Among other lawgivers, some have set out what they considered just and reasonable in a naked and unadorned way, while others, investing their ideas with an abundance of amplification, have tried to bewilder the people by burying the truth under a heap of fabulous inventions. But Moses, rejecting both of these methods, the one as inconsiderate, careless, and unphilosophical, and the other as mendacious and full of trickery, made the beginning of his laws entirely beautiful and admirable in every respect, neither declaring at the outset what ought or ought not to be done, nor (since the dispositions of those who were to use his laws had to be shaped beforehand) inventing fables himself or adopting those invented by others. And his opening, as I have already said, is most admirable: it embraces the creation of the world, on the view that the law corresponds to the world and the world to the law, and that a man who obeys the law, becoming by doing so a citizen of the world, arranges his actions according to the intention of nature, in harmony with which the entire universe is regulated. So no one, whether poet or historian, could ever adequately express the beauty of his ideas about the creation of the world; for they surpass all the power of language and amaze our hearing, being too great and venerable to be fitted to the senses of any created being. That, however, is no reason for us to give in to idleness on the subject; rather, out of our love for the Deity we ought to try to exert ourselves even beyond our powers in describing them: not because we have much, or indeed anything, to say of our own, but, instead of much, just a little, such as the human intellect can probably attain when it is wholly occupied with a love of and desire for wisdom. For just as the smallest seal, when engraved, takes impressions of things of colossal size, so perhaps in some instances the surpassing beauty of the account of the creation of the world recorded in the Law, overshadowing with its brilliance the souls of those who come across it, will be set down in a more concise record, once these facts, which it would be improper to pass over in silence, have first been stated. For some men, admiring the world itself rather than the Creator of the world, have represented it as eternal and without any maker, and, as impiously as falsely, have represented God as completely inactive, when it would have been right, on the contrary, to marvel at the might of God as the creator and father of all, and to admire the world without going beyond the bounds of moderation. But Moses, who had early reached the very summits of philosophy, and who had learnt from the oracles of God the most numerous and important of the principles of nature, knew well that all existing things must have an active cause and a passive subject; and that the active cause is the intellect of the universe, thoroughly unadulterated and thoroughly unmixed, superior to virtue and superior to science, superior even to abstract good or abstract beauty; while the passive subject is something inanimate and incapable of motion by any intrinsic power of its own, which, once set in motion, fashioned and given life by the intellect, was transformed into that most perfect work, this world. And those who describe it as uncreated unknowingly cut away the most useful and necessary of all the qualities that tend to produce piety, namely, providence: for reason proves that the father and creator cares for what he has created; for a father is anxious for the life of his children, and a workman aims at the duration of his works, and uses every device imaginable to ward off everything harmful or injurious, and wants by every means in his power to provide everything useful or profitable for them. But for something that has not been created, the one who did not create it feels no interest in it as his own. So it is a harmful doctrine, and one no one should argue for, to set up in this world a state of affairs like anarchy in a city, so that it has no overseer, regulator or judge to manage and govern everything. But the great Moses, thinking that a thing which has not been created is as alien as possible from what is visible before our eyes (for everything which is the subject of our senses exists in birth and in changes, and is not always in the same condition), has attributed eternity to what is invisible and discerned only by our intellect, as its kinsman and brother, while to what is the object of our external senses he has assigned generation as the fitting description. Since, then, this world is visible and the object of our external senses, it follows of necessity that it must have been created; and so it was not without a wise purpose that he recorded its creation, giving a very venerable account of God. And he says that the world was made in six days, not because the Creator needed a length of time (for it is natural for God to do everything at once, not merely by uttering a command, but even by thinking of it); but because the things created required arrangement; and number is akin to arrangement; and, of all numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the most productive: for of all the numbers, from the unit upwards, it is the first perfect one, being equal to its parts and made complete by them; the number three being half of it, and the number two a third of it, and the unit a sixth of it, and, so to speak, it is formed to be both male and female, and is made up of the power of both natures; for in existing things the odd number is the male, and the even number is the female; accordingly, the first odd number is three, and the first even number is two, and the two numbers multiplied together make six. It was fitting, therefore, that the world, as the most perfect of created things, should be made according to the perfect number, namely six; and, since it was to contain the causes of both, which arise from combination, that it should be formed according to a mixed number, the first combination of odd and even numbers, since it was to embrace the character both of the male who sows the seed and of the female who receives it. And he allotted each of the six days to one of the portions of the whole, setting apart the first day, which he does not even call the first day, so that it is not numbered with the others; instead he calls it one, and names it rightly, perceiving in it, and ascribing to it, the nature and name of the limit. We must mention as much as we can of the matters contained in his account, since it is impossible to list them all; for he embraces that beautiful world which is perceptible only by the intellect, as the account of the first day will show: for God, foreseeing, as a God must, that there could not exist a good imitation without a good model, and that nothing perceptible to the external senses could be faultless unless it was fashioned after some archetypal idea conceived by the intellect, when he had determined to create this visible world, first formed the world perceptible only by the intellect, so that, using an incorporeal model formed as far as possible in the image of God, he might then make this corporeal world, a younger likeness of the elder creation, which would embrace as many different genera perceptible to the external senses as the other world contains genera visible only to the intellect. But it would be in any degree impious to attempt to describe or even imagine that world which consists of ideas; how it was created, however, we shall know if we take as our guide an image drawn from the things that exist among us. When any city is founded through the great ambition of some king or leader who lays claim to absolute authority, and is at the same time a man of brilliant imagination, eager to display his good fortune, it sometimes happens that a man trained in architecture comes along, and, seeing the advantages and beauty of the site, first sketches out in his own mind nearly all the parts of the city that is to be completed--the temples, the gymnasia, the prytanea, and markets, the harbour, the docks, the streets, the arrangement of the walls, the sites of the houses, and of the public and other buildings. Then, having taken into his own mind, as on a wax tablet, the form of each building, he carries in his heart the image of a city perceptible as yet only by the intellect; he stirs up its images in the memory innate in him, and, engraving them still more deeply in his mind, like a good workman, with his eyes fixed on his model, he begins to raise the city of stone and wood, making the corporeal substances resemble each of the incorporeal ideas. We must form a similar view of God, who, having determined to found a mighty state, first of all conceived its form in his mind, according to which form he made a world perceptible only by the intellect, and then completed one visible to the external senses, using the first one as a model. So, just as the city, when it was first sketched out in the mind of the architect, had no place outside him, but was stamped only on the mind of the workman, in the same way the world that existed in ideas can have had no other location than the divine reason that made them; for what other place could there be for his powers that would be able to receive and contain, I do not say all of them, but even any single one of them, in its simple form? And the power and faculty capable of creating the world has as its origin the good that is founded on truth; for if anyone wanted to investigate the cause for which this universe was created, I think he would come to no wrong conclusion if he said, as one of the ancients did: "That the Father and Creator was good; and so he did not grudge the substance a share of his own excellent nature, since it had nothing good of itself, but was able to become everything." For the substance in itself lacked arrangement, quality, animation and distinctive character, and was full of all disorder and confusion; and it was changed and transformed into the opposite condition, the most excellent one, being invested with order, quality, animation, resemblance, identity, arrangement, harmony, and everything that belongs to the more excellent idea. And God, urged on by no prompter (for who else could there have been to prompt him?) but guided by his own sole will, decided that it was fitting to benefit, with unlimited and abundant favours, a nature that without the divine gift could not of itself share in any good thing; but he benefits it, not according to the greatness of his own graces, for they are limitless and eternal, but according to the power of what is benefited to receive his graces. For the capacity of what is created to receive benefits does not correspond to the natural power of God to confer them; since his powers are infinitely greater, and the created thing, not being strong enough to receive all their greatness, would have sunk under it if he had not measured his bounty, allotting to each in due proportion what was poured on it. And if anyone wanted to put it more plainly, he would call the world that is perceptible only to the intellect nothing other than the reason of God already engaged in creating the world; for a city, while perceptible only to the intellect, is nothing other than the reason of the architect who is already planning to build one perceptible to the external senses on the model of the one perceptible only to the intellect--this is the doctrine of Moses, not mine. Accordingly, when he records the creation of man in the words that follow, he states expressly that man was made in the image of God--and if the part is an image of the image, then manifestly so is the entire form, namely, the whole of this world perceptible by the external senses, which is a greater imitation of the divine image than the human form is. It is also clear that the archetypal seal, which we call the world perceptible only to the intellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the idea of ideas, the Reason of God. Moses also says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth:" taking the beginning to be, not, as some men think, a beginning in time; for before the world time had no existence, but was created either simultaneously with it, or after it; for since time is the interval of the motion of the heavens, there could not have been any such thing as motion before there was anything which could be moved; but it necessarily follows that it came into existence afterwards or at the same time. It therefore also necessarily follows that time was created either at the same moment as the world or later than it--and to venture to claim that it is older than the world is entirely inconsistent with philosophy. But if the beginning Moses speaks of is not to be understood as a beginning in time, then it may be natural to suppose that he means a beginning in number; so that, "In the beginning he created," is equivalent to "first of all he created the heaven;" for it is in fact natural that the heaven should have been the first thing created, since it is both the best of all created things and made of the purest substance, because it was destined to be the most holy home of the visible Gods who are perceptible by the external senses; for even if the Creator had made everything at the same moment, the things created in beauty would still have had a regular arrangement, for there is no such thing as beauty in disorder. But order is a proper sequence and connection of things that come before and after, if not in the completion of a work, then at least in the intention of the maker; for it is through order that they become precisely defined, stable and free from confusion. First, therefore, from the model of the world perceptible only by intellect, the Creator made an incorporeal heaven, and an invisible earth, and the form of air and of empty space: the former of which he called darkness, because the air is black by nature; and the other he called the abyss, for empty space is very deep and yawning with immense width. Then he created the incorporeal substance of water and