, and extends its powers like the beams of the sun, over everything. (1.78) But the one who takes on himself the regulation of corporeal things, Joseph by name, takes the priest and minister of the mind to be his father-in-law; for the scripture says, "he gave him Aseneth, the daughter of Peutephres, the priest of Heliopolis, for his wife." (1.79) And, using symbolical language, he calls the outward sense a second sun, since it shows the intellect all the objects it can judge, and about this he speaks as follows, "The sun rose upon him when he passed by the appearance of God." For in reality, when we can no longer bear to spend all our time with the most sacred appearances, and as it were with incorporeal images, but when we turn aside in another direction, and forsake them, we use another light, namely the light of the external sense, which in real truth is no different from darkness, (1.80) which, after it has arisen, arouses as if from sleep the senses of seeing, and of hearing, and also of taste, and of touch, and of smell, and puts to sleep the intellectual qualities of prudence, and justice, and knowledge, and wisdom, which were all awake. (1.81) This is why the sacred scripture says that no one can be pure before evening, since the disorderly motions of the outward senses agitate and confuse the intellect. He also establishes an unavoidable law for the priests, combining it with a grave opinion when it says, "He shall not eat of the holy things unless he has washed his body in water, and unless the sun has set, and he has become pure." (1.82) For these words show very clearly that no one who has been honoured with these glories of life that the external senses perceive is completely pure, or fit to be initiated into the holy and sacred mysteries. But if anyone rejects these glories, he is deservedly made conspicuous by the light of wisdom, by means of which he will be able to wash off the stains of vain opinion and to become pure. (1.83) Do you not see that even the sun itself produces opposite effects when setting and when rising? For when he rises everything upon the earth shines, and the things in heaven are hidden from our view; but, on the other hand, when he sets, the stars appear and the things on earth are overshadowed. (1.84) In the same way, in us too, when the light of the outward senses rises like the sun, the celestial and heavenly sciences are really and truly hidden from view; but when this light is about to set, the starlike radiance of the virtues appears, when the mind is pure, and hidden by no object of the outward senses.

(1.85) But according to the third signification, when he speaks of the sun, he means the divine word, the model of the sun that moves through the heaven, as has been said before, and about which it is said, "The sun went forth upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor, and the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire." (1.86) For the word of God, when it reaches our earthly constitution, assists and protects those who are akin to virtue, or whose inclinations lead them to virtue; so that it provides them with a complete refuge and salvation, but on their enemies it sends irremediable overthrow and destruction. (1.87) And in the fourth signification, the sun means the God and ruler of the universe himself, as I have said already, by whom offences that are irremediable, and that appear overshadowed and concealed, are revealed; for as all things are possible, so, likewise, all things are known to God. (1.88) By this faculty of his he drags into the light of the sun those people who live dissolutely in their souls, and who, in a debauched and intemperate way, cohabit with the daughters of the mind, the outward senses, as with prostitutes and harlots, in order to display their true characters; (1.89) for the scripture says, "And the people stayed in Shittim;" and the name Shittim means, "the thorns of passion;" which sting and wound the soul. "And the people was polluted, and began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab," and those who are called daughters are the outward senses, for the name Moab means, "of a father;" and the scripture adds, "Take all the chiefs of the people, and make an example of them to the Lord in the face of the sun, and the anger of the Lord shall be turned from Israel." (1.90) For he not only wants the hidden wicked deeds to be made manifest, and therefore turns upon them the beams of the sun, but he also by this symbolical language calls the father of the universe the sun, the being by whom all things are seen beforehand, and even all those things which are invisibly concealed in the recesses of the mind; and when they are made manifest, he promises that the only merciful being will become merciful to the people. (1.91) Why so? Because, even if the mind, imagining that although it does wrong it can escape the notice of the Deity, since he cannot see everything, sins secretly and in dark places, and afterwards, either because of its own notions or through the suggestions of someone else, concludes that nothing can be anything but clear to God, and discloses itself and all its actions, and brings them forward, as it were, into the light of the sun, and displays them to the governor of the universe, saying that it repents of the perverse conduct which it formerly exhibited when under the influence of foolish opinion (for nothing is indistinct before God, but all things are known and clear to him, not merely what has been done, but even what is merely hoped or designed, because of the boundless character of his wisdom), it is then purified and benefited, and it propitiates the chastiser who was ready to punish it, namely, conscience, who was previously filled with just anger towards it, and who now admits repentance as the younger brother of perfect innocence and freedom from sin.

(1.92) Moreover, Moses appears to have taken the sun as a symbol of the great Cause of all things in other passages too, and I see an instance of this in the law enacted for those who borrow on pledges: let us recite the law, "If you take as a pledge the garment of your neighbour, you shall give it back before the setting of the sun: for it is his covering, it is his only covering of his nakedness, in which he lies down. If he cries to me I will listen to him, for I am merciful." (1.93) Is it not natural for those who imagine that the lawgiver shows such earnestness about a garment, if they do not reproach him, at least to make a suggestion, saying, "What are you saying, my good men? Do you claim that the Creator and ruler of the world calls himself merciful about so trivial a matter as a garment not being restored to the borrower by the lender?" (1.94) These are the opinions and notions of men who have never had the least conception or comprehension of the virtue of the almighty God, and who, contrary to all human and divine law, impart the triviality of human affairs to the uncreated and immortal nature, which is full of happiness, and blessedness, and perfection; (1.95) for how do those lenders act unreasonably who keep in their own hands the pledges which are deposited with them as security, until they get back what they have lent? The debtors are poor, someone will perhaps say, and it is right to pity them: would it not have been reasonable and better to enact a law under which a contribution would be made to meet their needs, rather than let them appear as debtors, or else one that forbade lending on pledges altogether? But the law that has permitted lending on pledges cannot fairly be indignant with those who will not give up the pledges they have received before the proper time, as if they were acting unjustly. (1.96) But if someone who has come, so to speak, to the very farthest limits of poverty, and who is clothed in rags, loads himself with new debts, neglecting the pity he receives from bystanders, which is freely given to those who fall into such misfortunes, in their own houses, and in the temples, and in the market-place, and everywhere; (1.97) that person brings and offers to his creditor the only covering he had for his shame, with which he has been accustomed to cover the secret parts of his nature, as a pledge for something. For what, I ask? Is it for some other and better garment? For no one lacks necessary food as long as the springs of the rivers bubble up, and the torrents flow abundantly, and the earth yields its annual fruits. (1.98) Again, is any creditor so covetous of riches, or so very cruel, or so perverse, as to be unwilling to contribute a tetradrachm, or even less, to one in distress? Or is anyone so stingy as to be willing to lend it, but to refuse to give it? or as to take the only garment that the poor man has as a pledge? which could indeed fairly be called, by another name, running off with a man's clothes; for men who do this usually put on other peoples' clothes, and steal them, and leave the rightful owners naked. (1.99) And why has the law provided so carefully that the debtor will not be without his clothes by night, and that he will not lie down to sleep without them, but has paid no such attention to his being indecently naked by day? Are not all things concealed by night and darkness, so that they cause less shame then, or rather none at all, while by day and by light they are disclosed, so that people are compelled to blush more freely? (1.100) And why does the law use the expression "to restore" rather than "to give"? For what one restores is the property of other people, but pledges belong rather to those who have lent on them than to those who have borrowed on them. Moreover, do you not see that the law has not ordered the debtor, who has received back his garment so that it may serve as bed-clothes, to bring it back again to his creditor at the return of daylight? (1.101) And indeed, if the exact propriety of the language is considered, even the most stupid person may see that something more is meant than is formally expressed. For the injunction resembles a maxim more than a recommendation. For, if a person had been giving a recommendation, he would have said: "Give back to your debtor, at the approach of evening, the garment which has been pledged to you, if it is the only garment that he has, so that he may have something with which to cover himself at night." But one laying down a maxim would speak as the law indeed does here, "For it is his garment, the only covering of his nakedness, in which he will lie down to sleep."

