On the Confusion of Tongues

1 What has already been said on the preceding topics is enough. Next we may go on to consider, and not in a slight or cursory way, the philosophical account Moses gives us of the confusion of languages; for he speaks as follows: "And all the earth had one pronunciation, and there was one language among all men. And it came to pass, as they were moving from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and lived there. And one man said to his neighbour, Come, let us make bricks, and let us burn them with fire; and they had bricks for stone, and asphalt for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose head shall reach to heaven; and let us make for ourselves a name, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth. And the Lord came down to see the city, and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, Look, all mankind is one race, and there is but one language among them all; and they have begun to do this thing, and now nothing of all the things they desire to do will fail them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that each may not understand the voice of his neighbour. And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they desisted from building the city, and the tower. For this reason its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confused the languages of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of all the earth." 2 Impious men who are discontented with the constitution under which their fathers lived, and who are always eager to blame and accuse the laws, use these and similar instances as foundations for their impiety, saying, "Are you still boasting about your precepts, as if they contained the rules of truth itself? For, look, the books you call the sacred scriptures also contain fables, of the kind you usually laugh at when you hear others relate them." 3 And what use is it to spend our leisure collecting the fables interspersed in so many places throughout the history of the giving of the law, as if we had leisure set aside for considering calumnies, and as if it were not better simply to attend to what is at hand and before us? 4 Certainly, this one fable resembles the one composed about the Aloadae, who, as Homer, the greatest and most glorious of all poets, says, planned to heap the three loftiest mountains on one another and build them into one mass, hoping that in this way there would be a road for them, since they wanted to climb up to heaven, and that by these mountains it would be easy for them to rise to the height of the sky. And Homer's verses on this subject are these: High on Olympus' top they strove to raise Gigantic Ossa; and on Ossa's heights To place the leafy Pelion, that heaven Might thus become accessible. But Olympus and Ossa and Pelion are the names of mountains. 5 But instead of these mountains the lawgiver represents these men, who out of ignorance and wicked ambition wanted to reach heaven, as having built a tower. Every alienation of mind, then, is grievous; for even if every portion of the whole earth could be built over, with a slight foundation laid first and then a superstructure raised like a single pillar, it would still be an enormous distance from the heavenly sphere, and especially so according to the tenets of those curious philosophers who have affirmed that the earth is the centre of the universe. 6 And there is also another story like this, told by the deviser of fables, about the sameness of language among animals: for they say that formerly, all the animals in the world, whether land animals, or aquatic ones, or winged ones, had only one language, and that, just as among men Greeks speak the same language as Greeks, and the present race of barbarians speaks the same language as barbarians, in exactly the same way every animal could converse with every other animal it met, and with which it did anything, or from which it suffered anything, so that they sympathised with one another in their shared misfortunes and rejoiced whenever any of them met with good fortune; 7 for through their common language they could share their pleasures and their annoyances with one another, so that they felt pleasure together and pain together; and this similarity of manners and union of feelings lasted until, sated with the great abundance of good things they enjoyed, as often happens, they were at last drawn into desiring what was unattainable, and even sent an embassy to negotiate for immortality, asking to be released from old age and always endowed with the vigour of youth, saying that one animal of their body, and a reptile at that, the serpent, had already received this gift; for he, having shed old age, was allowed to grow young again; and that it was absurd for the more important animals to be left behind by an inferior one, or for their whole body to be outstripped by one. 8 However, they suffered the punishment their audacity deserved, for their language was at once divided, so that from then on they have not been able to understand one another, because of the different dialects into which the one language common to them all had been split. 9 But the one who brings his account nearer the truth distinguishes between rational and irrational animals, testifying that identity of language belonged to men alone; and this also, as they say, is a fabulous story. And indeed they affirm that the separation of language into an infinite variety of dialects, which Moses calls the confusion of tongues, was brought about as a remedy for sins, so that men could not cooperate in deeds of wickedness by understanding one another, and so that, being in a sense deprived of all means of communicating with one another, they could not apply themselves with united energies to the same actions. 10 But this precaution does not seem to have been of any use; for since that time, though men have been separated into different nations, and have no longer used one language, nevertheless, land and sea have been repeatedly filled with unspeakable evils. For it was not their languages that caused men to unite for evil ends, but the emulation and rivalry of their souls in wrong-doing. 11 For even those who have had their tongues cut out can convey what they wish by nods and looks and other positions and movements of the body no less than by distinctly uttered words. And besides this, very often a single nation, sharing not merely one language but one code of laws and one system of manners, has reached such a pitch of iniquity that in sheer excess of wickedness it could outweigh the sins of all the men in the world put together. 12 And again, many people, through ignorance of foreign languages and with no foreknowledge of the future, have been forestalled and overwhelmed by those plotting against them; just as, on the other hand, men who knew foreign languages have been able to repel the fears and dangers that threatened them; so a common language is an advantage rather than a harm, since even today nothing contributes so much to the safety and protection of the people of each country, and especially of the natives, as their speaking one language. 13 For if a man has learnt many dialects, those who also know them at once regard him with consideration and respect as already a friend, since his familiarity with words they too understand offers no small introduction and means to friendship; and this familiarity very commonly gives a feeling of security that one is not likely to suffer any great evil at the hands of such a man. Why, then, did God remove sameness of language from among men as a cause of evils, when it seems it should rather have been established as something most useful? 14 Those, then, who put these things together, and cavil at them, and raise malicious objections, will easily be refuted point by point by those who can readily solve all the questions that arise from the plain words of the law, arguing in a spirit far from contentious and not meeting them with sophisms drawn from some other source, but following the chain of natural consequences, which does not let them stumble but easily sets aside any obstacles that arise, so that their argument runs on without any interruption or mishap. 15 We say, then, that the expression "all the earth had but one pronunciation and one language" points to a symphony of great and unspeakable evils,⁠a which cities have inflicted upon cities, nations upon nations, and countries upon countries, and through which men not only wrong one another, but also behave impiously towards God, and yet these are the iniquities of many; but let us consider the ineffable multitude of evils that proceed from each individual man, especially when he is under the influence of that ill-timed, and inharmonious, and unmusical agreement. 16 Who does not know the great influence of fortune, when men, in addition to diseases or mutilations of the body, are also attacked by poverty and lack of reputation? And again, when these are further joined to diseases of the soul, brought on by moody melancholy that drives men out of their minds, or by extreme old age, or by any other severe calamity that presses on them? 17 For even one of the evils mentioned here, on its own, when it attacks a man violently, is enough to overthrow and crush even someone very proud and haughty; but when all these evils, namely the evils of the body, the evils of the soul and external misfortunes, all come together as if in one regular battalion, moving at the same time by prior arrangement to attack him together, what resolution will they not overpower? For when the guards are killed, the one who relies on his guards must necessarily fall. 18 The guards of his body are wealth, glory and honours, which set it up, raise it high and make it proud, just as their opposites, dishonour, lack of reputation, and poverty, throw it down like so many enemies. 19 Again, the body-guards of the soul are hearing, and seeing, and smelling, and taste, and the whole band of the outward senses, and also health, and strength, and vigour, and energy. For the mind, when it walks among the living in the company of these things, as between well-fortified boundaries that stand firm and are solidly established, triumphs and rejoices, meeting no hindrance on any side to keep it from exerting its own impulses, but finding its road easy, level, open and easy to travel in every direction. 20 But the things set in opposition and hostility to these guards are mutilation of the organs of the outward senses, and disease, as I have said before, which often plunge the mind into disaster; and these are all the results of fortune, very grievous and miserable in themselves, but still far lighter than those we bring on ourselves by our own deliberate will. 21 Now let us consider in turn the united body of evils that are voluntarily incurred. Our souls can be divided into three parts: one part is said to have fallen to the lot of the mind and reason, the second to passion, and the third to appetite; and each of these has its own particular evils, and they also all share common diseases. For the mind reaps the harvest that folly, and cowardice, and intemperance, and injustice sow; and passion brings forth frantic and insane strife and conflict, and all the other numerous evils with which it is pregnant; and appetite disseminates in every direction the impetuous and fickle loves of youth, which descend on every object, animate or inanimate, that it happens to meet. 22 For then it is as if, in a ship, the sailors, the passengers and the pilots had all, in a fit of insanity, agreed to destroy it: those who have joined in the plot against it are none the less caught up in the same destruction. For the heaviest of all evils, and almost the only incurable one, is the unanimous energy of all the parts of the soul agreeing to commit sin, with not one of the parts sound enough (just as is the case in an evil affecting the whole people) to heal those that are sick; instead, even the physicians are diseased as well as their patients, whom the pestilential disease has overwhelmed and weighs down under an acknowledged calamity. 