On the Unchangeableness of God

1 'And after this,' says Moses, 'it came to pass that the angels of God went in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.' It is worthwhile, therefore, to consider what is meant by the expression, 'And after this.' It therefore refers to something said earlier, in order to explain it more clearly; 2 and the divine spirit has already been mentioned, for he has already stated that it is very difficult for it to remain for all time in the soul, which is divisible into many parts, and which assumes many forms, and is clothed with a very heavy burden, its bulk of flesh; after this spirit, therefore, the angels of God go in to the daughters of men. 3 For as long as the pure rays of wisdom shine forth in the soul, by means of which the wise man sees God and his powers, none of those who bring false news ever enters the reason, but all of them are kept at a distance outside the sacred threshold. But when the light of the intellect is dimmed and overshadowed, then the companions of darkness, now victorious, associate themselves with the dissolute and effeminate passions which the prophet calls the daughters of men, and they bear children to them and not to God. 4 For the appropriate progeny of God are the perfect virtues, but the offspring akin to the wicked is unregulated wickedness. But learn, my mind, if you will, not to bear children to yourself, following the example of that perfect man Abraham, who offered up to God 'The beloved and only legitimate offspring of his soul,' the most conspicuous image of self-taught wisdom, named Isaac; and who gave him up with complete cheerfulness to be a necessary and fitting offering to God. 'Having bound,' as the scripture says, this new kind of victim, either because he, having once tasted of the divine inspiration, would no longer stoop to tread on any mortal truth, or because he saw that the creature was unstable and moveable, while he recognised the unhesitating firmness of the living God, in whom he is said to have believed. 5 His disciple and successor was Hannah, the gift of the wisdom of God, for the name means 'her grace'. For when she had received the divine seed and become pregnant, and had completed the time of her labour, she gave birth, in the way God had appointed and arranged, to a son, whom she called Samuel; and the name Samuel, interpreted, means 'appointed by God.' So, having received him, she restores him to the giver, regarding nothing as a good of her own that is not divine grace. 6 For in the first book of Kings she speaks like this: 'I give him to you freely,' which is equivalent to 'I give him to you whom you have given to me.' This agrees with that most sacred scripture of Moses: 'My gifts and my offerings, and my first fruits, you shall observe to offer to me.' 7 For to what other being should one bring gifts of gratitude except to God? And what offerings can one bring him except the things he has given us? For it is not possible for us to have an abundance of anything else. And he has no need of any of those things which he enjoins men to offer to him, but he tells us to bring him what is his own, out of the abundance of his beneficence to our race. For if we seek to behave gratefully toward him and to show him every honour, we should purify ourselves from sin, washing off everything that can stain our life in words, appearance or actions. 8 For it is foolish to imagine that it is unlawful to enter temples unless a man has first washed his body and made it look bright, but that one may attempt to sacrifice and to pray with a mind still polluted and disordered. And yet temples are made of stones and timber, mere lifeless materials, and the body, which by its own nature is devoid of life, cannot touch things devoid of life without ablutions and holy purifying ceremonies; and will anyone dare to approach God with his soul unpurified, will anyone come near the purest of all beings while impure, and that without any intention of repenting? 9 Let the one who has committed no new crimes and has also tried to wash off his old misdeeds come cheerfully before him; but let the man who has made no such preparation, and who is impure, keep away. For he will never escape the notice of the one who can look into the recesses of the heart, and who walks in its most secret places. 10 The clearest sign of a soul devoted to God is the song that contains the words, 'She that was barren has borne seven children, and she that had many children has become weak.' 11 And yet the speaker is really the mother of only one son, Samuel. How then does she say that she has borne seven children, unless someone thinks that the unit is, in its strictest nature, identical with the number seven, not only in number, but also in the harmony of the universe, and in the reasonings of the soul which is devoted to virtue? For Samuel, who was devoted to the one God and had no connection whatever with any other being, is adorned according to the essence that is single, the true unit; 12 and this is how the number seven is constituted, that is, the soul that rests in God and no longer concerns itself with any mortal occupation, once it has left behind the number six, which it allotted to those who could not reach the first rank but of necessity were content to reach the second. 13 So it is not incredible that the barren woman, not one incapable of becoming fruitful but one still vigorous and fresh, striving for the chief prize in the arena of fortitude, patience, and perseverance, may bring forth a seven equal in honour to the unit; nature is very productive and prolific of these numbers. 14 And she says, accurately and very plainly, that 'she that had many children has become weak.' For when the soul, though only one, is separated from the one and brings forth many children, it naturally becomes infinite in number; and then, weighed down and overwhelmed by the multitude of children who depend on it (most of them premature and abortive), it becomes weak. 15 For it brings forth the desire for forms and colours, which the eyes gratify, and the pleasures of sound, which the ears gratify. It is also pregnant with the pleasures of the belly and of the parts beneath the belly, so that, with many children clinging to it, it is exhausted by bearing this heavy burden, lets its hands drop from weakness, and faints. And in this way all those things that bring forth children to themselves, perishable children of perishable parents, are subdued. 16 But some, through their self-love, have incurred not only defeat but even death. Onan, at any rate, 'knowing that the seed should not be his,' did not stop injuring the rational principle, the best kind of thing there is, until he himself was utterly destroyed. And this was very proper and deserved; 17 for if some men do all things for the sake of themselves alone, not for the honour of their parents, or the proper upbringing of their children, or the salvation of their country, or the guardianship of the laws, or the preservation of good morals, or for the due performance of any public or private duty, or the proper celebration of sacred rites, or the pious worship due to the gods, they will deservedly be miserable. 18 For the sake of any one of the objects I have mentioned, it is glorious even to give up life itself. But these men say that unless they are likely to gain some pleasure by pursuing them, they would disregard them all, glorious as they are. So the incorruptible God banishes the wicked exposition of unnatural opinion that is named Onan. 19 In short, those who beget children for themselves are detestable, that is, those who pursue only their own private advantage and disregard everything else, as if they had been born for themselves alone, and not for ten thousand other persons also, for their fathers, and their mothers, and their wives, and their children, and their country, and for all mankind. And if we must go further and add to this list, we may say for heaven, and earth, and the whole universe, and for the sciences, and for the virtues, and for the Father and Ruler of all; to each of which a man ought to pay what is due as best he can, not regarding the whole world as an addition to himself, but on himself as an addition to the rest of the world. 20 However, we have said enough on this point; let us now connect what follows with it: 'the Lord God, therefore,' says Moses, 'seeing that the wickedness of man was multiplied upon the earth, and that every one of them was carefully studying wickedness in his heart all his days; God considered in his mind that he had made man upon the earth, and he thought upon it; and God said, I will destroy man whom I have made from off the face of the earth.' 21 Perhaps some very wicked persons will suspect that the lawgiver is here speaking enigmatically, when he says that the Creator repented of having created man, when he saw their wickedness; and for that reason he decided to destroy the whole race. But let those who hold such opinions know that, because of their own excessive impiety, they are making light of and extenuating the offences of these men of former times; 22 for what can be a greater act of wickedness than to think that the unchangeable God can be changed? And this, too, when some think that even those who are truly men never waver in their opinions, because those who have studied philosophy in a sincere and pure spirit have gained, as the greatest good of their knowledge, freedom from any inclination to change with the changes of affairs, and the disposition to labour, with immovable firmness and sure stability, at everything it is fitting for them to pursue. 