(1.102) These things, then, and others of the same kind, may be urged in reply to those who assert the literal sense of a passage and superciliously reject all other explanations. We will now, in accordance with the usual laws of allegorical speaking, say what is fitting about these subjects. We say, therefore, that a garment here is spoken of symbolically, to signify speech; for clothes keep off the injuries that cold and heat usually inflict on the body, and they also conceal the unmentionable parts of nature, and moreover, a cloak is a fitting garment for the body. (1.103) In much the same way, speech has been given to man by God, as the most excellent of gifts; for in the first place, it is a defensive weapon against those who would attack him with innovations. For as nature has fortified all other animals with their own appropriate and peculiar means of defence, by which they are able to repel those who attempt to injure them, so it has also given man speech, that greatest defence and most impregnable protection, and everyone who is completely clothed with it, as with a panoply, will have a domestic and most appropriate bodyguard; and employing it as a champion, will be able to ward off all the injuries his enemies can bring against him. (1.104) In the second place, it is a most necessary defence against shame and reproach; for speech is very well suited to conceal and obscure the faults of men. In the third place, it contributes to the whole ornament of life: for it is this that improves everyone and leads everyone to what is best; (1.105) for there are many disgraceful and mischievous men, who take conversation as a pledge, and deprive its proper owners of it, and utterly cut off what they ought to seek to increase; like men who ravage the lands of their enemies, and who attempt to destroy their grain and all the rest of their crops, which, if left unharmed, would be of great advantage to those who would use it. (1.106) For some men carry on an irreconcilable and never-ending war against rational nature, and utterly extirpate its every shoot and beginning, and destroy all its first appearances of propagation, and make it, so to speak, utterly unproductive and barren of all good practices. (1.107) For sometimes, when it is carried forward towards sacred instruction with irresistible impetuosity, and when it is struck with a love of the speculations of true philosophy, they--out of jealousy and envy, fearing that, when it has derived strength from its noble aspirations and has been elevated to a splendid height, it may overwhelm all their petty cavils and plausible devices against the truth, like an irresistible torrent--turn its energy in another direction by their own evil artifices, guiding it in another channel to vulgar and illiberal acts: and very often they seek to blunt it or to hedge it in, and in this way leave the nobility of its nature uncultivated, just as at times wicked guardians of orphan children have made a deep-soiled and fertile land barren. And shame has not restrained these most pitiless of all men from stripping the man of his only garment, namely, speech; "For," says the scripture, "it is his only covering."--What is a man's only covering, except speech? (1.108) For, as neighing is the peculiar attribute of a horse, and barking of a dog, and lowing of an ox, and roaring of a lion, so speaking, and speech itself, is the peculiar property of man: for this is what man has received above all other animals as his peculiar gift, as a protection, a bulwark, and panoply, and wall of defence; since he is, of all living creatures, the most beloved of God.

(1.109) For this reason the scripture adds, "This is the only covering of his nakedness;" for what can overshadow and conceal the reproaches and disgraces of life as fittingly as speech? For ignorance is a disgrace akin to irrational nature, but education is the brother of speech, and an ornament properly belonging to man. (1.110) In what then will a man lie down to rest? That is to say, in what will a man find tranquillity and a respite from his labours, except in speech? For speech is a relief to our most miserable and afflicted race. Therefore, just as tranquillity, and constancy, and the kindness of friends have often restored men overwhelmed by grief, or by fear, or by any other evil, so it happens, not often, but invariably, that speech, the only real averter of evil, wards off the heaviest burden that the necessities of the body in which we are bound up, and the unforeseen accidents of external circumstances that attack us, impose on us; (1.111) for speech is a friend, and an acquaintance, and a kinsman, and a companion bound up within us; or rather, fitted close and united to us by some indissoluble and invisible cement of nature. This is why it forewarns us of what will be expedient for us, and when any unexpected event happens to us it comes forward of its own accord to assist us; bringing not just one kind of advantage, such as an adviser who does not act, or an agent who can give no advice, may supply, but both kinds: (1.112) for he does not display a half-complete power, but one which is perfect in every part. For even if it were to fail in his endeavour, and in any conceptions that may have been formed or efforts that may have been made, it can still have recourse to the third species of assistance, namely, consolation. For speech is, as it were, a medicine for the wounds of the soul, and a saving remedy for its passions, which, "even before the setting of the sun," the lawgiver says one must restore: that is to say, before the all-brilliant beams of the almighty and all-glorious God are obscured, which he, out of pity for our race, sends down from heaven upon the human mind. (1.113) For while that most Godlike light remains in the soul, we shall be able to give back the speech, which was deposited as a pledge, as if it were a garment, in order that he who has received this peculiar possession of man, may by its means conceal the discreditable circumstances of life, and reap the benefit of the divine gift, and enjoy a respite combined with tranquillity, thanks to the presence of so useful an adviser and defender, who will never leave the ranks where he has been stationed. (1.114) Moreover, while God pours upon you the light of his beams, hurry, in the light of day, to restore his pledge to the Lord; for when the sun has set, then you, like the whole land of Egypt, will have an everlasting darkness which may be felt, and being stricken with blindness and ignorance, you will be deprived of all the things you thought you possessed for certain, by that sharp-sighted Israel, whose pledges you hold, having made one who was by nature exempt from slavery a slave to necessity.

(1.115) We have discussed this subject at such length only to teach that the mind, which is inclined to practice virtue, which moves irregularly between fruitfulness and sterility and is, so to speak, always ascending and descending, is illuminated, when it becomes prolific and is raised on high, by the archetypal and incorporeal beams of the rational spring of the all-perfecting sun; but when it descends and becomes unproductive, it is illuminated in turn by the images of those beams, the immortal words customarily called angels. (1.116) This is why we now read in the scripture, "He met the place; for the sun was set." For when those beams of God by which the clearest comprehensions of affairs are engendered in the soul desert it, then that second and weaker light of words arises, and the light of things is no longer seen, just as happens in this lower world. For the moon, which ranks second after the sun, pours forth a somewhat weaker light than his upon the earth when that body has set; (1.117) and to meet a place or a word is a quite sufficient gift for those who cannot discern that God is superior to every place or word; not because their soul is wholly destitute of light, but because, since that most unmixed and brilliant light has set, they have been favoured with one which is alloyed. "For the children of Israel had light in all their dwellings," says the sacred historian in the book of Exodus, so that night and darkness were continually banished from them, though those who have lost the eyes of the soul, rather than those of the body, live in night and darkness, having no experience of the beams of virtue. (1.118) But some people--supposing that what is meant here by the figurative expression of the sun is the external sense and the mind, which are looked upon as the things which have the power of judging; and that place means the divine word--understand the allegory in this way: the practitioner of virtue met the divine word, after the mortal and human light had set; (1.119) for as long as the mind thinks that it attains to a firm comprehension of the objects of the intellect, and the outward sense conceives that it has a similar understanding of its appropriate objects, and that it dwells amid sublime objects, the divine word stands aloof at a distance; but when each of these comes to confess its own weakness, and in a sense sets, taking advantage of concealment, then immediately the right reason of a soul well-practised in virtue comes as a welcome help to them, when they have begun to despair of their own strength, and await the aid that is coming to them invisibly from outside.