of air, and over everything he spread light, the seventh thing made; and this again was incorporeal, and a model of the sun, perceptible only to intellect, and of all the light-giving stars, which are destined to stand together in heaven. And he considered air and light worthy of pre-eminence. For the one he called the breath of God, because air is the most life-giving of things, and God is the cause of life; and the other he called light, because it is surpassingly beautiful: for what is perceptible only by intellect is, I think, as much more brilliant and splendid than what is seen as the sun is than darkness, or day than night, or the intellect than any other of the outward senses by which men judge (since it is the guide of the entire soul), or the eyes than any other part of the body. And the invisible divine reason, perceptible only by intellect, he calls the image of God. And the image of this image is that light, perceptible only by the intellect, which is the image of the divine reason, which has explained its generation. And it is a star above the heavens, the source of those stars which are perceptible by the external senses, and anyone who called it universal light would not be far wrong; since it is from it that the sun and the moon and all the other planets and fixed stars draw their due light, in proportion to the power each has been given; that unmixed and pure light is dimmed when it begins to change, as it passes from what is perceptible only by the intellect to what is perceptible by the external senses; for nothing perceptible to the external senses is pure. Moses is right also when he says, that "darkness was over the face of the abyss." For the air is in a sense spread above the empty space, since it has risen and entirely fills all that open, desolate and empty place that reaches down to us from the regions below the moon. And after that light, perceptible only to the intellect, which existed before the sun, shone forth, its adversary darkness yielded, as God put a wall between them and separated them, well knowing their opposite characters, and the enmity existing between their natures. So, in order that they might not war against each other through constant contact, and war prevail instead of peace, God, turning disorder into order, not only separated light and darkness but also placed boundaries in the middle of the space between the two, by which he separated the extremities of each. For if they had come close together, they would have produced confusion, preparing for the contest for supremacy with great and unquenchable rivalry, had not boundaries set between them separated them and kept them from clashing together; and these boundaries are evening and morning; one of them, morning, heralds the good news that the sun is about to rise, gently dispelling the darkness, and evening comes on as the sun sets, gently receiving the massed approach of darkness. And these, I mean morning and evening, must be classed among incorporeal things, perceptible only by the intellect; for there is absolutely nothing in them which is perceptible by the external senses, but they are entirely ideas, and measures, and forms, and seals, incorporeal as far as the generation of other bodies is concerned. But when light came, and darkness retreated and yielded to it, and boundaries were set in the space between the two, namely, evening and morning, then the measure of time was necessarily completed at once, and the Creator called it "day," and He called it not "the first day," but "one day;" and it is spoken of in this way because of the single nature of the world perceptible only by the intellect, which has a single nature. So the incorporeal world was already complete, with its seat in the Divine Reason; and the world, perceptible by the external senses, was made on the model of it; and its first part, also the most excellent of all that the Creator made, was the heaven, which he truly called the firmament, as being corporeal; for the body is by nature firm, since it is divisible into three parts; and what other idea of solidity and body can there be, except something that can be measured in every direction? So, very naturally contrasting what was perceptible to the external senses and corporeal with what was perceptible only by the intellect and incorporeal, he called this the firmament. Immediately afterwards he, quite properly and correctly, called it the heaven, either because it was already the Boundary of everything, or because it was the first of all visible things to be created; and after creating it he named a second day, referring the entire space and measure of a day to the heaven, on account of its dignity and honour among the things perceptible to the external senses. After this, since all the water in existence was spread over the whole earth and had soaked through all its parts, as if the earth were a sponge that had absorbed moisture, so that the earth was only swampy land and deep mud, with the two elements of earth and water mixed and blended together, like one confused mass, into a single indistinguishable and shapeless nature, God ordained that all the water that was salt, and destined to make seeds and trees barren, should be gathered together, flowing out of all the holes of the entire earth; and he commanded dry land to appear, leaving in it whatever liquid had any sweetness, to secure its durability. For this sweet liquid, in due proportions, is a sort of glue for the different substances, preventing the earth from being utterly dried up, and so becoming unproductive and barren, and causing it, like a mother, to furnish not only one kind of nourishment, namely food, but both sorts at once, so as to supply its offspring with both food and drink; so he filled it with veins, resembling breasts, which, having openings, were to pour out springs and rivers. In the same way he extended the invisible irrigation of dew through every part of the arable and deep-soiled land, to contribute to the most generous and plentiful supply of fruits. Having arranged these things, he gave them names, calling the dry part "land," and the water separated from it "sea." After this he began to adorn the land, for he told it to bring forth grass, and bear grain, producing every kind of herb, and plains clothed in greenery, and everything suitable as fodder for cattle or food for men. Moreover he commanded every kind of tree to spring up, omitting no kind, whether wild or of the kinds called cultivated. And as soon as they first appeared he loaded them all with fruit, unlike what happens at present; for now the different fruits are produced in turn, at different seasons, and not all together at one time; for who does not know that first come the sowing and the planting; and, in the second place, the growth of what has been sown and planted, in some cases the plants extending their roots downwards like foundations, and in others raising themselves upwards to a height and displaying long stalks? After that come the buds, and the putting forth of leaves, and then after everything else comes the production of fruit. And again, the fruit is not perfect when it first appears, but contains within it all kinds of change, both in its quantity, as regards size, and in its qualities, in its varied appearance: for the fruit first appears like indivisible grains, barely visible because of their tiny size, which one might fairly call the first things perceptible by the external senses; and afterwards little by little, from the nourishment conveyed in channels, which waters the tree, and from the wholesome effect of the breezes, which blow air both cool and gentle, the fruit is gradually brought to life, nursed and enlarged, advancing onward to its perfect size; and as its size changes, its qualities change too, as if a painter's art were varying it with different colours. But in the first creation of the universe, as I have said already, God produced the whole race of trees out of the earth fully perfect, with their fruit not incomplete but entirely ripe, ready for the immediate, undelayed use and enjoyment of the animals that were about to be born. Accordingly he commanded the earth to produce these things. And the earth, as though it had for a long time been pregnant and in labour, produced every sort of seed, and every sort of tree, and also of fruit, in unspeakable abundance; and these fruits were produced not only to be food for living animals, but also to prepare for the continual production of similar fruits in the future; enclosing substances made of seed, in which lie the principles of all plants, indistinguishable and invisible, but destined later to become manifest and visible in the periodic ripening of the fruit. For God thought fit to endow nature with a long duration, making the races that he was creating immortal, and giving them a participation in eternity. For this reason he led on and hastened the beginning towards the end, and caused the end to turn backwards to the beginning: for from plants comes fruit, as the end might come from the beginning; and from the fruit comes the seed, which again contains the plant within itself, so that a fresh beginning may come from the end. And on the fourth day, after he had embellished the earth, he diversified and adorned the heaven: not giving precedence to the inferior nature by arranging the heaven after the earth, or thinking what was more excellent and more divine worthy only of second place, but acting this way to show more clearly the power of his dominion. For he knew in advance what sort of beings men not yet born would be in their opinions: they would form conjectures about what was likely and probable, most of them reasonable, though falling short of unadulterated truth; and they would trust visible phenomena rather than God, and admire sophistry rather than wisdom. And again he knew that, observing the cycles of the sun and moon, which bring the summers and winters and the alternation of spring and autumn, they would take the revolutions of the stars in heaven to be the causes of everything produced and generated on the earth each year; so, in order that no one might venture, through shameless impudence or excessive ignorance, to attribute the primary causes of things to any created thing, he said: "Let them go over in their minds the first creation of the universe, when, before the sun or the moon existed, the earth brought forth all kinds of plants and all kinds of fruits: and, seeing this in their minds, let them hope that it will again bring forth such things, as the Father appoints, when it seems good to him, without his needing the help of any of the sons of men beneath the heavens, to whom he has given powers, though not absolute ones." For like a charioteer holding the reins or a helmsman with his hand on the rudder, he guides everything as he pleases, in accordance with law and justice, needing no one else as his assistant; for all things are possible to God. This is why the earth bore fruit and herbs before God proceeded to adorn the heaven. And next the heaven was embellished in the perfect number four, and anyone who called this number the origin and source of the all-perfect decade would not be wrong. For what the decade is in actuality, the number four, it seems, is in potentiality; at any rate, if the numbers from the unit to four are added together in order, they make ten, which is the limit of the number of immensity, around which the numbers wheel and turn as around a goal. Moreover, the number four also contains the principles of the harmonic concords in music: the fourth, the fifth and the diapason, and besides these the double diapason, from which the most perfect system of harmony is produced. For the ratio of the sounds in the fourth is four to three, and in the fifth three to two; in the diapason the ratio is double, and in the double diapason it is fourfold, and the number four contains all these ratios. At any rate, the first, or the epistritus, is the ratio of four to three; the second, or the hemiolius, is that of three to two: the twofold ratio is that of two to one, or four to two: and the fourfold ratio is that of four to one. The number four also has another power, most wonderful to speak of and to contemplate. For it was this number that first displayed the nature of the solid cube, the numbers before four being assigned only to incorporeal things. For what geometry calls a point is reckoned according to the unit: and a line is spoken of according to the number two, because it is arranged by nature from a point; and a line is length without breadth. But when breadth is added to it, it becomes a surface, which is arranged according to the number three. And a surface, compared with the nature of a solid cube, lacks one thing, namely depth, and when this one thing is added to the three, it becomes four. For this reason this number is of great importance, since from an incorporeal substance perceptible only by intellect it has led us on to understand a body divisible in three ways, which by its own nature is the first thing perceived by the external senses. Anyone who does not grasp what is said here can learn to understand it from a very common game. Those who play with nuts usually place three nuts on the floor and then put one more on top of them, producing a figure like a pyramid. Accordingly the triangle stands on the floor, arranged up to the number three, and the nut placed on it brings the number to four, and in figure it produces a pyramid, being now a solid body. In addition, there is another point we should not ignore: the number four is the first number that is a square, being equal on all sides, the measure of justice and equality. And it is the only number whose nature is such that it is produced by the same numbers whether in combination or in power. In combination when two and two are added together; and again in power when we speak of twice two; and in this it displays an exceedingly beautiful kind of harmony, which belongs to no other number. If we examine the number six, which is made up of two threes, we