23 The lawgiver thinks it right that the perfect man should desire tranquillity; for it was said to the wise man, in the person of God, 'But stand here with me,' an expression that shows the unchangeable and unalterable nature of the mind firmly established in the right way; 24 for it is truly marvellous when someone touches the soul like a lyre tuned on musical principles, not with sharp and flat sounds, but with an accurate knowledge of contrary tones, and using only the best, sounding none too loudly and, on the other hand, letting none be too weak, so as to impair the harmony of the virtues and of those things which are good by nature, and when, keeping it in balance, he plays and sings melodiously; 25 for nature has made this instrument the most perfect of all and the model of all instruments made by hand. And if this is properly tuned, it will utter the most exquisite of all symphonies, which consists not in the combination and tones of a melodious voice, but in a harmonious agreement of all the actions in life; 26 therefore, the soul of man can allay, by the gentle breezes of knowledge and wisdom, the excessive storm and swell of the sea that the violent and irresistible gale of wickedness has suddenly raised, and, having mitigated its swelling and boisterous fury, it enjoys tranquillity, resting in an unruffled calm. Do you doubt whether the imperishable, and everlasting, and blessed God, the Being endowed with all the virtues, and with all perfection, and with all happiness is unchangeable in his counsels, and whether he keeps to the designs he originally formed without changing any of them? 27 Readiness to change is indeed an attribute of humans, arising from instability within them or in their circumstances; for instance, we often choose friends, live with them for a short time and then, without having anything to accuse them of, turn away from them, ranking ourselves as their enemies, or at least as strangers to them; 28 this conduct shows our own changeableness and levity, since we cannot hold steadily to the professions we originally made; but God is not so easily sated or wearied. Again, there are times when we resolve to keep to the judgment we have formed; but those who join us do not equally abide by theirs, so that our opinions necessarily change along with theirs; 29 for it is impossible for us, who are but men, to foresee all the contingencies of future events, or to anticipate the opinions of others; but to God, since he dwells in pure light, all things are visible; for he penetrates into the very recesses of the soul and is able to see, with the most perfect certainty, what is invisible to others, and, possessing prescience and providence, his own distinctive attributes, he allows nothing to abuse its liberty, and to stray out of the reach of his comprehension, since with him there is no uncertainty even about the future, for to God nothing is uncertain, or even future. 30 It is plain, then, that the creator of all created things, and the maker of all the things that have ever been made, and the governor of all things subject to government, must of necessity be a being of universal knowledge; and he is truly the father, and creator, and governor of all things in heaven and in the whole world; and future events are indeed overshadowed by the distance of future time, sometimes a short interval and sometimes a long one. 31 But God is the creator of time also; for he is the father of its father, and the father of time is the world, whose movement brought time into being, so that time stands to God as a grandson; for this world is a younger son of God, since it is perceptible by the outward sense; for the only son he speaks of as older than the world is idea, and this is perceptible only by the intellect; but, having judged the other worthy of the rights of primogeniture, he has decided that it shall remain with him; 32 therefore this younger son, perceptible by the external senses, by being set in motion has caused the nature of time to shine forth and become conspicuous, so that there is nothing future to God, to whom the very boundaries of time are subject; for his life is not time, but the beautiful model of time, eternity; and in eternity nothing is past and nothing is future, but everything is only present. 33 Having now sufficiently discussed the question of the living God never knowing repentance, we must next explain the meaning of the expression, 'God considered that he had made man upon the earth, and he thought within himself.' 34 The creator of the world, then, having attached to himself the two most lasting powers of cogitation and deliberation, the one a conception conceived within his own breast and the other the discussion of that conception, and continually employing them to contemplate his own works, praises for their obedience those things that do not leave their appointed station, but pursues those that change their place with the punishment appointed for deserters; 35 for he has endowed some bodies with habit, others with nature, others with soul, and some with rational soul; for instance, he has bound stones and beams, which are torn from their kindred materials, with the most powerful bond of habit; and this habit is the inclination of the spirit to return to itself; for it begins at the middle and proceeds onwards towards the extremities, and then when it has touched the extreme boundary, it turns back again, until it has returned to the place from which it originally started. 36 This is the continuous, unalterable course of habit, up and down, which runners imitate at their triennial festivals, those great spectacles common to all people, and display as a brilliant achievement and a worthy subject of rivalry and contention. 37 And he has given plants a nature combined from as many powers as possible, that is, the nutritive, the changeable and the forming power; for they are nourished when they have need of nourishment; and the proof of this is that plants that are not watered waste away and dry up, while those supplied with water visibly grow, for those that were for a time mere creepers on the ground because of their shortness suddenly spring up and become very long branches. And why should I speak of the changes they undergo? 38 for at the time of the winter solstice their leaves wither and fall to the ground; and the eyes, as farm labourers call them, which appear on the young shoots, close up like the eyes of animals, and all the mouths designed to send out young buds are bound up; their internal nature being confined and quiet at that time, so that, when it has taken breath like a wrestler after a little preliminary exercise and gathered its proper strength again, it may return to its customary operations. And this happens in both spring and summer, 39 for then their nature, waking as if from a deep sleep, opens its eyes, and expands and widens its previously closed mouth; and then it brings forth all those things of which it was pregnant, leaves, and young shoots, and tendrils, and feelers, and fruit on all its branches; and when these have reached perfection it provides them with nourishment and food, as a mother does her child, through invisible passages that work on the same principle as a woman's breasts, and it never stops nourishing them until the fruit is completely ripe; 40 and the thoroughly ripe fruit is perfected when, even if no one gathers it, it hastens of its own accord to separate itself from its kindred branch, since it no longer needs nourishment from its parent and can, if it finds suitable soil, itself sow and beget offspring resembling its own parents. 41 And the Creator has made the soul differ from nature in these things: the outward sense, imagination and impetuosity; for plants are destitute of impetuosity and devoid of imagination, and have no share in the outward sense. But every animal shares in all the qualities mentioned above, all together. 42 The outward sense, as its name indeed shows, is in some degree a kind of insertion, placing in the mind the things made apparent to it; for everything that comes through the sense of sight or hearing, or the other organs of the outward senses, is placed and treasured up in the mind, since it is the greatest storehouse and receptacle for all things. 43 And imagination is an impression of figures in the soul; for each of the outward senses, like a ring or a seal, imprints its own character on the things it has brought in. And the mind, like wax, receives the impression and keeps it carefully in itself until forgetfulness, the enemy of memory, has smoothed off the edges of the impression, or else has dimmed it, or perhaps has completely effaced it. 44 And what has been seen and impressed on the soul sometimes affects the soul in a way consistent with itself, and at other times in a different way; and this passion it undergoes is called appetite, which the philosophers who define such things call the first motion of the soul. 45 These are the important points in which animals are superior to plants. Let us now see how man is superior to the rest of the animal creation. Man, then, has received one extraordinary gift, intellect, which habitually comprehends the nature of all bodies and of all things at the same time; for, as sight is the most important faculty in the body, and the nature of light the most pre-eminent thing in the universe, so the part of us entitled to the highest rank is the mind. 46 For the mind is the sight of the soul, shining transcendently with its own rays, which dispel the great and dense darkness that ignorance of things spreads around. This kind of soul is not composed of the same elements as the other kinds, but has received a purer and more excellent essence, the one from which the divine natures were formed; and for this reason the intellect naturally appears to be the only thing in us that is imperishable, 47 for it is the only quality in us that the Father who created us thought deserving of freedom; and, loosing the bonds of necessity, he let it go unrestrained, bestowing on it the most admirable gift and the one most closely connected with himself, the power of spontaneous will, as far as he was able to receive it; for the irrational animals, whose soul lacks that special gift tending to freedom, mind, are put under the yoke and have bridles put in their mouths, and so are given to men to be their slaves, as servants are given to their masters. But man, who has been given a voluntary and self-impelling intellect, and who for the most part exerts his energies by deliberate purpose, rightly receives blame for the offences he commits by design and praise for the good actions he performs intentionally. 