(1.120) Therefore, the scripture says in the next verses, "That he took one of the stones of the place and placed it at his head, and slept in that place." Anyone may marvel not only at the inner and mystical doctrine in these words, but also at the plain statement, which gives us a lesson in labour and endurance: (1.121) for the historian does not think it fitting that the man who is devoted to the study of virtue should adopt a luxurious life, and live softly, imitating the pursuits and rivalries of those who are indeed called happy, but are in reality full of every unhappiness; whose entire life is a sleep and a dream, according to the holy lawgiver. (1.122) These men, after spending the whole day doing all sorts of injustice to others, in courts of justice, and council halls, and theatres, and everywhere, return home, miserable men that they are, to overturn their own house. I do not mean the house that counts as a building, but the one akin to the soul, that is, the body. They take in immoderate and incessant food and irrigate it with an abundance of pure wine, until reason is overwhelmed and disappears; and the passions which have their seat beneath the belly, the offspring of satiety, rise up, being carried away by unrestrained frenzy, and falling upon and vehemently attacking everything they meet, are appeased only at last, after they have worked off their excessive and violent excitement. (1.123) But at night, when it is time to turn to rest, they prepare costly couches and the most exquisite beds and lie down in the utmost softness, imitating the luxury of women, whom nature has permitted to indulge in a more relaxed way of life, since their maker, the Creator of the universe, has made their bodies of a more delicate stamp. (1.124) No such person is a pupil of the sacred word; its only disciples are real, genuine men, lovers of temperance, and orderliness, and modesty, men who have laid down continence, and frugality, and fortitude, as a kind of base and foundation for the whole of life; and safe stations for the soul, in which it may anchor without danger and without changeableness: for, rising above money, and pleasure, and glory, they look down on food and drink, and everything of that sort, beyond what is necessary to ward off hunger: being thoroughly ready to undergo hunger, and thirst, and heat, and cold, and all other things, however hard they may be to bear, for the sake of acquiring virtue. And, admiring whatever is most easily provided, they are not ashamed of even the cheapest or shabbiest clothes, but think, on the other hand, that sumptuous clothing is a reproach and a great scandal to life. (1.125) For these men the soft earth is the most costly couch; their bed is bushes, and grass, and herbage, and a thick layer of leaves; and the pillows for their head are a few stones, or any little mounds which happen to rise a little above the surface of the plain. Luxurious men call such a life a life of hardship, but those who live for virtue call it most delightful; for it is well suited not to those who are called men, but to those who really are men. (1.126) Do you not see that here too the sacred historian represents the one who practises honourable pursuits, who abounds in all royal materials and appointments, as sleeping on the ground, and using a stone for his pillow; and a little further on, he speaks of himself as asking in his prayers for bread and a cloak, the necessary wealth of nature? like one who has always held in contempt the man who dwells among vain opinions, and who is inclined to revile all those who are disposed to admire him; this man is the archetypal pattern of the soul which is devoted to the practice of virtue, and an enemy of every effeminate person.

(1.127) Until now I have been uttering the praises of the man devoted to labour and to virtue, as it occurred to me naturally; but now we must examine what the expressions used signify symbolically. We should know that the divine place and the sacred region are full of incorporeal intelligences; and these intelligences are immortal souls. (1.128) Taking, then, one of these intelligences, and choosing whichever appears the most excellent, this lover of virtue, of whom we are speaking, applies it to our own mind, as to the head of a united body; for the mind is, in a way, the head of the soul; and he does this on the pretext of going to sleep, but in reality in order to rest on the word of God, and to lay the whole of his life on it as the lightest possible burden; (1.129) and it listens to him gladly, and at first receives the labourer in the paths of virtue as one about to become a disciple; then, when he has shown his approval of the dexterity of his nature, he gives him his hand, like a gymnastic trainer, and invites him to the gymnasia, and, standing firm, compels him to wrestle with him until he has made his strength irresistible, changing his ears by the divine influences into eyes, and calling this newly-modelled disposition Israel, that is, the man who sees. (1.130) Then he also crowns him with the garland of victory. But this garland has a strange, foreign and perhaps not altogether well-omened name, for the president of the games calls it torpor, since it is said that the breadth became torpid of all the rewards and of the proclamations of the heralds, and of all those most wonderful prizes for pre-eminent excellence which are held in honour; (1.131) for the soul which has received a share of irresistible power, and which has been made perfect in the contests of virtue, and which has arrived at the very furthest limit of what is honourable, will never be unduly elated or puffed up with arrogance, nor stand on tiptoe and boast as if it were good to make vast strides with bare feet; but the breadth which was extended wide by opinion, will become torpid and contracted, and then will voluntarily succumb and yield to tameness, so that, being ranked below the incorporeal natures, it may carry off the victory while appearing to be defeated; (1.132) for it is counted a most honourable thing to yield the palm to one's superiors voluntarily rather than under compulsion; for it is incredible how greatly the second prize in this contest is superior in real dignity and importance to the first prize in the others.

(1.133) This much, then, may be said by way of preface to the discussion of the kind of visions that are sent from God. But it is now time to turn to the subject itself and to investigate every part of it accurately. The scripture therefore says, "And he dreamed a dream. And look, a ladder was planted firmly on the ground, the head of which reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending along it." (1.134) In the thing called the world, the ladder figuratively means the air, whose foundation is the earth and whose head is the heaven; for the air is the large interior space which, extending in every direction, reaches from the orb of the moon, which those who contemplate sublime objects describe as the most remote of the order in heaven but the nearest to us, down to the earth, the lowest of such bodies. (1.135) This air is the abode of incorporeal souls, since the Creator of the universe saw fit to fill all the parts of the world with living creatures. For this reason he prepared the terrestrial animals for the earth, the aquatic animals for the sea and for the rivers, and the stars for the heaven; for each of these bodies is not merely a living animal but is also properly described as the very purest and most universal mind extending through the universe; so that there are living creatures in that other section of the universe, the air. And if these things cannot be grasped by the outward senses, what of it? For the soul is also invisible. (1.136) And yet it is likely that the air nourishes living animals even more than the land or the water does. Why so? Because it is the air that has given vitality to those animals which live on the earth and in the water. For the Creator of the universe formed the air to be the habit of bodies that are immovable, the nature of those that move invisibly, and the soul of those able to exert an impetus and visible sense of their own. (1.137) Is it not absurd, then, that the element through which the other elements have been filled with vitality should itself be empty of living things? So let no one deprive the most excellent kind of living creatures of the most excellent of the elements that surround the earth, that is, the air. For, far from being the one region deserted by everything else, it is rather, like a populous city, full of imperishable and immortal citizens, souls equal in number to the stars. (1.138) Some of these souls, namely those most closely connected with the earth and lovers of the body, descend to the earth to be bound up in mortal bodies. But some soar upwards, distinguished again according to the definitions and times that nature has appointed. (1.139) Of these, the ones that are drawn by a desire for mortal life and have grown familiar with it return to it again. But others, condemning the body as great folly and trifling, have pronounced it a prison and a grave, and, flying from it as from a house of correction or a tomb, have raised themselves aloft on light wings towards the aether, and have devoted their whole lives to sublime speculations. (1.140) There are others, again, the purest and most excellent of all, which have received greater and more divine intellects, never desiring any earthly thing at all, but being, as it were, lieutenants of the Ruler of the universe, as though they were the eyes and ears of the great king, seeing and listening to everything. (1.141) Philosophers in general usually call these demons, but the sacred scripture calls them angels, using a name more in accordance with nature. For they really do report (diangellousi) the injunctions of the father to his children, and the necessities of the children to the father. (1.142) And it is with reference to this task of theirs that the holy scripture has represented them as ascending and descending, not because God, who knows everything before any other being, has any need of interpreters; but because it is the lot of us miserable mortals to use speech as a mediator and intercessor; because we stand in awe of and fear the Ruler of the universe, and the all-powerful might of his authority; (1.143) with this in mind, someone once entreated one of those mediators, saying: "Speak for us, and do not let God speak to us, for fear that we die." For not only are we unable to endure his chastisements, but we cannot bear even his excessive and unmodified benefits, which he himself offers us of his own accord, without employing the ministrations of any other beings. (1.144) So Moses does very well to represent the air under the figurative symbol of a ladder planted solidly in the earth and reaching up to heaven. For the vapours given off by the earth, as they become rarefied, dissolve into air, so that the earth is the foundation and root of the air, and the heaven is its head. (1.145) Accordingly it is said that the moon is not an unadulterated consolidation of pure aether, as each of the other stars is, but is rather a combination of the aether-like and air-like essence. For the black spot which appears in it, which some call a face, is nothing else but the air mingled with it, which is by nature black, and which extends as far as heaven.