23 The great deluge described by the lawgiver is an image of this great evil; for torrents from heaven continually pour down cataracts of wickedness itself with impetuous violence, and springs from the ground (by which I mean the body) continually burst up and pour out streams of every passion, many and vast, which unite and mingle in the same stream with the other waters, are thrown into confusion, and with incessant eddies and whirlpools overthrow the whole region of the soul that has received them. 24 "For," says Moses, "the Lord God, seeing that the wickedness of men was multiplied upon the earth, and that everyone thought continually in his heart nothing but evil all his days, determined to punish man" (and here by man I mean the mind, together with all the reptiles and the winged creatures, and all the rest of the multitude of wild animals which surround him), because of his incurable wickedness; and the punishment God decided on was the deluge. 25 For there was unbounded freedom to sin and unlimited licence to do wrong, with no one hindering it, and all restraints were shamelessly broken down, so that no fear was left to restrain those who were thoroughly ready to snatch at abundant supplies for every kind of enjoyment. And can we not say that this was natural? For it was not just one portion of the soul that was corrupted, so that it could still be preserved by the soundness of the other parts; no part of it whatever was left free from disease or corruption. For the incorruptible Judge, says Moses, seeing that every thought of man's heart (not one single idea by itself) was evil continually, inflicted a deserved punishment on him. 26 These are the ones who "made a treaty with one another in the valley of Salt." For the region of the vices and of the passions is a hollow valley, rough, and full of ravines; truly salt, and producing bitter pains; and the wise Abraham, who knew its character, annulled their treaty as one not worthy of being confirmed by any oath or any libation. For scripture says, "All these men made a treaty at the valley of Salt, that is the sea of Salt." 27 Do you not see that those who are barren of wisdom and blind in the intellect, which one would naturally expect to be sharp-sighted, and who take the name of Sodomites from their real character, "did, with all their people united together, from young to old, surround the house in a circle" (that is to say, the house of the soul), in order to pollute and contaminate the strangers from a foreign land who had been received as guests, namely sacred and holy reasons, the guards and defenders of the soul, with no one at all attempting either to resist those wrongdoers or to avoid doing wrong himself? 28 For Moses does not say that some consented and others stood aloof; but, as he says, "The whole people surrounded the house all together, both old and young," having conspired against all those holy actions and words that are customarily called angels. 29 But Moses, the prophet of God, will meet them and check them, though they advance with great boldness, even though they put in front, as their king, the boldest, most forward and most able speaker among them, namely speech, and rush on with one impulse, hoping to gain strength as they go and overflowing like a river; "For look," says Moses, "the king of Egypt is coming to the water; but go to meet him, and stand on the bank of the river." 30 So the wicked man goes out to the stream of iniquities and passions, and all collected evils, which are here likened to water; but the wise man first obtains from God, who always stands firm, an honour akin to his undeviating power, unchangeable in all respects and under all circumstances; for we read in scripture, 31 "But stand here with me," so that, having laid aside doubt and vacillation, the dispositions of an infirm soul, he may put on that most steadfast and trustworthy disposition, faith. Next, even while standing still, he (which seems most extraordinary) goes forward to meet him; for it is said to him, "You shall stand meeting him," and yet going to meet someone belongs to motion, while standing still is regarded as characteristic of tranquillity. 32 But the prophet is not saying inconsistent things here, but rather things entirely in accordance with nature; for the man whose mind is naturally disposed to be tranquil, and is established undeviatingly, must necessarily be at variance with all those who delight in disorder and confusion, and who by artificial storms seek to disturb the one who is capable of enjoying tranquillity. 33 It is very appropriately said that the meeting took place on the bank of the river; but the banks are also called the lips, and the lips are the boundaries of the mouth, and are a sort of fence for the tongue, through which the stream of discourse flows when it begins to be uttered; 34 but those who hate virtue and who love the passions, use speech as their ally to set out doctrines that are disapproved; and again, on the other hand, virtuous men employ it for the refutation of such doctrines, and for establishing the irresistible strength of the better and true wisdom. 35 So when men who have resorted to every expedient of contentious doctrines are destroyed, overwhelmed by the opposing violence of contrary arguments, the wise man will very justly and fittingly establish a most sacred chorus and sing a melodious song of triumph; 36 "For," says Moses, "Israel saw the Egyptians," not dead in any other place, but "on the bank (cheilos) of the river;" by death here meaning not the separation of the soul from the body,⁠b but the impetuous onset of unholy doctrines and assertions, which men utter with the mouth, the tongue and the other organs of speech. 37 But the death of speech is silence, not the silence that well-bred people cultivate, making it a symbol of modesty--for this silence is itself a faculty and a sister of the faculty developed in speech, arranging what is to be said with reference to time--but the silence that the sick and the weary endure against their will because of the strength of their antagonists, since they cannot find any handle by which to answer them; 38 for whatever they touch slips away from them, and whatever they try to stand on does not hold, so that they necessarily fall before they can stand, like that hydrostatic machine called the helix; for in the middle of that machine there are steps, which the farmer climbs when he wants to water his fields, but he is necessarily rolled round; and to avoid falling he keeps catching at the nearest firm thing he can lay his hands on, taking hold of it and so supporting his whole body; for instead of his hands he uses his feet, and instead of his feet he uses his hands; for he stands on his hands, with which actions are usually done, and acts with his feet, on which it is natural to stand. 39 But many who cannot vigorously refute the plausible inventions of the sophists, because they have practised discussion little owing to their constant application to action, have taken refuge in alliance with the only wise Being and have begged him to become their defender. As one of the friends of Moses says in his hymns when praying, "Let the treacherous lips become mute;" and how can they become mute unless they are curbed by the only being who has speech itself as his subject? 40 We must therefore flee, without ever turning back, from all associations formed for the purpose of sin; but the alliance made with the companions of wisdom and knowledge must be confirmed. 41 In this connection I admire those who say, "We are all one man's sons, we are men of peace," because of their well-adapted agreement; for how, I would ask, could you, excellent men, help being grieved at war and delighted with peace, since you are the sons of one and the same father, and he not mortal but immortal, the man of God, who, being the reason of the everlasting God, is necessarily immortal himself? 42 For those who posit many beginnings for the origin of the soul, devoted to the evil called polytheism and each turning to honour different beings, have caused great confusion and dissension both at home and abroad, from the beginning of their birth to the end of their life, filling life with irreconcilable quarrels; 43 but those who rejoice in one kind alone and honour one as their father, namely right reason, admiring the well-arranged and all-musical harmony of the virtues, live a tranquil and peaceful life, not an inactive and ignoble one, as some think, but a life of great manliness, keen and vigorous against those who try to break the confederacy they have formed and who are always scheming to bring about the violation of the oaths that have been taken; for it has happened that the men of peace have become men of war, sitting down to attack and oppose those who seek to overturn the firmness of the soul. 44 And there is testimony to support this assertion of mine: first, in the disposition of every lover of virtue, which acknowledges these inclinations; and second, in that comrade of the band of the prophets who, inspired with a sacred frenzy, said, "My mother, how have you brought me forth, a man of war, and a man of disquietude to all the earth! I have not benefited them, and they have not benefited me; nor is my strength free from their Curses." 45 But is not every wise man necessarily an irreconcilable enemy of all wicked men, using for his defence not the apparatus of triremes or engines of war, or arms, or soldiers, but reasons? 46 For when he sees war stirred up in the midst of tranquil peace, continuous and incessant among all men, both public and private, existing not only among nations and countries, and cities and villages, but also in every house, and between every individual, who does not reproach and admonish and seek to correct the foolish men whom he sees, not only by day but also by night, since his soul cannot remain tranquil because of the hatred of wickedness implanted in his nature? 47 For they do in peace everything that is done in war; they plunder, they ravage, they drag into slavery, they carry off booty, they lay waste, they behave insolently, they assault, they destroy, they pollute, they murder treacherously, they murder openly if they are the more powerful; 48 for each of them, setting riches or glory before himself as his goal, aims all the actions of his life at it like so many arrows, and neglects equality, and pursues inequality, and repudiates associations, and labours to acquire for himself all the possessions that properly belong to everyone together; he is a misanthrope and a hater of all his fellows, making a hypocritical pretence of benevolence, being a companion of a bastard kind of flattery, an enemy of genuine friendship, an enemy to truth, a champion of falsehood, slow to do good, swift to do injury, very ready to calumniate, very slow to defend, clever at deceiving, most perjured, most faithless, a slave of anger, yielding to pleasure, a guardian of all that is evil, a destroyer of all that is good. 49 These and other similar gifts are the most desirable treasures of peace, that blessing so celebrated and so admired, which the mind of each foolish man sets up for itself as an image, admires and worships; and at such men, very naturally, every wise man grieves, and often says to his mother and nurse, wisdom, "Mother, what a person you have brought me forth!" not in strength of body but in energy and courage, a determined hater of wickedness, a man of disquietude and battle, by nature peaceful, and, on this very account, an enemy to those who pollute the desirable beauty of peace. 