48 For with plants and the other animals, we can call neither the good they cause deserving of praise nor the evil they do deserving of blame; for all their motions in either direction, and all their changes, are without design and involuntary. But the soul of man, being the only one which has received from God the power of voluntary motion, and which in this respect has been made to resemble God, and which has been emancipated as far as possible from the authority of that grievous and severe mistress, necessity, may rightly be reproached if she does not pay due honour to the one who emancipated her. And so in that case she will most deservedly suffer the implacable punishment pronounced against slavish and ungrateful minds. 49 So God 'considered' and thought within himself, not for the first time now, but long ago, and with great steadiness and resolution, 'that he had made man;' that is, he considered within himself what kind of being he had made. For he had made him free from all bondage or restraint, able to exert his energies by his own will and deliberate purpose, for this reason: so that, knowing what things were good and what, on the contrary, were evil, and having arrived at a proper comprehension of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, and apprehending what things are just and what unjust, and, in short, what things flow from virtue and what from wickedness, he might choose the better objects and avoid their opposites; 50 and this is the meaning of the oracle recorded in Deuteronomy, 'Look, I have put before your face life and death; good and evil. Choose life.' So by this sentence he teaches us both that men have knowledge of good and of its contrary, evil, and that it is their duty to choose the better over the worse, preserving reason within themselves as an incorruptible judge, to be guided by the arguments which sound sense suggests, and to reject those put forward by the contrary power. 51 Now that we have explained these matters sufficiently, let us pass on to what comes next. This is what follows: 'I will destroy,' says God, 'the man whom I have made from off the face of the earth, from man to beast, from creeping things to the fowls of the air, because I have considered and repent that I have made them.' 52 Some people, when they hear the expressions I have just cited, imagine that the living God is here giving way to anger and passion; but God is utterly inaccessible to any passion whatever. For it is the distinctive property of human weakness to be disquieted by any such feelings, but God has neither the irrational passions of the soul, nor do the parts and limits of the body belong to him in the least. Nevertheless, the great lawgiver speaks of such things with reference to God in an introductory way, to admonish those who could not be corrected otherwise. 53 For among all the laws couched as injunction or prohibition (and only these are, properly speaking, laws), two principal positions are laid down concerning the great cause of all things: one, that God is not as a man; the other, that God is as a man. 54 But the first of these assertions is confirmed by the most certain truth, while the latter is introduced for the instruction of the many. It is with the many in mind that it is said, 'as a man would instruct his son.' And this is said for the sake of instruction and admonition, and not because he is really like that by nature. 55 For some men are attached to the service of the soul, and others to the service of the body; the companions of the soul, able to associate with incorporeal natures perceptible only by the intellect, do not compare the living God to any species of created beings; but, dissociating it from any idea of distinctive qualities (for what contributes most to his happiness and consummate felicity is to comprehend his naked existence without any connection with figure or character), they, I say, are content with the bare conception of his existence, and do not attempt to invest him with any form. 56 But those who enter into agreements and alliances with the body, being unable to throw off the robes of the flesh, and to behold that nature, which alone of all natures has no need of anything, but is sufficient for itself, and simple, and unalloyed, and incapable of being compared with anything else, form the same notions of the cause of all things that they do of themselves; not considering that a being who exists through a concurrence of many faculties needs many parts to supply the needs of each of those faculties. But God, since he is uncreated and the Being who brought all other things into creation, needed none of the things usually added to creatures. 57 For what are we to say? If he possesses the different organic parts, shall we say that he has feet for walking? But where is he to walk who fills all places at once with his presence? And to whom is he to go, when no one is equal in honour to him? And why is he to walk? It cannot be for his health, as we walk for ours. Again, are we to say that he has hands for giving and taking? But he never receives anything from anyone. For besides lacking nothing, he actually has everything; and when he gives, he employs reason as the minister of his gifts, the same agent by which he created the world. 58 Again, he had no need of eyes, the organs without which the light perceptible by the outward senses cannot be comprehended; but the light perceptible by the outward senses is a created light; and even before the creation God saw, using himself as light. 59 And why should we mention the organs of luxury? For if he has these organs, then he is fed, and when he has satisfied himself he leaves off eating, and after he has left off eating he needs food again; and I need not list the other details that necessarily follow from this; for these are the fabulous inventions of impious men, who represent God in word only as having human form, but in fact as subject to human passions. 60 Why, then, does Moses speak of the Uncreate as having feet and hands, and as coming in and as going out? And why does he speak of him as clothed in armour for the purpose of repelling his enemies? For he does speak of him as strapping on a sword, and as using arrows, and winds, and destructive fire. And the poets, calling them by other names, say that the whirlwind and the thunderbolt are the weapons of the Cause of all things. Moreover, speaking of him as they would of men, they add jealousy, anger, passion, and other feelings like these. But to those who ask about these things one may answer, 61 'My good men! A man who wants to establish the most excellent system of laws ought to keep one goal constantly in view, namely, to do good to all who come within his reach.' So those who have received a fortunate disposition and an education blameless in every respect find the path of life that leads this way plain and straight, and take truth with them as their travelling companion; through it they are initiated into the true mysteries relating to the living God, and therefore they never attribute any of the properties of created beings to him. 62 To these disciples the principal assertion of the sacred oracles is especially well suited, that 'God is not as man,' but neither is he as heaven, nor as the world; for these kinds have distinctive qualities and are perceived by the outward senses. But he cannot be comprehended even by the intellect, except as to his essence alone; for we do comprehend the fact of his existence, but beyond that fact we can understand nothing. 63 But those who have received a duller and more sluggish nature, and who have been wrongly brought up as children, and who are unable to see acutely, need lawgivers to act as physicians, who can devise an appropriate remedy for the present complaint, 64 since a severe master is a beneficial thing for intractable and foolish servants; for, fearing his punishments and threats, they are chastened by fear in spite of themselves. So let all such men learn false terrors, which may benefit them if truth cannot lead them into the right way. 65 For with patients afflicted by dangerous illnesses, the most genuine physicians do not venture to tell them the truth, knowing that the truth will make them more despondent, so that the disease will not be cured, but that with the opposite language and with encouragement they will bear more easily the disease that presses on them, and the illness will be more likely to be allayed. 66 For what man in his senses would say to a patient under his care, 'My good man, you will have the knife applied to you, and cautery, and your limbs will be amputated,' even if such things absolutely had to be endured? No man on earth would say so. For if he did, his patient would lose heart before the operations could be performed, and, having caught another disease in his soul more grievous than the one already in his body, would resolutely renounce the cure; but if, on the other hand, the physician's deceit leads him to expect the opposite, he will submit to everything patiently, even though the means of saving him may be very painful. 