(1.146) Such, then, is the ladder in the world that is spoken of here symbolically. But if we carefully investigate the soul which exists in men, the foundation of which is something corporeal, and as it were earth-like, we shall find that its foundation is the outward sense, and its head something heavenly, as it were the purest mind. (1.147) But all the words of God move incessantly upwards and downwards through the whole of it, dragging it upwards along with them whenever they soar aloft, and separating it from whatever is mortal, and showing it the things that alone are worth seeing; and yet not casting it down when they descend. For neither God himself nor the word of God deserves blame. But they join with them in their descent, out of their love for mankind and compassion for our race, to be their allies and give them assistance, in order that by breathing in a saving inspiration they may recall to life the soul which was still being tossed about in the body as in the river. (1.148) The God and governor of the universe walks about by himself and alone, invisibly and noiselessly, in the minds of those who are purified in the highest degree. For there is a prophecy still extant, delivered to the wise man, in which it is said: "I will walk among you, and I will be your God." But the angels--the words of God--move about in the minds of those who are still being washed, but who have not yet completely washed off the life which defiles them, and which is polluted by the contact of their heavy bodies, making them look pure and brilliant to the eyes of virtue. (1.149) But it is plain enough what vast numbers of evils are driven out, and what a multitude of wicked inhabitants is expelled in order that one good man may be introduced to dwell there. So, my soul, hurry to become the abode of God, his holy temple, a very beautiful dwelling place: for it is quite possible that the being whose home is the whole world may also dwell with you, and take care of your house, so that it may be completely protected and free from injury for ever. (1.150) And perhaps the practitioner of virtue also compares his own life to a ladder; for the practice of anything is naturally an anomalous thing, since at one time it soars up to a height, and at another it turns downwards in a contrary direction; and at one time has a fair voyage like a ship, and at another has only an unfavourable passage; for, as someone says, the life of those who practise virtue is full of vicissitudes: being at one time alive and waking, and at another dead or sleeping. (1.151) And perhaps this statement is not wrong; for the wise have obtained the heavenly and celestial country as their home, having learned to keep mounting upwards; but the wicked have received as their share the dark recesses of hell, having from the beginning to the end of their existence practised dying, and having been from their infancy to their old age familiarised with destruction. (1.152) But the practitioners of virtue, because they stand on the boundary between two extremes, frequently go upwards and downwards as if on a ladder,⁠a either drawn upwards by a more powerful fate or dragged down by the worse; until God, the umpire of this contention and conflict, awards the victory to the more excellent class and utterly destroys the other.

(1.153) Another sort of likeness or comparison also appears in this dream, and it must not be passed over in silence; the affairs of mankind are naturally compared to a ladder, on account of their irregular motion and progress: (1.154) for, as someone has said, "One day has cast one man down from on high and destroyed him, and another it has raised up, for nothing that belongs to our human race is formed by nature to remain long in the same condition, but all such things change with every kind of alteration. (1.155) Do not men become rulers from having been private individuals, and private individuals from having been rulers, poor from having been rich, and very rich from having been very poor; glorious from being despised, and most illustrious from having been infamous, strong from having been most weak, powerful from having been powerless, wise from having been foolish, and very reasonable from having been doting and childish?" (1.156) and this is the way in which human affairs move upwards and downwards, meeting with an unstable and variable fortune, whose anomalous character unerring time proves by evidence that is not indistinct but manifest and legible.

(1.157) But the dream also represented the archangel, namely the Lord himself, firmly planted on the ladder; for we must imagine that the living God stands above all things, like the charioteer of a chariot, or the pilot of a ship; that is, above bodies, and above souls, and above all creatures, and above the earth, and above the air, and above the heaven, and above all the powers of the outward senses, and above the invisible natures, in short, above all things whether visible or invisible; for having made the whole depend on himself, he governs it and all the vastness of nature. (1.158) But let no one who hears that he was firmly planted in this way suppose that anything at all helps God to stand firm, but let him rather consider that what is indicated here amounts to saying that the firmest position, and the bulwark, and the strength, and the steadiness of everything is the immoveable God, who stamps the character of immobility on whatever he pleases; for, because he supports and consolidates things, whatever he combines remains firm and indestructible. (1.159) Therefore he who stands upon the ladder of heaven says to the one who is seeing the dream, "I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; do not be afraid." This oracle and this vision were also the firmest support of the soul devoted to the practice of virtue, since it taught the soul that the Lord and God of the universe is both these things also to his own race, being entitled both the Lord and God of all men, and of his grandfathers and ancestors, and being called by both names in order that the whole world and the man devoted to virtue might have the same inheritance; since it is also said, "The Lord himself is his inheritance."

(1.160) But do not imagine that it is by accident that he is called here the God and Lord of Abraham, but only the God of Isaac; for this latter is the symbol of the knowledge which exists by nature, which hears itself, and teaches itself, and learns from itself; but Abraham is the symbol of the knowledge derived from the teaching of others; and the one again is an indigenous and native inhabitant of his country, but the other is only a settler and a foreigner; (1.161) for having forsaken the language of those who indulge in sublime conversations about astronomy, a language imitating the language of the Chaldaeans, foreign and barbarous, he was brought over to the language suited to a rational being, namely, to the service of the great Cause of all things. (1.162) This disposition needs two powers to take care of it, that is, the power of authority and the power of conferring benefits, so that, in accordance with the governor's authority, it may obey the admonitions it receives, and also that it may be greatly benefited by his beneficence. But the other disposition needs only the power of beneficence; for it has not derived any improvement from the authority which admonishes it, since it naturally claims virtue as its own, but because of the bounty showered on it from above, it was good and perfect from the beginning; (1.163) therefore God is the name of the beneficent power, and Lord is the title of the royal power. What good, then, can anyone call more ancient and important than being thought worthy to meet with unmixed and unalloyed beneficence? And what can be less valuable than to receive a mixture of authority and liberality? And it seems to me that it was because the practitioner of virtue saw this that he uttered that most admirable prayer, that "the Lord might be to him as God;" for he desired no longer to stand in awe of him as a governor, but to honour and love him as a benefactor. (1.164) Is it not fitting that even blind men should become sharp-sighted in their minds to these and similar things, being endowed with the power of sight by the most sacred oracles, so as to be able to contemplate the glories of nature, and not to be limited to the mere understanding of the words? But even if we voluntarily close the eye of our soul and take no care to understand such mysteries, or if we are unable to look up to them, the hierophant himself stands by and prompts us. And never let weariness stop you from anointing your eyes until you have introduced those who are duly initiated to the secret light of the sacred scriptures, and have displayed to them the hidden things contained in them, and their reality, which is invisible to those who are uninitiated. (1.165) So it is fitting for you to act in this way; but as for you, souls, who have once tasted divine love, as if you had just awakened from deep sleep, disperse the mist before you, and hurry forward to that beautiful spectacle, putting aside slow and hesitating fear, in order to comprehend all the beautiful sounds and sights which the president of the games has prepared for your advantage.