50 "I have done no good to them, nor have they done any good to me;" nor have they even gained any advantage from my good things, nor I from their evil things; but according to the word of Moses, "I have received no desirable thing from any of them," since I regard as exceedingly pernicious every object of their desire, which they treasure in their hearts as the greatest possible advantage; 51 "Nor has my strength failed because of the curses which they laid upon Me;" but, embracing the divine doctrines with all my earnest power, I did not grow so weary as to give up, but rather vigorously reproached those who cursed me from their hearts. 52 For God made us a contradiction to our neighbours, as my hymns say, meaning all of us who aim at right reason; but are not all those people naturally fond of contradiction who have a zeal for knowledge and virtue, being always at variance with the neighbours of their soul, reproving the pleasures which live in union with them, and reproving the appetites which have the same abode, and looking morosely at acts of cowardice and fear, and the whole body of passions and vices? They reprove, then, every outward sense: the eyes for what they saw, and the ears for what they heard, and the sense of smell for the smells that presented themselves to it, the taste for the flavours which were subjected to it, and moreover the touch for its various powers developed in the body, regarding the peculiarities that come to its notice; and even uttered speech for the matters it may have chosen to discuss; 53 for it is worthwhile to investigate, and not superficially, what the outward sense has perceived, or how it has done so, or why, or what speech has uttered, or how or why, or in what manner, and how and why passion has disposed men, and to examine each of the errors into which they fall; 54 but the one who contradicts none of these things but assents to each of them in turn is unknowingly deceiving himself, and building up troublesome neighbours for his soul, which he would do better to have as subjects than as rulers; for as rulers they will do him manifold and great injury, since folly reigns among them; but as subjects they will serve him obediently in suitable matters, and will not raise their heads in arrogance at all, as they will if they rule. 55 Thus, indeed, while some are learning to be subjects, and others are obtaining authority, not only by knowledge but also by power, all the body-guards and champions of the soul, that is to say, its reasonings will keep them in order, and coming to the most important among them will say, "Your children have taken the sum of the men that are warriors among us, and there is not one of them who has Disagreed;" but like musical instruments, skilfully tuned in all their tones, so we sound in harmony in all our explanations, neither uttering any word nor doing any action that is unmelodious or discordant, so that by the contrast we may show that the other company of unlettered men is, in all respects, voiceless and dead, and an object of deserved ridicule, namely, that nourishment of the corporeal parts, Midian, and that his offspring too, that mass of skins, whose name is Belphegor, is asleep; 56 "for we are of the race of picked men of Israel, that sees God, of whom not one has Disagreed;" so that the instrument of the universe, the whole world, may sound melodiously in musical harmony. 57 For this reason Moses says that the "reward of peace" was given to the very warlike reason, which is called Phinehas; because, having received a zeal for virtue, and having taken up war against vice, he cut up the whole of generation; and second, to all those who are willing, after careful examination and investigation, using their eyes rather than their ears as a trustworthy witness, to believe that the human race is full of infidelity, depending solely on opinion. 58 So the agreement mentioned above is admirable; and most admirable of all is the common one that surpasses all the harmonies of all the others, in which the whole people is represented as saying with one accord, "All the things which God has spoken, we will obey and do." 59 For these men no longer obey reason as their ruler, but God, the governor of the universe, by whom they are assisted so as to display their energies in actions rather than in words. For when they hear of others doing such and such things, these men, contrary to all expectation, say that, from some inspiration of God, they will act first and obey afterwards; so that they may seem to have advanced to good actions not as a result of instruction and admonition but by their own spontaneous and self-taught mind. And then, when they have accomplished these actions, they say that they will obey so that they may form an opinion of what they have done, whether their actions are consistent with the divine injunctions and the sacred admonitions of scripture. 60 But those who conspired to commit injustice, he says, "having come from the east, found a plain in the land of Shinar, and lived there;" speaking most strictly in accordance with nature. For there are two kinds of dawning in the soul, one better, the other worse. The better kind is when the light of the virtues shines out like the beams of the sun; the worse kind is when they are overshadowed and the vices show forth. 61 Here is an example of the former kind: "And God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the East," not of terrestrial but of celestial plants, which the planter caused to spring up from the incorporeal light that exists around him, so as to be forever inextinguishable. 62 I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses saying something like this: "Here is a man whose name is the East!"⁠c A very novel name indeed, if you take it as spoken of a man composed of body and soul; but if you regard it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no way differs from the divine image, you will agree that the name of the east has been given to him very aptly. 63 For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and the one born in this way, imitating the ways of his father, has formed various species by looking to his archetypal patterns. 64 But the words of the man who was willing "to curse the people who were blessed by God" give an example of the worse kind of dawning. For he too is described as living in the east. And this dawning, though it has the same name as the former one, has the opposite nature to it, and is continually at war with it. 65 For Balaam says, "Balak sent for me out of Mesopotamia, from the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me the people whom God does not curse." But the name Balak, translated, means "void of sense;" a very apt name. For how can it be anything but shocking to hope to deceive the living God, and to turn aside his most enduring and firmly established counsels by the sophistical devices of men? 66 For this reason he is described as living in Mesopotamia, for his mind is overwhelmed as if in the middle of the river's depths, and is not able to emerge and to swim away. And this condition is the dawning of folly and the setting of sound reason. 67 Those, then, who are tuned to an inharmonious symphony are said to be moved from the east. Is this, then, the east according to wickedness? But the dawning in accordance with virtue is described as a complete separation, and the motion from the dawning according to vice is a united one, as when the hands are moved, not separately and disjunctively, but in a certain harmony and connection with the whole body. 68 For to the wicked man folly is the beginning of his activity in works contrary to nature, that is, of his approach to the region of wickedness. But all those who have left the region of virtue, and have set forth to go over to folly, have found a most appropriate place to live, which in the Hebrew language is called Shinar. And in Greek Shinar is called "shaking;" 69 for the whole life of the wicked is shaken, and agitated, and torn to pieces, being always kept in a state of commotion and confusion, with no trace of any genuine good stored up in it. For just as everything not held together by close union falls out of what is violently shaken, in the very same way, it seems to me, the soul of every man who associates with others to do wrong is shaken; for he casts away every appearance of good, so that no shadow or image of it ever appears. 70 So the body-loving race of the Egyptians is described as fleeing, not from the water, but "under the water," that is to say, beneath the impetuous speed of the passions. And once it has placed itself under the power of the passions, it is shaken and agitated; it casts away the stable and peaceable qualities of virtue, and takes up in their place the turbulent and confused character of wickedness; for it is said that "God shook the Egyptians in the middle of the sea, fleeing under the water." 71 These are the people who did not know Joseph--the diversified pride of life--and who, with their sins revealed, have not received any trace, or shade, or image of goodness and excellence. 72 For Moses says, "Another king arose over the Egyptians who did not know Joseph," the latest and most modern good perceptible by the outward senses, who utterly destroyed not only the perfections but even all improvements, and all the energy which can be exerted by the sight, and all the teaching which can be implanted by means of the hearing, saying, "Come, curse me Jacob; and come, defy Israel for Me;" an expression equivalent to, Destroy both these things, the sight and the hearing of the soul, so that it may neither see nor hear any true and genuine good thing; for Israel is the emblem of seeing and Jacob of hearing. 73 So the mind of such people, being shaken to some degree, rejects the nature of good; and, on the other hand, the mind of good people, setting up a claim to the unmingled and unalloyed ideas of good things, shakes off and discards all that is evil. 74 Consider, therefore, what the practitioner of virtue says: "Take up the foreign gods that are among you from out of the midst of you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments, and rise up and let us go to Bethel;" so that, even if Laban should demand the power to search, the images might not be found in his whole house, but only things that have real subsistence and essence, being fixed like pillars in the mind of the wise man, which the self-taught offspring Isaac has received as his inheritance; for he alone receives his father's substance as his inheritance. 75 And notice that Moses does not say that they came to a plain in which they remain, but that they "found" one, having searched around in every direction, and having considered what might be the most suitable region for folly; for in reality no foolish man takes from another for himself, but he seeks for and finds evils, not content only with the evils toward which wicked nature moves of its own accord, but also adding to it the perfect skill in evil that comes from constant practice in contriving wrong. 