67 Therefore the lawgiver, a most admirable physician of the passions and diseases of the soul, has set himself one task and one aim, namely, to tear the diseases of the mind out by the roots, so that not a single one is left behind to put out any shoot of incurable sickness. 68 He hoped, then, to be able to eradicate it in this way: by representing the Cause of all things as given to threats, indignation and implacable anger, and also as using defensive weapons to ward off attacks and to chastise the wicked; for only the fool is corrected by such means: 69 and so it seems to me that the two principal assertions mentioned above, namely, that God is as a man and that God is not as a man, have two other principles that follow from them and are connected with them, namely, fear and love; for I see that all the laws' exhortations to piety refer either to the love or to the fear of the living God. For those, therefore, who attribute neither the parts nor the passions of men to the living God, but who, as befits the majesty of God, honour him for himself and by himself alone, loving him is most natural; for the others, fearing him is most appropriate. 70 These, then, are the points it was proper to set out before we began the following investigation. But we must now go back to the original question, in which we were in doubt about the meaning concealed under the expression, 'I was indignant that I had made them.' Perhaps Moses here means to show that bad men are made so by the anger of God, and good men by his grace; for immediately afterwards he goes on to add, 'But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.' 71 But anger, a passion peculiar to man, is spoken of here very aptly, though more metaphorically than the literal truth, in order to explain something extremely necessary, namely, to show that everything we do through anger, or fear, or pain, or grief, or any other passion, is admittedly faulty and open to reproach, while all that we do in accordance with right reason and knowledge is praiseworthy. 72 You see now how carefully he speaks here, when he says, 'I was indignant that I had made them,' not reversing the order of the words so as to say, 'Because I had made them I was indignant;' for the latter expression would have suited a person who regretted what he had done, an idea inconsistent with the nature of God, which foresees everything. But the other is a general doctrine, the expression of a man who means by it to explain that anger is the fountain of all sins, and reason the source of all good actions. 73 But God, remembering his own perfect goodness in every particular, even if the whole or the greater part of mankind falls away from him because of the abundance and extravagance of their sins, stretching out his right hand, his hand of salvation, supports man and raises him up, not allowing the whole race to be utterly destroyed and to perish forever. 74 For this reason God now says that Noah found grace in his sight, when all the rest of mankind, having shown themselves ungrateful, were about to be punished, so that he might mingle saving mercy with judgment against sinners. As the psalmist has said somewhere, 'My song shall be of mercy and judgment.' 75 For if God were to choose to judge the race of mankind without mercy, he would pass a sentence of condemnation on them; since there has never been a single man who, by his own unassisted power, has run the whole course of his life, from the beginning to the end, without stumbling; but since some men have fallen into voluntary, and some into involuntary sins, 76 so that the human race might still survive, even though many of its lesser members perish. God mingles mercy with his justice, which he exercises towards the good actions of even the unworthy; and he not only pities them while judging, but judges them while pitying them, for mercy is older than justice in his sight, since he knew the man who deserved punishment not only after he had passed sentence on him, but also before it. 77 For this reason he says in another passage, 'The cup is in the hand of the Lord; full of the mixture of unmixed wine;' and yet what is mixed is not unmixed; but these words are spoken in a sense that accords strictly with natural philosophy and is perfectly consistent with what has been said before; for God exerts his power untempered towards himself, but mixed towards his creatures, since a mortal nature cannot endure his power unmitigated. 78 You would be unable to look at the unmodified light of the sun. If you tried, your sight would be extinguished by the brilliance of his rays and wholly blinded by coming close to that luminary before it could perceive anything, and yet the sun is only one of the works of God, a portion of the heaven, a fragment of compressed aether, and yet do you think you are able to gaze upon those uncreated powers which exist around him, and emit the most dazzling light, without any veil or modification? 79 So, just as the sun extends his rays from heaven to the boundaries of the earth, tempering and dissolving the excessive violence of their heat with cool air, for he mixes his rays with the air, so that, by separating the part of them that gives light from the part that gives heat, he may lessen some of his power of burning but keep the power by which he gives light, and so be welcomed when he meets the kindred and friendly light in the eyes of man; for the meeting of these two lights in the same place, coming from an opposite direction, and the reception of the one by the other, is what produces the comprehension we reach through our faculty of sight: but what mortal could possibly receive in this way the knowledge, and wisdom, and prudence, and justice, and all the other virtues of God, in an unalloyed state? The whole heaven, the whole world, could not do so. 80 Therefore the Creator, knowing how far he excels in all that is most excellent, and the inherent natural weakness of created beings, however loudly they boast, does not think to benefit them or to chastise them to the full extent of his power, but only as far as he sees that those who are to receive his benefits or his chastisements have the power to receive either. 81 If, then, we are able to drink and enjoy a gentle and moderate mixture of his powers, we might receive enough happiness from it, and the race of man ought not to seek any more complete enjoyment than that. We have now explained what the mixed and unmixed powers are, and what the truly supreme faculties are that exist in the living God alone. 82 And similar to what has been said before is the passage found in another place, 'God spoke once, and twice I have also heard the same.' The expression 'once' resembles the unmixed power, for the unmixed power is the unit, and the unit is the unmixed power; but the 'twice' resembles the mixed power, for neither one nor the other is a simple thing, since it admits combination or division. 83 God, therefore, utters unmixed units: for the word he utters is not a beating of the air, mingled with nothing else whatever, but is incorporeal and naked, in no way different from the unit. But we hear by the number two; 84 for the breath, sent from our dominant part through the artery called the trachea, is shaped in the mouth by the tongue, as if by a kind of workman, and, carried outward, mingled with its kindred air and striking it harmoniously, completes the mixture of the two powers; for what sounds together through a combination of different noises is from the start suited to a divisible duad, having one sharp and one flat tone: 85 so he very beautifully set one just reason against the multitude of unjust reasons, fewer in number, indeed, but superior in power, so that the worse of the two might not weigh down the other like a weight put in a scale; but rather that, by the force of the weight of the better one in the opposite scale, its lightness might be exposed and it might so be weakened. 86 But what is the meaning of the sentence, 'Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God?' Let us now consider this: of those who find anything, some are finding what they once had and have lost, and some are discovering what they never had before and now possess for the first time. Accordingly, those who busy themselves with investigating appropriate names usually call the latter kind finding (heuresis), and the former kind re-finding (aneuresis). 87 We have a conspicuous example of the former species in the instructions given about the great vow. A vow is a request for good things from God; and the spirit of the great vow is to believe that God himself is, of himself, the cause of good things, with nothing else among the things that may appear beneficial ever co-operating with him: neither the earth as fruitful, nor the rain as helping to promote the growth of seeds and plants, nor the air as calculated to nourish man, nor agriculture as the cause of production, nor the skill of the physician as the cause of health, nor marriage as the cause of the procreation of children: 88 for all these things undergo changes and alterations through the power of God, to such a degree and in such a way that they often have effects contrary to their usual ones. So Moses says that this man is 'holy who nourishes the hair of his head;' meaning that he is holy who fosters, in the principal part of himself, the growth of the principal shoots of the doctrines of virtue, and who in a way prides himself on these doctrines and delights in them: 89 but sometimes he loses them, when a sort of whirlwind, as it were, suddenly swoops down on the soul and carries off everything good in it; and this whirlwind is an involuntary change that pollutes the mind in a moment, and Moses calls it death. 