(1.166) There are, then, countless things well worth displaying and demonstrating; and among them one which was mentioned a little while ago; for the oracle calls the one who was really his grandfather the father of the practitioner of virtue, and has not given any such title to the one who was really his father; for the scripture says, "I am the Lord God of Abraham your father," but in reality Abraham was his grandfather; and then proceeds, "And the God of Isaac," and in this case he does not add, "your father:" (1.167) is it not worthwhile, then, to examine the cause of this difference? Undoubtedly it is; so let us carefully consider the cause. Philosophers say that virtue exists among men, either by nature, or by practice, or by learning. For this reason the sacred scriptures represent the three founders of the nation of the Israelites as wise men; not originally endowed with the same kind of wisdom, but quickly arriving at the same end. (1.168) For the eldest of them, Abraham, had instruction as his guide on the road that led him to virtue, as we shall show as best we can in another treatise. And Isaac, who is the middle one of the three, had a self-taught and self-instructed nature. And Jacob, the third, arrived at this point by industry and practice, and his labours of wrestling and contention were in keeping with this. (1.169) Since, then, there are three different ways in which wisdom exists among men, it happens that the two extremes are the most nearly and frequently united. For the virtue acquired by practice is the offspring of the virtue derived from learning. But the virtue implanted by nature is indeed akin to the others, for it is set below them as the root of them all. But it has obtained its prize without any rivalry or difficulty. (1.170) So it is very natural for Abraham, as one who had been improved by instruction, to be called the father of Jacob, who arrived at his height of virtue by practice. This expression indicates not so much the relationship of one man to the other as that the power which is fond of hearing is very ready for learning; the power which is devoted to practice being also well suited for wrestling. (1.171) If, however, this practitioner of virtue runs on vigorously towards the end and learns to see clearly what he previously only dreamed of in an indistinct way, being altered and re-stamped with a better character, and being called Israel, that is, "the man who sees God," instead of Jacob, that is, "the supplanter," he is then no longer recorded as the son of his father Abraham, who derived wisdom from instruction, but as the son of Israel, who was born excellent by nature. (1.172) These statements are not fables of my own invention, but the oracle written on the sacred pillars. For the scripture says: "Israel having departed, he and all that he had came to the well of the oath, and there he sacrificed a sacrifice to the God of his father Isaac." Do you not see now that this assertion refers not to the relationship between mortal men, but, as was said before, to the nature of things? For look at what is before us. At one time, Jacob is spoken of as the son of his father Abraham, and at another time he is called Israel, the son of Isaac, for the reason we have just investigated so accurately.

(1.173) Having then said: "I am the Lord God of Abraham, the father and the God of Isaac," he adds, very consistently: "Do not be afraid." For how can we be afraid any longer when we have you, God, as our armour and defender? You, the deliverer from fear and from every painful feeling? You, who have also fashioned the archetypal forms of our instruction while they were still indistinct, so as to make them visible, teaching Abraham wisdom, and fathering Isaac, who was wise from his birth. For you condescended to be called the guide of the one and the father of the other, assigning to the one the rank of pupil, and to the other the rank of a son. (1.174) For this reason, too, God promised that he would give him the land. By the land here I mean all-prolific virtue, on which the practitioner rests from his contests and sleeps, because the life of the outward sense is lulled asleep and the life of the soul is awakened. There he gladly receives peaceful repose, which he did not obtain without war, and the afflictions which arise from war, not by means of bearing arms and killing men; away with any such notion! but by overthrowing the array of vices and passions which are the adversaries of virtue. (1.175) But the race of wisdom is likened to the sand of the sea, because of its boundless numbers, and because also the sand, like a fringe, checks the incursions of the sea; as the reasonings of instruction beat back the violence of wickedness and iniquity. And these reasonings, in accordance with the divine promises, are extended to the very extremities of the universe. And they show that he who possesses them is the inheritor of all the parts of the world, penetrating everywhere, to the east, and to the west, to the south, and to the north. For it is said in the scripture: "He shall be extended towards the sea, and towards the south, and towards the north, and towards the east." (1.176) But the wise and virtuous man is not only a blessing to himself, but he is also a common good to all men, diffusing advantages over all from his own ready store. For as the sun is the light of all those beings who have eyes, so the wise man is also a light to all who share in a rational nature.

(1.177) "For in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." And this oracle applies to the wise man both with respect to himself and with respect to others. For if the mind which is in me is purified by perfect virtue, and if the tribes of that earthly part which is around me are purified at the same time, which tribes have fallen to the lot of the external senses, and of the greatest channel of all, namely the body; and if anyone, either in his house, or in his city, or in his country, or in his nation, becomes a lover of wisdom, it is inevitable that that house, and that city, and that country, and that nation, will attain a better life. (1.178) For, as spices that are set on fire fill everyone near them with their fragrance, in the same way all those who are neighbours of and close to the wise man catch some of the exhalations that reach out a distance from him, and so become better in character.

(1.179) And it is the greatest of all advantages to a soul engaged in labours and contests, to have God, who penetrates everywhere, as its fellow traveller. "For look," says God, "I am with you." What then can we need while we have You as our wealth, who are the only true and real riches, who keep us in the road which leads to virtue in all its different divisions? For it is not only one portion of the rational life that leads to justice and to all other virtue, but the parts are infinite in number, from which those who desire to arrive at virtue can set out.

(1.180) So the scripture says very admirably: "I will lead you back to this land." For it was fitting that the reason should remain with itself, and should not depart to the outward sense. And if it has departed, then the next best thing is for it to return again. (1.181) And perhaps this expression also figuratively hints at a doctrine bearing on the immortality of the soul. For the soul, having left the region of heaven, as was mentioned a little while before, came to the body as a foreign country. So the father who fathered it promises that he will not allow it to be held in bondage for ever, but that he will have compassion on it, and will unloose its chains, and will conduct it in safety and freedom as far as the metropolis, and will not cease to assist it until the promises which he has made in words are confirmed by the truth of actions. For it is certainly the distinctive attribute of God to foretell what will happen. (1.182) And why do we say this? Because his words do not differ from his actions; therefore the soul which is devoted to the practice of virtue, being set in motion, and roused to investigations about the living God, at first suspected that the living God existed in place; but after a short time it became perplexed by the difficulty of the question, and began to change its opinion. (1.183) "For," says the scripture, "Jacob awoke and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it;" and it would have been better, I would say, not to know it than to imagine that God, who himself contains all things in a circle, existed in any place.