find that if these two numbers are multiplied, the result is not six but a different number, nine. And the number four has many other powers also, which we must show more precisely later in a separate essay devoted to it. For now it is enough to add that it was the foundation of the creation of the whole heaven and the whole world. For the four elements, out of which this universe was made, flowed from the number four as from a fountain. And in addition to the four elements the seasons of the year are also four, which are the causes of the generation of animals and plants, the year being divided into the four parts of winter, and spring, and summer, and autumn. Since the number mentioned above is held worthy of such pre-eminence in nature, the Creator necessarily adorned the heaven with the number four, namely with that most beautiful and most godlike ornament, the light-giving stars. And knowing that of all existing things light is the most excellent, he made it the instrument of the best of all the senses, sight. For the eye is to the body what the mind is to the soul. For each of them sees: the mind sees the existing things that are perceptible only to the intellect, and the eye those that are perceptible to the external senses. But the mind needs knowledge in order to distinguish incorporeal things, and the eyes need light in order to be able to perceive bodies, and light is also the cause of many other good things for men, and particularly of the greatest, namely philosophy. For when sight is sent upwards by light and sees the nature of the stars and their harmonious movement, and the well-ordered revolutions of the fixed stars and of the planets, some always revolving in the same way and returning to the same places, and others having double periods in an anomalous and somewhat contrary way, and when it sees also the harmonious dances of all these bodies arranged according to the laws of perfect music, it brings inexpressible joy and delight to the soul. And the soul, feasting on a continuous series of spectacles, since one follows another, has an insatiable love of watching them. Then, as usually happens, it examines with increased curiosity what the substance of these visible things is; whether they exist without having been created, or whether they had their origin in creation; what the character of their movement is; and what the causes are by which everything is regulated. And it is from inquiries into these things that philosophy has arisen, and no more perfect good than philosophy has entered human life. But the Creator, with a view to that idea of light perceptible only by the intellect, which was spoken of when the incorporeal world was mentioned, created the stars that are perceptible by the external senses, those divine and supremely beautiful images, which for many reasons he placed in the purest temple of corporeal substance, namely in heaven. One of his reasons for doing so was that they might give light; another was that they might be signs; another concerned their dividing the times of the seasons of the year, and above all dividing days and nights, months and years, which are the measures of time and which have given rise to the nature of number. And the effect of each of the things mentioned above makes plain how great its use and how great its advantage are. But to understand them more accurately, it is perhaps not out of place to trace out the truth in a systematic discussion. Since the whole of time is divided into two portions, day and night, the Father has assigned the sovereignty of the day to the Sun, as a mighty monarch, and has given the sovereignty of the night to the moon and to the multitude of the other stars. And the most conspicuous proof of the greatness of the sun's power and sovereignty lies in what has already been said: for he, though one and alone, has been allotted as his own share, by himself, one half of all time, namely day; and all the other lights together with the moon have the other portion, which is called night. And when the sun rises, the appearances of so many stars are not only obscured but disappear entirely in the outpouring of his beams; and when he sets, they all gather together and begin to display their own particular brilliance and their separate qualities. And they were created, as Moses tells us, not only to send light upon the earth but also to display signs of future events. For either by their risings, or their settings, or their eclipses, or again by their appearances and occultations, or by the other variations observable in their motions, men often conjecture what is about to happen, the productiveness or unproductiveness of the crops, the birth or loss of their cattle, fine weather or cloudy weather, calm and violent storms of wind, floods in the rivers or droughts, a tranquil state of the sea and heavy waves, unusual changes in the seasons of the year when the summer is cold like winter, or the winter warm, or when the spring assumes the temperature of autumn or the autumn the temperature of spring. And in the past some men have predicted by conjecture disturbances and upheavals of the earth from the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and countless other events that have proved exactly true, so that it is a very true saying that "the stars were created to act as signs, and moreover to mark the seasons." And by the word seasons he means here the divisions of the year. And why should this not reasonably be affirmed? For what other idea of opportunity can there be except that it is the time for success? And the seasons bring everything to perfection and set everything right; giving perfection to the sowing and planting of fruits, and to the birth and growth of animals. They were also created to serve as a measure of time; for it is by the appointed periodical revolutions of the sun and moon and other stars, that days and months and years are determined. And moreover it is owing to them that the most useful of all things, the nature of number, exists, since time has displayed it; for from one day comes the limit, and from two the number two, and from three, three, and from the notion of a month is derived the number thirty, and from a year the number equal to the days of the twelve months, and from infinite time comes the notion of infinite number. The natures of the heavenly bodies and the motions of the stars lead to such great and indispensable advantages. And how many other things, as yet unknown to us, might I also say they contribute to? for not all things are known to the race of man; but among the things that contribute to the durability of the universe, those established by laws and ordinances which God has appointed to be unalterable for ever are accomplished in every instance and in every country. Then, when earth and heaven had been adorned with their fitting ornaments, the earth with a triad and the heaven, as has already been said, with a quaternion, God proceeded to create the races of mortal creatures, beginning with the aquatic animals on the fifth day, since he thought that nothing was so akin to anything else as the number five is to animals; for animate things differ from inanimate things in nothing more than in sensation, and sensation is divided fivefold, into sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Accordingly, the Creator allotted to each of the senses its appropriate matter, and also its own faculty of judgment, by which it should decide on what came before it. So sight judges colours, and hearing of sounds, and taste of juices, and smell of vapours, and touch of softness and hardness, and of heat and cold, and of smoothness and roughness: therefore He commanded all the races of fish and sea-monsters to stand together in their places, animals differing both in their sizes and in their qualities; for they vary in different seas, though in some cases they are the same, and not every animal was formed to live everywhere. And was this not reasonable? For some of them delight in marshy places, and in water which is very deep; and some in creeks and harbours, being able neither to crawl up onto the land nor to swim far off from the land. Some, again, dwell in the middle and in the deep sea, and avoid all the projecting promontories and islands and rocks: some also exult in fine weather and in calm, and some in storms and heavy surf. For since they are exercised by continual buffeting and are used to withstanding the current by force, they are very vigorous and grow strong. After that he created the races of birds, as akin to the races of aquatic animals (for both of them are swimmers), leaving unfinished no species of the creatures that traverse the air. So when the air and the water had received their appropriate races of animals as the allotment due to them, God again summoned the earth to create the share that still remained: and after the production of plants, the terrestrial animals still remained. And God said, "Let the earth bring forth cattle and beasts, and creeping things of each kind." And the earth did as it was commanded, and immediately sent forth animals differing in their formation and in their strength, and in the injurious or beneficial powers that were implanted in them. And last of all He made man. But I will describe how he made him shortly, after first explaining that he followed the most beautiful connection and sequence in the plan for the creation of animals which he had sketched out for himself; for the most sluggish and most weakly formed of souls has been allotted to the race of fishes; and the most exquisitely endowed soul, that which is in all respects most excellent, has been given to the race of mankind, and a soul somewhere between the two to the races of terrestrial animals and of those that traverse the air; for the soul of such creatures is endowed with more acute sensations than the soul of fishes, but is duller than the soul of mankind. And this is why, of all living creatures, God created fishes first, since they share in corporeal substance more than they share in soul, being in a way animals and not animals, moving soulless things, with a sort of semblance of soul spread through them for no purpose beyond keeping their bodies alive (just as they say that salt preserves meat), in order that they may not easily be destroyed. And after the fishes, he created winged and terrestrial animals: for these are endowed with a higher degree of sensation, and from their formation show that the properties of their animating principle are of a higher order. But after all the rest, as has been said before, he created man, and gave him that admirable endowment, mind--the soul, so to speak, of the soul, as being like the pupil to the eye; for those who investigate the natures of things most accurately affirm that the pupil is the eye of the eye. So at last all things had been created and existed together. But when they were all gathered in one place, some sort of order was necessarily laid down for them, for the sake of their later production from one another. In things that exist in part, the principle of order is this: to begin with what is most inferior in its nature and to end with what is most excellent of all; and we will explain what that is. It has been arranged that seed should be the principle of the generation of animals. It is plain to see that this is a thing of no importance, being like foam; but when it has descended into the womb and remained there, then immediately it receives motion and is changed into nature; and nature is more excellent than seed, just as motion is better than rest in created things; and nature, like a workman, or, to speak more correctly, like a faultless art, endows the moist substance with life, and fashions it, distributing it among the limbs and parts of the body, allotting to the powers of the soul the portion that can produce breath, nourishment and sensation: for we may pass over the reasoning powers for the present, on account of those who say that the mind enters into the body from without, being something divine and eternal. Nature therefore began from an insignificant seed, and ended in the most honourable of things, namely, in the formation of animals and men. And the very same thing took place in the creation of everything: for when the Creator determined to make animals, those created first in his arrangement were in some degree inferior, such as the fishes, and the last were the best, namely man. And the others, the terrestrial and winged creatures, came between these extremes, better than those created first and inferior to the last. So, after all the other things, as has been said before, Moses says that man was made in the image and likeness of God. And he is right; for nothing born on the earth resembles God more than man does. And let no one think that he can judge this likeness from the features of the body: for neither is God a being with the form of a man, nor is the human body like the form of God; but the resemblance is spoken of with reference to the most important part of the soul, namely, the mind: for the mind in each individual has been created after the likeness of the one mind in the universe as its original model, being in a sense the God of the body that carries it about and bears its image within it. The mind of man seems to occupy in man the same rank that the great Governor occupies in the whole world; for it is invisible, though it sees everything itself; and it has an essence which is undiscernible, though it can discern the essences of all other things, and, making for itself by art and science all sorts of roads leading in various directions, all of them plain, it traverses land and sea, investigating everything contained in either element. And again, being raised up on wings, and so surveying and contemplating the air, and all the commotions to which it is subject, it is borne upwards to the higher firmament, and to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. And also being itself involved in the revolutions of the planets and fixed stars according to the perfect laws of music, and