90 Even so, when he has later got rid of this and been purified, he recovers and recalls what he had forgotten for a time, and finds what he had lost, so that the days of his former change are not included in the computation, either because such change cannot be reduced to calculation, since it is inconsistent with right reason and has no share in prudence, or because it does not deserve to be taken into calculation; 'for of such things,' some ancient writer says, 'there is no account nor calculation taken.' 91 And we have often come upon things that we had never before seen even in a dream, like the farmer who, some say, while digging a hole to plant a fruit-bearing tree, found a treasure⁠a and met with good fortune he had never hoped for.⁠b 92 Therefore Jacob, the wrestler with God, when his father asked him how he had acquired this knowledge, saying, 'How did you find this so quickly, my son?' answered and said, 'Because the Lord my God brought it before me.' For when God bestows the treasures of his own wisdom on anyone without any toil or labour, then we, without expecting anything of the kind, suddenly perceive that we have found a treasure of perfect happiness. 93 And it often happens that those who seek with great labour miss what they are seeking, while others, who are seeking without any diligence, find with great ease even things that they never thought of finding. For those who are dull and slow of soul, like men deprived of their eyesight, find the labour they devote to the contemplation of objects of science useless and wasted; while others, through the richness of their natural endowments, discover immeasurable things without any investigation at all, with the help of happy and well-directed conjectures, so that they seem to attain their objects not through any labour of their own, but because the things themselves come of their own accord to meet them and hurry to present themselves to their view, and so give them the most accurate comprehension of them. 94 The law-giver says that to these men were given, 'Great and beautiful cities, which they had not built; houses full of good things, which they had not filled; cisterns cut out of the solid rock, which they had not hewn; vineyards and olive gardens, which they had not planted.' 95 By cities and houses he here symbolically sketches the generic and specific virtues; for genus resembles a city, because it is marked out in larger circumferences, and because it is common to many individuals; and species resembles a house, because it is narrower and avoids being shared; 96 and cisterns prepared beforehand signify the rewards that come to some for their labour, while they are given freely to others; they are channels of heavenly and wholesome waters and well-prepared treasuries for preserving the virtues mentioned before, through which joy is shed over the perfect heart, lighting it up all over with the light of truth. Again, when Moses speaks of the vineyards, he intends them as an emblem of cheerfulness, and the olive gardens as a symbol of light. 97 Happy, therefore, are those who, experiencing something like people waking from deep sleep, suddenly, without any labour or exertion on their part, see the world before them; and miserable are those who find themselves contending eagerly for objects they are not fitted for by nature, being full of a contentious spirit, the most grievous of diseases. 98 For besides failing to attain the object they desire, they also incur great disgrace and no slight injury, like ships which are attempting to make their way by sea against opposing winds; for besides being unable to hold their course towards the point they are hurrying to, they are very often capsized along with their crews and cargoes, and so cause pain to their friends and pleasure to their enemies. 99 Therefore the law says that some people made a violent effort and went up the mountain, 'And the Amorites came forth who dwell on that mountain, and wounded them, as bees might have done, and pursued them from Seir even to Hormah.' 100 For it necessarily follows that those who are unfitted by nature to comprehend the arts, if they achieve something in them by violent effort, not only fail to attain their end, but also incur disgrace; and those who do something they ought to do voluntarily, but still without the deliberate consent of their mind, putting a sort of constraint on their own will, do not succeed but are wounded and harassed by their own consciences. 101 So too you would call men of good faith those who return deposits of small value in the hope of being entrusted with larger ones that they can appropriate; and yet even while returning the deposits they are putting a great constraint on their natural faithlessness, and it is to be hoped they will be tormented by it without ceasing. 102 And all those who offer only a spurious kind of worship to the only wise God, putting on the profession of a strict life like a costume on a magnificent stage, merely to make a display before the assembled spectators, with imposture rather than piety in their souls, do they not, I say, stretch themselves on the rack as it were, and torment themselves, compelling even the truth itself to take on a false appearance? 103 So, after being overshadowed for a brief period by the emblems of superstition, which is the great hindrance to holiness, and a great injury both to those who have it and to those who associate with it, they then strip off their disguise again and display their naked hypocrisy. And then, like men convicted of being aliens, they are regarded as enemies, having enrolled themselves as citizens of that noblest of cities, virtue, when in reality they have no connection with it. For whatever is violent (biaion) is also of short duration, as its very name indicates, since it closely resembles short (baion). And the ancients used the two words (baion) and (oligochronion) of short duration, as synonyms. 104 We must now consider what is meant by 'Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God.' Does what is expressed here mean that he received grace, or that he was judged worthy of grace? It is not natural for us to entertain the former idea; for what was given to him beyond what was given, one might say, to all, not only to all concrete natures, but to all the elementary and simple natures which have been accounted worthy of divine grace? 105 But the second interpretation has a reason in it that is not altogether inconsistent: that the cause of all things judges worthy of his gifts those who do not corrupt the divine impression stamped on them, namely, the most sacred mind, with disgraceful practices; yet perhaps even this is not the true meaning of the words. 106 For what kind of person must he be who would be judged by God worthy of his grace? I think, indeed, that the whole world put together could scarcely reach such a height, and yet the world is the first, and greatest, and most perfect of all the works of God. 107 Perhaps, then, it is better to understand this expression as meaning that the virtuous man, fond of investigating things and eager for learning, has found, among all the different things he has investigated, this one most certain fact: that all things that exist, the earth, the water, the air, the fire, the sun, the stars, the heaven, all animals and plants whatever, are the grace of God. 108 But God has given nothing to himself, for he has no need of anything; but he has given the world to the world, and he has bestowed its parts on themselves and on one another, and also on the universe, and without judging anything worthy of grace (for he gives all his good things ungrudgingly to the universe and to its parts), he looks only to his own everlasting goodness, thinking that doing good is a course of conduct suited to his own happy and blessed nature; so that if anyone were to ask me what the cause of the creation of the world was, I would answer, having learnt it from Moses, that the goodness of the living God, the most important of his graces, is in itself the cause. 109 But here we must observe that Moses says that 'Noah pleased' the powers of the living God, 'the Lord and God,' but tells us that Moses himself pleased the Being who is attended by those powers as his bodyguard, and who, apart from them, is conceived only according to his essence. For here he says, speaking in the person of God, 'Because you have found grace in my sight,' pointing to himself and to no one else whatever. 110 So he who exists of himself, by himself alone, thinks the surpassing wisdom found in Moses worthy of grace, but the other wisdom, formed on the model of his, he considers of an inferior class, and more a wisdom of species, since it consists of subordinate powers, according to which he is both Lord and God, and ruler and benefactor. 111 But another mind, attached to the body and a slave of the passions, sold as a slave to the chief cook, that is, to the pleasure of our compound being, castrated and robbed of all the masculine and generative parts of the soul, afflicted with a lack of all good practices, incapable of receiving the divine voice, and also separated and cut off from the sacred assembly, where conferences and discussions about virtue are continually taking place, is led into the prison of the passions, and finds grace (a grace more inglorious than dishonour) with the keeper of the prison. 