76 And I truly wish that after staying there a short time he had changed his home; but even now he sees fit to remain, for it is said that having found the plain they dwelt there; having settled there as if in their own country and not as if in a foreign land; for it would have been less trouble for men who had fallen in with wicked actions to regard them as strange and foreign to them, and not to consider that they had any kindred or connection with them. For if they had regarded themselves as sojourners among them, they would have changed their home later, but as it is, having settled firmly among them, they were likely to live there for ever. 77 For this reason all the wise men mentioned in the books of Moses are described as sojourners, for their souls are sent down from heaven upon earth as to a colony; and because of their fondness for contemplation, and their love of learning, they are accustomed to migrate to the terrestrial nature. 78 So, having taken up residence among bodies and seen through them all the mortal objects of the outward senses, they then return from there to the place from which they first set out, regarding the heavenly country in which they hold the rights of citizens as their native land, and the earthly home in which they live for a while as a foreign land. For those who are sent out to settle a colony, the country that has received them takes the place of their original mother country; but the land that sent them out still remains the home to which they long to return. 79 So it is very natural that Abraham says to the guardians of the dead and to the arrangers of mortal affairs, after he has forsaken the life that is merely dead and the tomb, "I am a stranger and a sojourner among You," but you are natives of the country, honouring the dust and earth more than the soul, thinking the name Ephron worthy of precedence, for Ephron, 80 translated, means "a mound" and naturally, Jacob, the practitioner of virtue, laments that he is a sojourner in the body, saying, "The days of the years of my life which I spend here as a sojourner have been few and evil; they have not come up to the days of my fathers which they spent as sojourners." 81 But to the self-taught one scripture gave the following command, "Do not go down," says the scripture, "to Egypt," that is to say to passion; "but dwell in this land, land which I will tell you of," namely, in the incorporeal wisdom which cannot be pointed out to the eye; and be a sojourner in this land, the substance which can be pointed out and appreciated by the external sense. And this is said to show that the wise man is a sojourner in a foreign land, that is to say in the body perceptible by the outward senses, who dwells among the virtues appreciable by the intellect as in his native land, virtues that God utters as in no way different from the divine word. 82 But Moses says, "I am a sojourner in a foreign land;" speaking with particular aptness, regarding his dwelling in the body not only as a foreign land, as sojourners do, but also as a land from which one ought to feel estranged, and which one should never regard as home. 83 But the wicked man, wanting to show that identity of language and sameness of dialect consist no more in names and common words than in his participation in iniquitous actions, begins to build a city and a tower as a citadel for sovereign wickedness; and he invites all his fellow revellers to share in his enterprise, preparing an abundance of suitable materials in advance. 84 For, "Come," he says, "let us make bricks, and let us bake them in the fire," an expression equivalent to, Now we have all the parts of the soul mingled together and in a state of confusion, so that there is no species at all whose form can be clearly seen. 85 So, to be consistent with these beginnings, since we have assumed a certain essence stripped of all particular species and all distinctive qualities, and have also taken up with passion and vice, we should also divide it into suitable qualities and keep reducing the proximate species to the ultimate ones; and we should do so both to understand them more distinctly and to use and enjoy them with experience, which seems to produce many pleasures and delights. 86 Come, then, all you reasonings of counsellors, somehow or other, to the assembly of the soul; come, all you who plot the destruction of justice and of all virtue, and let us consider carefully how we may reach the end we desire. 87 The most secure foundations of success in this matter will be these: to give shape and character to things without form, and to distinguish each thing separately with distinct outlines, for fear that, if they become shaken and lame (though fixed on firm foundations,) and if they have assumed a connection with the nature of a quadrangular shape, (for this is a nature always unshaken), they may then, being established steadily like a building of bricks, support even those things which are built upon them. 88 Every mind opposed to God, which we call the king of Egypt (that is to say of the body), proves to be the maker of a structure like this. For Moses portrays the mind as rejoicing in the buildings made of brick; 89 for after some being or other made the two substances of water and earth to be the one dry and the other solid, and mingling the two together, for they were easily dissoluble and corruptible, made a third substance on the border between the two, which is called clay, he has never stopped dissecting this into small portions, giving its own appropriate figure to each of the fragments, so that they might be very well compacted together, and very suitable to the objects for which they were intended. For in this way what was being made was sure to be completed very easily. 90 Imitating this work, those men who are wicked in their natures, when they mingle the irrational and extravagant impulses of the passions with the most grievous vices, are, in reality, dissecting that which has been combined into various species, and, unhappy as they are, fashioning them again and reducing them into shape, by means of which the blockade of the soul will be raised on high; these being, in fact, the divisions of the outward sense into seeing, and hearing, and taste, and smell, and touch. Passion, again, is divided into pleasure, and appetite, and fear, and grief; and the universal genus of vices is divided into folly, and intemperance, and cowardice, and injustice, and all the other vices which are akin to or closely connected with them. 91 And before now some people, even more extravagant in wickedness than these, have not only prepared their own souls for such actions, but have also forced those of a superior class and of the genus which is endowed with acuteness of vision, and have "compelled them to make bricks and to build strong cities" for the mind, which has seemed to occupy the place of king, wishing to show that what is good is the slave of what is evil, and that subjection to the passions is more powerful than tranquillity of soul, and that prudence and all virtue are, as it were, mere subjects of folly and all wickedness, so as to be forced to serve in every matter the master power commands; 92 for behold, says Moses, the most pure, and brilliant, and far-sighted eye of the soul, which alone is permitted to see God, named Israel, once bound in the corporeal nets of Egypt, endures severe commands, so as to be compelled to make bricks and all sorts of things of clay with the most grievous and intolerable labours, at which it is very naturally pained and groans, having stored up, as it were, as its only treasure amid its evils, the power to lament its present distresses. 93 For it is said, very correctly, that "the children of Israel groaned because of their tasks." And what man in his right mind, if he saw the tasks of most men, and the extreme earnestness with which they labour at the pursuits to which they are accustomed to devote themselves, whether it be the acquisition of money, or glory, or the enjoyment of pleasure, would not be greatly concerned and cry out to God, the only Saviour, to lighten their labours and pay a ransom and price for the salvation of the soul, so as to emancipate and deliver it? 94 What, then, is the surest freedom? The service of the only wise God, as the scriptures testify where they say, "Send forth the people, that they may serve Me." 95 But it is the distinctive mark of those who serve the living God neither to concern themselves with the work of cup-bearers, or bakers, or cooks, or any other earthly employments, nor to trouble themselves about arranging or adorning their bodies like bricks, but to mount up with their reason to the height of heaven, having chosen Moses, the type of the race which loves God, to be the guide of their path; 96 for then "they will see the place which is visible,"⁠d on which the unchangeable and unalterable God stands; and the footstool beneath his feet, which is, as it were, a work of sapphire stone, and, as it were, a resemblance to the firmament of heaven, namely, the world perceptible by the outward senses, which he describes allegorically by these figures. 97 For it is very fitting for those who have formed a fellowship for learning to desire to see him; and, if they are unable to do that, at least to see his image, the most sacred word, and, next to that, the most perfect work of all the things perceptible by the outward senses, namely, the world? For to philosophise is nothing other than to desire to see things accurately. 98 But he says that the world perceptible to the outward senses is, as it were, the footstool of God for these reasons: first, to show that there is no efficient cause in the creatures; second, to show that even the whole world has not a free and unrestrained spontaneous motion of its own, but God, the ruler of the universe, takes his stand upon it, regulating it and directing everything in a saving manner by the helm of his wisdom, using, in truth, neither hands nor feet, nor any other part at all that belongs to created objects; for God is not as man, but we sometimes represent him as such, for the sake of instruction, because we are unable to advance out of ourselves and derive our apprehension of the uncreated God from the circumstances with which we ourselves are surrounded. 99 And Moses speaks very beautifully, in the form of a parable, when he describes the world as resembling a brick; for the world appears to stand and to be firmly fixed like a brick in a house, as far as the vision of the sight of the outward senses can inform us, but it has a very swift motion, one able to outstrip all particular motions. 