Who is the Heir of Divine Things

In the treatise before this one, we discussed the question of rewards to the best of our ability. Our present purpose is to examine who is the heir of the things of God; for after the wise man heard the divinely given oracle that said, "Your reward is exceedingly great;" he asked, "What will you give me, master? And I shall depart childless: but my son who is the child of my handmaid will inherit after me, this Eliezer of Damascus." And in another place he says, "Since you have not given me any seed, but one born in my house shall be my heir." And yet who would not have been so amazed at the dignity and greatness of the one who delivered this oracle as to fall silent and mute before him, if not out of fear, then at least out of excess of joy? For excessive griefs stop the mouth, and so also do excessive joys; which is why Moses confesses that he is "a man of a slight voice and slow of speech from the time when God first began to converse with Him." And this testimony of the prophet is unerring; for it is natural for the organs of speech to be checked, and for the reason gathered in the mind to be carried onward with unrestrained force, philosophically examining the unceasing beauty of ideas, not of words, with fluent and sublime power; and the most admirable virtues are boldness and freedom of speech at suitable times towards one's betters, so that the line in the comic poet seems to me to be spoken in truth rather than in comic humour:-- If a slave is always dumb, He is scarcely worth a crumb: Let him, freely told, boldly speak. When, then, does a slave have freedom of speech towards his master? Is it not when he is conscious that he has not wronged him, but that he has done and said everything with a view to the advantage of his owner? When, then, is it proper for the servant of God to speak freely to the ruler and master of himself and of the whole world? Is it not when he is free from all sins, and is aware in his conscience that he loves his master, feeling more joy at being a servant of God than he would if he were sovereign over the whole human race and had been given, without any effort of his own, supreme authority over land and sea? And he mentions the acts of ministry and service by which Abraham showed his love for his master in the last sentence of the divine oracle given to his son, "I will give to you and to your seed all this land, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice, and kept all my precepts, and all my commandments, and my laws, and my judgments." And the greatest possible praise of a servant is that he does not neglect a single one of the commandments his master lays on him, but labours earnestly, without any hesitation and with all his vigour, even beyond his power, to carry them all out with a willing mind. There are people, then, for whom it is fitting to listen but not to speak, and of them it is said, "Be silent and hear," a very admirable injunction; for ignorance is a very bad and very audacious thing, and its first remedy is silence, and its second, attention to those who offer you anything worth listening to. Let no one, however, think that this is all that those few words signify, "Be silent and hear;" there is also something greater in them that can teach anyone a lesson. For these words advise you not only to be silent with your tongues and to hear with your ears, but also to behave this way in both respects in your soul; for many people, when they have come to listen to someone, have still not brought their minds with them, but wander outside and keep thinking of thousands upon thousands of things within themselves, about their relatives, or strangers, or themselves, which at that moment they ought not to remember at all; yet they go over them in their minds one by one in order, and so, because of the great tumult they keep alive in themselves, they are unable to hear the speaker. For he speaks as if he were not among men, but among inanimate statues that have ears but no sense of hearing. If, therefore, the mind chooses to occupy itself neither with things wandering about inside nor with those stored up within it, but stays quiet and silent and gives its whole attention to the speaker, keeping silent as Moses commands, it will be able to listen with full attention; otherwise it will not. Silence, then, is desirable for the ignorant, but for those who desire knowledge and who also love their master's freedom of speech, that freedom is a most necessary possession. Accordingly it is said, in the book of Exodus, "The Lord will fight for us, and you will be silent." And immediately afterwards this scripture is added: "And the Lord said to Moses, Why do you cry to me?" For it is proper for those who can say nothing worth hearing to be silent, and for those who, through love of wisdom, believe in God to speak; and not only to speak quietly but to cry out very loudly, not with the noise of the mouth and tongue,⁠a which, they say, sets the air spinning and so makes it perceptible to the hearing, but with the all-instructed and very loud organ of that voice which no mortal hears, but only the uncreated and immortal God. For only the invisible musician, perceptible by the intellect, can comprehend the well-arranged and carefully attuned melody of that harmony which is perceptible by the intellect; no one entangled in the outward senses can appreciate it. Accordingly, when the entire organ of the mind sounds according to the symphony of the diapason and of the double diapason, the hearer, as it were, asks (for he does not ask in reality, since everything is known to God), "Why do you cry to me?" Is it in supplication, so that evils may be averted, or in thanks for a share in good things already enjoyed, or for both reasons together? But the man who seemed to have a thin voice and slow speech, and to be almost mute, nevertheless turns out to be talkative, so that in one place he is shown not merely speaking but even crying out, and in another pouring out a ceaseless and uninterrupted flow of words; for, says the scripture, "Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice." He did not speak in brief periods or sentences, but in one continuously extended speech; and God also instructed him not in brief sentences but with one unbroken and continuous answer. And whenever there is an answer, there must necessarily have been a question in every case. But whenever anyone asks a question, it is about something he does not know, because he wants to learn, since he knows that nothing is so useful for acquiring knowledge as to ask, to inquire, to investigate, to appear to know nothing, and not to imagine that one firmly grasps anything. The wise, therefore, take God for their teacher and instructor; and those who are less perfectly initiated in wisdom take the wise men for theirs. That is why they also say, "Speak with us, and do not let God speak to us, so that we do not die." And the virtuous man uses such freedom of speech as not only to speak and cry out, but even to make firm demands with true confidence and genuine feeling, as in the words, "If you forgive them their sin, forgive them; and if not, then wipe me out of the book which you have written." And this sentence too, "Did I conceive all this people in my womb? Or have I brought them forth, that you say to me, Take them up into your bosom, as a nurse takes up her sucking child." And also that passage where we read, "From where am I to get flesh to give to all this people, because they cry to me? Shall sheep and oxen be sacrificed, or shall all the fish of the sea be collected together, to satisfy them?" And again, "Lord, why have you afflicted this people?" And again, "Why have you sent me?" And, in another place, "From the time that I went forth to speak to Pharaoh in your name, he has afflicted the people." And again, "You have not delivered your people." For anyone would have been afraid to say these and similar things to any king on earth; but to express such sentiments and to speak freely to God was something that ought to be called not extreme audacity but good confidence; because all the wise are dear to God, and especially those who are wise in the wisdom of the most sacred giving of the law. And freedom of speech is closely akin to friendship, since to whom would anyone speak more freely than to his own friend? So it is very fitting that the scriptures speak of Moses as dear to God when he recounts all the dangers he had run because of his boldness, in such a way that they seem to deserve to be credited to friendship rather than to arrogance; for audacity belongs to the character of the arrogant man; but good confidence belongs to the friend. But notice again how confidence is tempered with prudent caution; for the question, "What will you give me?" displays confidence, and the addition, "master," exhibits prudent confidence. And although he usually uses two causes or two names for the cause of all things, namely the title Lord and the title God, in this instance he has used neither of them, but calls him master, speaking with caution and with great propriety; and indeed the two titles, lord and master, are said to be synonymous. But even if the two names refer to one and the same thing, the titles still differ in the meaning attached to them; for the title lord, kyrios, is derived from the word kyros, authority, which is a firm thing, as opposed to what is infirm and invalid, hakyron. But the term master, despotēs, is derived from desmos, a chain; from which, in my opinion, the word deos, fear, also comes, so that the master is the lord, and, so to speak, a lord to be feared, not only because he is able to strike one with fear and terror; and perhaps also because he is the master of the universe, holding it together so that it cannot be dissolved, and binding up again whatever parts of it come loose. But the one who says, "Master, what will you give me?" is really saying this, "I am not ignorant of your overpowering might, and I know the formidable nature of your sovereignty: I fear and tremble, and again I feel confidence; for you have given me an oracular command not to fear, you have given to me the tongue of instruction, so that I might know when I ought to speak; you have loosened my mouth, which was sewn shut before, you have opened it, and have also made it articulate; you have appointed it to utter what ought to be spoken, confirming that sacred oracle, "I will open your mouth, and I will tell you what you ought to speak." For who was I, that you should give me a portion of your speech, that you should promise me a reward as if it were my due, namely, a more perfect blessing of your grace and bounty? Am I not an emigrant from my country? am I not driven away from my kindred? am I not banished and alienated from my father's house? do not all men call me an outcast and a fugitive, a desolate and dishonoured man? but you, master, are my country, you are my kindred, you are my paternal hearth, you are my honour, you are my freedom of speech, my great, and famous, and inalienable wealth, so why should I not have the courage to say what I think? and why should I not ask questions when I want to learn something more? But even so, though I say that I feel confident, I confess again that I am struck with awe and amazement, and that I feel within myself not an unmixed spirit of battle but fear mingled with confidence, a close union of the two feelings, as many people will perhaps easily imagine; so I drink insatiably of this well-mixed cup, which persuades me neither to speak freely without prudent caution nor, on the other hand, to care so much about caution that I lose my freedom of speech. For I have learnt to recognize my own nothingness, and to look up at the boundless and unapproachable height of your generosity; and whenever I recognize that I am myself "but dust and ashes," or something even more worthless, if there is any such thing, then I have the confidence to approach you, humbling myself and casting myself down to the ground, so completely changed that I scarcely seem to exist. Abraham, the inspector, has engraved this disposition of the soul deeply on my memory. For, says the scripture, "Abraham came near and said, Now I have begun to speak to the Lord, I that am but dust and ashes;" since it was then, when he recognised his own nothingness, that the creature was given the opportunity to approach the Creator. But the expression, "What will you give me?" is the language not so much of one who is in doubt as of one feeling and expressing gratitude for the multitude and greatness of the blessings which he has already enjoyed. "What will you give me?" for, in fact, what more is left for me to expect? for, bountiful God, your graces and mercies are boundless and unlimited, and they have no boundary and no end, bursting up like fountains full of perfection, which are continually drawn upon and are never dry. And it is worth considering not only the ever-abounding torrent of your gifts but also those fields of ours that they irrigate; for if a superfluous and excessive stream is poured over them, the place will become a marshy and swampy plain instead of fertile land; for our land needs irrigation that is carefully measured out to produce fertility, not unmeasured. And for this reason I will ask, What will you give me, you who have already bestowed on me unspeakable mercies, and almost all things, so that mortal nature is incapable of containing them? For what I still wish to know, and to have, and to acquire, is this: who could be worthy of your works, who could deserve to inherit them? "I shall depart from life childless;" having received a short-lived and ephemeral blessing that quickly passes away, when I prayed for the opposite, namely, for one that would last many days, a long time; one that would be free from all mishap and would never die, but would be able to sow seeds itself, and to put out roots to make it firm, and would raise its trunk up to heaven and hold its head high; for human virtue must walk on the earth and at the same time strive to reach heaven, so that, being hospitably received there by immortality, it may pass all future time free from all evil; for I know that you hate a barren and unproductive soul, you who are yourself the supporter of things that have no existence, and the parent of all things. Since you have given special grace to the race that has the faculty of sight, so that it will never be barren and never be childless, and since I myself have been assigned to that race as part of it, I rightly desire an heir; for, seeing that the race cannot be extinguished, I think it would be most shameful of me to look with indifference on my own nature cut off from all that is good. Therefore I come to you as a suppliant and implore you that, once those seeds and sparks are kindled and cherished, the saving light of virtue may blaze up and give light, and, carried on like a torch passed from hand to hand in constant succession, may last as long as the world. Moreover, you have inspired those men who practice virtue with a desire for children of the sowing and generation of the soul; and those who have received such a portion have said in their joy, "The children which God has mercifully given to your servant," children whose nurse and guardian is migration, whose souls are simple, tender and well disposed, and so easily able to receive the beautiful and most God-like impressions of virtue; and teach me this saying as well, "Whether the son of Meshech, my servant, born in my house, is competent to become the inheritor of your graces," for until now I have not received the son I hoped for, and for the one I have received I have no hope. But who Meshech is, and who her son is, must be examined thoroughly, not superficially. The name Meshech is interpreted as "out of a kiss;" but a kiss differs from loving; for loving usually reveals souls united by goodwill, while a kiss signals only a bare and superficial greeting when some necessity has brought the two parties to the same place. For as the meaning "to stoop" (kyptein) is not contained in (anakyptein) "to lift up the head," nor "to drink" (pinō) in "to absorb" (katapinō), nor "a horse" (hippos) in the word (marsippos) "a bag," so also "to love" (philein) is not necessarily contained in "to kiss" (kataphilein); since people, yielding to the bitter necessities of life, offer this salutation to many of their enemies. But I will explain, without any reservation or concealment, what the salutation is that consists of a kiss and not of sincere friendship toward us. It is the life joined to the external senses, called Meshech, completely secured and defended, which everyone loves, which most men regard as their mistress, but which virtuous men consider their handmaid, not a foreign slave or one bought with a price, but born in the house and in some sense a fellow citizen with them. Well, one class of these men has learnt to kiss it, not to love it; but the other class has learnt to love it to excess and to desire it above all things. But Laban, the hater of virtue, will not even be able to kiss the virtues assigned to the man inclined to the practice of virtue; instead, making his own life depend on hypocrisy and false pretenses, he says, as if indignant, though he is not really affected, "I was not accounted