112 For the men properly called prisoners are not those who, after they have been condemned at the judgment seat by the legitimate magistrates, or by judges formally appointed, are led away by the officers to the place appointed for criminals, but those whose souls' disposition nature has condemned, men who are full of intemperance, and cowardice, and injustice, and impiety, and innumerable other evils; 113 but the steward, keeper and guardian of these men is the keeper of the prison, a compound and combination of all kinds of wickedness united into one mass, and to please him is the greatest of punishments. But some people who do not perceive this, so deceived about what is harmful that they regard it as advantageous, come to him with great joy and offer themselves as his body-guards, so that, being judged faithful by him, they may become his lieutenants and successors in guarding involuntary and voluntary offences; 114 but you, my soul, considering such an office and magistracy more grievous than the most laborious slavery, adopt, as far as you can, an unrestrained, unconfined and free way of life, 115 and if you are caught by the baits of passion, choose to be a prisoner yourself rather than the keeper of a prison; for then if you suffer distress, and groan aloud, you will obtain pity; but if you give yourself up to ambition for great posts and to covetousness of honour, you will receive that pleasant and greatest evil, being keeper of the prison, which will sway you for the whole of your life. 116 Reject, therefore, with all your might every thought of pleasing the keepers of the prison; but on the contrary, with all your ability and all your earnestness, labour to please him who is the cause of all things; and if you are unable to do so (for the greatness of his dignity is exceedingly high), at least advance, without ever turning back, towards his powers, and present yourself to them as their suppliant, until, accepting the constant diligence and sincerity of your service, they place you in the ranks of those who have pleased them, as they did Noah, whose descendants Moses has set out in a most admirable and novel catalogue; 117 for he says, 'These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man, being perfect in his generation, and Noah pleased God;' for the descendants of the compound being were naturally compound beings themselves as well; for horses necessarily produce horses, and lions produce lions, bulls become the parents of bulls, and so too men produce men; 118 but such things are not the appropriate offspring of a good mind; its progeny are the virtues mentioned before, namely being a man, being just, being perfect and pleasing God, and this last, since it is the crowning one and, as it were, the boundary of perfect happiness, is listed last of all. 119 But there is one kind of creation that is a sort of leading and journeying from what does not exist into existence. This is the one that plants and animals necessarily use; and there is another kind, a transition and change from a better genus to a worse species, which Moses mentions when he says, 'These are the generations of Jacob; Joseph when he was seventeen years of age, was keeping the sheep with his brothers, being a youth with the sons of Billah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives.' 120 For when this reason, inclined to meditation and devoted to learning, was driven down from its more divine speculations to human and mortal opinions, then Joseph was born, the companion of the body and of all the things that pertain to the body, still only a youth even though with the passing of time he may become grey-haired, since he never listened to any older discourse or opinions, which the companions of Moses acquired as the most useful possessions for themselves and their disciples. 121 For this reason it seems to me that Moses, wishing to describe his figure and give a more accurate idea of his appearance so as to make it known, introduced him as tending his father's sheep, not in the company of any one of his father's legitimate sons, but with his illegitimate brothers, who, as sons of concubines, take their name from the inferior sex, the women, and not from the superior sex, namely the man; for here they are called the sons of Jacob's wives, Billah and Zilpah, and not the sons of their father Israel. 122 And one may very fitly ask here why, after mentioning the perfection of Noah in virtue, he immediately adds that 'the earth had become corrupt in the sight of God, and was filled with wickedness.' But perhaps it is not difficult for anyone who is not utterly ignorant of all instruction to resolve this doubt. 123 We must say, therefore, that when an incorruptible species arises in the soul, the mortal part is immediately destroyed; for the birth of virtuous studies is the death of disgraceful ones, just as darkness disappears when light shines out. For this reason the law of leprosy most expressly commands that 'If the living skin arises in the leper, he shall be polluted;' 124 and, further ratifying this same injunction and, as it were, setting a seal on it, he adds, 'and the flesh which is sound shall pollute him,' giving this injunction contrary to what is natural or usual: for all men think that the sick are the pollution of the healthy, and the dead the pollution of the living, and not, conversely, that the healthy and the living are the pollution of the sick and the dead; rather, they consider them their salvation. 125 But the lawgiver, whose wisdom is original in everything, has this peculiarity in his expositions: he teaches that the healthy and the living are the causes of our not being pure from pollution; for the healthy and living complexion in the soul is in truth the conviction that rises up against it: 126 when this conviction rises up, it makes a catalogue of all the offences of the soul, and, reproaching it with them and looking sternly at it, can scarcely be stopped in its attacks on it; and the soul, being convicted, recognises all the actions by which it has offended against right reason, and perceives that it is foolish, and intemperate, and unjust, and full of pollutions. 127 For this reason Moses also lays down a most extraordinary law, in which he commands that 'the man who is in part leprous shall be accounted impure, but that he who is wholly, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head overwhelmed with leprosy, shall be considered pure;' for anyone else, I suppose, reasoning from probability, would say the exact opposite, and would think that leprosy which was confined and extended over only a small part of the body was less impure, but leprosy which was diffused so as to spread over the whole body was more impure: 128 but here, it seems to me, Moses uses this symbolic expression to convey this most undeniable truth, that unintentional misdeeds, even if they are of the greatest enormity, are not deserving of blame, and are pure, since they do not have conscience, that terrible accuser, to testify against them: but that intentional offences, even if they do not extend over a wide surface, being convicted by the judge who passes sentence against the soul, are rightly counted unholy, and polluted, and impure. 129 This leprosy, therefore, which is twofold and puts forth two complexions, signifies voluntary depravity; for the soul, though it has healthy, life-giving and right reason in itself, does not use it to preserve its good things, but, surrendering itself to people unskilled in navigation, overturns the whole vessel of life, which might have been saved in calm fine weather; 130 but when it changes and takes on one uniform white appearance, it shows an involuntary change; since the mind, entirely deprived of the power of reasoning, with not one single seed left in it to beget understanding, like a man in a mist or in deep darkness, sees nothing that ought to be done; but, like a blind man, falling into all kinds of error without seeing the way before him, endures continual falls and disasters one after another, despite all its efforts. 131 And similar to this is the injunction given concerning the house in which leprosy often happens to arise; for Moses says that, 'If there is a taint of leprosy in the house, the owner shall come, and shall tell it to the priest, saying there is something like a taint of leprosy has been seen by me in my house,' and then he adds, 'And the priest shall command him to dismantle his house, before the priest enters into the house to see it, and all the things that are in the house shall not be impure; and after that the priest shall enter the house to examine it.' 132 So, before the priest goes in, the things in the house are pure; but once he has gone in, from then on they are all impure. And yet the opposite would have been natural: that when a thoroughly purified and perfect man, who habitually offers prayers and purifications and sacrifices for all the people, comes into a house, everything in it would be improved by his presence and would become pure after being impure; but as it is, they do not even remain in the same condition as before, but are brought into a worse state by the priest's arrival. 