100 For the eyes of our body look upon the appearance of the sun by day and of the moon by night as standing still, and yet who does not know that the speed of these two bodies is incomparable, since they go round the whole heaven in one day? In the same way the whole heaven itself, while appearing to stand still, revolves in a circle, and its movements are detected and comprehended by the invisible and more divine eye which is placed in our mind. 101 And they are described as baking the bricks in the fire, to suggest by this symbolic expression that they are strengthened and hardened in their vices and their passions by warm and most energetic reason, so that they can never be overthrown by the body-guards of wisdom, who keep bringing up engines to defeat them. 102 For this reason the further statement is also made, "Their brick was to them for stone;" for the weak and lax character of that impetuosity which is not accompanied by reason, when it is closely pressed and condensed so as to assume a nature capable of solidity and resistance, owes this change to powerful reasons and most convincing demonstrations; the comprehension of such speculations being in a way endowed with manliness and vigour; at a tender age these comprehensions melt away because of the mixture of the soul, which is not yet able to consolidate and preserve the character impressed upon it. 103 "And they had slime for mortar;" not, the other way around, mortar for slime. For the wicked appear to strengthen and fortify what is weak against what is most powerful, and from their own resources to consolidate and preserve what melts and flows away from such things, so that they may aim and shoot at virtue from a safe place. But the merciful God and father of the good will not permit their buildings to be established in indissoluble safety, since their work of melting zeal cannot hold out but becomes like soft mud. 104 For, if their clay had become mortar, then perhaps that earthy thing perceptible by the outward senses, which is for ever and ever in a continual state of flux, would have been able to arrive at a safe and unalterable power; but since, on the contrary, their mortar became mere slime, we must not despair, for in this there is sure hope that the strong fortifications of vice may be overthrown by the might of God. 105 Therefore the just man, even in the great and incessant deluge of life, while he is not yet able to see things as they really are by the energy of his soul alone without the assistance of the outward sense, will anoint "the ark," by which I understand the body, "both within and without the pitch," strengthening his imaginations and energies by his own resources; but when the danger has ceased and the violence of the flood has abated, he will come out, using his incorporeal mind for the comprehension of truth. 106 For the good disposition, planted in virtue from the man's very birth and spoken of as such, its name being Moses, dwelling in the whole world as his native city and country, becoming, as it were, a cosmopolite, being bound up in the body, smeared over as with "bitumen and pitch," and appearing to be able to receive and to contain in security all the imaginations of all things which might be subjected to the outward senses, weeps at being bound up in this way, being overwhelmed with a desire for an incorporeal nature. And he weeps over the miserable mind of men in general as wandering and puffed up with pride, since, elated by false opinion, it thinks that it has in itself something firm and safe, and, in general, that there is something immutable in some creature or other, though the example of perpetual stability, which is at all times the same, is set up in God alone. 107 And the expression, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which shall reach to heaven," has this meaning hidden beneath it; the lawgiver does not think that the only cities are those built upon the earth, the materials of which are wood and stone, but he thinks that there are other cities too, which men carry about with them, being built in their souls; 108 and these are, naturally, the archetypes and models of the others, since they have received a more divine building, and the others are but imitations of them, since they consist of perishable substances. But there are two species of cities, the one better, the other worse. The better one enjoys a democratic government, a constitution which honours equality, the rulers of which are law and justice; and such a constitution as this is a hymn to God. But the worse kind is the one that adulterates this constitution, just as base and clipped money is adulterated in the coinage, being, in fact, ochlocracy, which admires inequality, in which injustice and lawlessness hold sway. 109 Now good men are enrolled as citizens in the constitution of the first-mentioned kind of city; but the multitude of the wicked clings to the other and worst sort, loving disorder more than orderliness, and confusion rather than well-established steadiness. 110 And the wicked man seeks helpers in his practice of wickedness, not regarding himself as sufficient on his own. And he exhorts the sight, and he exhorts the hearing, and he exhorts every outward sense in succession, to range itself on his side without delay, and each of them to bring him everything necessary for his service. And he raises up and sharpens all the rest of the company of the passions, which are unmanageable by their own nature, in order that by the addition of practice and care they may become irresistible. 111 The mind, therefore, having called in these allies, says, "Let us build ourselves a city;" an expression equivalent to, Let us fortify our own things; let us fence them around as best we can, so that we may not be easily taken by those who attack us; let us divide and distribute, as into tribes and boroughs, each of the powers existing in the soul, allotting some to the rational part, and some to the irrational part; 112 let us choose competent rulers, wealth, glory, honour, pleasure, by means of which we may be able to become masters of everything; banishing far away justice, the invariable cause of poverty and obscurity; and let us enact laws that will secure the chief power and advantage for those who are always able to get the better of others. 113 And let a tower be built in this city as a citadel, to be a strong palace for the tyrant vice, whose feet will walk upon the earth and whose head will, through pride, be raised so high as to reach even heaven; 114 for in fact it rests not only upon human sins, but it also hastens forward as far as heaven, pushing up its words of impiety and ungodliness, since it either asserts that God does not exist, or that, though he exists, he has no providence, or affirms that the world had no beginning of creation, or that, granting it was created, it is carried along by unsteady causes as chance may direct, at one time wrongly, at another faultlessly, as often happens with chariots or ships. 115 For sometimes the voyage of a ship, or the course of a chariot, goes on properly even without charioteers or pilots; but success is due not only now and then to providences, but very often to human prudence and invariably to divine, since error is admitted to be altogether incompatible with divine power. What aim can foolish men have who, figuratively speaking, build up the reasonings of wickedness like a tower, except the desire to leave behind them a name that will be far from a good name? 116 For they say, "Let us make for ourselves a name." Oh, the excessive and profligate impudence of such a saying! What are you saying? When you ought to seek to bury your iniquities under night and profound darkness, and to put on shame as a veil for them, if not genuine shame then at least a pretended one, whether to win favour in the eyes of the moderate and virtuous or to avoid punishment for admitted wickedness, do you nevertheless go to such a pitch of audacity as almost to come out and display yourselves in the light and in the most brilliant beams of the sun, and to fear neither the threats of better men, nor the implacable justice of God, which hangs over such ungodly and desperate men? But you even see fit to send reports around in every direction, spreading news of your domestic iniquities, so that no one may be uninformed of or unacquainted with your deeds of daring wickedness, wretched and infamous men that you are. 117 What name, therefore, do you wish to assume? Is it the one which is most suitable to your actions? But is there not only one name that suits them? It may, perhaps, be one in genus; but there are ten thousand such names in species, which you will hear from others, even if you keep silent yourselves. The names that fit your conduct are rashness united with shamelessness, insolence combined with violence, violence in union with homicide, corruption in combination with adultery, undefined appetite accompanied by unmeasured indulgence in pleasures, folly joined with impudence, injustice united to crafty wickedness, theft combined with rapine, perjury united with lying, impiety combined with utter lawlessness. These, and others like them, are the names of such actions. 118 And they are content to boast and pride themselves on seeking a reputation from actions that it would be more fitting to hide and be ashamed of. And, indeed, some persons do pride themselves on these things, thinking that because of them they gain a certain irresistible power among men from the idea people hold of them; but they will not escape the divine vengeance for their enormous audacity, and very soon they will not only anticipate their own death from a distance but even see it close at hand. For they say, "Before we are dispersed, let us take care of our name and our glory." 119 Should I not then say to them, You know that you will be dispersed? Why, then, do you commit iniquity? But perhaps here he is setting before us the way of foolish men who, even when the very greatest punishments are not obscurely impending over them, but are often visibly threatening them, nevertheless do not hesitate to commit iniquity. And the punishments inflicted by God, however concealed they may seem, are in reality most notorious. 120 For all the most wicked of men hold the idea that they can never escape the knowledge of the deity when doing wrong, and that they will never be able to ward off the day of retribution altogether. 121 Otherwise, how do they know that they will be dispersed? And yet they say, "Before we are dispersed." But their conscience within convicts them and pricks them sharply when they devote themselves to ungodliness, so as to draw from them against their will a confession that all human affairs are overseen by a superior nature, and that justice is watching above, as an incorruptible chastiser, hating the unjust actions of the impious, and the reasonings and speeches that undertake their defence. 122 But all these men are the offspring of that wickedness which is always dying but which never dies, the name of which is Cain. Is Cain not described as having fathered a son whom he called Enoch, and as building a city to which he gave the same name, and as in a way building up created and mortal things to the destruction of those things which have received a more divine formation? 123 For the name Enoch, translated, means "your grace." But every impious man supposes that what he thinks and understands is due to the bounty of his intellect towards him; that what he sees is the gift of his eyes to him, what he hears the gift of his ears, what he smells the gift of his nostrils, and so on, so that each of his outward senses bestows on him the perceptions that correspond to it. Again, he supposes that the organs of the voice give him the capacity to speak, and that there is actually no such thing as a God at all, or at any rate that he is not the primary cause of things. 124 Because of these views he assigns to himself the first fruits of the fruits which he extracts from the earth by his farming, content afterwards to offer God some of the fruit, even though he has a sound example at hand; for his brother offers a sacrifice of the offspring of the flock, offering the firstborn, not those of secondary value; confessing that the eldest causes of all existing things are suited to the eldest and first cause. 