worthy to kiss my children and my daughters;" speaking very naturally and decorously, for we have all been taught to hate irony implacably. So love the virtues and embrace them with your soul, and then you will have no desire at all to kiss, which is only the counterfeit money of friendship; --"For have they not yet any part or inheritance in your house? have they not been regarded as foreigners before you? and have you not sold them and devoured the money?" so that you could never afterwards recover it, having devoured the price of their safety and their ransom. So do you pretend to wish to kiss, or else to wage endless war against all the judges? But Aaron will not kiss Moses, though he will love him with the genuine affection of his heart. "For," says the scripture, "he loved him, and they embraced one another." But there are three kinds of life. The first is the life to God; the second, the life with respect to the creature; the third lies on the border of both, compounded of the other two. The life to God has not come down to us, and has not come to the necessities of the body. Again, life with respect to the creature has not wholly ascended to heaven, nor has it sought to ascend, but it lurks in unapproachable recesses, and rejoices in a life which is no life. And the mingled kind is the one that often rises upwards, drawn up by the better part, and gazes on divine things and contemplates them; but it still often turns back, dragged the opposite way by the worse part; and when the share of the better life, as if placed in one pan of a scale, outweighs the whole, the weight of the opposite kinds of life is pulled the other way, so that the lightest weight appears to be in the opposite scale. But Moses, having given the crown of victory without any contest or doubt to the kind of life that is life to God, presents it as the best, and likens the other two kinds to two women, one of whom he calls beloved, and the other hated, giving them both most appropriate names. For who is not at times swayed by the pleasures and delights he receives through his eyes, or by those that reach him through his ears, or his sense of taste, or his senses of smell and touch? And who does not hate the opposite things, need and self-denial, a life of austerity, and the pursuit of knowledge, which never has any share in amusement or laughter, but is full of gravity, and cares and labours, loving contemplation, an enemy to ignorance, superior to money, and glory, and pleasure, but under the dominion of temperance and true glory, and of that wealth which sees and is not blind? These, then, are at all times the eldest offspring of wisdom. But Moses thinks that things which, though younger in time, are honourable by nature deserve the first honours of the birthright, and he gives them a double share and takes half of their share from the others; for, he says, "If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated, and if they both bear children, then when he is about to distribute his property, he shall not be able to give the portion belonging to the first-born to the son of her who is beloved," namely, to the son of pleasure; for he is only young, even though in years he may be old; but he regards the son of her who is hated, namely, of wisdom, as the elder even from childhood, and so has assigned him a double share. But because we have explained the figurative sense of this passage on a previous occasion, we will now move on to what comes next, the passage before us, once we have first explained this point, that "God is said to have opened the womb of her who was hated," and so to have brought forth an offspring of virtuous practices and good actions, while the wife reputed to be beloved was barren from then on: "For the Lord," says the scripture, "seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb, but Rachel was barren." Is it not the case, then, that when the soul is pregnant and begins to bring forth things fitting for the soul, all those objects of the outward senses are barren and unproductive, the objects to which belongs the salutation given by a kiss and not by genuine affection? Each one of us, then, is a son of the life that follows the outward sense, which he calls Meshech, honouring and admiring the foster-mother and nurse of the mortal race, namely, the outward sense, whom the earthly mind, named Adam, on seeing her after she had been created, also named life, though she was his own death; for, says the scripture, "Adam called his wife's name Eve (zōē), because she was the mother of all living," that is, of those who are truly dead to the life of the soul; but they who really live have wisdom for their mother and the outward sense for their slave, which nature created to serve knowledge; and he calls the man born of life (zōē), whom we have recognized by a kiss, Damascus, a name which means "the blood of the sack;" in this figurative language he calls the body a sack, with great power and aptness, and by blood he means the life that depends on the blood. For since the soul is spoken of in two ways, first as a whole, and second as its dominant part, which, properly speaking, is the soul of the soul, just as the eye is both the whole orb and also the most important part of that orb, the part by which we see, the lawgiver decided that the essence of the soul should likewise be twofold: blood being the essence of the entire soul, and the divine Spirit being the essence of the dominant part of it; and so he says expressly, "The soul of all flesh is its blood." He does well here to attribute the flow of blood to the mass of flesh, combining two things appropriate to one another; but he has not made the essence of the mind depend on any created thing; he has represented it as breathed into man by God from above. For, says Moses, "The Creator of the universe breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul," and it is recorded that man was also fashioned after the image of the Creator. So the human race is also twofold: one is the race of those who live by the divine Spirit and reason, the other the race of those who live by blood and the pleasure of the flesh. The second species is formed of the earth, but the first is an accurate copy of the divine image; and the part of us that is only fashioned clay kneaded with blood needs no small help from God; that is why it is said, this Damascus of Eleazar. But the name Eleazar means, "God is my helper." For the mass of the body, filled with blood and in itself easily dissolved and dead, exists through and is kept alive by the providence of God, who holds his arm and shield of defence over it, while our race cannot, by any resources of its own, remain firm and safe for a single day. Do you not see that the second son of Moses also has the same name as this man? For, "the name of the second," says the scripture, "was Eleazar." And he adds the reason: "for the Lord has been my helper, and has delivered me out of the hand of Pharaoh." But those who still keep company with the life that owes its existence to blood and is perceptible to the outward senses are attacked by that formidable disperser of piety, the disposition named Pharaoh; and it is impossible to escape his sovereignty, full as it is of lawlessness and cruelty, unless Eleazar is born in the soul and one puts one's hope of help in the only Saviour. And he speaks with particular beauty when he refers Damascus not to his father but to his mother, to show that the soul depending on blood, by which the brute animals live, is properly akin to the female race, the race of his mother, and has no share in the male race. But this is not so with virtue, that is, with Sarah; for she has only male offspring, being born of God alone, who is the father of all things, and being that authority which has no mother. "For truly," says the scripture, "she is my sister by my father's side, but not by my mother's." We have now explained what you needed to know as a preliminary. For the first part of the argument was somewhat enigmatic and obscure. But we must examine more precisely what the lover of learning is seeking. Perhaps it is something like this: to know whether anyone who desires the life that depends on blood and claims a stake in the objects of the outward sense can become an inheritor of incorporeal and divine things? for only the one inspired from above is thought worthy of such things, having received a portion of the heavenly and divine inheritance; he is in fact the purest mind, disregarding not only the body but also the other fragment of the soul, which, being without reason, is mixed with blood and kindles the fervent passions and excited appetites. Accordingly, it presses its inquiry like this: since you have not given me a seed capable of becoming its own instructor, namely, the seed that can be comprehended by the intellect, "Shall the slave born in my house be my heir?" the offspring of that life which is dependent upon blood. Then God hurried to anticipate the speaker, sending, so to speak, instruction ahead of speech. "For immediately," says the scripture, "the voice of God came to him, saying, He shall not be your heir;" nor anyone else who comes to the display of the outward senses. For incorporeal natures inherit the things that only the intellect can appreciate. And it is especially worth noting here that the scripture does not say he spoke to him or conversed with him; instead it says, "The voice of God came to him;" as if God were uttering a loud and unceasing sound, so that the voice, spread into every soul, might leave no part without proper instruction, and all parts everywhere might be filled with healthy learning. Who, then, shall be the heir? Not the reasoning that remains in the prison of the body by its own choice, but the reasoning that is loosened from those bonds and set free, that has advanced beyond the walls and, if it is possible to say so, has forsaken itself. "For he," says the scripture, "who shall come out from you, he shall be your heir." So if any desire comes upon you, soul, to inherit the good things of God, leave not only your country, the body, your kindred, the outward senses, and your father's house, that is, speech, but also flee from yourself and go out of yourself, like the Corybantes or those possessed by demons, driven to frenzy and inspired by some prophetic inspiration. For while the mind is in a state of ecstatic inspiration, no longer in control of itself but agitated and drawn into frenzy by heavenly love and drawn upwards to that object, with truth removing every obstacle from its way and making everything before it plain so that it may advance by a level and easy road, its destiny is to inherit the things of God. But take courage, mind, and explain to us how you leave and emigrate from those former things, you who speak things perceptible only to the intellect to those who have been taught to hear rightly, always saying: I emigrated from my stay in the body when I learnt to despise the flesh, and I emigrated from the outward sense when I learnt to regard the objects of the outward sense as having no real existence, condemning its powers of judgment as spurious, corrupted and full of false opinion, and condemning the objects submitted to its judgment as speciously devised to allure and deceive and to snatch the truth from the middle of nature. Again, I left speech when I convicted it of great unreasonableness, although it talked of sublime subjects and puffed itself up; for it dared no small feat of daring, namely to show me bodies by means of shadows and things by means of words, which was impossible; so it kept stumbling over obstacle after obstacle and talking in vain, unable with common expressions to give a clear picture and understanding of the distinctive properties of the subjects it was dealing with. But I, learning by experience like an infant and untaught child, decided that it was better to leave all these things and to attribute the powers of each to God, who makes the body and binds it together, who prepares the outward senses to feel as they should, and who gives speech the power to speak as it wishes; and just as you have left the other things, now rise up and emigrate from yourself. But what does this expression mean? Do not store up in yourself the faculties of perceiving, thinking and comprehending, but offer and dedicate them to him who is the cause of thinking accurately and of comprehending without being deceived. But the place that receives this offering is the holier of the all-sacred places in the temple; for there appear to be two, one discernible only by the intellect and the other perceptible to the outward senses. Now this world is the receptacle of the creatures perceptible to the outward senses, but the world discernible only by the intellect is the storehouse of the things that are truly invisible; and he who goes out from us and desires to become an attendant of God inherits the much celebrated wealth of nature, as the one who says, "He brought him out, and said to him, Look up to Heaven," bears witness, since that is the treasury of the good things of God. "May the Lord," he says, "open to you the treasury of his good things,"--that is, the heaven, from which the one who provides the supply incessantly rains down the most perfect joys. Look up, then, so as to convict the blind race of common men, which seems to see but is blind. For how can it be anything but blind, when it sees evil instead of good, the unjust instead of the just, the indulgence of the passions instead of mastery over them, and mortal things instead of immortal ones, and when it runs away from those who warn and correct it, from conviction and instruction, and welcomes flatterers, and the reasonings of idleness, and ignorance, and luxury, all exerted in the cause of pleasure? Only the good man, then, sees; that is why the ancients also called the prophets seers. But he who advanced further outwards, not only seeing, but seeing God, was called Israel, a name that means "seeing God." But others, even if they do ever open their eyes, still bend them down towards the earth, pursuing only earthly things and brought up among material objects; for the one raises his eyes to the sky, gazing on the manna, the divine word, the heavenly, incorruptible food of the soul, which is food of contemplation: but the others fix their eyes on garlic and onions, food that hurts the eyes, troubles the sight and makes men blink, and on other unsavoury food, leeks and dead fish, the fitting fodder of Egypt. "For," says the scripture, "we remembered the fish which we ate in Egypt without payment, and the gourds, and the cucumbers, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our soul is dry and our eyes see nothing but manna." And the statement, "He led him out" (exēgagen auton exō), also has a bearing on moral questions, though some people, for lack of instruction in moral philosophy, are in the habit of ridiculing it, saying, "For is anyone ever led out in (exō eisagetai), or led in out (eiserchetai exō)?" "Certainly," I would reply, "you ridiculous and very foolish man; for you have never learnt to trace the dispositions of the soul, and by talking this way you seek to understand only the motions of bodies that consist in change of place. That is why it seems paradoxical to you to speak of anyone coming out into (exerchetai eisō), or going in out (exerchetai exō); but to those acquainted with Moses none of these things seem inconsistent." Would you not say that the perfect high priest, when he is in the inmost shrine performing his national sacrifices, is both inside and outside at the same time? Inside in his visible body, but outside in his soul, which is roaming and wandering? And again, on the other hand, would you not say that a man not of the family consecrated to the priesthood, but a lover of God and beloved by God, though standing outside the holy shrine, was nevertheless really in its inmost parts? He looks on his whole life in the body as a stay in a foreign land, but while he is able to live in the soul alone, he thinks he is living in his own country. For every fool is outside friendship, even if he never withdraws for a moment from daily company with people. But every wise man is inside friendship, even if he lives far away, not merely in a different country but in another climate and region of the world. But according to Moses a friend is so close as to differ in no respect from one's own soul, for he says, "the friend who is like your soul." And again he says, "The priest shall not be a man by himself, when he goes into the holy of holies, until he comes out;" referring not to the motions of the body but to those of the soul; for the mind, while it is offering holy sacrifices to God in all purity, is not a human but a divine mind; but when it is serving any human object, it comes down from heaven and is changed, or rather falls to the earth and goes out, even though the mind may still remain inside. So it is said very rightly that he led him out (exēgagen exō): out of the prison of the body, out of the caves within the external senses, out of the sophistries displayed in deceitful speech, and above all out of himself and out of the idea that by his own self-exerted, self-implanted and independent power he was able to conceive and comprehend. And after leading