(1.184) So Jacob was very naturally afraid, and said in wonder, "how dreadful is this place." For, in truth, of all the topics or places in natural philosophy, the most formidable is the one that asks where the living God is, and whether, in short, he is in any place at all. For some affirm that everything that exists occupies some place or other, and others assign each thing a different place, either in the world or out of the world, in some space between the different bodies of the universe. Others again affirm that the uncreated God resembles no created being whatever, but that he is superior to everything, so that even the swiftest conception is outstripped by him and confesses that it falls very far short of comprehending him; (1.185) so it quickly cries out, My supposition that the Lord is in a place is wrong; for he surrounds everything, but in truth and reason he is not surrounded by anything. And this thing that is shown and visible, this world perceptible by the outward senses, is nothing else but the house of God, the abode of one of the powers of the true God, the power by which he is good; (1.186) and he calls this world an abode, and he has also, with great truth, declared it to be the gate of heaven. What does this mean? We cannot comprehend the world that consists of various species, the one fashioned in accordance with the divine regulations and perceptible only by the intellect, in any other way than by migrating upwards from this other world perceptible by the outward senses and visible; (1.187) for neither is it possible to perceive any other incorporeal being without drawing our principles of judgment from bodies. For while they are quiet, their place is perceived, and when they are in motion we judge their time; and we perceive points, lines, surfaces, and in short their boundaries from the covering wrapped around them like a garment. (1.188) According to analogy, therefore, the knowledge of the world perceptible to the intellect is reached through our knowledge of the world perceptible to the outward senses, which is, as it were, a gate to the other. For as men who wish to see cities enter through the gates, so also they who wish to comprehend the invisible world are conducted in their search by the appearance of the visible one. And the world whose essence is open only to the intellect, without any visible appearance or figure at all, and which exists only in the archetypal idea which exists in the mind, which is fashioned according to its appearance, will be brought forward without any shadow, with all the walls and all the gates that could impede its progress removed, so that it is seen not through any other medium but by itself, displaying a beauty that admits no change, presenting an indescribable and exquisite spectacle.

(1.189) But enough of this. There is also another dream of the same class, I mean the one about the spotted flock, which the person who saw it relates after he had woken, saying, "The angel of God spoke to me in a dream, and said, Jacob; and I said, What is it? And he said to me, Look up with your eyes, and see the goats and the rams mounting on the flocks, and the she-goats, some white, and spotted, and ring-straked, and speckled: for I have seen all that Laban does to you. I am that God who was seen by you in the place of God, where you anointed the pillar, and vowed a vow to me. Now therefore, rise up and depart out of the land, and go into the land of your birth, and I will be with You." (1.190) You see here that the divine word speaks of dreams as sent from God; including in this statement not only those that appear through the agency of the chief cause itself, but also those that are seen through the work of his interpreters and attendant angels, whom the father who created them thinks worthy of a divine and blessed lot: (1.191) consider, however, what comes next. The sacred word tells some people what they ought to do by direct command, like a king; to others it suggests what will benefit them, as a teacher does to his pupils; to others again, it is like a counsellor suggesting the wisest plans; and in this way too it greatly benefits those who do not know for themselves what is expedient; to others it is like a friend, who in a mild and persuasive manner reveals many secret things that no uninitiated person may lawfully hear. (1.192) For at times it asks some people, for instance Adam, "Where are you?" And anyone may properly answer such a question, "Nowhere?" Because no human affairs remain long in the same condition, but are moved about and changed, whether we speak of their soul or their body, or of their external circumstances; for their minds are unstable, not always having the same impressions from the same things, but impressions diametrically contrary to their former ones. The body is unstable too, as all the changes through the different ages from infancy to old age show; their external circumstances are variable as well, tossed up and down by the force of ever-agitated fortune.

(1.193) When, however, he comes into an assembly of friends, he does not begin to speak until he has first greeted each one of them and addressed him by name, so that they prick up their ears, and are quiet and attentive, listening to the oracles delivered in this way, so that they never forget them or let them slip from their memory: since in another passage of scripture we read, "Be silent and listen." (1.194) In the same way Moses too is called up to the bush. For the scripture says, "When he saw that he was turning aside to see, God called him out of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses: and he said, What is it, Lord?" And Abraham too, when offering up his beloved and only son as a burnt-offering, when he was beginning to sacrifice him, and when he had given proof of his piety, was forbidden to destroy from among men the self-taught race, named Isaac; (1.195) for at the beginning of his account of this event, Moses says that "God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham, Abraham; and he said, Look, here I am. And he said to him, Take now your beloved son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him up." And when he had brought the victim to the altar, the angel of the Lord called him out of heaven, saying, "Abraham, Abraham," and he answered, "Look, here I am." And he said, "Do not lay your hand upon the child, and do nothing to Him." (1.196) The practitioner of virtue is also called one of this company dear to God, being rightly counted worthy of the same honour; for the scripture says, "The angel of God said to me in my sleep, Jacob: and I answered, and said, What is it?" (1.197) But after he has been called he pays close attention, trying to reach an accurate knowledge of the symbols displayed to him; and these symbols are the union and generation of reasonings, in the form of flocks and herds. For the scripture says, "Jacob, looking up with his eyes, saw the goats and rams leaping upon the she-goats and upon the sheep." (1.198) The he-goat is the leader of the flock of goats, and the ram is the leader of the flock of sheep, and these two animals are symbols of perfect reasonings, one of which purifies and cleanses the soul of sins, while the other nourishes it and fills it with good actions. These, then, are the leaders of the flocks within us, namely reasons; and the flocks themselves, resembling the sheep and goats whose names they bear, rush forwards and hasten with zeal and earnestness towards justice. (1.199) So, looking up with the eye of his mind, which until then had been closed, he saw the perfect and thoroughly sharpened reasons, analogous to the goats and rams, ready to diminish offences and increase good actions. And he saw how they leap upon the sheep and the goats, that is, on souls that are still young and tender, and in the vigour of youth, and beautiful in the flower of their age; not pursuing irrational pleasure, but indulging in the invisible sowing of the doctrines of prudence. (1.200) For this is a marriage blessed in its children; not uniting bodies, but adapting perfect virtues to well-disposed souls. Therefore, all you right reasons of wisdom, leap up, form connections, sow seed, and pass by no soul that you see is rich and fertile, and well-disposed, and virgin; but invite it into association and union with you, and make it perfect and pregnant; for in this way you will become the parents of all kinds of good things, of a male offspring, white, variegated, ring-straked, and speckled.

(1.201) But we must now examine what power each of these offspring has. Those that are purely white (dialeukoi) are the most beautiful and the most conspicuous: for the word dia is often prefixed in compounds to add force to a word, so that the words diadēlon and diasēmion are commonly used to signify what is very conspicuous (dēlon) and very remarkable (episēmon); (1.202) so the meaning here is that the first-born offspring of the soul that has received the sacred seed is purely white; being like light in which there is no obscurity, and like the most brilliant radiance: like the unclouded beam that might come from the rays of the sun in fine weather at midday. Again, by the statement that some are variegated, what is meant is not that the flocks are marked with spots so multiform and various as to resemble the unclean leprosy, which is an emblem of a life unsteady and tossed about in every direction because of the fickleness of the mind, but only that they have marks drawn in regular lines and different characters, shaped and impressed with all kinds of well-approved forms, whose distinctive features, multiplied together and properly combined, will produce a musical harmony. (1.203) For some people have regarded the art of variegating as so random and obscure a matter that they have assigned it to weavers. But I admire not only the art itself but its name as well, most of all when I look at the divisions of the earth and the spheres in heaven, and the differences between various plants and various animals, and that most variegated texture, I mean the world; (1.204) for I am compelled to suppose that the maker of this universal textile fabric was also the inventor of all varied and variegating science; and I look with reverence on the inventor, and I honour the art which he invented, and I am amazed at the resulting work, even though I have been able to see only a very small portion of it; still, from the portion that has been unfolded to me, if indeed I may say that it has been unfolded, I hope to form a fairly accurate judgment of the whole, guiding my conjectures by the light of analogy. (1.205) Even so, I admire the lover of wisdom for having studied the same art, collecting many different things from different sources and choosing to weave them together into the same web; for, taking the first two elements, namely reading and writing, from the grammatical knowledge taught to children, and taking from the more perfect growth of knowledge the skill which is found among poets, and the comprehension of ancient history, and deriving certainty and freedom from deception from arithmetic and geometry, sciences that require proportions and calculations; and borrowing from music its rhyme, and metre, and harmonies, and chromatics, and diatonics, and combined and disjoined melodies; and taking from rhetoric its invention, and language, and arrangement, and memory, and action; and from philosophy, whatever has been omitted in any of these separate branches, and all the other things that make up human life, he has put together in one most admirably arranged work, combining great learning of one kind with great learning of another kind. (1.206) The sacred scripture calls the maker of this compound work Besaleel, a name which, when interpreted, means "in the shadow of God;" for he makes all the copies, and the man named Moses makes all the models, as the principal architect; and for this reason the one only draws outlines, as it were, but the other is not content with such sketches, (1.207) but makes the archetypal natures themselves, and has already adorned the holy places with his variegating art; but the wise man is called the only adorner of the place of wisdom in the oracles delivered in the sacred scriptures. And the most beautiful and varied work of God, this world, has been created in its present state of perfection by all-wise knowledge; so how can it be anything but right to regard the art of variegating as a noble effort of knowledge?