being led on by love, which is the guide of wisdom, it proceeds onwards until, having passed beyond all essence intelligible by the external senses, it comes to aspire to the essence that is perceptible only by the intellect: and perceiving in that essence the original models and ideas of the things intelligible by the external senses which it saw here, full of surpassing beauty, it is seized with a sort of sober intoxication like the zealots engaged in the Corybantian festivals, and yields to enthusiasm, becoming filled with another desire, and a more excellent longing, by which it is conducted onwards to the very summit of the things perceptible only to the intellect, until it seems to be reaching the great King himself. And while it is eagerly longing to behold him pure and unmingled, rays of divine light are poured forth upon it like a torrent, so as to bewilder the eyes of its intelligence by their splendour. But since not every image resembles its archetypal model, for many are unlike it, Moses has shown this by adding to the words "after his image," the expression, "in his likeness," to prove that it means an accurate impression, having a clear and evident resemblance in form. And anyone who raised the question why Moses attributed the creation of man alone not to one creator, as he did the creation of the other animals, but to several, would not be mistaken. For he introduces the Father of the universe using this language: "Let us make man after our image, and in our likeness." Did he then, shall I say, need anyone at all to help him, He to whom all things are subject? Or, when he was making the heaven and the earth and the sea, did he need no one to co-operate with him, and yet was he unable himself, by his own power, to make man, an animal so short-lived and so exposed to the assaults of fate without the assistance of others? It is plain that the real cause of his acting so is known to God alone, but I think I should not conceal one that appears probable and credible to reasonable conjecture; and it is this. Of existing things, there are some which partake neither of virtue nor of vice; as for instance, plants and irrational animals; plants, because they lack soul and are regulated by a nature void of sense; and irrational animals, because they are not endowed with mind or reason. But mind and reason may be looked upon as the abode of virtue and vice; since it is in them that virtue and vice seem to dwell. Some things again partake of virtue alone, being without any participation in any kind of vice; as for instance, the stars, for they are said to be animals, and animals endowed with intelligence; or rather, I might say, the mind of each of them is wholly and entirely virtuous and immune to every kind of evil. Some things again are of a mixed nature, like man, who is capable of opposite qualities, of wisdom and folly, of temperance and dissoluteness, of courage and cowardice, of justice and injustice, in short of good and evil, of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, of virtue and vice. It was a very appropriate task for God, the Father of all, to create by himself alone the things that were wholly good, because of their kinship with himself. And it was not inconsistent with his dignity to create the things that were indifferent, since they too are free of evil, which is hateful to him. To create the beings of a mixed nature was partly consistent and partly inconsistent with his dignity: consistent because of the more excellent idea mingled in them, inconsistent because of the opposite and worse one. This is why Moses says that at the creation of man alone God said, "Let us make man," an expression that shows him taking other beings to himself as assistants, so that all the blameless intentions and actions of man, when he does right, might be attributed to God, the governor of all things, and his other assistants might bear the imputation of man's contrary actions. For it was fitting that the Father should be free, in the eyes of his children, from all imputation of evil; and vice and energy in accordance with vice are evil. And very beautifully, after he had called the whole race "man," he distinguished between the sexes, saying that "they were created male and female;" although not all the individuals of the race had yet assumed their distinctive form; since the extreme species are contained in the genus, and are seen, as in a mirror, by those who are able to discern acutely. And someone may ask why man was the last work in the creation of the world. For the Creator and Father created him after everything else, as the sacred scriptures tell us. Accordingly, those who have gone most deeply into the laws, and who to the best of their power have investigated everything that is contained in them with all diligence, say that God, when he had given man a share in kinship with himself, begrudged him neither reason, which is the most excellent of all gifts, nor anything else that is good; but before creating him, provided everything in the world for him, as for the animal most like himself and dearest to him, wishing that when he was born he should lack nothing needed for living and for living well; the first of these is provided for by the abundance of supplies furnished to him for his enjoyment, and the second by his power to contemplate the heavenly bodies, by which the mind is struck so as to conceive a love and desire for knowledge on those subjects; and from this desire philosophy has sprung up, by which man, though mortal, is made immortal. So, just as those who give a feast do not invite their guests to the entertainment before they have provided everything for the festivities, and as those who celebrate gymnastic or dramatic contests, before they assemble the spectators, provide themselves with an abundance of competitors and spectacles, and sweet sounds, with which to fill the theatres and the stadia; so in the same way the Ruler of all, like a man holding games, or giving a banquet and being about to invite others to feast and to behold the spectacle, first provided everything for every kind of entertainment, in order that when man came into the world he might at once find a feast ready for him, and a most holy theatre; the one abounding with everything which the earth, or the rivers, or the sea, or air, brings forth for use and enjoyment, and the other full of every kind of light, admirable in its essence or its qualities, and its motions and revolutions worthy of notice, being arranged in perfect order, both as to the proportions of its numbers, and the harmony of its periods. And a man would not be far wrong to say that in all these things one might discover that archetypal and real model, music, whose images later generations of mankind engraved in their own souls, and in this way handed down the art which is the most necessary and the most advantageous to human life. This, it seems, is the first reason why man was created after all the other animals. And there is another, not altogether unreasonable, which I must mention. At the moment of his first birth, man found all the requisites for life ready prepared for him, so that he might teach them to those who would come afterwards. Nature was all but crying out in a distinct voice that men, imitating the Author of their being, should pass their lives without labour and without trouble, living in the most ungrudging abundance and plenty. And this would be the case if there were neither irrational pleasures to obtain mastery over the soul raising up a wall of gluttony and lasciviousness, nor desires of glory, or power, or riches, to assume dominion over life, nor pains to contract and warp the intellect, nor that evil councillor--fear, to restrain the natural inclinations towards virtuous actions, nor folly and cowardice, and injustice, and the incalculable multitude of other evils to attack them. But now that all the evils I have been mentioning are thriving, and that men abandon themselves without restraint to their passions, and to those unbridled and guilty inclinations, which it is impious even to mention, justice confronts them as a fitting punisher of wicked habits; and therefore, as a punishment for wrong doers, the necessities of life have been made difficult to acquire. For men plough up the plains with difficulty, bring streams from rivers and fountains by channels, sow and plant, and submit tirelessly day and night to the labour of cultivating the ground, and so provide themselves every year with what is necessary, which even then is at times attended with pain and is not quite sufficient in quantity, since it is damaged by many causes. For either a fall of incessant rain has carried away the crops, or the weight of hail which has fallen upon them has crushed them altogether, or snow has chilled them, or the violence of the winds has torn them up by the roots; for water and air cause many alterations, tending to destroy the productiveness of the crops. But if the immoderate violence of the passions were appeased by temperance, and the inclination to do wrong and depraved ambition were corrected by justice, and in short if the vices and the unholy actions done in accordance with them were corrected by the virtues and the energies in accordance with them, so that the war of the soul, which is truly the most grievous and heavy of all wars, were ended, and peace were established, founding among all our faculties a due regard for law, with all tranquillity and mildness, then there would be hope that God, as being a friend to virtue, and a friend to honour, and above all a friend to man, would bestow on the race of man all kinds of spontaneous blessings from his ready store. For it is evident that it is easier to supply what is needed in great abundance from treasures that already exist, without resorting to agriculture, than to bring forth what does not yet exist. I have now mentioned the second reason. There is also a third, which is as follows:--God, intending to fit the beginning and the end of all created things together, since all are necessary and dear to one another, made heaven the beginning, and man the end: heaven being the most perfect of the incorruptible things perceptible by the external senses, and man the best of all earthborn and perishable productions--a short-lived heaven, to tell the truth, bearing within himself many starlike natures, by means of certain arts and sciences, and illustrious speculations, according to every kind of virtue. For since the corruptible and the incorruptible are by nature opposites, he has allotted the best thing of each kind to the beginning and to the end. Heaven, as I said before, to the beginning, and man to the end. And besides all this, another cause is also mentioned among the necessary ones. It was necessary that man should be the last of all created beings; so that, being last and appearing suddenly, he might strike terror into the other animals. For it was fitting that, as soon as they first saw him, they should marvel at him and worship him as their natural ruler and master; and so all of them, as soon as they saw him, became tame before him; even those, who by nature were most savage, becoming at once most manageable at the first sight of him; displaying their unbridled ferocity to one another, and being tame to man alone. For this reason the Father, who made him by nature a being dominant over them, established him not merely in fact but also by express verbal appointment as the king of all the animals beneath the moon, whether terrestrial or aquatic or those that traverse the air. For he put in subjection to him every mortal thing that lives in the three elements, land, water or air, except only the beings in heaven, since they are creatures with a more divine portion. And what we see with our own eyes is the clearest proof of this. For at times, innumerable herds of beasts are led about by one man, not armed, not wearing iron or any defensive weapon, but dressed only in a skin for a garment, and carrying a staff, for the purpose of making signs, and also to lean on during his journeys if he becomes weary. And so the shepherd, and the goatherd, and the cowherd, lead numerous flocks of sheep, and goats, and herds of oxen; men who are neither vigorous nor active in body, so as to strike those who see them with admiration for their fine appearance; and yet such numerous and well-armed beasts, with all their might and power (for nature has given them means of self-defence), dread them as slaves dread their master, and do all that they are commanded. Bulls are yoked to the plough to till the ground, and cut deep furrows all day, sometimes even for long stretches at a time, while some farmer manages them. And rams weighed down with heavy fleeces of wool in the spring, at the shepherd's command, stand quietly, or lie down, and without resistance allow their wool to be shorn off, being naturally accustomed, like cities, to pay a yearly tribute to their sovereign. And moreover, that most spirited of animals, the horse, is easily guided once he has been bridled, so that he does not become frisky and shake off the rein; and he hollows his back in an admirable manner to receive his rider and to afford him a good seat, and then bearing him aloft, he gallops at a rapid pace, eager to reach and carry him to the place toward which the rider is urging him. And the rider, without any toil and in the most perfect quiet, makes a rapid journey using the body and feet of another animal. And anyone inclined to dwell on this subject could bring forward a great many other instances to prove that no animal enjoys perfect liberty and is exempt from the dominion of man; but what has been already said is sufficient by way of example. We should also know, however, that the fact that man was the last animal created is no proof that he is the lowest in rank, and charioteers and pilots are witnesses to this; for the charioteers sit behind their beasts of burden, and are placed at their backs, and yet when they have the reins in their hands, they guide them wherever they choose, and at one