133 But whether this is consistent with the literal and obvious order of the words, is for those to inquire who are in the habit of pursuing such investigations and fond of them; but we must state plainly that nothing can be more consistent than the fact that when the priest enters, all the things in the house are polluted; 134 for as long as the divine word has not come to our souls as to a hospitable hearth, all its actions are blameless; for the overseer, or the father, or the teacher, or whatever else it may be fitting to call the priest, by whom alone it can be admonished and chastened, is far away: and those who do wrong from inexperience, not knowing what they ought to do, are to be pardoned: for they do not regard their deeds as sins, but sometimes even believe that they are doing right when they are greatly in error; 135 but when the real priest, conviction, enters our hearts, like a most pure ray of light, then we think that the designs we have cherished within our souls are not pure, and we see that our actions are open to blame and deserve reproach, though we did them in ignorance of what was right. The priest, therefore, that is, conviction, pollutes all these things and orders them to be taken away and stripped off, so that he may see the abode of the soul pure and, if there are any diseases in it, may heal them. 136 And the woman who met the prophet, in the book of Kings, illustrates the same point: 'And she is a widow;' meaning not, as we generally use the word, a woman who has lost her husband, but a woman who is widowed by being free from the passions that corrupt and destroy the soul, as Moses represents Thamar. 137 For she too, being a widow, was commanded to sit down in the house of the father, the only Saviour; for his sake she has forsaken the company and society of men for ever, stands far off from all human pleasures, widowed of them, and receives a divine seed; and being filled with the seeds of virtue, she conceives, and is in labour with virtuous actions. And when she has brought them forth, she carries off the prize against her adversaries, and is enrolled as victorious, bearing the palm as the emblem of her victory. For the name Thamar, translated, means the palm tree. 138 And every soul that is beginning to be widowed and empty of evils says to the prophet, 'Man of God! have you come to me to remind me of my iniquity and of my sin?' For he, inspired, entering into the soul, filled with heavenly love and stirred to amazement by the unbearable spur of a frenzy sent from heaven, awakens in the soul the memory of its old iniquities and offences: not so that it may commit them again, but so that, greatly lamenting and bitterly mourning its former error, it may hate its own offspring, turn from them in disgust, and follow the admonitions of the word of God, the interpreter and prophet of his will. 139 For in ancient times people called the prophets sometimes men of God and sometimes seers, giving apt and fitting names to their divine possession, their inspiration, and the foreknowledge of events which they had. 140 Rightly, therefore, the most sacred Moses says that the earth was corrupted at the very time when the virtues of the just Noah were revealed: 'And the whole earth,' he says, 'was corrupted, because all flesh had corrupted his (autou) way upon the earth.' 141 To some people this expression will seem incorrect, and they will think that consistency with the context and the truth of the matter require us to read instead, 'All flesh had corrupted its (autēs) way upon the earth.' For if we attach a masculine form, the word autou, to the feminine noun 'flesh' (tē sarki), it does not agree with it. 142 But perhaps Moses does not mean here to speak of the flesh alone as corrupting his way upon the earth, which would make him deserve to be thought to have erred in his wording, but rather to speak of the things of the flesh, which is corrupted, and of that other being whose way the flesh tries to injure and corrupt. So we should explain this expression as follows: All flesh corrupted the perfect way of the everlasting and incorruptible being which conducts to God. 143 And know that this way is wisdom. For the mind guided by wisdom, since the road is straight and level and easy, follows it to the end; and the end of this road is the knowledge and understanding of God. But every companion of the flesh hates and rejects this way, and tries to corrupt it; for no two things are so much at odds as knowledge and the pleasure of the flesh. Accordingly, the earthly Edom is always fighting with those who wish to proceed by this road, 144 which is the royal road of those who share in the faculty of sight and are called Israel; for the name Edom means 'earthly,' and he works with all his zeal, by every means in his power and by threats, to keep them from this road and to make it pathless and impassable for ever. 145 So the ambassadors who are sent say this: 'We will pass on through your land; we will not pass through your fields nor through your vineyards; we will not drink water from your cistern; we will proceed by the royal road; we will not turn aside out of the way, to the right hand, nor to the left, until we have passed over your borders.' But Edom answered and said, 'You shall not pass through my land: and if you do, I will come against you in battle to meet you.' And the children of Israel said to him, 'We will pass by your mountain; but if I or my cattle drink of your water, I will pay you the price of it. But it does not matter; we will pass by your mountain.' And he said, 'You shall not pass through my land.' 146 It is said of a certain man of ancient times that when he saw a lavish, well-equipped procession passing by, he turned to one of his acquaintances and said, 'My friends, see how many things there are of which I have no need,' uttering in very few words what was truly a great and heavenly boast. What do you say? 147 Were you crowned victor at the Olympic games against all the wealth arrayed against you, and so completely that you took nothing from there for your enjoyment or your use? It is a marvellous statement, but the sentiment behind it is more admirable still, having grown so strong that it could, without any extraordinary exertion, still carry off the victory by force. 148 But to boast like this before Moses, who has been instructed in the highest perfection of wisdom, is not granted to one man alone; it belongs to a whole and most populous nation. And here is the proof of it. The soul of every one of his friends felt confident and was bold towards the king of all apparent good things, the earthly Edom; for in fact all earthly good things are good only in appearance; they were bold, I say, so bold as to say, 'I will now pass by your land.' 149 What a magnanimous and sublime promise! Tell me, will you be able to surmount, to pass by, to run past all these things which on earth appear to be and are believed to be good? And is there nothing that will be able to check and restrain your advance by the force of its resistance? 150 And when you have seen all the treasuries of wealth, one after another and all full, will you turn from them in disgust and avert your eyes? And will you look down on the honours of your ancestors, on those that come to you from your father and your mother, and on their nobility, so celebrated on the lips of the crowd? And will you forsake the glory for which men are ready to barter everything, leaving it behind as if it were utterly worthless? What more shall I say? Will you disregard the health of the body, the precise perfection of the outward senses, beauty, which many fight over, strength that no one can resist, and all the other things that adorn the house or the tomb of the soul, or whatever else one ought to call it; will you, I say, disregard all these things so completely as not to count any one of them among good things? 151 These are mighty acts of boldness for a heavenly and celestial soul that has utterly left the regions of earth, has been drawn up on high, and lives among the divine natures. For, filled with the sight of genuine and incorruptible good things, it very naturally rejects those that are spurious and last only a day. 152 What, then, is the advantage of passing over all the mortal advantages of mortal man, and passing them by too, not in accordance with right reason but, as some do, out of hesitation, sluggishness or inexperience; for not everything is honoured everywhere, and different people value different things. 153 For this reason Moses, wishing to teach further that correct reasoning had inclined them to despise what was said, adds to the words 'I will pass by' the further description 'through your land.' For it is extremely necessary that, when surrounded by an abundance of what are usually counted advantages, we avoid being caught in any of the snares that each separate pleasure spreads, and that, like fire, we can break through in a single charge the attacks they so continually arm against us. 154 The Israelites say then that they will pass by this way, but that they will not pass any longer through the fields and vineyards; for it would be foolish simplicity to pass by all the plants in the soul worthy of cultivation and bearing edible fruit, that is, virtuous discourses and praiseworthy actions. For it would be proper instead to stay, gather the fruit and eat one's fill of it. For nothing is more beautiful than an insatiable cheerfulness amid perfect virtues, and the vineyards mentioned above are the symbol of that cheerfulness. 155 But we, on whom God pours and showers his fountains of good things from above, shall we drink from that cistern and seek scanty moisture beneath the earth, while heaven was raining on us from above without ceasing the more excellent food of nectar and ambrosia, far better than what the poets celebrate in their fables? 156 Moreover, should we, out of distrust, drain draughts stored up by human contrivance and seek a refuge and place of escape in them, even though the Saviour of the universe has opened to us his heavenly treasury for our use and enjoyment? For Moses, the hierophant, prays that 'the Lord may open to us his good treasure, his heavenly one, to give us his rain,' and the prayers of the man who loves God are sure to be heard. 