him out, he says to him, "Look up to heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to number them; thus shall be your seed." He says very beautifully, "Thus shall be your seed," not that it shall be so great as to equal the stars in number; for he means here to point not only to their multitude but also to countless other things that contribute to complete and perfect happiness. "Thus shall your seed be," says God, like the ethereal firmament you see, so heavenly, so full of unshadowed and pure brilliance (for night is driven away from heaven, and darkness from virtue), wholly like the stars, beautifully adorned, with an arrangement that knows no deviation but is always the same and proceeds in the same way. For he means the soul of the wise man to be described as a copy of heaven, or, if one may use such a hyperbolic expression, as an actual heaven on earth, with pure appearances in the air, well-ordered motions, harmonious progress, periodic revolutions of a divine character, and star-like, brilliant rays of virtue. But if it is impossible to find the number of the stars perceptible to the outward senses, how much more impossible must it be to count those discernible only by the intellect? for, I suppose, in proportion as what judges is better or worse than what is judged (for the mind is better than the outward sense, and the outward sense is duller than the intellect; the subjects of judgment differ in the same ratio; so that the objects of the intellect are infinitely superior to those of the outward senses; for the eyes in the body are the smallest imaginable portion of the eye of the soul; for the one is like the sun, but the others are only like lamps, which are lit at one moment and put out at another. So the words added next, "Abraham believed in God," are a necessary addition, in praise of the one who believed in this way. And yet, perhaps, someone may say, "Do you think this worthy of praise? Who would not pay attention to God when he says or promises anything, even if he were the most wicked and impious of all men?" We will reply to him, "Do not, do not, my good man, without further inquiry either rob the wise man of his due praise, or attribute to unworthy persons that most perfect of the virtues, faith; and do not blame our opinion on this point; for if you are willing to investigate this subject more deeply and are not content to examine it superficially, you will see clearly that without the help or addition of something else it is not easy to believe in God, because of the bond with mortality in which we are involved, which compels us to put some trust in money, and glory, and authority, and friends, and health, and vigour of body, and in numerous other things; but to wash off all these extraneous things, to distrust creation, which in itself is untrustworthy in every respect, and to believe in the only true and faithful God, is the work of a great and heavenly mind, which is no longer lured or swayed by any of the things that usually affect human life. And the scripture rightly adds, "And it was counted to him for righteousness:" for nothing is so righteous as to have an unalloyed and entire belief in the only God. But this, although just and reasonable, was considered incredible because of the incredulity of most men, whom the holy scripture condemns, saying that "to anchor firmly and unchangeably on the only living God, is a thing to be marvelled at among men, who possess no true unmingled good, but is not to be wondered at if truth guides the judgment; but it is the particular attribute of justice. The scripture proceeds: "And he said to him I am God, who brought you out of the land of the Chaldaeans, so as to give you this land to inherit it." These words show not only a promise but the confirmation of an ancient promise; for the good already given to him was his departure from the Chaldaean philosophy, which was occupied with the things of the air and taught men to suppose that the world was not the work of God, but was God himself; and that good and evil in all existing things are caused by the motions and fixed periodical revolutions of the stars, and that on these motions the origin of all good and evil depends; and the equable (homalē) and regular motion of these bodies in heaven persuaded those simple men to regard them as omens, for the name of the Chaldaeans, when interpreted, means equability (homalotēs). But the new blessing which is promised is the acquisition of that wisdom which is not taught by the outward senses, but is comprehended by the pure mind, and by which the best of all emigrations is confirmed, when the soul leaves astronomy and learns to apply itself to natural philosophy, and to exchange unsure conjecture for certain apprehension, and, to tell the real truth, to leave the creature for the Creator, and the world for its father and maker; for the scriptures tell us that the followers of the Chaldaean philosophy believed in the heaven, but that he who abandoned that sect believed in the ruler of the heaven and the manager of the whole world, namely, in God. It is a very beautiful inheritance, greater perhaps than the power of the one who receives it, but worthy of the greatness of the giver. But it is not sufficient for the lover of wisdom to have a hope of good things, and to expect all kinds of wonderful things because of the predictions given to him; unless he also knows how he is to succeed to his inheritance, he finds it very painful, since he thirsts for knowledge and has an insatiable desire to attain it; and so he asks a question, saying, "Lord God, how shall I know that I shall inherit it?" Perhaps someone may say that this question is at odds with perfect faith, since feeling such a difficulty belongs to one who doubts, while one who believes seeks nothing further. We must say, therefore, that he both doubts and has believed, but not about the same matter, far from it, for he has believed that he is to be an inheritor of wisdom, but he only seeks to know how this will take place; that it really will take place he grasps with full confidence, in accordance with the divine promises. So the teacher, having praised his desire for learning, begins his explanation with the first elementary lesson, in which this is set down as the first and most necessary thing, "Take for Me." The sentence is brief, but the meaning is great; for there are not a few things implied in these words. In the first place, says God, you have no good thing of your own; whatever you think you have, another has given you. From this it follows that all things are the property of God who gives them, and that they do not belong to the creature, which only came into existence after him and stretches out its hands to take them. In the second place, he says, even if you take them, do not take them for yourself, but regard what is given you as a loan or deposit, and be ready to return it to the one who deposited it with you or contributed it to you, repaying an older favour with a newer one and an original kindness with one offered in return, as justice and propriety require. For many men have become wicked in the matter of such sacred deposits, improperly using the property of others as their own through immoderate covetousness. But, good man, try with all your strength not only to present what you have received unharmed and unadulterated, but also to take even greater care of such things, so that the one who deposited them with you may have no grounds to fault the care you have taken. And what the Creator of man has placed in your custody is the soul, speech and the external sense, which the sacred scriptures symbolically name a heifer, a ram and a goat. Some people have at once appropriated these things out of self-love, while others have stored them up so as to be able to return them in due season. It is impossible to count those who have appropriated them; for which of us does not think that his soul, his speech and his external senses, all taken together, are his own property, believing that feeling, speaking and comprehending depend on himself alone? But those who really keep their faith holy and inviolate are very few. Such men attribute to God these three things: the soul, the external sense, and speech. For they have received all these things not for themselves but for him, and so they naturally and fittingly confess that the energies of each of these three things depend on him, namely, the imaginations and apprehensions of the mind, the explanations of speech, and the perceptions of the outward senses. Those who attribute these things to themselves have received a lot worthy of their own perversity, namely, a soul fond of plotting against others, polluted with irrational passions, and enveloped in a multitude of vices; at one time eager to indulge in violent insolence through its gluttony and lasciviousness, as though it were in a brothel; at another time held fast by the multitude of its iniquities as in a prison, with wicked (not men but) actions which deserve to be led before all the judges. Secondly, a speech that is insolent, loquacious, sharpened against the truth, injurious to all who come in its way, and bringing disgrace upon those who possess it. Thirdly, the external sense, insatiable, always filling itself with the objects of the outward senses, but through its immoderate appetites never able to be satisfied, ignoring all who warn and correct it, refusing to look at them or listen to them, and disdainfully rejecting everything they say to it for its good. But those who take these things not for themselves but for God attribute each one of them to him, guarding what they have acquired in a truly holy and religious manner, keeping their mind so that it thinks of nothing but the things of God and his excellencies, and their speech so that, with unrestrained mouth and with encomiums, hymns and announcements of happiness, it honours the father of the universe, collecting together and exhibiting all its power of interpretation and utterance in this one office; and regulating the external senses, so that, forming a conception of the whole world perceptible to them, they may, in a guileless, honest, and pure manner, relate to the soul all the heaven and earth, and the natures whose home is between the two, and all animals and plants, and their respective energies and faculties, and all their motions and their stationary existence. For God has implanted in the mind a power to comprehend by its own power the world appreciable only by the intellect, but the visible world by means of the external senses. And if anyone is able in every part of himself to live for God rather than for himself, looking by means of the external senses into those things which are their proper objects, for the sake of finding out the truth; and through the medium of the soul, investigating in a philosophical spirit the proper objects of intelligence, and those things which have a real existence, and by means of his organs of voice, singing hymns in praise of the world and of its Creator, he will have a happy and a blessed life. I think, then, that this is what the words "Take for me" hint at: God, intending out of pity for our race to send down the perfection of his divine virtue from heaven to earth so that our race might not be left without a better portion, symbolically prepared the sacred tabernacle and the things in it, a work made after the model of wisdom and in imitation of it. For he says that he has erected his oracle as a tabernacle in the midst of our impurity, so that we may have something by which to be purified, washing off and cleansing everything that soils and defiles our miserable life, full as it is of every evil repute. Let us now see how he has commanded us to bring in the different things that are to contribute to furnishing the tabernacle. "The Lord," says the scripture, "spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and take first-fruits for me of whatever it shall seem good to your heart to take my Firstfruits." So here too there is a command to take not for themselves but for God, considering who gives these things, doing no harm to what is given, and keeping it free from danger and free from spot, perfect and entire. And the command by which he orders the first fruits to be offered to himself is full of doctrine; for in truth the beginnings both of bodies and of things are traced to God alone; search, if you wish to understand everything: plants and animals, arts and sciences. Are the first castings of the seed of plants, then, the work of farming or the invisible work of invisible nature? What more need I ask? What are the works of men and other animals? Do they not have parents as co-operating causes, so to speak, and also nature as the primary, more important and real cause? And is nature not the fountain, root and foundation of all arts and sciences, or whatever other name you like to give the oldest of principles, nature, on which all speculations are built? And if nature is not first laid as the foundation, everything is imperfect, and that is why, it seems to me, someone very aptly said: The first beginning is quite half the whole. So the sacred scripture very fittingly commands that the first-fruits be offered to the all-ruling God. And in another passage we read "The Lord spoke to Moses saying, Sanctify to me all the first-born: all that is first brought forth, all that opens the womb among the children of Israel, whether of man or beast is Mine," so these words openly assert that all the first things, whether in point of time or of power, are the property of God, and most especially all the first-born; since the whole imperishable race shall justly be allotted to the immortal God, and, in short, anything that opens the womb, whether of man, which here means speech and reason, or of beast, which signifies the outward sense and the body; for that which opens the womb of all these things, whether of the mind, so as to enable it to comprehend the things appreciable only by the intellect, or of the speech so as to enable it to exercise the energies of voice, or of the external senses, so as to qualify them to receive the impressions which are made upon them by their appropriate subjects, or of the body to fit it for its appropriate stationary conditions or motions, is the invisible, spermatic, technical, and divine Word, which shall most properly be dedicated to the Father. And indeed, the ends belong to God just as the beginnings do; and Moses is a witness to this where he commands us to "separate off the end, and to confess that it is due to God." The things in the world also bear witness. How so? The beginning of a plant is the seed, and the end is the fruit, each of them being the work, not of husbandry, but of nature. Again, the beginning of knowledge is nature, as has been shown, but the end can never reach mankind, for no man is perfect in any branch of study whatever; but it is a plain truth, that all excellence and perfection belong to one Being alone; so from now on we are carried along on the borders between beginning and end, learning, teaching, tilling the ground and working at everything else as if we were really accomplishing something, so that the creature too may seem to be doing something; therefore, with a more perfect knowledge, Moses has confessed that the first-fruits and the end belong to God, speaking of the creation of the world, where he says, "In the beginning God created ..." And again he says, "God finished the heaven and the earth." Now therefore he says, "Take for me," claiming for himself what befits him, and warning his hearer not to adulterate what is given to him but to take care of it as its importance deserves. And again, in another passage, he who needs nothing, and therefore takes nothing, will confess that he does take something, in order to give his worshippers the feeling of piety, to implant in them an eagerness for holiness, and also to sharpen their zeal in his service, as one who gladly receives the genuine worship and service of a willing soul, "For look," he says, "I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born that opens the womb among the children of Israel; they shall be their ransom;" therefore we take and give, but while we are said to take with strict accuracy, it is only by a metaphorical misuse of the term that we are said to give, for the reasons I have already mentioned. And he has very aptly called the Levites a ransom, for nothing leads the mind so completely to freedom as fleeing to God for refuge and becoming his suppliant; and this is what the consecrated tribe of the Levites particularly professes to do. Having now said as much as is proper on these subjects, let us move on to what comes next; for we have put off considering many things that ought to be examined closely. "Take for me," says God, "a heifer which has never been yoked and has never been ill-treated, tender and young," and exulting; that is, a soul suited to receive governance, instruction and supervision easily. "Take for me also a ram" that is, speech that is contentious and perfect, able to dissect and overthrow the sophistries of those who advance contrary opinions, and able also to ensure safety, good order and regularity for the one who uses it. "Take for me," also the external sense, which lives for and directs all its