time they urge them on to a swift pace, and at another time they hold them back, if they are going faster than is desirable. And pilots, again, sitting in the stern, the hindmost part of the ship, are, so to speak, the most important of all the people in the ship, since they hold in their hands the safety of the ship and of all those who are in it. And so the Creator has made man a kind of charioteer and pilot over all other animals, in order that he may hold the reins and direct the course of everything upon earth, having the superintendence of all animals and plants, as a sort of viceroy of the principal and mighty King. But after the whole world had been completed according to the perfect nature of the number six, the Father hallowed the next day, the seventh, praising it and calling it holy. For that day is the festival, not of one city or one country, but of all the earth; the only day that it is right to call the festival of all people, and the birthday of the world. And I do not know whether anyone could celebrate the nature of the number seven adequately, since it surpasses every form of expression. But it does not follow that, because it is more admirable than anything that can be said of it, one ought to keep silent; rather, we ought to try, even if we cannot say everything that is proper, or even what is most proper, at least to say as much as our capacities allow. The number seven is spoken of in two ways: one is the seven within the number ten, which is measured by repeating the unit alone seven times and consists of seven units; the other is the seven outside ten, which always begins from the unit and increases in a twofold or threefold or any other ratio whatever, as do the numbers sixty-four and seven hundred and twenty-nine, the first of which is reached by doubling from the unit, and the second by tripling. And neither species should be examined superficially, but the second is the more clearly pre-eminent. For in every case the seventh number formed from the unit in a double or triple ratio, or any other ratio whatever, is both a cube and a square, embracing both species, the incorporeal essence and the corporeal essence. It embraces the incorporeal essence through the plane surface that square figures present, and the corporeal essence through the other figure that cubes make; and the numbers already mentioned give the clearest proof of this. The seventh number increasing directly from the unit in a twofold ratio, namely sixty-four, is a square formed by multiplying eight by eight, and it is also a cube formed by multiplying four by four by four. And again, the seventh number from the unit increasing in a threefold ratio, that is, seven hundred and twenty-nine, is a square, formed by multiplying twenty-seven by itself; and it is also a cube, formed by multiplying nine by itself nine times. And in every case a man who begins from the unit and proceeds to the seventh number, increasing in the same ratio until he comes to the number seven, will always find the resulting number both a cube and a square. In any case, anyone who begins with the number sixty-four and combines numbers in a doubling ratio will make the seventh number four thousand and ninety-six, which is both a square and a cube, with sixty-four as its square root and sixteen as its cube root. And we must also move on to the other species of the number seven, the one contained within the number ten, which displays an admirable nature, no less admirable than the species mentioned before. The number seven consists of one, two and four, numbers which have two most harmonious ratios, the twofold and the fourfold; the twofold ratio produces the harmony of the diapason, while the fourfold ratio produces the harmony of the double diapason. It also includes other divisions, which exist in a kind of yoke-like combination. For it divides first into one and six, then into two and five, and finally into three and four. And the proportion of these numbers is highly musical: six stands to one in a six-fold ratio, and the six-fold ratio produces the greatest possible interval between existing tones, namely the distance separating the sharpest tone from the flattest, as we shall show when we move on from numbers to the discussion of harmony. Again, the ratio of four to two displays the greatest power in harmony, almost equal to the power of the diapason, as the rules of that art show most clearly. And the ratio of four to three produces the first harmony, the harmony in thirds, which is the diatessaron. The number seven also displays another beauty that it possesses, one that is most sacred to contemplate. For since it consists of three and four, it displays in existing things a line that is free from all deviation and upright by nature. And I must show how it does so. The right-angled triangle, which is the beginning of all qualities, consists of the numbers three, four and five; and three and four, which make up the essence of seven, contain the right angle; for obtuse and acute angles show irregularity, disorder and inequality, since one may be more acute or more obtuse than another. But a right angle admits no comparison, and no right angle is more of a right angle than another; each remains like every other, never changing its own nature. But if the right-angled triangle is the beginning of all figures and all qualities, and if the essence of the number seven, that is, the numbers three and four together, supplies its most necessary part, the right angle, then seven may rightly be thought the fountain of every figure and every quality. And besides what has already been put forward, it may also be asserted that three is the number of a plane figure, since a point has been defined as corresponding to the unit, a line to the number two, and a plane surface to the number three. Four, too, is the number of a cube, formed by adding one to the number of a plane surface, as depth is added to the surface. From this it is plain that the essence of the number seven is the foundation of plane and solid geometry, and, in a word, of all incorporeal and corporeal substances. And there is such great sanctity in the number seven that it holds a pre-eminent rank above all the other numbers in the first decade. For of the other numbers, some produce without being produced, others are produced but have no productive power of their own, and others both produce and are produced. But the number seven alone is seen in none of these classes. And we must confirm this proposition by demonstration. The number one produces all the other numbers in order, while it is produced by no other at all; and the number eight is produced by twice four, but itself produces no other number in the decade. Again, four has the rank of both, that is, of parents and of offspring; for it produces eight when doubled, and it is produced by twice two. But seven alone, as I said before, neither produces nor is produced, and for this reason other philosophers liken this number to Victory, who had no mother, and to the virgin goddess who, the fable says, sprang from the head of Jupiter; and the Pythagoreans compare it to the Ruler of all things. For what neither produces nor is produced remains immovable. For generation consists in motion, since what is generated cannot be generated without motion, both in producing and in being produced. And the only thing that neither moves nor is moved is the Elder, Ruler and Lord of the universe, of whom the number seven may reasonably be called a likeness. And Philolaus testifies to this doctrine of mine in the following words:—"for God," he says "is the ruler and Lord of all things, being one, eternal, lasting, immovable, himself like himself, and different from all other beings." Among the things perceptible only by the intellect, then, the number seven is shown to be the only one free from motion and accident; but among things perceptible by the external senses, it displays a great and wide-reaching power, contributing to the improvement of all earthly things and affecting even the periodic changes of the moon. And we must consider how it does this. The number seven, when compounded of the numbers beginning from the unit, makes twenty-eight, a perfect number, and one equal to the sum of its parts. And the number so produced is suited to reproduce the revolutions of the moon, bringing her back to the point from which she first began to increase perceptibly to the external senses, and to which she returns by waning. For she increases from her first crescent shape to a half circle in seven days; and in seven more, she becomes a full orb; and then again she turns back, retracing the same path, like a runner of the diaulos, receding from a full orb of light to a half circle again in seven days, and finally, in the same number of days, she diminishes from a half circle to the form of a crescent; and so the number mentioned before is completed. And those who are accustomed to use names with strict propriety call the number seven the perfecting number, because everything is perfected by it. And anyone may find confirmation of this in the fact that every organic body has three dimensions, length, depth and breadth, and four boundaries, the point, the line, the surface and the solid; and these, when combined, make up the number seven. But bodies could not be measured by the number seven, through the combination of the three dimensions and the four boundaries, unless the ideas of the first numbers, one, two, three and four, on which the number ten is founded, happened to contain the nature of the number seven. For the numbers just mentioned have four boundaries, the first, the second, the third, the fourth, and three intervals. The first interval is the one between one and two; the second, the one between two and three; the third, the one between three and four. And besides what has already been said, the growth of a man from infancy to old age, when measured by the number seven, displays its perfecting power most clearly; for in the first period of seven years, the teeth come through. And at the end of the second period of the same length, he reaches the age of puberty; at the end of the third period, his beard begins to grow. In the fourth period he reaches the fullness of his manly strength. The fifth period of seven years is the season for marriage. In the sixth period he arrives at the maturity of his understanding. The seventh period is the time of the most rapid improvement and growth of both his intellectual and his reasoning powers. The eighth brings both to their full perfection. In the ninth, his passions become mild and gentle, having been largely tamed. In the tenth, the desirable end of life comes to him while his limbs and sense organs are still unimpaired, for extreme old age tends to weaken and enfeeble them all. And Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, described these different ages in the following elegiac verses: In seven years from th' earliest breath, The child puts forth his hedge of teeth; When strengthened by a similar span, He first displays some signs of man. As in a third, his limbs increase, A beard buds o'er his changing face. When he has passed a fourth such time, His strength and vigour's in its prime. When five times seven years o'er his head Have passed, the man should think to wed; At forty two, the wisdom's clear To shun vile deed of folly or fear: While seven times seven years to sense Add ready wit and eloquence. And seven years further skill admit To raise them to their perfect height. When nine such periods have passed, His powers, though milder grown, still last; When God has granted ten times seven, The aged man prepares for heaven. So Solon reckons the life of man by these ten periods of seven years. But Hippocrates the physician says that there are seven ages of man, infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth, manhood, middle age, old age; and that these too are measured by periods of seven, though not in the same order. And he puts it this way: "In the nature of man there are seven seasons, which men call ages; infancy, childhood, boyhood, and the rest. He is an infant till he reaches his seventh year, the age when he sheds his teeth. He is a child till he arrives at the age of puberty, which takes place in fourteen years. He is a boy till his beard begins to grow, and that time is the end of a third period of seven years. He is a youth until his whole body has finished growing, which coincides with the fourth period of seven years. Then he is a man till he reaches his forty-ninth year, or seven times seven periods. He is a middle aged man till he is fifty-six, or eight times seven years old; and after that he is an old man." And it is also said, in particular praise of the number seven, that it holds a very admirable rank in nature because it is composed of three and four. And if anyone doubles the third number after the unit, he will find a square; and if he doubles the fourth number, he will find a cube. And if he doubles the seventh from both, he will find both a cube and a square; therefore, the third number from the unit is a square in a double ratio. And the fourth number, eight, is a cube. And the seventh number, being sixty-four, is both a cube and a square at the same time; so that the seventh number is really a perfecting one, signifying both equalities,—the plane surface by the square, through its connection with the number three, and the solid by the cube, through its relationship to the number four; and the number seven is composed of the numbers three and four. But this number is not only a perfecter of things; it is also, so to speak, the most harmonious of numbers, and in a sense the source of that most beautiful diagram which describes all the harmonies: the harmony of fourths, the harmony of fifths, and the diapason. It also contains all the proportions: the arithmetical, the geometrical, and the harmonic as well. And the square consists of the numbers six, eight, nine and twelve; and eight is one third greater than six, which is the ratio of the diatessaron in