(1.208) the most sacred copy of which is the whole word of wisdom, which will carry in its bosom the things of heaven and of earth, from which the practitioner of virtue develops his notions of various things. For after the white sheep he immediately saw the variegated animals, stamped with the impression of instruction. (1.209) The third kind are the ring-straked and speckled; and what man in his right mind would deny that these too are variegated in their genus? but he is not as eager about the varieties among the members of the flocks as about the road which leads to virtue and excellence; (1.210) for the prophet intends that whoever travels this road shall be sprinkled with dust and water, because it is related that earth and water, kneaded together and shaped by the Creator of man, were formed into one body, not made by hand but the work of invisible nature. (1.211) So the first principle of wisdom is not to forget one's self, and always to keep before one's eyes the materials of which one has been compounded; for in this way a man will get rid of boasting and arrogance, which God hates most of all evils; for who, once he calls to mind that the first principles of his formation are dust and water, would ever be so puffed up with vanity as to be unduly elated? (1.212) For this reason the prophet has thought it fitting that those about to offer sacrifice be sprinkled with the things mentioned above, thinking no one worthy to appear at a sacrifice who has not first learnt to know himself, and to comprehend the nothingness of mankind, and the elements of which he is composed, conjecturing from them that he himself is utterly insignificant.

(1.213) These three signs, the white, the variegated, and the ring-straked and speckled, are still imperfect in the practitioner of virtue, who has not yet attained perfection himself. But in the one who is perfect they too appear perfect. And we will examine how they appear so. (1.214) The sacred scripture has ordained that the great High Priest, when about to perform the ministrations appointed by the law, should first be sprinkled with water and ashes, so that he might remember himself. For the wise Abraham too, when he went out to speak with God, pronounced himself to be dust and ashes. Second, it instructs him to put on a tunic reaching down to his feet, and the richly embroidered piece called his breastplate, an image and representation of the light-giving stars which appear in heaven. (1.215) For there are, it seems, two temples belonging to God; one being this world, in which the high priest is the divine word, his own firstborn son. The other is the rational soul, whose priest is the real, true man, and his copy, perceptible to the senses, is the one who performs his paternal vows and sacrifices and who is instructed to put on the tunic mentioned above, the representation of the universal heaven, in order that the world may join with the man in offering sacrifice, and that the man may likewise co-operate with the universe. (1.216) So he is now shown to have these two things, the speckled and the variegated character. We will now proceed to explain the third and most perfect kind, which is called thoroughly white. When this same high priest enters the innermost parts of the holy temple, he is clothed in the variegated garment, and he also puts on another linen robe, made of the very finest flax. (1.217) And this is an emblem of vigour, and incorruptibility, and the most brilliant light. For such a veil is very difficult to break, and it is made of nothing mortal, and when it is properly and carefully purified it has a most clear and brilliant appearance. (1.218) And these instructions carry this figurative meaning: of those who serve the living God in a pure and guileless spirit, everyone at first depends on the firmness and obstinacy of his mind, despising all human affairs, which allure men with their specious bait, and injure them, and produce weakness in them. In the next place, he aims at immortality, laughing at the blind inventions with which mortals delude themselves. And last of all, he shines with the unclouded and most brilliant light of truth, no longer desiring any of the things which belong to false opinion, which prefer darkness to light.

(1.219) We may now, then, have sufficiently described the great high priest of the confession, stamped with the impressions mentioned above: the white, the variegated, and the ring-straked and speckled. But the one who desires to administer human affairs, Joseph by name, does not, it appears, claim for himself either of the extreme characteristics, but only the variegated one that lies between the others. (1.220) For we read that Joseph had a "coat of many colours," not having been sprinkled with the sacred purifications, through which he might have known that he himself was only a compound of dust and water, and not being able to touch that thoroughly white and most shining clothing, virtue. But he was clothed in the much-variegated web of political affairs, in which the smallest possible portion of truth is mixed up with many large portions of plausible, probable, and likely falsehoods, from which all the sophists of Egypt, and all the augurs, and ventriloquists, and sorcerers spring; men skilful in juggling, and in incantations, and in tricks of all kinds, from whose treacherous arts it is very difficult to escape. (1.221) And it is for this reason that Moses quite naturally represents this robe as stained with blood; since the whole life of the man who is mixed up in political affairs is tainted, warring on others and being warred against, and being aimed at, and attacked, and shot at by all the unexpected chances which happen to him. (1.222) Examine now the man who has great influence with the people, on whom the affairs of the city depend. Do not be alarmed at those who look with admiration upon him; and you will find many diseases lurking within him, and you will see that he is entangled in many disasters, and that fortune is dragging him violently in different directions, though he bends his neck the other way, and resists, although invisibly, and in fact that fortune is seeking to overthrow and destroy him; or else the people themselves are impatient with his supremacy, or he is exposed to the attacks of some more powerful rival. (1.223) And envy is a formidable enemy, and one hard to shake off, clinging as well to everything called good fortune, and it is not easy to escape from it.

(1.224) What reason, then, do we have to congratulate ourselves on the administration of political affairs as if we were clothed in a garment of many colours, deceived by its external splendour, and not perceiving its ugliness, which is kept out of sight, and hidden, and full of treachery and guile? (1.225) Let us then put off this flowery robe, and put on that sacred one woven with the embroideries of virtue; for in this way we shall escape the snares which lack of skill, and ignorance, and lack of knowledge, and education lay for us, whose companion is Laban. (1.226) For when the sacred word has purified us with the sprinklings prepared beforehand for purification, and when it has adorned us with the select reasonings of true philosophy, and, having led us to that man who has stood the test, has made us genuine, and conspicuous, and shining, it blames the treacherous disposition that seeks to rise up and invalidate what is said. (1.227) For the scripture says: "I have seen what Laban does to You," namely, things contrary to the benefits that I conferred on you, things impure, wicked, and altogether suited to darkness. But it is not right for the man who anchors his hope on the alliance of God to crouch and tremble: he is the man to whom God says, "I am the God who was seen by you in the place of God." (1.228) It is a very glorious boast for the soul that God should see fit to appear to it and converse with it. And do not pass by what is said here, but examine it accurately, and see whether there are really two Gods.⁠a For it is said: "I am the God who was seen by you;" not in my place, but in the place of God, as if he meant the place of some other God. (1.229) What, then, should we say? There is one true God only: but those called Gods, by an abuse of language, are many; and so on this occasion the holy scripture uses the article to indicate that the true God is meant, the expression being, "I am the God (ho Theos);" but when the word is used incorrectly, it is put without the article, the expression being, "He who was seen by you in the place," not of the God (tou Theou), but simply "of God" (Theou); (1.230) and what he here calls God is his most ancient word, without any superstitious regard for the position of the names, but setting himself only one goal, namely, to give a true account of the matter; for in other passages the sacred historian, when he considered whether there really was any name belonging to the living God, showed that he knew none properly belonged to him, and that whatever name anyone may give him will be an abuse of terms; for the living God is not of a nature to be described, but only to be.