energies toward the world perceptible to it, that is, "a goat," three complete years old, enjoying solid strength in a perfect number, having beginning, middle, and end. Besides all these things, "a turtle dove and a pigeon," that is, divine and human wisdom, both winged creatures accustomed to soar on high, yet differing from one another as much as genus differs from species or a copy from the model; for divine wisdom is fond of lonely places, loving solitude, on account of the only God, whose possession she is; and this is symbolically called a turtledove; but the other is quiet and tame, and gregarious, haunting the cities of men, and rejoicing in its abode among mortals, and so they liken her to a pigeon. Moses seems to me to have meant to represent these virtues figuratively when he names the midwives of the Egyptians Shiphrah and Puah, for the name Shiphrah, being interpreted, means "a little bird," and Puah means "red." Now it is the special property of divine wisdom, like a bird, to be always soaring on high; but it is characteristic of human wisdom to cultivate modesty and temperance, so as to blush at everything that deserves a blush; and as very clear proof of this the scripture says, "He took for himself all these things." This is the praise of a virtuous man, who preserves the sacred deposit of those things which he has received, the soul, the outward sense, speech, divine wisdom, human knowledge, in a pure and guileless way, not for himself but only for the one who entrusted them to him. After this the scripture proceeds to say, "And he divided them in the middle," without saying who did so, so that you may understand that it was the untaught God who divided them, and that by his word, which cuts through everything, he divided one after another all the natures of bodies and of things that seemed closely fitted together and united; this word, sharpened to the finest possible edge, never stops dividing all the objects of the outward senses, and when it has gone through them all, and reached what are called atoms and indivisible things, this divider starts again from them and divides the things that reason can contemplate in its speculations into unspeakable and indescribable portions, and to "beat the gold into thin Plates," like hairs, as Moses says, making them into one length without breadth, like unsubstantial lines. So he divided each of the three victims in the middle, dividing the soul into the rational and the irrational part, speech into truth and falsehood, and the outward sense into imaginations that can be comprehended and those that cannot; and he at once places these divisions exactly opposite one another, that is, the rational part opposite to the irrational, truth to falsehood, what is comprehensible to what is incomprehensible, leaving the birds undivided; for it was impossible to divide the incorporeal and divine sciences into opposites at odds with one another. But since the discussion of division into equal portions, and of opposite contrarieties, is long and of necessary importance, we will not pass it by entirely, nor will we dwell on it at great length, but, investigating it as it is, we will be content with what seems suitable to the occasion. For just as the Creator divided our soul and our limbs in the middle, so in the same way he divided the essence of the universe when he made the world; for, having taken it, he began to divide it as follows: first, he made two divisions, the heavy and the light, separating the thick from the more subtle. After that, he again made a second division of each, dividing the subtle part into air and fire, and the denser portion into water and earth; and, first of all, he laid down those elements which are perceptible to the outward senses as the foundations, so to speak, of the world which is perceptible to the outward senses. Again, he subdivided heavy and light according to other ideas, for he divided the light into cold and hot; and he called the cold part air, and the part that was hot by nature fire. The heavy, again, he divided into wet and dry; and he called the dry part land, and the wet part water--and each of these, in turn, was further subdivided; for the land was divided into continents and islands, and the water into sea and rivers, and all drinkable springs, and the air was divided into the solstices of summer and winter; fire, too, was divided into what is useful (though fire is a most insatiable and destructive thing) and, by a different division, into what is saving; and this division was assigned for the conformation of the heaven. But just as he divided things when they were whole, so he also divided the particular divisions, some of which were animated and others inanimate; and he divided the inanimate ones into those which always remain in the same place, whose bond is habit, and those which move, not by changing their place but by growing, which indescribable nature has brought to life. Again, of these, those of wild stock produce wild fruits, which are the food of brute beasts; but others produce good fruit, whose cultivation has called for diligent supervision and care, and these bear fruit for the tamest of all animals, namely man, so that he may enjoy them. And he not only divided the inanimate things and those which had received a soul and vitality in one way--for of these he defined one species as the irrational animals, and one as the rational animals--but he also again subdivided each of these things, dividing the irrational into the wild and the tame species, and the rational into the mortal and the immortal. Again, of the mortals he made two divisions, one of which he called men, and the other women; and, in the same manner, he divided the irrational animals into male and female. And these things were also subjected to other necessary divisions, which made distinctions between them: winged animals were distinguished from terrestrial ones, terrestrial from aquatic creatures, and aquatic creatures, again, from both extremes. Thus God, having sharpened his own word, the divider of all things, divides the essence of the universe,⁠b which lacks form and all distinctive qualities, and the four elements of the world which were separated from this essence, and the plants and animals which were compacted from these elements. But since Moses not only uses the expression, "he divided," but says further, "he divided in the midst," we must say a few words about equal divisions; for whatever is divided skilfully exactly in the middle makes two equal divisions. And no one could ever divide anything into two exactly equal parts; one of the divisions must inevitably fall a little short or exceed a little, if not by much, at least by a small quantity, in every case, and this escapes the perception of our outward senses, which attend only to the larger and more tangible burdens of nature and custom but cannot grasp atoms and indivisible things. But the incorruptible word of truth establishes that there is nothing equal in inequality. So God alone seems to be exactly just, and the only being able to divide bodies and things in the middle so that neither division is greater or less than the other by the smallest and most indivisible portion, and he alone is able to attain to sublime and perfect equality. So if there were only one idea of perfect equality, what has been said would be quite sufficient for the purpose. But since there are many, we must not hesitate to add some suitable considerations. For the word "equal" is used in one sense when speaking of numbers, as when we say that two are equal to two, and three to three; and likewise of other numbers. It is used in another sense when speaking of magnitude, as in equal length, breadth or depth, which are all different proportions. For one wrestler compared with another, or one cubit with another, may be equal in magnitude but different in power, as is the case also with measures and weights. But the idea of equality is a necessary one, and so is the idea of proportional equality, by which a few things are regarded as equal to many, and small things as equal to larger ones. And cities customarily use this proportionate equality at suitable times, when they command every citizen to contribute an equal share of his property, not equal in number, but in proportion to the value of his assessment, so that in some cases someone who contributes a hundred drachmas will appear to have brought as much as someone who contributes a talent. With this outline sketched, see now how God, dividing things in the middle, has divided them into equal portions according to all the ideas of equality which occur in the creation of the universe. He has divided the heavy things so as to make them equal in number to the light ones, two to two; that is, so that the earth and the water, which are heavy, are equal in number to the things that are light by nature, air and fire. Again, he has made one equal to one, the driest thing to the wettest thing, the earth to the water; and the coldest thing to the hottest thing, the air to the fire. In the same way, he divided light from darkness, and day from night, and summer from winter, and autumn from spring; and so on. Again, he has divided things so as to make his divisions equal in point of magnitude; such as the parallel cycles in heaven, and those which belong to the equinoxes both of spring and autumn, and those which belong to the winter and summer solstices. And on the earth he has divided the zones: two are equal to one another, and, lying close to the poles, they are frozen with cold and therefore uninhabitable. And he has placed two on the borders between these two and the torrid zone, and these two, they say, are the home of a happily temperate air, one of them lying towards the south and the other towards the north. Now the divisions of time are equal in point of length, the longest day being equal to the longest night, and the shortest day being equal to the shortest night, and the mean length of day to the mean length of night. And the equal magnitude of other days and nights appears to be indicated chiefly by the equinoxes. From the spring equinox to the summer solstice, day grows longer and night, on the other hand, grows shorter, until the longest day and the shortest night are both completed. And then after the summer solstice the sun, turning back along the same road, no faster and no slower than he advanced, but always keeping the same difference in the same way, in a constantly equal arrangement, proceeds until the autumnal equinox; and then, having made day and night both equal, begins to increase the length of the night, diminishing the day until the time of the winter solstice. And when he has made the night the longest and the day the shortest, he turns back again and, keeping the same distances as before, comes once more to the spring equinox. So the differences of time that appear unequal in fact have perfect equality in magnitude, not at the same seasons, but at different seasons of the year. And a very similar effect is seen in the different parts of animals and especially of men. For one hand is equal to the other, and one foot to the other, and nearly all the other limbs of the body are equal to their corresponding members in magnitude, those on the left side being equal to those on the right. And a great many things are equal to one another in power, among both wet things and dry things, as judged by measures, scales and the like. And nearly all things are equal in proportion, even all the little and all the great things in the whole world. For those who have examined the questions of natural philosophy with some accuracy say that the four elements are all equal in proportionate equality. And it is by proportion that the whole world is put together, united and given cohesion so as to remain firm forever, proportion having distributed equality to each of its parts. And they say also that the four elements which are in us, dryness, and moisture, and cold, and heat have all been mixed together and well adapted by proportionate equality, and in fact that our whole composition is nothing but a mixture of the four powers combined together by an equality of proportion. But anyone who examines all these things might add an interminable list of arguments and instances to this present discussion. If he considered it, he would find the very smallest animals equal in proportion to the largest; for instance, he would find the swallow equal to the eagle, the herring equal to the whale, and the ant equal to the elephant. For body and soul, and again pains and pleasures, and also liking and dislike for things, and all the other feelings that animals by nature experience, are nearly all of them similar, being made equal by the rule of proportion. So some men have even been confident enough to declare that the smallest of animals, man, is equal to the whole world, since each of them consists of a body and a rational soul, and so, speaking figuratively, they have called man a little world, and the world a large man. And in teaching this they are not far off the mark; rather, they know that the art of God by which he created all things, admitting neither any extraordinary intensity nor any relaxation but always remaining the same, made every single existing thing perfect, with the Creator employing all numbers and all the ideas that tend to perfection. For, as Moses says, "He judged according to the little and according to the great," engendering and fashioning everything, neither taking anything away from the display of his art because his materials were obscure, nor adding anything because they were brilliant; since every artist with any reputation wants to work whatever materials they take up admirably, whether those materials are costly or inexpensive. And before now some people, with an extraordinary love of distinction, have even spent more skill on working materials of little value than on costly ones, wishing to make up for the deficiencies of the material by the additional display of their skill. But no material has any value in the eyes of God, because he has given all materials an equal share of his skill. With reference to this the sacred scriptures say, "God saw all that he had made, and, look, it was very good." But things that receive an equal degree of praise are certainly held in equal esteem by the one who gives the praise; and what God praised was not the materials he had worked into creation, without life or melody, easily dissolved, and moreover perishable in their own intrinsic nature, and out of all proportion and full of iniquity, but rather his own skilful work, completed by a single equal and well-proportioned power and knowledge that is always alike and identical. Accordingly, all things were also counted equal and similar by every rule of proportion, according to the principles of art and knowledge. And if anyone in the world praises equality, it is Moses. In the first place, he composes hymns in its honour everywhere, and calls it the special property of justice, as in fact its very name to some degree shows, to divide bodies and things into two equal parts; and in the second place he blames injustice, the worker of the most disgraceful inequality; and inequality has been the parent of two kinds of war, foreign and civil, just as equality is the parent of peace. And he also delivers the most open praise of justice, and the most undeniable reproach of injustice, when he says, "You shall not commit injustice in any judgment, nor in measures, or weights, or balances: a just balance, and just weights, and a just heap, shall be yours." And in Deuteronomy he says, "There shall not be a false weight in your bag; your weight shall be true and just; there shall not be a little weight and a large one; that your days may be multiplied upon the earth, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, because everyone who commits injustice is an abomination to the Lord." So God, who loves justice, hates and detests injustice, the beginning of sedition and of evils; and in one passage the lawgiver represents equality as the nurse of justice, starting with the creation of the entire heaven. For he says, "And God made a separation between the light and between the darkness, and he called the light day, and the darkness he called night." For it is equality which allotted night and day and light and darkness to existing things. It is equality also that divided the human race into man and woman, making two divisions, unequal in strength, but most perfectly equal for nature's chief purpose, the generation of a third human being like themselves. For, says Moses, "God made man; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." He no longer says "him," but "them," in the plural, fitting the species to the genus, which, as I have already said, have been divided with perfect equality. And he apportioned cold and heat, and summer and spring, the different seasons of the year, divided by the same dividing Word. And the three days which passed before the creation of the sun, are equal in number to the three days of the first week which came after the creation of the sun, the number six being divided equally to display the character of eternity and of time. For in this way God allotted three days to eternity before the appearance of the sun, and those