harmony. And nine is half as great again as six, which is the ratio of fifths. And twelve stands to six in a twofold proportion, which is the same ratio as the diapason. The number seven also contains, as I have said, arithmetical proportion, in the numbers six, nine and twelve; for just as the middle number exceeds the first by three, so the last number exceeds it by three. And geometrical proportion is found in these four numbers. For twelve bears the same ratio to nine that eight bears to six. And this is the ratio of thirds. Harmonic ratio consists of three numbers, six, and eight, and twelve. But there are two ways of judging harmonic proportion. The first is when, whatever ratio the last number bears to the first, the excess by which the last number exceeds the middle one is the same as the excess by which the middle number exceeds the first. And anyone may draw a very clear proof of this from the numbers mentioned before, six, eight and twelve, for the last number is double the first. And again, the excess of twelve over eight is double the excess of eight over six. For the number twelve exceeds eight by four, and eight exceeds six by two; and four is double two. Another test of harmonic proportion is when the middle term exceeds and is exceeded by the terms on either side of it by an equal portion; for eight, the middle term, exceeds the first term by a third part; for if six is subtracted from it, the remainder two is one third of the original number six: and it is exceeded by the last term in an equal proportion; for if eight is taken from twelve, the remainder four is one third of the whole number twelve. Let this, then, be stated at the outset, as it must be, about the honourable qualities of this diagram or square and the name it deserves; and the number seven unfolds an equal number of ideas, and even more in the case of incorporeal things, which are perceptible only by the intellect; and its nature extends also over every visible essence, reaching to both heaven and earth, which are the boundaries of everything. For what part of all the things on earth is not fond of seven, overcome by affection and longing for the seventh? Accordingly, people say that the heaven is girdled with seven circles, named as follows: the arctic, the antarctic, the summer tropic, the winter tropic, the equinoctial, the zodiac, and last of all the galaxy. For the horizon is relative to ourselves, varying as a person's vision is sharp or weak, since our perception marks off a smaller circumference at one time and a greater one at another. The planets too, and the corresponding host of fixed stars, are arrayed in seven divisions, displaying a very great sympathy with the air and the earth. For they turn the air towards the times called the seasons of the year, causing in each of them innumerable changes by calm weather, and pleasant breezes, and clouds, and irresistible blasts of wind. And again, they make rivers overflow and subside, and turn plains into lakes; and again, on the contrary, they dry up the waters: they also cause the changes of the seas, as they recede and return in a reflux. For at times, when the tide suddenly recedes, a long stretch of shore occupies what is usually a wide gulf of sea; and a short time later the waters are brought back, and a sea appears that is sailed not by shallow boats but by ships of very great burden. And they also give increase and perfection to all the terrestrial animals and plants which produce fruit, giving each a nature that lasts a long time, so that new plants may flourish and come to maturity;—once the old ones have passed away, to provide an abundant supply of necessary things. Moreover, the constellation Ursa Major, which men call the guide of mariners, consists of seven stars; with them in view, pilots steer along innumerable paths across the sea, setting their efforts toward an incredible task beyond the capacity of human intellect. For it is through conjectures guided by these stars that they have discovered countries previously unknown, with those who live on the mainland discovering islands, and islanders discovering continents. For it was fitting that the hidden places of both earth and sea should be revealed to that God-loving creature, the human race, by the purest of essences, heaven. And besides the stars mentioned above, the band of the Pleiades is also made up of seven stars, whose rising and disappearance bring great benefits to all men. For when they set, the furrows are ploughed up for the purpose of sowing; and when they are about to rise, they bring glad tidings of harvest; and after they have risen, they rouse the rejoicing farmers to gather in their necessary food. And they with joy store up their food for their daily use. And the sun, the ruler of the day, makes two equinoxes every year, in spring and in autumn. With the spring equinox in the constellation of Aries and the autumn one in Libra, it gives the clearest possible demonstration of the divine dignity of the number seven. For each of the equinoxes takes place in the seventh month, at which time men are expressly commanded by law to celebrate the greatest and most popular and comprehensive festivals; since it is through these two seasons that all the fruits of the earth are engendered and brought to perfection; the fruit of grain and of everything else that is sown being owed to the spring equinox, and the fruit of the vine and of all the other plants that bear hard berries, of which there are a great many, to the autumn one. And since all the things on the earth depend upon the heavenly bodies according to a certain natural sympathy, it is in heaven too that the ratio of the number seven began, and from there it descended to us also, coming down to visit the race of mortal men. And so again, besides the dominant part of our mind, our soul has seven divisions: the five senses, the vocal organ besides them, and after that the generative power. All these, like the puppets in a puppet show worked on strings by the showman, are quiet at one time and in motion at another, each according to its own habits and capacities of motion. And in the same way, if anyone sets about investigating the different parts of the body, both internal and external, he will find seven divisions in each case. The visible parts are these:—the head, the chest, the belly, two arms, and two legs; the internal parts, or the entrails, as they are called, are the stomach, the heart, the lungs, the spleen, the liver, and the two kidneys. Again, the principal and dominant part in an animal is the head, and that has seven most necessary divisions: two eyes, an equal number of ears, two channels for the nostrils, and the mouth, making seven, through which, as Plato says, mortal things enter and immortal things go out. For into the mouth enter food and drink, perishable food of a perishable body; but out of it come words—the immortal laws of an immortal soul, by means of which rational life is regulated. Again, the things judged by the best of the senses, sight, share in this number according to their kind. For the things that are seen are seven: body, distance, shape, magnitude, colour, motion and tranquillity, and there is nothing besides these. All the changes of the voice also amount to seven: the acute, the grave, the contracted, fourth the aspirated sound, fifth the tone, sixth the long and seventh the short sound. There are also seven motions; the motion upwards, the motion downwards, the motion to the right, the motion to the left, the forward motion, the backward motion, and the rotatory motion, as dancers show most clearly when they perform. It is also said that the secretions of the body take place in seven ways. For tears are poured out through the eyes, and the purifications of the head through the nostrils, and the saliva that is spat out through the mouth; there are, besides, two other channels for discharging the waste of the body, one in front and the other behind; the sixth mode of evacuation is the effusion of perspiration over the whole body, and the seventh that most natural exercise of the generative powers. Again, in women the flux called the catamenia usually lasts seven days. Also, children in the womb receive life at the end of seven months, so that a very extraordinary thing happens: for children who are born at the end of the seventh month live, while those born at the end of the eighth month cannot survive at all. Again, the dangerous diseases of the body, especially when lasting fevers arising from a disorder of the powers within us attack us, are usually decided around the seventh day. For that day determines the contest for life, allotting safety to some men, and death to others. And the power of this number is not confined to the instances already mentioned; it also pervades the most excellent of the sciences, the knowledge of grammar and music. For the seven-stringed lyre, corresponding to the company of the seven planets, perfects its admirable harmonies and is almost the chief of all the instruments used in music. And of the elements of grammar, those properly called vowels are, strictly speaking, seven in number, since they can be sounded by themselves, and when combined with other letters they make complete sounds; for they fill up the deficiency existing in semi-vowels, making the sounds whole; and they change and alter the nature of the mutes, breathing their own power into them, so that what has no sound may gain sound. For this reason it seems to me that those who originally gave the letters their names, acting as befitted wise men, also named the number seven out of the respect they had for it and their regard for the dignity inherent in it. But the Romans, adding the letter S, which had been omitted by the Greeks, show the correct etymology of the word even more clearly, calling it septem, as derived from semnos, venerable, as has been said before, and from sebasmos, veneration. These things, and still more, are said in a philosophical spirit about the number seven, and because of them it has received the highest honours in the highest nature. And it is honoured by those of the highest reputation among both Greeks and barbarians, who devote themselves to the mathematical sciences. It was also greatly honoured by Moses, a man devoted to excellence of every kind, who described its beauty on the most holy pillars of the law, and wrote it in the hearts of all those who were subject to him, commanding them at the end of each period of six days to keep the seventh holy; abstaining from all the other work done in seeking and providing the means of life, devoting that day to the single object of philosophizing with a view to the improvement of their morals, and the examination of their consciences: for conscience, seated in the soul as a judge, is not afraid to rebuke people, sometimes with fairly vehement threats and at other times with milder admonitions, using threats where people seem to disobey deliberately, and admonitions where their offences seem involuntary, through lack of foresight, to keep them from offending in the same way in future. So Moses, summing up his account of the creation of the world, says briefly, "This is the book of the creation of the heaven and of the earth, when it took place, in the day on which God made the heaven and the earth, and every green herb before it appeared upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up." Is he not plainly setting before us here incorporeal ideas perceptible only by the intellect, appointed to be seals, as it were, of the finished works perceptible by the outward senses? For before the earth was green, he says that this very thing, greenness, already existed in the nature of things, and that before the grass sprang up in the field, there was grass, though it was not visible. And we must understand that in the case of everything else judged by the external senses, older forms and motions existed beforehand, according to which the created things were fashioned and measured out. For although Moses did not describe everything together, but only a part of what existed, since he aimed at brevity more than anyone who ever wrote, the few things he has mentioned are still examples of the nature of all, for nature perfects none of the things perceptible to the outward senses without an incorporeal model. Then, keeping to the natural order of things and attending to the connection between what comes after and what has gone before, he says next, "And a fountain went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth." For other philosophers affirm that all water is one of the four elements of which the world was composed. But Moses, who was accustomed to contemplate and understand matters with sharper and more far-sighted vision, takes this view: the vast sea is an element, a fourth part of the entire universe, which those after him called the ocean, while they regard the smaller seas we sail on as harbours. And he distinguished between sweet, drinkable water and the water of the sea, assigning the former to the earth and considering it part of the earth rather than of the ocean, for the reason I have already mentioned, namely, that the earth may be held together by the sweet qualities of the water as by a chain, the water acting like glue. For if the earth were left entirely dry, with no moisture coming up through its holes and rising to the surface in various directions, it would split apart. But as it is, it holds together and lasts, partly through the force of the wind that unites it, and partly because the moisture does not let it dry out and so break up into larger and smaller fragments. This is one reason; and we must also mention another, which is aimed at the truth like an arrow at a mark. Nothing on the earth naturally exists without a moist essence. And the sowing of seed shows this, for seed is either moist, like the seed of animals, or does not sprout without moisture, like the seeds of plants; from this it is clear that this moist essence must be a part of the earth that produces everything, just as the flux of the catamenia is a part of women. For men learned in natural philosophy say that this too is the corporeal essence of children. Nor is what we are about to say inconsistent with what has been said; for nature has given every mother, as a most indispensable part of her bodily form, breasts that gush like fountains, and in this way has provided abundant food for the child to be born. And the earth too, it seems, is a mother, which is why it occurred to people in early ages to call her Demetra, combining the names mother (mētēr) and earth (gē or dē). For it is not the earth which imitates the woman, as Plato has said, but the woman who has imitated the earth, which the race of poets has rightly been accustomed to call the mother of all things, the fruit-bearer and the giver of all things, since she is the cause both of the generation and of the lasting existence of all things, animals and plants alike. Rightly, therefore, nature gave the earth, as the eldest and most fertile of mothers, streams of rivers and fountains like breasts, so that the plants might be watered and all living things might have abundant supplies of drink. After this, Moses says that "God made man, having taken clay from the earth, and he breathed into his face the breath of life."