(1.231) And a proof of this may be found in the oracular answer given by God to the person who asked his name, "I am that I Am," so that the questioner might recognize God's existence, since nothing in God can be comprehended by man. (1.232) So to the incorporeal souls engaged in his service it is natural for him to appear as he is, conversing with them as a friend with his friends; but to those souls which are still in the body he must appear in the resemblance of the angels, though without changing his nature⁠a (for he is unchangeable), but merely implanting in those who see him the idea that he has another form, so that they imagine it is his image, not an imitation of him, but the very archetypal appearance itself. (1.233) There is, then, a much celebrated old story that the Divinity, assuming the resemblance of men of different countries, goes around the different cities of men, searching out the deeds of iniquity and lawlessness; and perhaps, though the fable is not true, it is a suitable and profitable one. (1.234) But the scripture, which always presents its conceptions of the Deity in a more reverent and holy tone, and which also desires to instruct the life of the foolish, has spoken of God under the likeness of a man, though not of any particular man; (1.235) attributing to him, for this purpose, a face, and hands, and feet, and of a mouth and voice, and also anger and passion, and moreover, defensive weapons, and goings in and goings out, and motions upwards and downwards, and in every direction, not using all these expressions with strict truth, but with a view to the benefit of those who are to learn from it; (1.236) for the writers knew that some men are by nature so dull that they are utterly unable to form any conception of God apart from a body, and that such men could not be admonished if the writers spoke in any style other than the existing one, which represents God as coming and departing like a man; and as descending and ascending, and as using his voice, and as being angry with sinners, and being implacable in his anger; and speaking too of his darts and swords, and whatever other instruments are fit for use against the wicked, as all ready in advance. (1.237) For we must be content if such men can be brought to a proper state by the fear that such descriptions hold over them; and one may almost say that these are the only two paths taken, in the whole history of the law; one leading to plain truth, which gives us such assertions as, "God is not as a man;" the other, the path that has regard to the opinions of foolish men, about whom it is said, "The Lord God shall instruct you, as if a man instructs his son."

(1.238) Why, then, should we still wonder if God at times assumes the likeness of the angels, as he sometimes even assumes the likeness of men, to help those who address their entreaties to him? so that when he says, "I am the God who was seen by you in the place of God;" we must understand that on that occasion he took the place of an angel, as far as appearance went, without changing his own real nature, for the benefit of the one who was not yet able to bear the sight of the true God; (1.239) for just as those who cannot look at the sun itself look at the reflected rays of the sun as the sun itself, and at the halo around the moon as if it were the moon itself; so those who cannot bear the sight of God look at his image, his angel word, as if it were himself. (1.240) Do you not see that encyclical instruction, that is, Hagar, says to the angel, "Are you God who sees Me?" for she could not see the most ancient cause, since she was a native of Egypt by birth. But now the mind begins to improve, so that it can contemplate the governor of all the powers; (1.241) and so he himself says, "I am the Lord God," I whose image you formerly saw instead of me, and whose pillar you set up, engraving on it a most sacred inscription; and the inscription indicated that I stood alone, and that I established the nature of all things, bringing disorder and irregularity into order and regularity, and supporting the universe firmly, so that it might rest on a firm and solid foundation, my own ministering word.

(1.242) For the pillar is the symbol of three things; of standing, of dedication, and of an inscription: the standing and the inscription have been described, but the dedication must be explained to all men. (1.243) For heaven and the world are an offering dedicated to God who made them; and all the cosmopolitan and God-loving souls, that dedicate and consecrate themselves to him, not allowing any mortal thing to drag them in the opposite direction, never tire of hallowing their own life, and adorning it with every kind of beauty as a fitting offering for him. (1.244) And a foolish man is one who does not set up a pillar to God but erects one to himself instead, attributing stability to the things of creation, which are tossed about in every direction, and thinking those things worthy of inscriptions and panegyrics, which are in reality full of matter for blame and accusation, and which for that reason ought never to have been mentioned in an inscription at all, or, if they were, ought to have been quickly erased. (1.245) For this reason the holy scripture says plainly, "You shall not set up a pillar to Yourself;" for in truth there is nothing belonging to man that is stable, no, not even if some people persist ever so obstinately in affirming it. (1.246) But they think not only that they stand firmly but also that they are worthy of honours and inscriptions, forgetting him who is alone worthy of honour, and who is alone firmly fixed; for while they are turning aside and wandering away from the path which leads to virtue, the outward sense, that is, the woman who is akin to them, leads them still further astray and compels them to run aground; (1.247) so the whole soul, like a ship hemmed in on every side, is offered up as a pillar; for the sacred scriptures tell us that Lot's wife, having turned back to look behind her, became a pillar of salt, (1.248) and this is said quite naturally and fittingly; for if anyone does not look forwards at those things which are worthy of being seen and heard (and these things are the virtues and the actions done in accordance with virtue), but looks backwards at the things which are behind him, at deaf glory, and blind riches, and senseless vigour of body, and an empty elegance of mind, pursuing these objects only, and such as are akin to them, he will lie as a lifeless pillar melting away by itself; for salt cannot preserve his firmness.

(1.249) So the practitioner of virtue does very admirably when, having learnt by continued study that creation is by its own nature moveable, but that the uncreated God is unchangeable and immoveable, he erects a pillar to God and anoints it after erecting it; for God says, "You have anointed my pillar." (1.250) But do not imagine that the stone was anointed with oil; understand rather that the opinion that God is the only being who stands firmly was thoroughly hardened by exercise, and established in the soul by the science of wrestling, not the science by which bodies are made fat, but the one by which the mind acquires strength and irresistible vigour; (1.251) for the man who is eager in the pursuit of good studies and virtuous objects is fond of labours, and fond of exercises; and so, quite naturally, having worked out the science of training which is the sister of the art of medicine, he anoints and brings to perfection all the reasonings of virtue and piety, and dedicates them, as a most beautiful and lasting offering to God. (1.252) For this reason, after mentioning the dedication of the pillar, God adds, "You vowed a vow to me." A vow too is, properly speaking, a dedication, since he who makes a vow is said to offer up, as a gift to God, not only his own possessions, but himself as well, their owner; (1.253) for the scripture says, "the man is holy who nourishes the locks of the hair of his head; who has vowed a vow." But if he is holy he is undoubtedly an offering to God, no longer meddling with anything unholy or profane; (1.254) and there is evidence for my argument in the conduct of the prophetess, and mother of a prophet, Hannah, whose name, translated, means grace; for she says that she gives her son, "Samuel, as a gift to the Holy One," dedicating him not so much as a human being as a disposition full of inspiration, and possessed by a divinely sent impulse; and the name Samuel, interpreted, means "appointed to God." (1.255) Why then, my soul, do you still waste yourself in vain speculations and labours? and why do you not go as a pupil to the practitioner of virtue, taking up arms against the passions, and against vain opinion, to learn from him the way to wrestle with them? For as soon as you have learnt this art, you will become the leader of a flock, not one that is destitute of marks, and of reason, and of docility, but one that is well approved, and rational, and beautiful, (1.256) and if you become its leader, you will pity the miserable race of mankind, and will not cease to reverence the Deity; and you will never be weary of blessing God, and moreover you will engrave hymns suited to your sacred subject upon pillars, so that you may not only speak fluently but also sing musically the virtues of the living God; for by these means you will be able to return to your father's house, being delivered from a long and profitless wandering in a foreign land.