which came after the sun he allotted to time; the sun being an imitation of eternity, and time and eternity being the two primary powers of the living God; the one his beneficent power, by which he made the world, and for which he is called God; the other his chastening power, by which he rules and governs what he has created, and for which he is further named Lord; and he says here that these two are divided in the middle by the one who stands above them both. "For," he says, "I will speak to you from above the mercy-seat, in the midst, between the two Cherubims;" to show that the most ancient powers of the living God are equal, that is, his beneficent and his chastising power, being both divided by the same dividing Word. But what are the pillars of the ten generic laws which he calls tables? They are two, equal in number to the parts of the soul, the rational and the irrational, which must be instructed and corrected, and they are again divided by the Lawgiver; "for the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tables." And indeed the ten commandments engraved on these tables, which are laws in the proper and special sense, are divided equally into two groups of five: the first contains the principles of justice relating to God, and the second those relating to man. Of the principles of justice relating to God, the first law stated opposes the doctrine of polytheism, and teaches us that the world is ruled over by one sole governor. The second forbids men to make gods of things which are not the causes of anything, by means of the treacherous arts of painters and sculptors, whom Moses banished from the constitution he proposed to establish, condemning them to everlasting exile, in order that the only true God might be honoured in truth and simplicity. The third law concerns the name of the Lord, not the name which has not yet reached his creatures--for that name is unspeakable--but the name constantly applied to him as displayed in his powers; for we are commanded not to take his name in vain. The fourth commandment concerns the seventh day, always virgin, and without any mother, so that creation, taking care to be always free from labour, may in this way come to remember him who does everything without being seen. The fifth commandment is about the honour due to parents. For this too is a sacred command, referring not to men but to him who is the cause of the birth and existence of the universe, through whom fathers and mothers appear to generate children, though they do not generate them themselves but are only the instruments of generation in his hands. And this command is placed, as it were, on the borders between the two tables of laws relating to God and those relating to man, and so it borders both the five which concern piety and the five which include the prevention of injury to one's fellows. For mortal parents are the boundaries of the immortal powers, which, generating everything according to nature, have permitted this lowest and mortal race to imitate their own powers of generation, and so to propagate its own seed; for God is the beginning of all generation, and the mortal species of mankind, being the lowest and least honoured of all, is the end. The other table of five prohibits adultery, murder, theft, false witness and covetousness. These are generic rules, covering nearly every offence, and each particular and special action naturally falls under one of them. But you also see that the regularly occurring daily sacrifices are divided into equal portions; one portion being the sacrifice which the priests offer on their own behalf, consisting of the finest wheat-flour, and the other the sacrifice they offer on behalf of the whole nation, consisting of two lambs, which they are especially commanded to offer. For the law commands them to offer one half of the sacrifices mentioned above early in the morning, and the other half at the time of the evening twilight, in order that God may receive his proper tribute of thanks for the blessings which are showered upon all men during the night. You also see that the twelve loaves placed on the sacred table are divided into equal parts, so as to be distributed into companies of six each, and are placed there as a memorial of the tribes, which are of the corresponding number: virtue, that is, Leah, received one half of them as her share, having become the mother of six leaders of tribes; and the other half fell to the lot of Rachel's children and those of the other women. You also see that the twelve emerald stones on the garment that reaches down to the priests' feet are divided equally on the right and on the left side of the garment; and on them, divided into two equal sets of six, the names of the twelve patriarchs of the tribes were engraved, divine characters engraved on pillars, memorials of divine natures. What more need I say? Has he not also taken two mountains to symbolize two races, divided them again on the principle of proportional equality, and allotted one to those who bless, and the other to those who curse; appointing leaders of tribes over each to admonish those who need admonition, and to show them that the curses are equal in number to the blessings, and, if one may say so, of nearly equal value? For the praises of the good and the reproaches of the wicked are of equal service, since all people of sound sense regard avoiding evil and choosing good as one and the same thing. I am greatly impressed by the selection and division of the two goats which are brought as an offering for the purpose of atonement, and which are divided by an obscure and uncertain principle of division, namely, by lot. For of two principles, the one concerned with the affairs of divine virtue is consecrated and set apart to be offered to God; but the one devoted to the concerns of human unhappiness is assigned to the banished creature, for the sacred scriptures call the share it has obtained the scape-goat, since it is removed from its place, and pursued and driven away to a great distance from virtue. And, as with good and unadulterated money, so with the many things in nature: does not the invisible divider seem to you to divide them into equal portions, and to give the good money that has stood the test to the lover of instruction, and the bad money that has not been properly coined to the ignorant man? for, says Moses, "that which had no mark belonged to Laban, and that which was marked belonged to Jacob." For the soul, being, as some ancient writer has said, a wax tablet, repels and refuses the impressions anyone tries to stamp on it while it is hard and resistant, and so necessarily remains unmarked by any figure. But when it becomes moderately soft and yielding, it receives deep impressions, and, having taken the stamp of the seal, it accurately preserves the appearances which are impressed upon it, so that they cannot be effaced. Moreover, the equal division of the sacrifices of blood is surely bound to excite our admiration: a division which the chief priest Moses made, with nature as his teacher; for, says the scripture, "He, taking the half of the blood, poured it into the bowls; and the other half he poured out upon the altar." He did this to show that the sacred genus of wisdom is twofold, the one kind being divine, and the other human: and the divine kind is unmingled and unadulterated, and for this reason it sacrifices to the pure, and unalloyed, and only God existing in unity; but the human kind is of a mixed and alloyed nature, and therefore dissipates the unanimity and community of our mixed, and combined, and compound race, and produces anything but a proper harmony of either melodies or morals. But the unmixed and unadulterated portion of the soul is the pure mind, which, inspired by heaven from above, when it is kept free from all disease and all mishap, is very fittingly poured out whole and resolved into the elements of a sacred libation, and so restored in a fitting manner to God, who inspired it and preserved it free from any infliction of evil; but the mixed portion belongs entirely to the outward senses, and for this part nature has made suitable craters. Now, the craters of the sense of seeing are the eyes, those of hearing are the ears, those of smelling are the nostrils, and so on with the appropriate receptacles for each of the senses. On these craters the sacred word pours a portion of blood, thinking it right that the irrational part of us should be endowed with soul and vitality, and should in some way become rational; following the guidance of admonition, and purifying itself from the deceitful alluring powers of the objects of the outward sense which aim to overcome it. Was not the holy double-drachm divided in the same way? It was divided so that we should purify half of it, namely, a drachm, offering it as the ransom for our souls, which the only free, the only delivering God, when called on in supplication, and sometimes even without any supplication, forcibly delivers from the cruel and bitter despotism of the passions and iniquities; but we may leave the other portion to the race which is never free but slavish in disposition; to this class belonged the man who said, "I have loved my Lord;" that is to say, the mind which is the master in me; "and my wife," that is to say, the outward sense which is dear to him, and the housekeeper of his passions; "and my children," that is to say, the evils which are the offspring of them; "I will not depart free." For it is quite inevitable that people of this kind must obtain a lot which is no lot, and that the scapegoat bought with the double drachm must be given to them, the very opposite of the drachm and of the unity that is offered up to God. And it is the nature of unity to admit neither addition nor subtraction, since it is the image of the only complete God; for all other things are intrinsically and by their own nature loose; and wherever anything is held together, it has been bound by the word of God, for this word is glue and a chain, filling all things with its essence. And the word, which connects and fastens everything, is itself full of itself in a special way, needing nothing whatever beyond. So Moses very naturally says, "He who is rich will not add anything, and he who is poor will not diminish anything of the half of the double drachm," which is, as I have said before, a drachm, and a unit; to which every number might quote that line of the poet: With you I'll end, with you I will begin. For even an infinitely infinite number, made up of a succession of other numbers, must end in a unit when it is broken down: and again it must begin with a unit, being afterwards compounded so as to make an illimitable multitude; and for this reason those who have made a study of such matters have not called the unit a number, but rather an element, and the beginning of number. Again, the word of God divides this heavenly food of the soul, which Moses calls manna, in equal portions among all who are to use it, taking extraordinary care for equality. And Moses bears witness to this where he says, "He who had much had not too much, and he who had but little was in no want;" since they all used that wonderful and most desirable proportion. So the Israelites came to learn that each of them was collecting no more for the men related to him than for the reasonings and manners akin to him. For each man was prudently allotted as much as was sufficient for him, so that he felt neither want nor superfluity. And by analogy we may find something very like this equality in the festival called the passover; and the passover is when the soul is anxious to unlearn its subjection to the irrational passions, and willingly submits itself to a reasonable mastery over them. For it is expressly said, "If there are few that are in your house so as not to be sufficient in number for a sheep, then you shall take your nearest neighbour in addition, according to the number of souls," so that each person may receive a sufficient share in proportion to the number of his family, such a share as he is found to deserve and to need. But when he wishes to divide virtue among its inhabitants, as if it were a country, he allows the more numerous body to have more, and the less numerous to have less, thinking it reasonable not to allot a larger share to a smaller number, nor a smaller share to a larger number; for in that case neither would be suited to its portion. But equality of number is shown most clearly in the sacred offerings of the twelve princes, and again in the portions of those offerings distributed among the chiefs. For the scripture says, "There shall be an equal share allotted to each of the sons of Aaron." Equality is also displayed very beautifully in the composition of spices for burning as incense; for we read, "Take to yourself sweet odours, stacte, onycha, galbanum, these sweet spices with pure frankincense, all of the most chosen kinds, all of equal weight and you shall make of it a perfume, a confection, after the art of the apothecary, a pure composition, a holy work." For here the Lord commands that each of the separate portions be equal to the others, so that the whole may be properly composed. And, as I imagine, these four ingredients that make up the entire perfume are emblems of the four elements of which the whole world is made; he likens the stacte to water, the onycha to land, the galbanum to the air, and the pure transparent frankincense to fire; for stacte, which takes its name from the drops (stagones) in which it falls, is liquid, and onycha is dry and earth-like, the sweet-smelling galbanum is added to represent the air, for there is fragrance in the air; and the transparency of frankincense represents fire. For this reason he has also separated the things which have weight from those which are light, joining one class in close combination and presenting the other separately; as where he says, "Take to yourself sweet odours, stacte, onycha," since these are heavy, he mentions them without connecting words, as symbols of earth and water. Then he begins again with the other class, which he mentions in combination, saying, "And the sweet spice of galbanum and the transparent frankincense," these in turn being by nature emblems of the light things, air and fire. And the harmonious composition and mixture of these things is truly his most ancient and most perfect holy work, the world; speaking of it under the emblem of perfume, he holds that it is bound to show gratitude to its Creator. So in name it is the composition carefully made by the art of the apothecary that may be offered up, but in reality it is the whole world, created by divine wisdom, that may be consecrated and dedicated, made a burnt offering early in the morning and again in the evening. For this is the life that befits the world: to give thanks to its Father and Creator continually and without ceasing, stopping short only of evaporating and reducing itself to its original element, in order to show that it stores up and conceals nothing, but dedicates itself wholly as a pious offering to God who created it. And I also marvel at the sacred word that runs on with zeal, in one continuous course, without taking breath, "In order to stand in the midst between the dead and the living; and immediately," says Moses, "the plague was stayed." But the evils that grind down, break to pieces and crush our souls were not likely to be either stayed or lightened unless reason, dear to God, had separated the holy men who live in sincerity from the unholy, who are in truth dead; for it has often happened that, merely by being near the sick, people in perfect health have caught their disease, and have been on the point of death: and they could no longer be exposed to this affliction once they were separated by a strong boundary fixed in the middle between them, which will preserve the better part by keeping off the inroads and attacks of the worse. And I marvel still more when, listening to the sacred oracles, I learn from them how "a cloud came in the midst" between the army of the Egyptians and the company of the children of Israel; for the cloud no longer allowed the race that is temperate and beloved by God to be persecuted by the race devoted to the passions and hostile to God, serving as a covering and a protection for its friends, but a weapon of vengeance and chastisement against its enemies; for it gently showers down wisdom on the minds which study virtue--wisdom⁠c that no evil can visit. But on minds that are ill-disposed and produce no knowledge, it pours out a whole body of punishments, bringing on them the most pitiable destruction of the deluge. And the Father who created the universe has given his archangelic and most ancient Word a pre-eminent gift: to stand on the border between the two and separate what has been created from the Creator. And this same Word is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race, which is exposed to affliction and misery; and is also the ambassador, sent by the Ruler of all, to the subject race. And the Word rejoices in the gift, and, exulting in it, announces it and boasts of it, saying, "And I stood in the midst, between the Lord and You;" being neither uncreated like God nor created like you, but in the middle between these two extremes, a hostage, as it were, to both parties:⁠d