⁠a By this expression he shows very clearly that there is a vast difference between man as he is generated now and the first man, who was made according to the image of God. For man as he is formed now is perceptible to the external senses; he partakes of qualities, consists of body and soul, is man or woman, and is mortal by nature. But man, made according to the image of God, was an idea, or a genus, or a seal, perceptible only by the intellect, incorporeal, neither male nor female, imperishable by nature.⁠b But he asserts that the formation of the individual man, who is perceptible by the external senses, is a composition of earthy substance and divine spirit. For the body was created when the Creator took a lump of clay and fashioned the human form out of it, but the soul proceeds from no created thing at all; it comes from the Father and Ruler of all things. For when he uses the expression, "he breathed into," etc., he means nothing other than the divine spirit proceeding from that happy and blessed nature, sent to make its home here on earth for the benefit of our race, so that, even if man is mortal in the part of him that is visible, he may at least be immortal in the part that is invisible. For this reason one may properly say that man stands on the boundary of a better and an immortal nature, partaking of each as far as he needs, and that he was born both mortal and immortal at the same time. He is mortal in his body, but immortal in his intellect. But the original man, the one created out of the clay, the primeval founder of our whole race, seems to me to have been most excellent in both respects, soul and body, and to have far surpassed all the men of later ages through his pre-eminent excellence in both parts. For he truly was good and perfect. One may infer the perfection of his bodily beauty from three considerations. The first is this: the earth had only recently been formed by its separation from the great mass of water called the sea, so the materials from which the newly created things were formed were unmixed, uncorrupted and pure, and the things made from this material were naturally free from all imperfection. The second consideration is that God, working with the most sublime care to make this figure in the present form of a man, is not likely to have taken the clay from any chance patch of earth; rather, he carefully selected the most excellent clay in all the earth, choosing from the pure material the finest and most carefully sifted portion, the portion best suited to forming the work he had in hand. For what was being made was a dwelling or sacred temple for a rational soul, whose image he was about to carry in his heart, the most God-like in appearance of all images. The third consideration admits of no comparison with those already mentioned: the Creator was good in knowledge as well as in other respects, so that each part of the body separately had the numbers suited to it and was accurately finished, admirably adapted to the share in the universe it was to have. After he had given it fair proportions, he clothed it with beautiful flesh and embellished it with an exquisite complexion, wishing man to appear, as far as possible, the most beautiful of beings. It is plain that he is superior to all these animals in his soul. For God does not seem to have used any other animal in creation as his model in forming man; he seems to have been guided, as I have said before, by his own reason alone. For this reason Moses affirms that this man was an image and imitation of God, since breath was breathed into his face, the seat of the sensations, and by this the Creator endowed the body with a soul. Then, having placed the mind in the dominant part as king, he gave it a bodyguard of attendants: the various powers designed to perceive colours, sounds, flavours, odours and other things of the kind, which man could never have distinguished by his own resources without the sensations. It necessarily follows that an imitation of a perfectly beautiful model must itself be perfectly beautiful, for the word of God surpasses even the beauty that exists in the nature perceptible only by the external senses; it is not embellished by any borrowed beauty but is itself, to tell the truth, its most exquisite embellishment. Such, then, the first man seems to me to have been in both body and soul, far superior to all who live today and to all who have gone before us. For we were born of men, but he was created by God. And to the same degree that the one Author of being is superior to the other, the being produced is superior too. For as a thing in its prime is superior to one whose beauty has passed, whether it is an animal, a plant, a fruit or anything else that nature produces, so the first man ever formed seems to have been the height of perfection of our entire race, and later generations seem never to have reached the same perfection but to have always been inferior in both appearance and power, constantly degenerating. I have seen the same thing in the sculptors' and painters' art. For the imitations always fall short of the original models. And works painted or fashioned from those copies must be far more inferior, since they are still further removed from the original. The stone called the magnet is subject to a similar deterioration. For an iron ring that touches it is held as firmly as possible, but another ring that only touches the first is held less firmly. And the third ring hangs from the second, and the fourth from the third, and the fifth from the fourth, and so on one from another in a long chain, all held together by one attractive power, yet not all supported to the same degree. For those hanging farther from the original source of attraction are held more loosely, because the attractive power weakens and can no longer bind them equally. The human race seems subject to the same kind of influence, since in each succeeding generation the faculties and distinctive qualities of both body and soul are less vivid and less strongly marked. And we shall only be stating the plain truth if we call the original founder of our race not only the first man but also the first citizen of the world. For the world was his house and his city, since he had as yet no structure built by hands from wood and stone. He lived in this world as in his own country, in complete safety and free from all fear, since he had been judged worthy of dominion over all earthly things; every mortal creature crouched before him, either taught to obey him as master or forced to by superior strength, and he himself lived surrounded by all the joys that peace can bestow, without struggle and without reproach. But since every city with properly established laws has a regular constitution, this citizen of the world had to adopt the same constitution as the one that prevailed in the whole world. This constitution is the right reason of nature, more properly called law, a divine arrangement by which everything suitable and appropriate is assigned to each individual. But this city and constitution must have had some citizens before man, who could rightly be called citizens of a mighty city, since they had received the widest imaginable circumference to live in and had been enrolled in the largest and most perfect commonwealth. And who could these have been but rational, divine natures, some incorporeal and perceptible only by the intellect, others not lacking bodily substance, as the stars⁠c in fact are? And the one who associated and lived among them naturally lived in unmixed happiness. Being akin and closely related to the ruler of all, since a great deal of the divine spirit had flowed into him, he was eager to say and do everything that might please his father and king, following him step by step along the paths that the virtues prepare and make plain, the paths on which only those souls may walk who regard becoming like God, who made them, as the proper end of their existence. We have now set forth the beauty of the first created man in both respects, body and soul, in a way far short of the reality, but as far as our power and ability allow. And his descendants, who all partake of his original character, must inevitably preserve some traces, however faint, of their relationship to their father. And what is this relationship? In his intellect every man is connected with divine reason, being an impression, a fragment or a ray of that blessed nature; but in the structure of his body he is connected with the whole world. For he is composed of the same materials as the world, that is, of earth, water, air and fire, each element having contributed its proper share to make up a fully sufficient supply of material, which the Creator was to take in order to fashion this visible image. Moreover, man lives among all the things just listed, as the places most suited to him and most closely connected with him, changing his home and going to different places at different times. So one may say with complete propriety that man is every kind of animal: terrestrial, aquatic, flying and celestial. For insofar as he lives and walks on the earth, he is a terrestrial animal; but insofar as he often dives, swims and sails, he is an aquatic creature. Merchants, ship captains, purple dyers and all who let down their nets for oysters and fish are very clear proof of what is said here. Again, insofar as his body is at times raised above the earth and travels on high paths, he may rightly be called a creature that traverses the air; and he is also a celestial animal because of sight, the most important of the senses, which brings him near the sun, the moon and each of the stars, whether planets or fixed stars. Moses has very beautifully assigned the naming of the various animals to the first created man, for naming is a work of wisdom and a mark of royal authority, and man was full of intuitive wisdom and self-taught, since he had been created by the grace of God, and he was a king as well. And it is proper for a ruler to give names to each of his subjects. And, naturally enough, the power of rule was immense in that first-created man, whom God formed with great care and judged worthy of the second rank in creation, making him his own viceroy and the ruler of all other creatures. For even those born so many generations later, when the race is weakening because of the long ages that have passed since the beginning of the world, still exert the same power over the irrational beasts, preserving a kind of spark of the dominion and power handed down to them in succession from their first ancestor. Accordingly, Moses says that "God brought all the animals to man, wishing to see what names he would give to each." This was not because he was in any doubt, for nothing is unknown to God, but because he knew that he had formed in mortal man a rational nature able to move of its own accord, so that God himself might be free from all share in vice. Rather, he was testing him as a master tests a pupil, stirring up the disposition he had implanted in him and prompting him to contemplate his own works, so that he might improvise names for them that would be neither inappropriate nor unfitting but would clearly and well display the distinctive qualities of the different subjects. For since the rational nature in the soul was still uncorrupted, and no weakness, disease or affliction had yet come upon it, man, having the purest and most perfect perceptions of bodies and things, devised names for them with great aptness and sound judgment, forming excellent opinions about the qualities they displayed, so that he at once perceived their natures and described them correctly. And he was so excellent in all good things that he quickly reached the very perfection of human happiness. But since nothing in creation lasts forever, and all mortal things are subject to inevitable changes and alterations, the first man too was bound to meet with some disaster. And his wife became for him the beginning of a life open to reproach. For as long as he was alone, he resembled both the world and God in his creation, and he represented in his soul the characteristics of the nature of each, not all of them, I mean, but as many as a mortal constitution could admit. But when woman too was created, man, seeing a figure closely akin to his own and a kindred form, rejoiced at the sight, approached her and embraced her. And she likewise, seeing a creature very like herself, rejoiced too and answered him with due modesty. And love arose and, as it were, uniting two separate portions of one living creature into one body, fitted them to each other, implanting in each a desire for union with the other with a view to producing a being like themselves. This desire also produced bodily pleasure, which is the beginning of iniquities and transgressions, and because of it men