125 But the impious man thinks exactly the contrary, namely, that the mind is endowed with absolute power to do whatever it desires, and that the outward senses have absolute power as to all that they feel, on the grounds that both the mind and the outward senses decide irreproachably and unerringly, the one on bodies, and the other on everything. 126 Now what can be more open to blame, or more easily refuted by truth, than such ideas as these? Has not the mind been repeatedly convicted of innumerable acts of folly? And have not all the outward senses been convicted of bearing false witness, and not before irrational judges, who might naturally be supposed open to deception, but before the tribunal of nature herself, which it is impossible to corrupt or to pervert? 127 And indeed, since the criteria of both our mind and our outward senses are liable to error even about ourselves, it necessarily follows that we must likewise confess that God sheds upon the mind the power of intellect, and on the outward senses the faculty of apprehension, and that these benefits are conferred upon us not by our own members but by him to whom we also owe our existence. 128 The children who have received from their father the inheritance of self-love are eager to go on increasing up to heaven, until justice, which loves virtue and hates iniquity, comes and destroys the cities they have built up beside their miserable souls, and the tower whose name is displayed in the book entitled the Book of Judgment. 129 And the name is, as the Hebrews say, Phanuel, which translated into our language means, "turning away from God." For any strong building which is erected by means of plausible arguments is built for no other purpose than to turn the mind away from the honour due to God and alienate it; and what purpose could be more iniquitous than that? 130 But to destroy this strong fortification a ravager is prepared, an enemy of iniquity who is always full of hostility towards it, whom the Hebrews call Gideon, a name that means, "a retreat for robbers." "For," says Moses, "Gideon swore to the men of Phanuel, saying, On the day when I return victorious in peace, I will overthrow this tower." 131 This is a very beautiful and most fitting boast for the soul that hates wickedness and is sharpened against the impious: it is resolved to overthrow every reasoning that by its persuasions seeks to turn the mind away from holiness, and this is indeed the natural result. For when the mind turns round, whatever turns away from it and rejects it is dissolved again, 132 and this opportunity for destroying it he calls (a most wonderful thing) not war but peace. For through the stability and firmness of mind that piety usually produces, every reasoning that impiety has formed is overturned. 133 Many have also built up the outward senses like a tower, raising them to such a height as to be able to reach the very borders of heaven. But the term heaven is used here as a symbol of our mind, in which the best and most divine natures revolve. But those who dare such deeds prefer the outward senses to the intellect, and want to use the outward senses to destroy all the objects of intellect by force, compelling what are at present masters to come down to the rank of servants, and raising what are by nature slaves to the rank of masters. 134 And the statement, "The Lord went down to see that city and that tower" must be heard as spoken entirely in a figurative sense. For to think that the divinity can go towards, or go from, or go down, or go to meet, or, in short, that it has the same positions and motions as particular animals, and that it is capable of real motion at all, is, as the common proverb puts it, an impiety that deserves to be banished beyond the sea and beyond the world. 135 But the lawgiver speaks these things of God, who does not have human form, as if of a man, for the benefit of us who are to be instructed, as I have often said before about other passages. For who does not know that anyone who goes down must leave one place and occupy another? 136 But God fills all places at once; he surrounds them all and is not surrounded by any of them, and he alone can be everywhere and also nowhere. Nowhere, because he himself created place and space at the same time that he created bodies, and it is impious to say that the Creator is contained in anything that he has created. Again, he is everywhere, because, having extended his powers so as to make them pervade earth, and water, and air, and heaven, he has left no portion of the world desolate, but, having collected everything together, he has bound them with chains which cannot be burst, so that they are never set free; and for this he is especially to be praised in hymns. 137 For what is higher than all powers is understood to exceed them, not merely in the fact of its existence. But the power of this being, which made and arranged everything, is quite truly called God, and it contains everything in its bosom, and pervades every portion of the universe. 138 But the divine being, both invisible and incomprehensible, is indeed everywhere, yet in truth he is nowhere visible or comprehensible. But when he says, "I am he who stands before You" he does seem to be displayed and comprehended, though before any display or conception he was superior to all created things. 139 Therefore, none of the words that imply motion from place to place is appropriate to the god who exists only in essence; I mean such expressions as going upwards or downwards, to the right or to the left, forwards or backwards. For he is not conceived of in any of the ideas mentioned above, since he never turns around or changes his place. 140 Nevertheless he who by his foreknowledge comprehends everything, not only what has happened but even before it happens, is said to have come down and to have seen; and this expression is used for the sake of exhortation and instruction, so that no one who indulges in uncertain conjectures about matters he is not present to see may, standing far off, be too quick to believe idle fancies, but so that everyone may come close to the facts, examine each one separately, and consider them carefully and thoroughly. For sure sight deserves to be regarded as a more trustworthy witness than deceptive hearing. 141 For this reason a law has been enacted among those nations that have the most excellent constitution, that one must not give evidence on hearsay, because by its own nature the tribunal of the sense of hearing is liable to be corrupted. And Moses indeed says in the prohibitory part of his law, "You shall not receive vain hearing." He means not only that one ought not to accept false or silly reports by hearsay, but also that, where clear comprehension of the truth is concerned, hearing lags a long way behind sight, since it is full of vanity. 142 This, we say, is why God is said to have gone down to see the city and the tower; and the addition, "Which the sons of men had built," is not a mere superfluity. For perhaps someone of a profane disposition may mock and say, "The lawgiver is here teaching us a very novel kind of lesson, when he says that no one else but the sons of men build cities and towers; for who, even among the craziest people, does not know something as evident and notorious as that?" 143 But we must not suppose that the holy scriptures mention it to convey so plain and unquestionable a fact as that; rather, some hidden meaning is concealed under these apparently plain words, and we must trace it out. 144 What then is this hidden meaning? Those who, as it were, attribute many fathers to existing things, and who represent the company of the gods as numerous, displaying great ignorance of the nature of things and causing great confusion, and making pleasure the proper object of the soul, are, to tell the plain truth, the ones spoken of as the builders of the city mentioned above, and of the citadel in it; for they have multiplied the efficient causes of the desired end, building them up like houses, and are, I think, no different from the children of the harlot whom the law expels from the assembly of God, where it says, "The offspring of a harlot shall not come into the assembly of the Lord." For like archers who shoot at random at many targets and do not aim skilfully or successfully at any one mark, these men, putting forward ten thousand principles and causes for the creation of the universe, every one of which is false, display a perfect ignorance of the one Creator and Father of all things; 145 but those who have real knowledge are properly addressed as the sons of the one God, as Moses also calls them, where he says, "You are the sons of the Lord God." And again, "God who fathered You;" and in another place, "Is he not your father?" Accordingly, it is natural for those who have this disposition of soul to regard nothing as beautiful except what is good, and this is the citadel that those experienced in this kind of warfare erect as a defence against the end of pleasure, and as a means of defeating and destroying it. 146 And even if no one is yet worthy to be called a son of God, let him nevertheless labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word,⁠e the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel.⁠f 147 For this reason I was led a little while ago to praise the principles of those who said, "We are all one man's sons." For even if we are not yet fit to be called the sons of God, we may still deserve to be called the children of his eternal image, of his most sacred word; for the image of God is his most ancient word. 148 And, indeed, in many passages of the law, the children of Israel are called hearers of the one who sees, since hearing is honoured with second rank, next after the sense of sight, and since what needs instruction always ranks second to what can receive clear impressions of the subjects presented to it without any such instruction. 149 And I also marvel at the things spoken under divine inspiration in the books of Kings, in which those who flourished many generations later and lived blameless lives are spoken of as the sons of David who wrote hymns to God; though, during his lifetime, even their great grandfathers had not yet been born. The truth is that the birth spoken of here is the birth of souls made immortal by their virtues, not of perishable bodies, and this birth is naturally referred to the leaders of virtue, as its parents and progenitors. 150 But against those who pride themselves on injustice, the Lord said, "Look, there is one race and one language among them all," an expression equivalent to, Look, there is one family and one bond of relationship, and also, one harmony and agreement among them all together, with no one at all alienated in mind from his neighbour or disconnected from him, as happens among unmusical men. For at times the organ of speech among them is, in all its tones, out of tune and inharmonious to no small degree; it is in fact carefully arranged to produce discord, and has only the kind of harmony that produces a lack of melody. 151 And in fevers one can see very similar effects; for they are periodic changes, recurring in some cases every day, in others every third or every fourth day, as the sons of the physicians say; and they also have fixed hours, both by day and night, at which important crises may be expected, and they at all times keep nearly the same order. 