a hostage to the Creator, as a pledge and security that the whole race would never break away and revolt entirely, choosing disorder rather than order; and to the creature, to lead it to hold a confident hope that the merciful God would not overlook his own work. For I will proclaim news of peace to the creation from the one who has resolved to put an end to wars, God, who is always the guardian of peace. Therefore the sacred Word, having instructed us about the division into equal parts, leads us also to the knowledge of opposites, saying that God placed the divisions "opposite to one another;" for in fact nearly all the things that exist in the world are by nature opposite to one another. And we must begin with the first. Hot is opposite to cold, and dry to wet, and light to heavy, and darkness to light, and night to day; in heaven, too, the fixed motion is opposite to the wandering motion of the planets, and in the air a clear sky is opposite to clouds, winter to summer, autumn to spring, for the one is blooming and the other fading. Again, among things on earth, sweet water is opposite to bitter, and barren land to fertile. Again, other things are contrary to one another, such as visible bodies to incorporeal ones, living things to inanimate ones, rational to irrational, mortal to immortal, things perceived by the outward senses to things perceptible only by the intellect; things comprehensible to things incomprehensible, elements to things concrete and perfected, beginning to end, generation to destruction, life to death, disease to health, white to black, the right to the left, justice to injustice, wisdom to folly, courage to cowardice, temperance to intemperance, virtue to vice; and all the species of one class to all the species of the other class. Again, grammatical knowledge is contrary to ignorance of the same subject, musical science to unfamiliarity with music, education to illiteracy; and, in short, skill in art to lack of skill. Again, in the different arts there are vocal elements and mute elements, there are sharp and flat sounds, there are straight and circular lines. Again, among animals and plants, some are barren and some productive; some very prolific, others yielding little increase; there are oviparous and viviparous animals; animals with soft skins, and others with hard shells; some creatures wild and some tame; some fond of solitude, and others gregarious. To go on further: poverty is opposite to wealth, glory to obscurity, low birth to nobility, lack to abundance, war to peace, law to lawlessness, a bad to a good disposition, inactivity to labour, youth to old age, power to lack of power, weakness to strength. But why should I list every class separately, when they are unlimited and too many to describe? Therefore the interpreter of the writings of nature, taking pity on our idleness and thoughtlessness, has very beautifully taught each of us, invisibly, as he does now, to arrange everything in such a way as to produce an exact opposition, not arranging them in wholes, but in equal divisions; for the one thing consists of the two opposite parts; and when that one thing is cut in two, the opposite parts are easily recognized. Is this not what the Greeks say Heraclitus, the great philosopher so celebrated among them, put forward as the leading principle of his whole philosophy, boasting of it as if it were a new discovery? For it is in reality an ancient discovery of Moses, that opposite things are produced out of the same thing, standing in the ratio of parts to the whole, as has been shown here. We will examine these matters accurately on another occasion; but there is another point too that does not deserve to be passed over in silence. For the divisions into two equal parts mentioned above come to six, since three animals were divided, so that the Word which divided them made up the number seven, dividing the two triads and establishing itself in the midst of them. And something very similar appears to me to be shown very clearly in the sacred candlestick; for it too was made with six branches, three on each side, and the main candlestick itself in the middle made the seventh, dividing and separating the two triads; for it is carved work, a divine work of exquisite and much-admired skill, made of one solid piece of pure gold. For the unit, being one and single and pure, fathered the number seven, which has no mother but is born of itself alone, without taking any additional material at all to aid it. Those who praise gold say a great many other things in its praise, but dwell on two points as especially important and excellent: first, that it does not take on poison; second, that it can be beaten out or melted out into the thinnest possible plates and still remain unbroken. So it is very naturally taken as an emblem of that greater nature which, extended and diffused everywhere so as to penetrate in every direction, fills everything completely, and also connects all other things with the most admirable arrangement. Of the candlestick mentioned above, the artist speaks a second time and says that from its different branches there are three arms projecting out on each side, equal in all respects to one another, and having on the top lamps like nuts, in the shape of flowers supporting the lights; the seventh flower being fashioned on the top of the candlestick of solid gold, and having seven golden places for lights above them; so that for many reasons it has been believed to be fashioned this way because the number six is divided into two triads by the Word, making the seventh and being placed in the midst of them; as indeed is the case now. For the entire candlestick with its six most entire and principal parts was made so as to consist of seven lamps, and seven flowers, and seven lights; and the six lights are divided by the seventh. Likewise the flowers are divided by the one in the middle, and in the same way the lamps are divided by the seventh, in the middle. But the six branches, and the equal number of arms that shoot out, are divided by the main trunk itself, which makes up the number seven. But the long discussion some people start about each of these must be postponed to a later opportunity. For now we must remind our readers of this much alone: that the sacred candlestick and the seven lights upon it are an imitation of the wandering of the seven planets through the heaven. How so? someone will say. Because, we will reply, each of the planets sheds its rays just as the lights do. So, being more brilliant, they transmit more brilliant beams to the earth, and the most brilliant of them all is the one at the centre of the seven, the sun. And I call him the centre, not merely because he has the central position, as some have thought, but also because, for many other reasons, he has a right to be served and attended by the others, who accompany him as bodyguards on each side, because of his dignity and his magnitude, and the great benefits which he pours upon all earthly things. But men, unable to comprehend the arrangement of the planets completely (and indeed which other heavenly body can they understand with certainty and clarity?), speak according to their conjectures. And the best conjectures on such subjects seem to me to be made by those who assign the central position to the sun and say that there are equal numbers of planets above him and below him. Those above him are Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars; then comes the Sun himself, and after him Mercury, Venus, and the Moon, the last of which is close to the air. So the Creator, wishing there to be a model among us on earth of the seven-lighted sphere as it exists in heaven, directed how this exquisite work, this candlestick, was to be made. And its likeness to the soul is often pointed out too; for the soul is divisible into three parts, and each of the parts, as has been already pointed out, is divided into two more. And so, since there are six divisions, the sacred and divine Word, the divider of them all, very naturally makes up the number seven. This other point, too, is too important to be passed over in silence: of the three vessels among the sacred furniture, a candlestick, a table, and an altar of incense, the altar of incense refers to the gratitude shown for the gift of the elements, as has been shown before, since it too receives a portion from these four: wood from the earth, and the spices that are burned from the water, for they are first liquefied and dissolved into drops of moisture, and vapour from the air, and from the fire the spark which kindles the whole; and the composition of frankincense, and galbanum, and onycha, and stacte, is a symbol of the four elements; and the table refers to the gratitude shown for the mortal things made out of the elements, for loaves and libations are placed upon it, which creatures that need nourishment must necessarily use. And the candlestick refers to the gratitude shown for all the things in heaven, so that no part of the world may be charged with ingratitude, and so that we may see that every single part of it gives thanks: the elements, the things made of them, and not only those made on earth but also those in heaven. And it is worthwhile to consider why, after having explained the measures of the table and of the altar of incense, he has given no such description of the candlestick; is it perhaps because the elements and all the mortal things which are compounded of them, of which the table and the altar of incense are symbols, have been measured, since they are bounded by heaven? For whatever surrounds something is always the measure of what it surrounds; but the heaven, of which the candlestick is the symbol, is of infinite magnitude; for it is indeed surrounded, but not, according to the account of Moses, by a vacuum, nor by any substance, nor by anything of equal magnitude to itself, nor by anything of unlimited size, as in the marvellous fables we touched on when speaking of their building of the tower; but its boundary is God, and he also is its ruler and the director of its course. As, therefore, the living God is incomprehensible, so too what is bounded by him is not measured by any measure within the range of our intellect; and perhaps, since it is circular and skilfully fashioned into a perfect sphere, it has no share in either length or breadth. So, after saying what is fitting on this subject, he goes on to add, "But the birds he did not divide;" meaning by birds the two reasoning powers that are winged and by nature inclined to soar to the investigation of sublime subjects, one of them the archetypal pattern, above us, and the other its copy, abiding among us. And Moses calls the one above us the image of God, and the one that abides among us the impression of that image, "For," he says, "God made man," not an image, "but after that Image." So the mind in each of us, which in reality and truth is the man, is a third image proceeding from the Creator. But the intermediate one is a model of the one and a copy of the other. But by nature our mind is indivisible; for the Creator, having divided the irrational part of the soul into six portions, has made six divisions of it, namely, sight, taste, hearing, smelling, touch, and voice; but the rational part, which is called the mind, he has left undivided, in the likeness of the entire heaven. For of the heaven, too, it is reported that the outermost sphere, which has no motion, is kept undivided, but that the inner one is divided into six portions, and thus completes the seven circles of what are called the planets; for I imagine the heaven is to the world what the soul is to the human being. They say, therefore, that these two natures, full of reason and comprehension--I mean the one in man and the one in the world--are both at all times entire and indivisible. This, therefore, is why the scriptures tell us, "He did not divide the birds." For our own mind is here compared to a dove, since it is a creature tame and domesticated among us; and the turtle dove is compared to the model presented by the other, that is to say, by the mind of the world, the heaven; for the word of God is fond of retirement, and solitude, and privacy; not mixing with the crowd of things that have been created and will be destroyed, but always accustomed to roam on high, and eager to attend only on the one supreme Being. Therefore the two natures are indivisible: I mean the nature of the reasoning power in us and the nature of the divine Word above us; but though they are indivisible themselves, they divide an innumerable multitude of other things. For it is the divine Word which divided and distributed everything in nature; and it is our own mind that, exerting its intellect without limit, divides everything and every body it comprehends into an infinite number of parts, and in fact never stops dividing. And this happens because of its resemblance to the Creator and Father of the universe; for the divine nature, being unmixed, uncombined with anything else, and entirely without parts, has been to the whole world the cause of mixture, and combination, and of an infinite variety of parts: so that, quite naturally, the two things that resemble each other in this way, the mind in us and the mind above us, being without parts and indivisible, will still be able to divide and distribute all existing things with great power. So, after mentioning that the birds were not cut in two or divided, Moses goes on to say, "And the birds came down and descended upon the bodies which were divided;" using expressions that are indeed synonymous, but still showing the difference in the facts very visibly to those who are able to see. For it is contrary to nature for birds to come down, when they have been given wings to soar on high. For, as the earth is the most appropriate place for land animals, and above all for reptiles, which cannot bear even to crawl on it, but seek caves and lurking places, avoiding the regions which are above, because of their kinship with the things below; so in the same way the air is the appropriate abode for the winged race: the element that is light by nature is the proper home for creatures that are light because they are feathered. So when creatures whose nature is to traverse the air, and who ought to roam through the aether, descend and come down on the land, they are unable to live a life according to their nature. On the other hand, Moses approves in no ordinary degree of any reptiles that can leap upward. At any rate he says, "You shall eat of these winged reptiles which go upon four feet, and which have legs above their feet so as to be able by them to leap up from the ground." But these reptiles are emblems of souls which, though rooted like reptiles in the earthly body, gain strength to soar on high when they are raised up, taking the heaven in exchange for the earth, and immortality in exchange for destruction. We must, therefore, think that the souls which were brought up in the air, and in the aether, the purest of all things, and then changed their abode (not being able to bear the satiety of divine things) and descended to that mortal and evil region, the earth, are full of every kind of misery. And on the earth there also roam innumerable imaginations about an innumerable variety of things, some voluntary and some arising from ignorance, which differ in no respect from winged creatures, and which Moses compares to the birds that come down. And of these imaginations, those that take the upward course belong to the better class, since virtue, which conducts the mind towards heaven and the divine country, travels with them. But those which take the downward course belong to the worse class, since wickedness guides them and drags them in the contrary direction by force. And their very names largely show the opposite character of the places. For virtue (aretē) has derived its name not only from the word (airesis) choice, but also from the fact of its being lifted up (para to airesthai), for it is lifted up (airetai) and borne on high because it always loves heavenly things; but wickedness (kakia) is so called from its tendency to go downwards (apo tou katō kechōrēkenai), and also because it compels those who practise it to fall down to the bottom (katapiptein). Accordingly the thoughts of the soul that are at odds with one another, flying toward and descending on the earth, both come down themselves and throw the mind down too, mingling disgracefully with bodies and with things perceptible by the outward senses, not discernible by the intellect, imperfect rather than entire, perishable rather than living. For they mix not only with bodies but also with the parts of bodies that have been divided in two. And things divided in this way can never again be fitted together and united, since the nerves of the spirit, which were the strongest natural bond in them, are cut in two. Moreover, Moses introduces a very true opinion when he teaches us that justice and every virtue loves the soul, but that wickedness and every vice is attached to the body; and that whatever is friendly to the one is always, of necessity, hostile to the other, as it is here too. For after figuratively representing the wars of the soul, he introduces birds eager to entangle themselves with the bodies, cling to them and gorge