have exchanged their once immortal and happy existence for one that is mortal and full of misfortune. But while man was still living alone, before woman was created, the history relates that God planted a paradise that in no way resembled the parks seen among men today. For the parks of our day are only lifeless woods full of all kinds of trees: some evergreen, for the undisturbed delight of the eye; others budding and sprouting in spring and bearing fruit, some of it edible by men and enough not only to sustain nature with food but also for the superfluous enjoyment of a luxurious life, and some of it not edible by men but necessarily given to the beasts. But in the paradise God made, all the plants were endowed with souls and reason, and they bore as their fruit the various virtues, as well as imperishable wisdom and prudence, by which honourable and dishonourable things are distinguished from one another, a life free from disease and exempt from corruption, and all other qualities like those already mentioned. These statements seem to me to come from a philosophy that is symbolic rather than strictly accurate. For no trees of life or of knowledge have ever appeared on the earth before, nor are any likely to appear in the future. Rather, I think Moses was speaking allegorically, intending his paradise to suggest the dominant part of the soul, which is as full of innumerable opinions as this figurative paradise was of trees. By the tree of life he was representing the greatest of the virtues—namely, piety towards the gods, through which the soul is made immortal; and by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he was indicating the wisdom and moderation by which things contrary in nature to one another are distinguished. So, having laid these down as boundaries, so to speak, in the soul, God then, like a judge, began to consider which side men would naturally incline to most. And when he saw that the disposition of man tended toward wickedness and was only slightly inclined to holiness or piety, the qualities by which an immortal life is secured, he drove them out, as was only natural, and banished him from paradise, giving no hope of any later restoration to his soul, which had sinned so desperately and irremediably. For even the occasion of the deceit was highly blameworthy, and I must not pass over it here. It is said that the serpent, the ancient poisonous and earthborn reptile, spoke with the voice of a man.⁠d Once, coming to the wife of the first created man, he reproached her for her slowness and excessive prudence in delaying and hesitating to pick the fruit, which was completely beautiful to look at, exceedingly sweet to enjoy, and also most useful as a means by which men could distinguish between good and evil. And she, without any inquiry, prompted by an unstable and rash mind, agreed to his advice, ate of the fruit and gave some of it to her husband. This conduct suddenly changed both of them from innocence and simplicity of character to every kind of wickedness, and the Father of all was indignant at it. For their actions deserved his anger, since they passed by the tree of eternal life, the tree that could have given them perfect virtue and through which they could have enjoyed a long and happy life, and preferred a brief and mortal (I will not call it life, but) time full of unhappiness; and so he assigned them a fitting punishment. These things are not mere fables of the kind the race of poets and sophists delights in; they are types that point to some allegorical truth, according to some mystical explanation. Anyone who follows a reasonable line of conjecture will very properly say that the serpent mentioned above is the symbol of pleasure, first because he has no feet and crawls on his belly with his face down. Second, because he eats lumps of clay for food. Third, because he carries poison in his teeth, with which he naturally kills those he bites. And the man devoted to pleasure is free from none of these evils: he can barely raise his head, weighed down and dragged down as he is, since intemperance trips him up and keeps him down. And he feeds not on heavenly food, which wisdom offers to contemplative men through discourses and opinions, but on what the earth puts forth in the changing seasons of the year, from which come drunkenness, voracity and licentiousness, which break through and inflame the appetites of the belly and enslave them to gluttony, and by which they strengthen the impetuous passions seated below the belly and make them break out. They lick up the products of the labours of cooks and tavern-keepers, and at times one of them, in ecstasy over the flavour of the delicious food, moves his head about and leans forward, eager to share in the sight. And when he sees an expensively furnished table, he throws himself bodily on the delicacies so abundantly prepared and devotes himself to them, wanting to be filled with all of them together and then to leave, with no other aim than to let nothing of such a sumptuous spread go to waste. Because of this conduct he too carries poison in his teeth, no less than the serpent does; for his teeth are the ministers and servants of his insatiability, cutting up and smoothing everything to do with eating and passing it first to the tongue, which judges and distinguishes the various flavours, and then to the larynx. But immoderate indulgence in eating is naturally a poisonous and deadly habit, since what is devoured this way cannot be digested, because more food is heaped on top of it and arrives before what was eaten earlier has been turned into juice. And the serpent is said to have uttered a human voice, because pleasure employs countless champions and defenders who take care to advocate its interests and who dare to assert that power over everything, small and great alike, belongs to it by right, without any exception at all. The first approaches of the male to the female carry a pleasure that brings on other pleasures as well, and it is through this pleasure that children are formed and generated. And what is generated by it seems attached to nothing more than to pleasure, since such beings rejoice in pleasure and cannot bear pain, its opposite. That is why even a newborn infant cries, apparently in pain from the cold. For it comes out suddenly from a very warm, indeed hot, region, namely the womb, where it has stayed for a considerable time, into the air, a cold place it is wholly unused to; so it is alarmed and pours out tears as the clearest proof of its grief and its impatience at pain. For every animal, it is said, hurries toward pleasure as the end most indispensable and necessary to its very existence, and man most of all. For other animals pursue pleasure only in taste and in the acts of generation; but man pursues it through his other senses too, devoting himself to whatever sights or sounds can give pleasure to his eyes or ears. Many other things are said in praise of this inclination, above all that it is most proper and akin to all animals. But what has already been said is enough to show why the serpent seems to have uttered a human voice. And it is for this reason, it seems to me, that Moses, in the particular laws he issued about animals, deciding which were proper to eat and which were not, gave special praise to the animal called the serpent fighter. This is a reptile with jointed legs above its feet, with which it can leap and raise itself high, just like the tribe of locusts. For the serpent fighter seems to me to be nothing other than temperance expressed in a symbolic figure, waging endless and unrelenting war against intemperance and pleasure. For temperance especially embraces economy and frugality, and pares its necessities down to a few, preferring a life of austerity and dignity. But intemperance is devoted to extravagance and superfluity, which cause luxury and effeminacy in both soul and body, and because of which wise men consider life a faulty thing, more miserable than death. But pleasure does not venture to bring its tricks and deceits directly to the man; it first offers them to the woman, and through her to the man, which is a very natural and shrewd way to act. For in human beings the mind occupies the rank of the man, and the sensations occupy the rank of the woman. Pleasure first joins and associates itself with the sensations, and then through them cajoles the mind as well, which is the dominant part. For once each of the senses has fallen under the charms of pleasure and learned to delight in what is offered to it, with the sight fascinated by varieties of colours and shapes, the hearing by harmonious sounds, the taste by sweet flavours, and the smell by the delicious fragrance of the odours brought before it, they all receive these offerings and, like handmaids, bring them to the mind as their master, bringing persuasion with them as an advocate to warn it against rejecting any of them at all. And the mind, caught at once by the bait, becomes a subject instead of a ruler, and a slave instead of a master, and an exile instead of a citizen, and a mortal instead of an immortal. For we must be fully aware that pleasure, like a courtesan or mistress, is eager to find a lover and seeks panders in order to catch a lover through them. The sensations are her panders and win love for her, and by using them as bait she easily brings the mind into subjection to her. The sensations convey into the mind the things seen outside and explain and display the form of each, setting their seal on a corresponding impression. For the mind is like wax and receives the impressions of appearances through the sensations, and through them it makes itself master of the body, which it could not do by itself, as I have already said. And those who have already become slaves of pleasure at once receive the wages of this miserable and incurable passion. For the woman suffers violent pains, partly in her labour and partly in a rapid succession of agonies through the rest of her life, especially in bearing and raising her children, in their sickness and health, and in their good or bad fortune, to an extent that utterly deprives her of her freedom and subjects her to the rule of the man who is her companion, so that she cannot avoid obeying all his commands. The man in his turn endures toils, labours and constant sweat to provide himself with necessities; he also bears the loss of all the spontaneous good things that the earth was originally taught to produce without needing the skill of the farmer, and he is reduced to living in incessant labour, seeking food and a means of subsistence so as not to perish from hunger. For I think that just as the sun and the moon continually give light, ever since they were first commanded to do so at the original creation of the universe, and constantly obey the divine command for no other reason than that evil and disobedience are banished far beyond the boundaries of heaven, so too the fertile and productive regions of the earth would yield an immense abundance in the various seasons of the year, without any skill or co-operation from the farmer. But as things are, the ever-flowing fountains of the graces of God have been checked ever since wickedness began to increase faster than the virtues, so that they would not supply men unworthy of their benefits. So the human race, had it met with strict and fitting justice, would have been utterly destroyed for its ingratitude to God, its benefactor and Saviour. But God, being merciful by nature, took pity upon them, and moderated their punishment. He allowed the race to go on existing, but he no longer gave them food from ready-prepared stores as he had before, for fear that, under the rule of two evils, satiety and idleness, they would become unruly and insolent. Such is the life of those who were originally men of innocence and simplicity, and also of those who have come to prefer vice to virtue, whom one ought to keep away from. In his account of the creation of the world, mentioned above, Moses also teaches us many other things, above all five most beautiful lessons that surpass all others. First, to convict the atheists, he teaches us that the Deity has real being and existence. Of the atheists, some have only doubted the existence of God, calling it uncertain; others, more audacious, have grown bold and asserted outright that there is no such being; but only men who have darkened the truth with fabulous inventions affirm this. Second, he teaches us that God is one, with reference here to the advocates of polytheism, men who do not blush to transfer that worst of evil constitutions, ochlocracy, from earth to heaven. Third, he teaches, as already related, that the world was created, by this lesson refuting those who think it uncreated and eternal and so attribute no glory to God. Fourth, we learn that the world so created is also one, since the Creator too is one, and he, making his creation resemble himself in its singleness, used all existing essence in creating the universe. For it would not have been complete if it had not been made and composed of all parts which were likewise whole and complete. For some people believe that there are many worlds, and some even imagine that they are boundless in extent, being themselves inexperienced in and ignorant of the truth about things it is desirable to know correctly. The fifth lesson Moses teaches us is that God exercises his providence for the benefit of the world. For it necessarily follows that the Creator must always care for what he has created, just as parents care for their children. Whoever has learned this by his own understanding no less than by hearing it, and has impressed on his own soul these marvellous facts that are the subject of so much dispute—namely, that God has being and existence, that he who so exists is truly one, that he has created the world and created it one, as has been stated, making it like himself in its singleness, and that he exercises continual care for what he has created—will live a happy and blessed life, stamped with the doctrines of piety and holiness.