152 And the expression, "And they began to do this," is said with no small indignation, because it was not enough for wicked men to confuse all the principles of justice that concern their fellow countrymen, but they have ventured to transgress even the laws of Heaven, sowing injustice and reaping impiety. But these wretched men gain nothing, 153 for though those who seek to injure one another succeed in many of the aims they have at heart, carrying out in action what they have decided on in their unwise minds, it is not the same with the impious. For all things belonging to the Deity are incapable of receiving either damage or injury, and the unclean can only find a way to begin sinning against them, but can never reach the end they set themselves; 154 and this is why this expression also occurs, "They began to do." Men full of an insatiable desire to do wrong, not content with the crimes they can commit on earth, at sea and in the air, since these are of a perishable nature, have resolved to set themselves against the divine natures that exist in heaven; and these, since they are not counted among existing creatures, are also wholly beyond the reach of Injury. Even calumny itself can do them no injury if it ventures to speak ill of them, since they are never moved from their everlasting and eternal natures, but it inflicts incurable calamity on those who accuse it. 155 Though they have only begun, unable to reach the end of the impiety they set themselves, are they not to be blamed just as much as if they had accomplished everything they had in view? This is also why Moses speaks of them as having finished the tower, though in fact they had not yet completed it, where he says, "The Lord went down to see the city and the tower," not which the sons of men were going to build, but which they had built. 156 What, then, is the proof that they had not entirely completed this building? First of all, the fact is plainly well known. For not even so slight a portion of the earth can touch heaven, for the reason mentioned before, that no centre can ever touch the circumference; in the second place, because the aether aithēr is sacred fire and an unquenchable flame, as its very name shows, since it is derived from aithō, to burn, a synonym of kaiō. 157 And we have a witness on our side in one portion of the heavenly system of fire, namely the sun, who, though he is at such a distance from the earth, sends his beams down into its inmost recesses, and sometimes warms and at times even scorches the earth itself, and the air which reaches from earth up to the heavenly sphere, though it is by nature cold; for whatever is far removed from his rapid course, or lies at an oblique angle to it, he warms on one side only; but whatever is near him, or in a direct line from him, is violently burnt up. If this is so, then must not those men who were trying to climb up to heaven have been struck by thunderbolts and burnt up, leaving their high-minded and proud designs unaccomplished? 158 This is the meaning Moses seems to intend to convey figuratively by the expressions that follow: "For they ceased," he says, "to build the city and the tower." Not because they had finished their work, but because the confusion that followed kept them from accomplishing it. Nevertheless, they have not escaped blame for their actions, since they had decided on them and attempted to carry them out. 159 At any rate, the law says that the soothsayer and diviner who was led into folly by his unstable conjectures (for the name, Balaam, being interpreted, means unstable), "cursed the people that saw;" and this even though, as far as his words went, he uttered only words of good omen and prayers. Here the law looks not at the words he uttered, which through the providence of God did change their character and became good money instead of base coinage, but at the intention, in which injurious things were resolved on in preference to beneficial ones. But these things are by nature hostile to one another: conjectures are at variance with truth, and vain opinion with knowledge, and prophecy that is not dictated by divine inspiration is directly opposed to sober wisdom. 160 And even if anyone, rising as it were from ambush, were to try to kill a man but fail, he is still no less liable to the punishment due to homicides, as the law which is enacted about such persons shows. "For if," says the law, "anyone attacks his neighbour, wishing to kill him by treachery, and escapes, you shall apprehend him, even at the altar, to put him to death." And yet what is condemned is the attack with intent to kill, not the actual killing, but the law regards the intention to kill as equal in guilt to the actual killing; and so it does not pardon such a man even if he pleads for it, but orders that the man who has cherished so unholy a design be dragged even from the temple itself. 161 And such a man is unholy, not merely because he has plotted slaughter against a soul that might have lived for ever by acquiring and using virtue, attacking it by means of wickedness, but also because he blames God as the cause of his ungodly audacity; for the word, "escapes," has this meaning concealed under it. For many men wish to escape the accusations brought against them, and think it fitting to be delivered from the punishments due for the offences they have committed, and so they attribute their own iniquity to him who is the cause of no evil, but of all kinds of good, namely, to God; and so it was not counted a violation of divine law to drag such men even from the altars themselves. 162 And an excessive punishment was then pronounced against the reasons built up and put together in this way for purposes of impiety, though some foolish people will perhaps regard it not as an injury but as a benefit. "For," says Moses, "there shall not fail to them any one of the things which they have endeavoured to do." Alas for their unlimited and interminable misery! Everything on which the most insane intention fixes its desires shall be successfully carried out, and shall obey its will, so that nothing whatever shall fail, either small or great, but everything shall, as it were, make haste to meet and to anticipate their requirements. 163 These things display a soul destitute of prudence, which meets no obstacle to indulging in sin; for whoever is not utterly incurable would rather pray that all the purposes of his mind might fail, so that if he had resolved to steal, or to commit adultery, or to murder a man, or to commit sacrilege, or to perpetrate any similar crime, he might not succeed, but might find innumerable obstacles. For such hindrance would get rid of the greatest of all diseases, injustice; but anyone free from all fear is sure to let this malady in. 164 Why then, my friends, do you still praise or marvel at the fortune of tyrants, which lets them succeed with ease in everything they undertake and everything a frenzied and unrestrained mind prompts them to do? And yet one ought rather to lament for them, since inability and powerlessness to succeed in their objects is advantageous to the wicked, just as abundant opportunity and power is the most beneficial thing for the good. 165 But one of the crowd of foolish men, seeing what an overflowing abundance of misery indulgence in sin leads to, said with perfect frankness, "My wickedness is too great for me to be Forgiven." It is therefore very sad indeed for the soul, which is unmanageable by its own nature, to be left without any restraint, when even with reins it is scarcely possible for anyone to hold it in and, by that means together with the lash, to bring it to reason. 166 For this reason the all-merciful God has given an oracle full of gentleness, which holds out good hopes to those who love instruction, in these words: "I will never leave you, nor forsake You." For when the chains of the soul, by which it has usually been held in bondage, are loosened, the greatest of all calamities follows, namely, being deserted by God, who has fastened chains which can never be broken round the universe, namely, his own powers, with which he binds everything, wishing it never to be released again. 167 Accordingly, he says, in another passage, that "all things which are bound with a chain are pure;" since unbinding causes the destruction of what is impure. Take care, then, that when you see a man accomplishing without difficulty all the objects which he endeavors to effect, you do not admire him as a prosperous man; take care rather to pity him as a very unfortunate one, because he spends his whole life utterly destitute of virtue and abounding in vice. 168 And it is worthwhile to consider, and not superficially, the meaning of the expression Moses puts into the mouth of God: "Come, let us go down and confuse their language there." For here God is represented as speaking to some beings who were his co-workers. And the very same idea may be raised by what is said in the account of the creation of the world, 169 for there, too, Moses records that "the Lord God said, Come, let us now make man in our image; man in our likeness." The expression "Let us make" implies a number of creators. And, in another place, we are told that God said, "Look, the man, Adam, has become as one of us, in respect of his knowing good and evil;" for the expression, "as one of us," is not applicable to one person, but to many. 170 First, then, we must say this: no existing being is equal in honor to God, but there is only one ruler and governor and king, to whom alone it is granted to govern and to arrange the universe. For the verse - A multitude of kings is never good, Let there be one sovereign, one sole monarch, is said no more justly of cities and men than of the world and God; for it is clear from the necessity of things that there must be one creator, and one father, and one master of the one universe. 171 With this point granted, we must also connect what follows with it, so as to fit it properly. Let us then consider what this is: God, being one, has about him an unspeakable number of powers, all of which are defenders and preservers of every thing that is created; and among these powers are also those concerned with punishment. But even punishment is not a disadvantageous thing, since it both hinders and corrects wrongdoing. 172 Again, it is by means of these powers that the incorporeal world, perceptible by the intellect, has been put together, which is the archetypal model of this visible world, composed of invisible species, just as this world is composed of visible bodies. 173 Some people, therefore, marvelling greatly at the nature of both these worlds, have not only deified them as wholes, but have also deified the most beautiful parts of them, such as the sun and the moon, and the entire heaven, which they, having no reverence for anything, have called gods. But Moses, perceiving their design, says, "Lord, Lord, King of the gods," in order to show the difference between the ruler and those subject to him, 174 And there is also in the air a most sacred company of incorporeal souls attending on the heavenly souls; for the word of prophecy usually calls these souls angels. So it is that the whole army of each of these worlds, marshalled in suitable ranks, are servants and ministers of the ruler who has marshalled them, whom they follow as their leader, in obedience to the principles of law and justice; for it is impossible to suppose that the divine army can ever be detected in desertion. 