themselves on the flesh; and the virtuous man, wishing to check their inroads and attacks, is said to sit by them as a sort of curator or overseer. For when his domestic affairs were thrown into confusion by domestic sedition, and enemy armies were advancing against him, he gathered a wise council and deliberated about the adversaries, so that, if he possibly could, he might by persuasion both end the foreign war and remove the domestic confusion; for it was desirable to disperse the enemies gathering over him like a cloud, full of irreconcilable enmity toward him, and equally desirable to restore his former relations with the other party. The irreconcilable and implacable enemies are listed as follows: the follies and intemperances of the soul, cowardice and injustice, and all the other irrational appetites that luxuriant and impotent appetite usually breeds, raising their heads high and becoming restive, and preventing the mind from proceeding in its straight course; and very often throwing its whole system into confusion and beating it down. But the attacks and conflicts of the powers that are not irreconcilable resemble the discussions and quarrels about doctrines that so often arise among the Sophists. For since they all labour toward one end, the contemplation of the things of nature, they may be called friends; but since they disagree in their particular investigations, they may be said to be in a state of domestic sedition: for instance, those who hold that the universe is uncreated are at odds with those who insist it was created; and again those who argue that it will be destroyed are in conflict with those who say that it is indeed perishable by nature but will never be destroyed, because it is held together by a more powerful chain, the will of the Creator. And again, those who affirm that there is nothing self-existent, but that everything has been created, are at odds with those who hold the opposite opinion. Those too, who say that man is the measure of all things, differ from those who would restrain the judicial faculties of the outward senses and of the intellect. And, in short, to sum up all these differences in a few words, those who hold that everything is incomprehensible are at odds with those who say that a great many things are properly understood. And the sun, and the moon, and the whole heaven, and the earth, and the air, and the water, and all the things that are connected with them, provide matter for strife and contention to those who like to examine such subjects, and who investigate their essences, and distinctive qualities, and changes, and alterations, and moreover their origin and the method of their destruction; and making no superficial investigation into the magnitude and motion of the heavenly bodies, they adopt all sorts of different opinions, never agreeing together, until some man who is both skilled at untangling controversies and fit to judge takes his seat on the tribunal, and comes to a clear perception of the progeny of each individual's soul, discards those that do not deserve to be kept, and preserves those that are good and that he pronounces worthy of suitable providential care. And all the controversies of philosophy are full of disagreement, since the truth escapes an intellect given to plausibilities and conjectures: for in my opinion it is the very difficulty of discovering and grasping the nature of truth that has given rise to so many quarrels. "And about the setting of the sun a trance fell upon Abraham, and, look, fear with great darkness fell upon Him." One kind of trance is a sort of frantic delirium, causing infirmity of mind, either through old age, or melancholy, or some other similar cause. Another kind is excessive consternation, usually arising from things that happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Another kind is mere tranquility of the mind, arising when it is inclined by nature to be quiet: but the best kind of all is a divinely inspired and more vehement sort of enthusiasm, to which the race of prophets is subject. Moses mentions the first kind in the curses recorded in Deuteronomy; for he says that, "delirium and blindness, and aberration of mind shall seize on the impious," so that they will be no different from blind people at midday, being like people feeling their way in deep darkness. He mentions the second kind in many places; for he says, "And Isaac was astonished with a great astonishment, and said, Who, then, is it who went out to hunt for game for me, and who brought it to me? And I ate of it all before you came, and I have blessed him; yes, and he shall be blessed." And, again, with reference to Jacob, who disbelieved those who told him that "Joseph is alive, and is ruler over the whole land of Egypt; for he," says the scripture, "was amazed in his mind, for he did not believe them." And, again, in Exodus, in the assembly of the people, we read: "For the whole of the mountain of Sinai was enveloped in smoke, because God descended upon it in fire. And the smoke went up as the vapour of a furnace, and the whole people was greatly astonished." Also, in Leviticus, when speaking of the consecration of the priests on the eighth day, when fire came out from heaven and licked up what was on the altar, and the burnt-offerings and the fat, the historian proceeds immediately to tell us, "And the whole people saw it and were astonished, and fell upon their faces;" for such astonishment as this causes alarm and consternation. And should we not especially wonder in the case of Esau, that he who was skilful in hunting was nevertheless himself continually caught and supplanted, having acquired his skill to his own injury and not to his advantage, and that he never used any great care to catch anything in his hunts? And also in the case of Jacob, that he hunts without having acquired any skill by learning, but only as he is moved by nature; and that he brings what he has caught to the examiner, who will distinguish whether it deserves to be approved; and for this reason he "eats of it all." For everything that relates to meditation is wholesome food, whether it is investigation, or consideration, or hearing, or reading, or prayer, or self-reliance, or a contempt for things indifferent; and he ate, as I imagine, the first fruits of them all, but he did not eat all of everything; for some appropriate food must be left for the one who meditates as a reward for his pains. And the words, "before you came," are added out of regard for the nature of the things; for if passion enters into the soul, we shall not enjoy temperance. And it convicts the worthless man of being slow, and hesitating, and procrastinating in the works of instruction, but not in those of intemperance. Therefore Egypt contains inspectors of works, who devote themselves with energy to securing the enjoyment of passions. But Moses, on the other hand, commands the Israelites to eat the passover in haste, and to celebrate the migration from these passions in this way. And Judah says: "For if we had not delayed, we should by this time have returned, and have arrived again in Egypt; yes, and a second time we should have returned safe from there." And Jacob very naturally wondered whether the mind was still in the body; that is to say, whether Joseph was alive to virtue and ruling over the body, and not being ruled over by it. And anyone who chose to go through all the other instances would be able to trace out the truth. But our present subject does not require any accurate discussion of these matters; so we had better return to the point from which we set out. On the third kind of trance, he philosophises in this way when speaking of the creation of the woman; "For the Lord God," says Moses, "cast a trance upon Adam, and he Slept." Here he calls the quietness and tranquillity of mind a trance; for the slumber of the mind is the awakening of the outward sense: and, again, the awakening of the intellect reduces the outward senses to a state of inactivity. An instance of the fourth kind of trance is the one we are now considering: "And about the setting of the sun a trance fell upon Abraham," for he was thrown into a state of enthusiasm and inspired by the Deity. But this is not the only thing that shows he was a prophet; so do the express words engraved in the sacred scriptures as on a pillar. When someone tried to separate Sarah, that is, the virtue which is derived from nature, from him, as if she had not been the exclusive property of the wise man alone, but had also belonged to everyone who made any pretence to wisdom, God said, "Give the man back his wife, because he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live;" and the sacred scriptures testify in the case of every good man, that he is a prophet; for a prophet says nothing of his own, but everything he says is foreign and prompted by someone else; and it is not lawful for a wicked man to be an interpreter of God, just as no wicked man can properly be said to be inspired; but this statement is appropriate only to the wise man, since he alone is a sounding instrument of God's voice, being struck and moved by him, invisibly, to sound. Accordingly, Moses has also represented everyone he describes as just as inspired and prophesying. Noah was a just man; was he not also by that fact a prophet? or did he, without being possessed by any divine inspiration, utter those prayers and curses which he applied to the generations to come, and all of which were eventually confirmed by the reality of the facts? Why should I speak of Isaac? Why of Jacob? For these too are clearly shown to have been prophets by many other circumstances, and especially by their addresses to their children. For the annunciation, "Assemble yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the last days" was the expression of a man possessed by inspiration; for the knowledge of the future is neither appropriate nor natural to man. What shall we say of Moses? Is he not celebrated everywhere as a prophet? For the scripture says, "If there shall be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will make myself known to him in a vision," but to Moses God appeared in his actual form and not in a riddle. And again we read, "There did not arise any more any prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." So the historian very admirably points out here that Abraham was under the influence of inspiration when he says that, "About the setting of the sun a trance fell upon him." And by the symbol of the sun he hints at our mind: for reasoning is to us what the sun is to the world. For each of them gives light, the one casting a light which is perceptible by the outward senses, to shine upon the universe; and the other shedding on ourselves, by means of our apprehensions, beams discernible only by the intellect. So as long as our mind still shines all around and hovers about, pouring as it were a midday light into the whole soul, we, being masters of ourselves, are not possessed by any extraneous influence; but when it approaches its setting, then, as is natural, a trance, which proceeds from inspiration, takes violent hold of us, and madness seizes us, for when the divine light sets, this other one rises and shines, and this very frequently happens to the race of prophets; for the mind that is in us is removed from its place at the arrival of the divine Spirit, but is again restored to its previous habitation when that Spirit departs, for it is contrary to holy law for what is mortal to dwell with what is immortal. For this reason the setting of our reason, and the darkness which surrounds it, causes a trance and a heaven-inflicted madness. After that the historian connects to his preceding account what follows consistently from it, saying, "And it was said to Abraham"--for in truth the prophet, even when he appears to be speaking, is silent, and another being is employing his vocal organs, his mouth and tongue, to explain whatever he chooses; and operating on these organs by some invisible and very skilful act, he makes them utter a sweet and harmonious sound, full of every kind of melody. And it is good to hear what things are thus said to have been predicted to Abraham. In the first place, that God does not grant to the man who loves virtue to dwell in the body as in his own native land, but only to sojourn in it as in a foreign country. "For knowing," says the scripture, "you shall know that your seed shall be sojourners in a land which is not theirs." But the district of the body is akin to every bad man, and he wants to live in it as a resident, not as a sojourner. Accordingly, this is one lesson these words contain; another is that the dwellings on earth are what bring slavery and disaster and bitter humiliation upon the soul, as the prophet himself tells us. For the affections of the body are truly spurious and foreign, being produced by the flesh, in which they are rooted. And this slavery lasts four hundred years in accordance with the powers of the four passions. For when pleasure rules, the mind is elated and puffed up, being carried away by empty vanity. Again, when the appetite gets the upper hand, a desire for absent things is engendered, which hangs the mind on unfulfilled hopes, as if in a halter; for then the mind is always thirsting and yet is unable to drink, enduring the punishment of Tantalus. Again, when under the influence of grief, the mind is tortured and contracted, like trees the leaves of which are falling off and withering; for all its flourishing and nutritious particles are dried up. Also, when fear gains that supremacy, no one chooses to stay any longer, but everyone takes to flight and runs away, thinking that this is the only way in which he can be saved. For appetite, having an attractive power even if the object which is desired retreats, compels one to pursue it; and fear, on the other hand, causing alienation, separates one from it, and makes one move far away from what is presented to one's view. But the supremacy of the different passions mentioned above inflicts terrible slavery on those who are ruled over by them, until God, the umpire and judge of all things, separates what is ill-treated from what is inflicting the ill-treatment, and delivers the former and blesses it with perfect freedom, and inflicts upon the other a retribution for the wickedness which it has committed. For we read in the next verse, "And the nation to which they shall be slaves I will judge and after that they shall go forth with great substance." For it is inevitable that a mortal man must obey the nature of the passions, and that a man who has been born must endure the fate which is allotted to him as appropriate; but it is the will of God to lighten the evils which are planted in us at the same time as our birth. So even if at the beginning we suffer the evils properly assigned to us and become slaves of cruel masters, still, if God also performs what is his own work, proclaiming emancipation and freedom to the souls which address their supplications to him, then he not only gives men a release from their bondage and a means of departure from their prison, guarded on every side as it is, but he also gives them the means of travelling, which he here calls substance. And what is this? When the mind, having come down from above the heaven, becomes entangled in the necessities of the body, then, although it is not allured by any of these, still, like a eunuch or impotent person, it embraces pleasant evils. But if it remains in its own nature, then, being truly a man, it resists and discards them instead of being overthrown by them, being initiated in all the parts of complete encyclical learning; from which it derives a desire for contemplation, and acquires temperance and patience, very vigorous virtues, leaving its former abode, and finding a means of return back to its own country, and bringing with it all the lessons of instruction, which are here called supplies for the journey. Having said this much on these subjects, the historian proceeds: "And you shall depart to your fathers, having lived in peace, in a good old age." Therefore we, who are imperfect, are made war upon, and we become slaves, and we find relief only with difficulty from the dangers that hang over us. But the perfect race, exempt from slavery and free from the perils of war, is raised in peace and the firmest freedom. And there is a particular lesson to be learnt from his representing the good man not as dying but departing, in order to show that the race of the soul, which is completely purified, cannot be extinguished and cannot die, but only departs in the way of migration from this earth to heaven, not undergoing that dissolution and destruction which death appears to bring with it. And after the words, "You shall depart," he adds, "to your fathers." It is worthwhile here to consider which fathers are meant; for God can never mean those who had passed their lives in the country of the Chaldeans, the only people among whom he had lived, as his relations, because he had been commanded by a sacred oracle to depart from those who were his kinsmen by blood. For, says the historian, "The Lord said to Abraham, Depart from out of your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to a land which I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation." For