157 And what does he say, the man who thinks neither heaven, nor rain, nor a cistern, nor in fact anything at all in all creation sufficient to nourish him, but goes beyond all these things and, relating what he has experienced, says, 'The God who has nourished me from my youth up.' Does it not seem to you that this man thinks all the waters gathered under the earth, put together, not even worth looking at? 158 So the man to whom God gives draughts of unmixed wine would not drink out of a cistern either; God gives them sometimes through the service of an angel whom he has thought worthy to act as cupbearer, and sometimes himself, placing no one between the giver and the receiver. 159 Let us then, without any delay, try to travel the royal road, since we see fit to pass by all earthly things;⁠c and the royal road is the one of which no private individual in the world is master, but only he who is also the one true king. 160 And this road, as I said a little while ago, is wisdom, by which alone suppliant souls can find their way of escape to the uncreated God; for one who travels the royal road without any hindrance will naturally never grow weary before he meets the king. 161 And those who have come near to him recognise his blessedness and their own deficiency; for Abraham, when he had placed himself very near to God, immediately perceived that he was nothing but dust and ashes. 162 And let them not turn aside from the royal road, either to the right hand or to the left, but advance along the middle of it; for a deviation in either direction is blameworthy, since one side tends to excess and the other to deficiency; for here the right hand is no less blameworthy than the left. 163 In the case of those who live according to impulse, the right hand is rashness and the left hand cowardice. For those who are illiberal in managing money, stinginess stands on the right hand and extravagant prodigality on the left; and those who are very subtle in calculation judge craftiness desirable and simplicity something to shun. Again, some people lean towards superstition as standing on the right hand, and flee from impiety as something to avoid on the left. 164 But so that we are not forced, by straying from the right road, to give in to one of two rival faults, let us desire and pray to be able to go straight along the middle of the road. The middle between rashness and cowardice is courage; the mean between lavish extravagance and illiberal stinginess is temperance; the mean between crafty unscrupulousness and folly is prudence; and the proper path between superstition and impiety is piety. 165 These lie in the middle between the deviations on either side, and they are all easy, level and plain roads, which we must walk not with our bodily organs but with the movements of a soul that continually desires what is best. 166 At this the earthly Edom, extremely indignant (for he fears the overthrow and confusion of his own doctrines), will threaten us with implacable wars if we try to force our way along it, continually cutting down and clearing away, as we advance, the fruitful trees of his soul, which he planted to destroy wisdom but whose fruit he has not gathered; for he says, 'You shall not pass by me; and if you do, I will come forth in battle against you to meet you.' 167 But let us pay no attention to any of his threats, and answer that we will pass by his mountain; that is, since we are accustomed to associate with high and sublime powers, to investigate everything according to its true definition, and to inquire into the reason of everything whatever, of every kind, by which we come to know what each thing is, we hold in utter contempt everything that is external and affects the body alone; for such things are lowly and grovel on the ground, dear indeed to you but hated by us, and so we will have nothing to do with any one of them. 168 For if, as the proverb says, we only touch this with the tip of our finger, we shall be giving honour and dignity to you; for then you will put on airs and boast, as if we lovers of virtue had been won over to you by the allurements of pleasure. 169 'For if,' says Israel, 'I and my cattle drink of your water, I will pay you a price for it.' He does not mean the kind of price the poets speak of, money of silver or gold, or anything else of that sort, which dealers customarily give to those who sell wares in exchange for their wares; the price will be the honour which he now claims; 170 for in reality every intemperate, unjust or cowardly man, when he sees someone more austere avoiding labour, overcome by gain or yielding to any one of the allurements of pleasure, rejoices and exults, and thinks that he himself has been honoured. Moreover, carrying on his rejoicing and displaying his exultation to the crowd, he begins to philosophise about his own errors as quite unavoidable and not useless, saying that if they were not of that kind, that respectable man, so-and-so, would never have indulged in them. 171 Let us, then, say to every wicked man: If we drink of your water, if we touch anything at all of yours out of rash impetuosity, we shall be giving you honour and acceptance instead of dishonour and rejection (for these are what you deserve to receive); 172 and in truth the things you are anxious about are absolutely nothing. Do you think that anything mortal has any real being and existence, and is not rather something held up and hanging by the rope of some false and untrustworthy opinion, resting on empty air and no different from deceitful dreams? 173 And if you are unwilling to contemplate the fortunes of particular men, think about the changes, whether for the better or for the worse, of whole countries and nations. At one time Greece was flourishing, but the Macedonians took away the power of that land; then, in turn, Macedonia became mighty, but once divided into small portions it became weak, until at last it was entirely extinguished. 174 Before the time of the Macedonians the Persians prospered, but a single day overthrew their vast and far-reaching prosperity. And now the Parthians are more powerful than the Persians ever were, though a little while ago the Persians were their masters; and those who were subjects are now masters. Once, and for a very long time, Egypt was a mighty empire, but its great dominion and glory have passed away like a cloud. What has become of the Ethiopians, and of Carthage, and of the kingdoms of Libya? Where now are the kings of Pontus? 175 What has become of Europe and Asia, and, in short, of the whole of the inhabited world? Is it not tossed up and down and shaken like a ship tossed by the sea, at one time enjoying a fair wind and at another time being forced to battle against contrary gales? 176 For the divine Word turns its operations round in a circle, which the common run of people call fortune. And then, as it continually flows on among cities, and nations, and countries, it overturns existing arrangements and gives to one person what previously belonged to another, changing the affairs of individuals only over time, so that the whole world may become, as it were, one city, and enjoy the most excellent of constitutions, a democracy. 177 None, therefore, of all the objects of human anxiety or human labour is of any importance or value; but every such thing is a mere shadow or breath, disappearing before it can get any firm footing; for it comes and then again it departs, like the ebbing tide. For the sea, in its ebb and flow, at one time surges forward with great violence, roaring and noise, and, overflowing its bounds, makes a lake of what was previously dry land; and at another time it recedes and turns a large stretch of what was sea into dry land. 178 In the same way, prosperity at times floods a mighty and populous nation, but afterwards turns the force of its stream in the opposite direction and does not leave even the slightest drop, so that no trace whatever remains of its former richness. 179 But not everybody receives the complete and full meaning of these events; only those receive it who are accustomed always to proceed in accordance with true and solid reason and limitation; for we find the same men saying both these things, 'All the affairs of the created world are absolutely nothing;' and, 'We will go by your mountain.' 180 For it is impossible for one who is not in the habit of using high and mountainous roads to reject all mortal affairs and to turn aside and change his course towards what is immortal. So the earthly Edom thinks it right to blockade the heavenly and royal road of virtue, and the divine reason blockades his road and the road of all who follow his opinions; 181 among whom we must enroll Balaam, for he too is a child of the earth and not a shoot of heaven, and the proof of this is that he, swayed by omens and false prophecies, even when the eye of his soul, which had been closed, recovered its sight and 'saw the angel of God standing against him in the way;' did not, even then, turn back and stop doing wrong, but giving way to a mighty torrent of folly, he was washed away and swallowed up by it. 182 For the diseases of the soul are truly not only hard to cure but utterly incurable when, though conviction is present to us (and this is the word of God, coming as his angel and as our guide, and removing the obstacles before our feet, so that we may travel without stumbling along the level road), we still prefer our own rash opinions to the explanations and instructions he regularly addresses to us for our admonition, and for the chastening and regulating of our whole life. 183 So the one who is not persuaded by conviction, and shows it no respect when it opposes him in this way, will in turn be destroyed along with the wounded, whom the passions have wounded and overthrown; and his calamity will be an ample lesson to all who are not utterly impure to try to keep the judge within them favourable to them, and he will be so if they do not overturn what he has rightly decided.