175 But it suits the character of the king to associate with his own powers and to make use of them, so that they may minister in matters that it is not fitting for God alone to settle, for the Father of the universe has no need of anything, so as to require help from any other source if he wishes to make anything. But seeing at once what is fitting both for himself and for his works of creation, he has entrusted some things to his subordinate powers to fashion; and yet he has not, at the same time, given even them completely independent knowledge to accomplish their objects, so that none of the things that come to be created may be found to be made in error. 176 It was necessary, then, to give an outline of these things beforehand; now we must say why it was necessary. The nature of animals was originally divided into the part endowed with reason and the part devoid of it, the two being at variance with one another. Again the rational division was subdivided into the perishable and imperishable species, the perishable species being the race of mankind, and the imperishable species being the company of incorporeal souls which revolve around the air and heaven. 177 But these have no share in wickedness, since they received from the very beginning an inheritance without stain and full of happiness, and are not bound up in the region of interminable calamities, that is, in the body. The divisions of the irrational part are also free from any share in wickedness, since, being endowed with no intellect, they are never convicted of the deliberate acts of wickedness that proceed from reflection. 178 But man is almost the only living thing that, having a thorough knowledge of good and evil, often chooses what is worst and rejects what is worthy of earnest pursuit, so that he is often most justly condemned as being guilty of deliberate and studied crime. 179 Very appropriately, therefore, God has attributed the creation of this being, man, to his lieutenants, saying, "Let us make man," so that the successes of the intellect may be attributed to him alone, and the errors of the being so created to his subordinate power: for it did not seem suitable to the dignity of God, the ruler of the universe, to make the road to wickedness in a rational soul by his own agency; and so he has committed the creation of this portion of the universe to those around him; for the voluntary principle, as the counterpoise to the involuntary principle, had to be established and made known, with a view to the completion and perfection of the universe. 180 This may be enough to say on that subject; it is also right to consider this point: that God is the cause only of what is good but is absolutely the cause of no evil whatever, since he himself is the most ancient of all existing things, and the most perfect of all goods; and it is most natural and fitting for him to do what is most akin to his own nature, that is, for the best of all beings to be the cause of all the best things, while the punishments appointed for the wicked are inflicted through his subordinate ministers. 181 And there is evidence for this assertion of mine in this expression, uttered by the man who was made perfect by practice: "The God who nourished me from my youth up, the angel who defended me from all evils;" for by these words he already confesses that the genuine good things that nourish the souls that love virtue are referred to God as their sole cause; but the fate of the wicked is, on the other hand, referred to the angels, and even they do not have independent and absolute power of inflicting punishment, so that this salutary nature may not give an opening to any of the things that tend to destruction. 182 For this reason God says, "Come, let us go down and confuse;" for the wicked deserve to meet with this kind of punishment: that the merciful and beneficent and bounteous powers of God should become known to them chiefly through its inflictions. Knowing therefore that these powers are beneficial to the race of man, he has appointed the punishments to be inflicted by other beings; for it was expedient that he himself be regarded as the cause of well-doing, but in such a way that the fountains of his everlasting graces should be kept unmingled with any evils, not merely with those that are really evils, but even with those that are considered evils. 183 We must now examine what this confusion is. How then shall we begin this examination? In this way, I think. We have very often recognized people we knew before from certain similarities and from comparing circumstances connected with them. So in the same way we also become acquainted with things that are not easy to conceive of from their own nature, through some similarity in other things connected with them. 184 What things then resemble confusion? Mixture and combination, as the ancient account has it; but mixture takes place in dry things, and combination is regarded as belonging to wet substances. 185 Mixture, then, is the placing of different bodies side by side in no regular order, as if someone were to make a heap by bringing barley and wheat and peas and all sorts of other seeds together into one mass; but combination is not a placing side by side but a mutual penetration of dissimilar parts entering into one another at all points, so that the distinctive qualities can still be distinguished by some artificial skill, as they say is the case with wine and water; 186 for these substances come together to form a combination, but what is combined is no less capable of being resolved again into the distinctive qualities from which it was originally formed. For with a sponge saturated with oil the water can be taken up and the wine left behind, perhaps because the sponge originates from water, and so it is natural that the water, as a kindred substance, is fitted by nature to be taken up by the sponge out of the combination, while the substance of a different nature, namely the wine, is naturally left behind. 187 But confusion is the destruction of all the original distinctive qualities, owing to their component parts penetrating one another at every point, so as to generate one thing wholly different, as happens in the physicians' compound called the tetrapharmacon. For that, I think, is made up of wax, and fat, and pitch, and resin, all compounded together, but once the medicine has been compounded, it can never be resolved again into the powers of which it was originally composed, but each of them is destroyed separately, and the destruction of them all has produced one other power of exceeding excellence. 188 But when God threatens impious reasonings with confusion, he is in fact commanding the destruction not only of the whole species and power of each separate wickedness but also of the thing made up of all their joint contributions; so that neither the parts by themselves, nor the union and harmony of the whole, can ever again contribute any strength towards destroying the better part; 189 and so he says, "Let us then confuse their language, so that each of them may not understand the voice of his neighbour;" which is equivalent to: let us make each separate part of wickedness deaf and dumb, so that it will neither utter a voice of its own nor be able to sound in unison with any other part and so cause mischief. 190 This, then, is our opinion on this passage and our interpretation of it. But those who follow only what is plain and easy think that what the passage means to record is the origin of the languages of the Greeks and barbarians. Without blaming them (for perhaps they also interpret the event correctly), I would urge them not to be content to stop at this point, but to go on to look at the passage figuratively, considering that the mere words of the scriptures are, as it were, only shadows of bodies, and that the meanings that investigation reveals beneath them are the real things to ponder. 191 Accordingly, this lawgiver usually gives those whose minds are not utterly blind a handle for this doctrine, as in fact he does in his account of the very event we are now discussing: for he has called what took place confusion; yet if he had intended only to speak of the origin of languages, he would have given it a more fitting and more auspicious name, calling it division instead of confusion; for things that are divided are not confused but, on the contrary, distinguished from one another, and not only is the one name contrary to the other, but the one fact is also contrary to the other. 192 For confusion, as I have already said, is the destruction of simple powers to produce one compound power; but division is the dissection of one thing into many parts, as when someone divides a genus into its subordinate species. So if the wise God had ordered his ministers to divide language, which until then had been one, into several distinct dialects, he would have used more appropriate expressions that gave a more accurate idea of the case, calling what he did dissection, or distribution, or division, or something of the kind, but not confusion, a name at odds with all of them. 193 But his particular object here is to dissolve the company of wickedness, to put an end to their confederacy, to destroy their community of action, to make all their powers vanish and root them out, to overthrow the might of their dominion, which they had strengthened by fearful lawlessness. 194 Do you not see that the one who made the parts of the soul also did not join any part to another in a way that would let one perform the duties of the other? The eyes would never be able to hear, nor the ears to see, nor the lips of the mouth to smell, nor the nostrils to taste; nor, again, could reason ever be subject to the influences that act on the outward senses, nor, again, could the outward senses develop reason. 195 For the Creator knew it was best that none of these parts should hear the voice of its neighbour, but that each part of the soul should exercise its own distinct faculties without confusion, for the advantage of living animals, and that, for the same purpose, they should be denied any power to act in common, and that all the powers of vice should be brought to confusion and utter destruction, so that they could not harm the better parts, either in league or separately. 196 That is why Moses tells us, "The Lord scattered them from there;" which amounts to saying, he dispersed them, he put them to flight, he banished them, he destroyed them; for scattering is sometimes done for the sake of the production, and growth, and increase of other things; but there is another kind whose object is overthrow and destruction: but God, the planter of the world, wishes to sow excellence in everyone, but to scatter and drive from the world accursed impiety; so that the disposition that hates virtue may at last stop building up a city of wickedness, and a tower of impiety; 197 for when these are routed, those who were long ago banished by the tyranny of folly find themselves able, at a single proclamation, to return to their own country. God drew up and confirmed the proclamation, as the scriptures show, where it is expressly stated that, "Even though your dispersion is from one end of heaven to the other end of heaven, he will bring you together from there." 198 So it is proper for God to arrange and cherish the harmony of the virtues, and to dissolve and destroy wickedness; and confusion is the most fitting name for wickedness, as every foolish man visibly proves: all his words, and intentions, and actions cannot stand examination and lack steadiness.