how can it be reasonable for someone who has once been removed from his abode by the interference of Divine Providence, to return and dwell again in the same place? And how could it be reasonable for one who was about to be the leader of a new nation and of another race to be again assigned to his ancient one? For God would never have given him a new character, and a new nation and family, if he had not wholly and entirely separated himself from his ancient one. For that man is truly a chief of a nation and ruler of a family, from whom, as from a root, sprang the branch named Israel, so fond of investigating and contemplating the affairs of our nature, since an express command has been given "to remove the old things from before the face of those which are new." For what further use are investigations into antiquity, and ancient, and long-established customs, to those on whom, suddenly and when they have no such expectation, God rains all kinds of new blessings in a mass? Therefore, when he says "fathers," he does not mean those whose souls have departed from them, and who are buried in the tombs of the land of Chaldea; but, as some say, the sun, and the moon, and the other stars; for some affirm that the nature of all the things in the world owes its existence to these bodies. But others think he means the archetypal ideas, the models of these things which are perceptible by the outward senses and visible; models that are, however, perceptible only by the intellect and invisible; and that it is to these that the mind of the wise man emigrates. Others, again, have fancied that "fathers" here means the four principles and powers of which the world is composed--the earth, the water, the air, and the fire; for they say that all created things are very properly dissolved into these elements. For as nouns, and verbs, and all the other parts of speech, consist of the elements of grammar, and again are resolvable into these ultimate principles, so in the same way each of us, being compounded of the four elements, and borrowing small portions from each essence, repays at certain fixed periods what he has borrowed, giving his dryness to the earth, his moisture to the water, his heat to the fire, and his cold to the air. These then are the things of the body; but the intellectual and heavenly race of the soul will ascend to the purest aether as to its father. For the fifth essence, as the ancients tell us, may be a particular one that moves things in a cycle, differing from the other four as being superior to them, from which the stars and the whole heavens appear to be generated, and of which, as a natural consequence, the human soul must be held to be a fragment. And the expression, "After having lived in peace," is used very fittingly; because nearly all or the greater portion of the human race lives rather in war and among all the evils of war. And of wars, one kind proceeds from external enemies, and is brought on by lack of reputation, and by lowness of origin, and by other things of that kind. But another kind arises from one's domestic enemies; some concerning the body, such as weaknesses, stains, all kinds of mutilations, and a whole body of other unspeakable evils; and others affecting the soul, such as passions, diseases, infirmities, terrible and most grievous inflictions, and incurable calamities arising from folly and injustice, and other similar evils. So he speaks of the one who has lived in peace, who has enjoyed a serene and tranquil life, as a man truly happy and blessed. When, then, will this happen? When all external things prosper with me, in such a way as to tend to my abundance and to my glory. When the things relating to the body are in a favourable state, so as to give me good health and strength; and when the things relating to my soul are in a similar state, so as to enable it to enjoy the virtues. For each of these requires its own appropriate body-guards. The body is attended in that capacity by glory, and abundance, and a sufficient provision of wealth; and the soul by wholeness, and soundness, and a thoroughly healthy state of the body; and the mind by those speculations which are concerned about the sciences. It is plain to all who are versed in the holy scriptures that the peace mentioned here is not the peace that cities enjoy. For Abraham took part in many terrible wars, out of which he appears to have come triumphantly. And indeed being forced to depart from his native country, and to leave his home, and his inability to dwell in his native city, and his being driven here and there, and wandering about by desolate and unfrequented roads, would have been a terrible war for one who had not put his trust in certain divine oracles and promises. He would also have to bear a third, formidable calamity, a famine, worse than the departure from his home, or than all the evils of war. What peace then did he enjoy? For I imagine that being driven from his former home, and having no settled abode, and being unable to make an effective resistance to very powerful monarchs, and being oppressed with hunger, seem like indications, not of one war, but of many wars of various kinds. But according to figurative interpretations, each of these events is an instance and proof of unalloyed peace. For an absence of the passions, and a complete scarcity of them, and the destruction of inimical acts of iniquity, and a departure from the opinions of the Chaldeans to the doctrine which loves God, that is to say, from the created being, perceptible by the outward senses, to the great Cause and Creator of all things, who is appreciable only by the intellect, are things which supply a good system of laws and stability. And God promises the man who enjoys such a peace as this a glorious old age, not indeed one that will last an exceedingly long time, but a life with wisdom. For tranquillity and happiness are better than length of years, in proportion as a short period of light is better than everlasting darkness. For one of the prophets said well: "He would rather live one day in the company of virtue, than ten thousand years in the shadow of death;" using the figurative expression of shadow to hint at the life of the wicked. And Moses says the very same thing, indicating it by his actions rather than by his words. For he has at the same time represented the man who he says will enjoy a glorious old age as more short-lived than almost any of those who preceded him. He is speaking philosophically, and teaching us who truly enjoys a happy old age, so that we may not take pride in old age because of anything that affects the visible body; as such pride is full of shame and many disgraceful circumstances. But he does so in order that, keeping our eyes fixed on wisdom of counsel and steadiness of soul, we may ascribe to such men and testify in their favour that they have a glorious old age, (gēras) akin to, and bearing nearly the same name as honour (geras). So listen, taking his words as a good lesson, to this statement of the lawgiver: that the good man alone has a happy old age, and that he is the most long-lived of men; but that the wicked man is the most short-lived of men, living only to die, or rather having already died to the life of virtue. In the next verses it is said, "And in the fourth generation they shall return here," not merely so that the time when his descendants will become inhabitants of the holy land may be exactly marked out for him, but also in order to represent to him the perfect and complete re-establishment of virtue; and this takes place as it were in the fourth generation, and it is worthwhile to consider how it does so. After it is born, the child, during its infancy, until it has completed its first period of seven years, has a pure unmixed nature, very like a smooth wax tablet, which has not yet been stamped with the indelible impressions of good or evil; for all the things which appear to be engraved upon it are soon confused and effaced because of its moisture: this is as it were the first age of the soul. The second is the age which, once infancy is past, begins to live among evils, some of which it usually generates from itself, while others it cheerfully receives from other sources, for the teachers of evil deeds are infinite in number: nurses, and tutors, and parents, and the laws in different states, whether written or unwritten, which make objects of admiration out of things which ought to be laughed at; and even without teachers nature itself is easily inclined to learn what is improper, so as to be continually weighed down by the abundance of its evils; "For," says the scripture, "the mind of man is carefully devoted to evil from his youth." This is that most accursed period which is figuratively called an age, but also especially the age of youth, in which the body is full of youthful vigour, and the soul is puffed up; and the passions, hidden until now, are fanned into a flame and burn up the threshing-floors, and crops, and fields, and whatever they meet with. This diseased generation or age must be remedied by some third age, playing the part of medical philosophy towards it, so that it will be charmed with salutary and saving words, by means of which it will receive an evacuation of the immoderate satiety of evil actions, and a filling of the hungry emptiness and terrible lack of good deeds. Then, after this cure has been applied, there comes the fourth age, in which power and vigour grow up in the soul, in accordance with the most certain comprehension of wisdom, and the undeviating and solid character which exists in all virtues. This is the meaning of the expression, "And in the fourth generation they shall return here." For according to the fourth number pointed out in this way, the soul, which has turned away from doing evil, is proclaimed as the inheritor of wisdom; for the first number is the one in which it is not possible to receive any idea of either good or evil, since the soul is still destitute of all impressions; and the second is that in which we indulge in a rapid course of the passions; and the third is that in which we are healed, repelling the infections of disease, and at last ceasing to feel the evil vigour of the passions; the fourth is that in which we acquire complete and perfect health and vigour, when, rejecting what is bad, we appear to try to apply ourselves to what is good, which was not previously in our power. But he tells us himself how long this is to last, when he says, "For the wickednesses of the Amorites are not yet fulfilled." And such words as these give weaker brothers occasion to fancy, that Moses represents fate and necessity as the causes of all things that exist or take place; but we must recognize that he was well acquainted with the consequences, and connection, and reciprocal dependence of the causes of things, since he was a philosophical man, accustomed to converse with God: and he does not attribute the causes of things which exist, or which take place, to these powers; for he conceived of some other, more ancient power, mounted upon the universe, like a charioteer, or like the pilot of a ship; for this power steers the whole common vessel of the world in which all things sail, and he bridles the course of the winged chariot, the entire heaven, exerting an independent and absolute sovereign authority. What then are we to say about these subjects? The name Amorites, being interpreted, means "talkers;" and many of those who have received that greatest of all blessings bestowed upon man by nature, namely speech, have abused and corrupted it, employing it ungratefully and treacherously, to the injury of her who has bestowed it. Such are flatterers, impostors, devisers of plausible sophistries, men who cultivate rather the skill to delude and to cheat, and who do not care to speak truly; these men study indistinctness. Now indistinctness is equivalent to deep darkness in discourse; and darkness is the great assistant of robbers, and for this reason Moses has adorned the chief priest with distinct demonstration and truth; thinking it proper that the discourse of the virtuous man should be clear, and perspicuous, and true; but men in general pursue that which is indistinct and false, under whose banner the whole misguided multitude of ordinary careless men enrols itself. Therefore, as long as "the offences of the Amorites are not fulfilled," that is to say, the evils of sophistical arguments because they have not been refuted, but while they still influence us, having an attractive power because of their plausibility, we, unable to turn away and forsake them, remain in their power because we are allured by them. But once all unreal plausibilities are convicted and refuted by true proofs, and once their offences are shown to be full and running over, then we shall flee away without ever turning back, and as it were slipping our cables we shall set sail from the region of falsehoods and sophistries, hastening to cast anchor in the safe harbours and havens of truth. And in this way I consider it sufficiently proved, in the spirit of my original proposition, that it is impossible for a man to reject, and to hate, and to forsake plausible falsehood, unless the evils arising from it are seen to be full and complete; and they will be shown to be so, by its being refuted in no superficial way, and on the other hand by the establishment and complete confirmation of truth. In the next verse the historian proceeds to say, "and when the sun approached its setting, there was a flame;" showing that virtue is not born until late, and indeed, as some have said, is confirmed and established only at the very setting of life. And he compares virtue to a flame; for as the flame consumes whatever materials are exposed to it, and gives light to all the air in its neighbourhood, in the same way virtue burns up all the offences, and fills the whole mind with light. But while discourses, which are neither divided nor properly distributed, prevail over us because of their plausibilities, which he here calls the Amorites, we are not able to see the most brilliant and unshaded light. But we are like a furnace which does not have a pure flame, but, as he himself says, emits only smoke, being gradually kindled by the sparks of knowledge, but not yet able to stand the hardening and test of pure fire. But we owe great gratitude to him who has scattered those sparks, so that our mind may not become cold like a lifeless corpse, but, warmed and vivified by the gently increasing heat of virtue, may feel a glow until it receives the change to holy fire, like Nadab and Abihu. But smoke exists before fire, and compels those who come near it to weep; but both fire and smoke often come together. For, being delighted at the messengers of virtue, we hope to attain perfection in it, and if we are not yet able to arrive at it, then in our grief we can scarcely hold back our tears. For when an excessive desire is implanted in our breasts, they hasten to pursue the desired object, and our faces are full of chagrin until we attain it. And see how he has compared the soul of man, who loves instruction and who cherishes a hope of arriving at perfection, to a furnace, because each is a vessel in which food is cooked, the one being the vessel in which those foods which are perishable are prepared, and the other the vessel suited to receiving the imperishable virtues. And the burning torches of fire which are lit are the judgments of God who bears the torch, being bright and radiant, which are regularly placed in the middle between the divided portions; by this I mean the portions set in opposition to one another, of which the whole world is composed. For we read in the scripture, "The lamps of fire which were in the midst between the divided portions," so that you may know that the divine powers which go through the middle of both bodies and things, destroy none of them; for both divisions remain unhurt, and the powers only divide and discriminate in a most excellent manner between the natures of each. So it has now been sufficiently proved that the wise man is the inheritor of the knowledge of the subjects mentioned above. "For," says the historian, "on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, to your seed I will give this land." But what land does he mean, other than the one already mentioned, to which he is now referring? Its fruit is the safe and most certain comprehension of the wisdom of God, by which God divides all things and preserves the good, untouched by evil, for those born to an imperishable life. After this he goes on to add, "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." This shows that perfect men have their beginnings in the body, and the outward senses, and the organic parts, without which we cannot live, for they are useful for instruction in the life lived in union with the body; but they reach their end in the wisdom of God, which is truly the great river, overflowing with joy, and cheerfulness, and all other blessings. He did not describe the country as reaching from the river Euphrates to the river of Egypt (for he would never have brought over virtue towards the passions of the body), but the other way round: from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates. For the migrations run from mortal things to incorruptible ones.